I hope this post doesn’t come off as braggy. I hope it motivates those of you would like to feel better about your health.

I’ve lost 51 lbs over the past 4 months. I’m down to 169 lbs from 220 lbs. Almost a quarter of my body weight is just gone. My waistline is about 6 inches less than before.

By the end of 2019, I was at the heaviest weight of my life, 220 lbs. I’m 5’11 for reference. When I returned home from my mission 15 years ago, and went through AFROTC, I was at my peak physical shape. I weighed about 165 at the time. Well... I got married, got the family going. Just a few pounds heavier every year, with some fluctuations. When I would deploy, I would lose around 20-30 lbs. Deployed life in the Air Force means lots of gym time, if you want it. So on deployments, I would work out a lot, and I found it easier to eat better when I was just going to the dining facility 3x a day. So I’d come home lighter.

Then I’d put it back on within a few months of getting home. The problem was my deployed lifestyle didn’t translate to my home lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I have tried some things like cutting carbs, keto, etc. But I couldn’t sustain it. My last deployment, hopefully forever, was 2 years ago now. I had an office heavy job for the last half of 2019. I didn’t work out, and snacked a lot. I felt myself getting heavier, but refused to touch the scale. Then only a few things in my closet fit me.

I decided enough was enough. I took a deep breath on Jan 9, 2020, and stepped onto the scale. 220. My heart sank. I knew I had to make changes. I didn’t like how I looked, and how I felt.

I made a plan that day. I signed up for Orange Theory to force myself to get into the gym. I bought 8 fitness classes a month, so I knew I’d go to all of them because I’m a cheapskate. I did lots of online research, and decided to go about my diet a different way. I decided to just count calories.

I used a calculator like this one:



I also downloaded MyFitnessPal on my phone, which lets you plan your net calories in a similar manner. You just put in your gender/age/height/weight and your weight loss goal. It then spits out a daily net caloric intake for you. This number is how many calories you eat, minus the calories you burn.

It’s a really great, free app. You can scan barcodes or search its extensive database to log calories quite easily. I also linked it to UA’s running and walking apps, so my runs and walks would be automatically included. I would log my Orangetheory workouts manually, which was super easy.

My original goal was to drop to 180. My original net calorie goal was 1660 per day, which they said would lose me 1.5 lbs a week. My plan was to work out a lot, because I knew that I like food. So I would run or go to OT 6 days a week. And I would walk about 3 miles a night.

Here’s what I learned along the way.

1. Weight loss is a math problem.

All the fad diets people use can work if the math works. But if you eat 2,800 calories a day on keto and don’t work out, you won’t lose weight. But if using keto helps you eat less calories, it can work.

2. Weight loss works when your plan is sustainable.

For me, I always struggled with the diet restrictions and challenges of fad diets. I don’t use the term “fad diet” as a derogatory term... those diets can work for some people if they limit their calories and if the restrictions are manageable for them. For me, what worked was eating the foods I love in smaller portions, and avoiding snacking. I ate the same food as my family. I didn’t need my own diet. Just less food. That’s sustainable for me.

3. Hold yourself accountable.

I started out weighing myself once a week. This was to avoid stressing about the normal ups and downs of your daily weight. After a short while, I decided to weigh myself every day. Here’s why. Every day, I knew I had a weigh in the next morning. So that motivated me to keep working hard, and watching my calories. It also helped a lot at nights, when I would traditionally snack a lot. I would also check in with my CB FO every couple weeks, which always motivated me.

4. Be consistent with how you weigh yourself.

Like I said, weight fluctuates day to day. Below is a screenshot of my weight log. You can see the upticks and some plateaus. I decided not to let those stress me out, and keeping stepping on the scale daily for the above reasons. I would weigh myself right after getting out of bed and going to the bathroom, nude. Same way every day. You don’t have to do it the way I do it, but just keep your method consistent so you have an accurate picture when you read the scale.

https://imgur.com/a/pH9UjyN

5. Don’t make excuses.

I was king of excuses. Busy job, 5 kids, wife working, arguing with people on CB, cost of gym membership, etc. Blah, blah, blah. But it’s so worth the time and effort. No way I’d say I’d rather have the weight back on me so I could have had more free time over the past few months. I was challenged after COVID closed my gym in the middle of March. But I decided not to let that slow me down. I upped my running game. I started running about 30 miles a week, and walking another 20. No excuses. My weight loss actually slightly accelerated after my gym closed.

6. Make it fun.

Losing weight is fun. I would celebrate with my wife every day I hit a new low. I also retried on all my clothes every 5 lbs or so. It was such a good feeling moving clothes back into my closet, as I fit things I haven’t worn for years. It was fun! I ran and walked a lot with my wife and daughter. When they can’t come, I enjoy the opportunity to decompress and think. I’ve always hated running. Now I’m one of those psychopaths that like it. I feel an itch to run if I haven’t for a couple days because of weather, or whatever. If you’re having fun with it, it’s not hard. It’s sustainable. When more clothing stores open up, I’m going to replace most of my wardrobe, because my clothes are all too big. I can’t wait to do that.

7. Push yourself.

As I got close to my original goal of 180, I realized I wasn’t done yet. I wasn’t miserable losing weight. It was fun. So why not lose more? I changed my goal to 170. Now it’s 165 (almost there!). I’ll probably stop there. But don’t limit yourself. Push yourself. Don’t compromise. Look and feel exactly how you want to. My daily calorie goal went from 1,660 to 1,520 as I adjusted my goals. Yeah, a little harder, but I wanted it.

8. Don’t make it miserable or unsustainable.

Eat what your family eats. Eat traditional meals on holidays. If you are like me, and you love eating, make it work for you. For me, I like eating a big dinner. I can live with light breakfast and lunch. So I would eat around 1,000 calories between breakfast, lunch, and any snacks. I would also average about 700 calories burned a day. That meant I could be a fattie at dinner time. I could eat 1,200 calories for dinner, and still meet my daily goal. So make a daily plan that works for you, and doesn’t make you feel miserable every day. Again, make it sustainable.

9. Replace bad habits with good ones.

I don’t know why, but eating lots of popcorn is a big tradition in military aviation. My habit pattern for years was to head to the squadron bar after a sortie, grab some corn out of the popcorn maker, and eat it while debriefing the sortie. I did this every day. That means about 200 extra, empty calories a day. I stopped doing this in January. I had cravings for that delicious, greasy, jalapeño corn after every sortie. So I replaced it with apples and oranges. About a third of the calories, and it fills me up more. The cravings went away after a couple weeks. Now I crave fruit after I fly.

10. A sustainable weight loss plan means a sustainable weight maintenance plan.

As I have said, losing weight in a miserable, unsustainable fashion is hard. And it also will mean keeping the weight off will be that much harder. Now, obviously I haven’t done this part yet (kept it off). However, I’m very optimistic about it, because I’m not at all miserable in my weight loss. My plan to keep it off is the same. Log everything, weigh myself daily. My daily calorie goal will be 2,000 calories net a day to maintain 165. If I get more than a couple lbs over 165, I’ll go back to 1,500 a day until I’m back to 165. Easy.

If you are still reading, I hope this has been useful for you. I promise it’s worth it. I can’t tell you how nice it is to actually like your reflection in the mirror, or how you fit in your clothes, or how much energy you have.

You can do it. Make a plan today. Let me know if I can help. Fire away with any questions.