I meant to make a post for six months, but then life happened. So here I am exactly seven months out from surgery.

Current weight: 268. Down 128 lbs. from my measured high, down 98 lbs. since intake, down 89 lbs. since surgery. 17 pounds to goal.

It's gotten a lot slower, and I expected it to. I hit a major stall for more than a month right around the six-month mark. I'd lose a pound, and then I'd retain water or work out hard and cause inflammation, and those gains would be erased. My week-over-week average did drop, but by fractions of a pound. Then this week—whooooooosh, I lost five pounds in two days which just means my body cleared out the water, the ?, and whatever else might've been hiding in there.

The big marker has been my body fat; at intake, my body fat was over 40%. At six months (the last DEXA scan I had done), it was 26.8%, and has dropped since then. Because I have been training like a madman, my muscle mass also went up quite a bit from the initial post-surgical drop. My goal is to be below 20% body fat, whatever that number is, so I recalculated it at six months and my goal weight moved from 240 lbs. to 251 lbs. (I'm a thicc boi, by which I mean "incredibly dense".)

Last week I was hospitalized for an infection and spent two days in there. While the infection absolutely sucked, I did notice my vital signs were exactly where they needed to be, without any medication at all. My blood pressure was 111/67, my SpO2 was 100%, and my resting heart rate was 48 bpm. That alone would have made it worth it. Also, the first night, I did not have my APAP machine and managed to sleep without oxygen desaturation happening (to the very great surprise of the nurse). I need to make an appointment for a sleep study to see if I still need the machine, I don't want to just drop it if I'm still having apnea.

I am wearing size 34 jeans (down from 52), large t-shirts (down from 4XL or even 5XL), and my shoe size went down again, so I'm in 11.5s now, which are a lot easier to find.

I eat 1500-2000 calories a day depending on my planned activity level. On days when I'm going to work out and then coach, I eat closer to 2000 cal; on days where I am more sedentary, I eat closer to 1500 calories. It's about a 40/30/30 split between protein, carbohydrate, and fat calories. If I start feeling the restriction, I just stop, no matter how many calories I'm up to. I find that if I force myself to put the spoon or fork down between bites, sometimes my brain just forgets the food is there, so if I go, "Oh, hey, there's still food in front of me," I know I have had enough.

Yesterday's meal plan was this, along with 3 litres of water:

• 0700: Espresso with 3g brown sugar and 2 Tbsp. milk, 8 oz. tropical chia pudding with a few very small cubes of mango and nata de coco (coconut jelly). It took me about 20 minutes to eat this.
• 1000: Protein shake (Core Power 26g)
• 1300: 4 oz. ground turkey breast with 1.5 eggs, some spinach, mushrooms, and roasted yellow bell pepper, with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, some salsa, and a high-fiber whole-wheat tortilla-type wrap. This took me an hour to eat.
• 1800: 6 oz. grilled pork chop with 2 Tbsp. sauerkraut and some cooked apple and caramelized onion, with 4 oz. steamed green beans with a tiny bit of butter. It took me 45 minutes to eat this.
• 2030: Protein pudding (instant sugar-free pudding with protein powder mixed in, made with milk) and one single Thin Mint crumbled on top

Total was 158.3 grams protein, 122.3 g carbohydrate, 58.7 g fat for a total of 1650 calories.

Athletically, my mile run has gone from 15 minutes to about 10 minutes (though I don't run as often as I should), my flexibility and mobility are way improved, and my explosiveness has improved—from nearly missing an 18-inch standing box jump to doing a 30-inch with plenty of clearance. I'm juuuuuust about able to do a pull-up (soon!) and can do ring dips and support my own weight on the rings. I can also climb corral fences a lot better now that I don't have to wait at the top to find my center of gravity.

There's some loose skin, especially around my belly. There's a little bit of chicken wing in my thighs and a tiny, nearly unnoticeable amount in my arms. The belly one bothers me because I feel like it pooches out, but obviously I will need to be stabilized at a weight for a while before even thinking about plastics.

Edited April 14, 20224 yr by vikingbeast

Wow! What a transformation! Congratulations!

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You look great, fantastic job!

Wow! Great job!

Love it! Your skin is glowing.