How to Lose 70 Pounds Without Dieting.

Yup.

70 pounds.
Lost.

I’m fixin to tell you how I did it and how you can do it.
Without dieting.

As usual, you have to put up with some back story first, to set the tone.
A few years ago, when I stopped competing I decided to lose weight.
A lot of weight.
I chronicled my last, and worst meet in the 44 and Broken series.
I competed in the 308 class in Powerlifting, and the Heavyweight division in Strongman.
As I’ve said over the years, I was a pretty solid 308 sometimes, and I looked like Mr. Creosote from the “Meaning of Life” yelling at the waiter not to skimp on the Pate at other times.

Not my leanest here.

My weight and body comp varied for many reasons, and I blamed injury for it.
Whenever I got hurt, and frequently it was bad, I’d eat REALLY bad, not lower caloric intake to adjust for the reduced activity level, and the fat would pile on.
Over the years, and after a few pretty serious injuries, there was more fat than muscle.
I also was a master of fooling myself, as I’ve mentioned before.
I’d eat really well for a few meals a day and then slam 5 donuts, or a bag of burgers from McDonalds.
Yes.
I said a bag of burgers.
Me and one of my training partners would go to the drive through after training and order two bags of burgers off the Dollar menu.
The drive through kid would usually say “WHAT?”
We’d tell him to fill up two bags of burgers with as much as they would hold, and then we’d slam them down, and shame whoever couldn’t finish.
We needed calories, right?
Right before I started training for the 2012 meet, I decided I needed to lose some fat and started my drop from 310 (my heaviest weight ever).

Note:

If you’ve never weighed 310 you have no idea what it is like walking to your car, getting out of a chair, having a chronic lower back pump and pissing sweat 24 hours a day while wearing shorts and a t-shirt in 10-degree weather while asking “you guys are cold?”.

After the 44 and Broken meet, I made the decision to get to 240.
I figured that 240 was a good number, any lighter and I’d look anorexic.

Or so I thought.
I was about 270-ish at the time.
I figured I ‘d get to 240 when I got there, and would do it slow and low.
No dieting, no macro counting, no meal prepping.
The slower it comes off, the more likely it will be permanent, so I set no schedule, only looking for consistent fat loss.
I also setup some goals.
The first was to get to 265.
That was easy.

Once I got there, I decided my goals would be:

• 260
• 250
• 240

Again, no stress, no dieting, no rush.
Just get there.
I’ll tell you, when I started it was easy to drop the pounds because there were so many of them.
That was in 2012.
Oh, I said that.
Fast forward to 2017 and I am sitting at 243 as of yesterday.
310-243=67
That’s about 14 pounds a year on average.
This week I made the decision to get the last few pounds off.
I will be 240 by Sunday.
Trust me.

So, How Did I Lose 70 Pounds Without Dieting?

Today, 243.
I was going to take a shirtless selfie, but nobody wants to see that.

First, I cut out garbage.
No sugar, no ice cream, no baked good, no chips, no fast food.
You get it.
I love baked goods.
Eclairs, cake, cookies, you name it.
If it’s in a bakery, I want it.

I also cut out my all-time favorite: Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.
They have it all, sugar, salt and fat.
They are the snack trifecta.

Ok, full disclosure.

I’d do this for a few months and then back slide.
I’d crack and go back to snacking because what the hell.
My weight is down. I can have a snack.
Well, you see, it doesn’t work that way.
My body is an efficient fat storage machine.
Sugar, salt and fat make it work at peak efficiency.
I’ll go back to this in a few minutes.
I also started to eat more food.
Food is the most important element in your nutrition plan.
I ate real food too.
Not take out.
I used to take a lot of supplements.
Tons of protein powder and bars.
What I’ve found is that you really don’t need them much and for fatties, they suck.
Eat food.
Have a shake if you need to get your protein in, but food comes first.
I ate lots of vegetables too.
A started using grass fed butter on everything.
Why?
It’s better for you. It’s healthy fat and it tastes better.
I cut down to three meals a day.

Three meals a day worked for me.
I was able to get in a reasonable amount of calories, not be hungry and not be a slave to an eating schedule.
What I found from this was that it worked for a while.
Then it didn’t.
I wasn’t getting in enough protein.
So, I added in a shake. Or maybe another meal.

I decided to do a modified version of Carb Backloading as a lifestyle choice.

Why?
Because it works for me.

I don’t mind skipping carbs in the day as long as I know I can eat a bunch later on.
I did not have carbs pre or post training.
This also worked for a while, but what I found was that it affected me negatively long term.
I was losing muscle.
Instead of simply adding in some carbs, I doubled down and increased my protein and fat.

Dumb.
I should have done what I knew I needed to, and add carbs.
Stubborn.
Irish.

Eventually, I added in carbs before and after training and guess what?
The scale started moving down again, and I was at least maintaining muscle.
I also did near zero carb on non-training days.
This was also dumb.
Once I added in some on off days, things went much better.
I didn’t eat a ton, but I ate some.
Maybe a cup or two of starchy carbs with dinner.

What I didn’t do:

• Allow snacks (I’ll explain in a minute)
• Allow Whiskey and Guinness (I’ll explain in a minute)
• Have a specific number of meals or shakes per day-after I made some mistakes
• Count calories of macros.
• Allow any cheats.
• Drink booze.
• Have flexibility in meal number.

Some of this was good, most bad.

When I didn’t count my protein, I had less than stellar results.
I now try to get at least 200 grams a day, and I simply track in my head. It’s not perfect, but it is working.
I will never be the guy using Myfitnesspal to track all of my macros. There is nothing wrong with using an app like this, but I am just not going to do it.
Not allowing cheats made me binge.

Binging is bad.

Now, I follow the Nutrition Dart Board I listed I the Coaching Log of the same name.
By eating well 90-95% of the time, I can occasionally enjoy some whiskey, a burger, some pizza or some baked goods.
And, by getting rid of a set number of meals per day, and eating when I am hungry, or listening to my body I am having much more success.
One thing I noticed on three meals a day is that I was frequently run down and had no focus at a few points during the day. Adding in some food fixed this instantly.
Having a set number of meals didn’t work for me.
Being flexible does.

What I am doing now:

-I use a list of “Go To” foods and make it a lifestyle.

They are:

• Lean proteins
• Grass fed butter
• Olive oil
• White rice
• Sweet potato
• Potatoes
• Fruit

-Eating when I am hungry
-Tracking my protein intake
-Having an occasional cheat

Here’s how I eat on a regular basis.

Training Days:
Breakfast:
4 eggs, 6 pieces bacon, sliced tomato, large glass of water, lots of black coffee
Pre-Training:
Espresso
Fruit, usually raisins, some peanut butter and some protein.
Or, overnight oats.
These are super easy to make and taste good.
Mix up some protein with water, add to oats, add cinnamon and a little salt, toss in fridge. That’s it. Eat the next day.
Post Training:
Either steak tips, rice and veggies, or MRE meal replacement from Red Con (50 grams protein, 75 grams carbs)
Some point after the Post Training meal:
Another whey shake
Dinner:
Lots of meat, as much rice or sweet potato as I want and vegetables with grass fed butter.

Non-Training Days:
Breakfast:
4 eggs, 6 pieces bacon, sliced tomato, large glass of water, lots of black coffee
Lunch:
Steak Tips and vegetables
Mid Afternoon:
Whey Protein shake (about 60 grams)
Dinner:
Lots of meat, as and a little less sweet potato as I want and vegetables with grass fed butter than on training days.

Sundays:
Breakfast:
Eggs, home fries, toast, bacon
Lunch:
Usually a shake
Dinner:
Usually my famous home-made burgers on fresh rolls and some chips.
Snack:
Sometimes, a baked goody from the bakery next to my house.
AND:
Once a month or less, I have a few drinks, or a lot of drinks.

OK, let me sum up what to do so you can do lose 70 pounds too.

• If you are hungry, eat.
• If you are not hungry, don’t eat.
• Stick to a list of healthy, “GO TO” foods like I listed.
• Make protein your primary nutrient.
• Try to get, in grams, your bodyweight in protein. (EG: 200 pounds body weight =200 grams)
• Eat carbs. Good ones.
• Only eat carbs when you need them. (Pre/post training)
• Eat less carbs on days that you don’t train.
• Do not eat zero carbs.
• Have a cheat meal every now and then.
• Have something that makes you happy every now and then. Probably best to do this with your cheat meal.
• Make healthy eating a lifestyle.
• Eat as many meals as you need to.
• Eat vegetables.
• Drink a lot of water.
• Make it a lifestyle. Did I say that?
• Eliminate sugar 95% of the time.
• Eliminate fast food 98% of the time, or 100%.
• Stop eating shit in a package.
• Stop fooling yourself like I did. You can’t eat well 4 days a week, or a few meals a day and then justify eating crap.
• Fuel your body for training and for recovery.
• Go to bed an hour earlier than you are now. It makes a huge difference.

I think that’s it.

Pretty sure I covered all of it.
If I can drop 70 pounds, most of it fat, you can too.
I am now in a 38 waist, and almost a 36. I haven’t been here since 7th grade.
The bag of water around my gut is gone.
I am healthier, I feel better, and I am pretty sure I am not going to die of a fat induced stroke.
I took a long time to get here because with a huge weight loss, slow is better.

It will be more permanent, and it allows the skin to slowly shrink.
Didja ever see someone who had gastric bypass and lost a hundred pounds?
They have massive amount of loose skin that needs to be cut off most of the time.
Losing the weight slowly will prevent this.
I’ll update you next week and let you know that I DID hit 240 by Sunday.

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Vincere vel mori