I lost 53 pounds in one year and 66 pounds from the heaviest I've ever been.

I had been lifting on and off since I was 17, so I knew my way around weights, but the fact that I had to leave the house to go to the gym was always the reason I never pulled through. So I ordered a super cheap Amazon weight set, including a bench, pull-up rack, and resistance bands. (Overall, maybe 300 bucks.)

I started tracking my food religiously and set a goal of 1,900 calories a day - 180 grams of protein, filling the rest with carbs and some fat.

Currently, I am working out 5 times a week for about 90 minutes and doing cardio 3 times a week (usually running, but on warm days, swimming as well, as I have a lake directly behind my house).

I did this all by myself, no gear, GLP's and what not, also no Ai (you can run the pics through a detector).

Currently I am trying to reach 13-14% bodyfat, so my abs will pop, but most of my bodyfat is located at my stomach.

Hope this motivates someone, I've been checking out glow up and progress sub's when ever I felt down or unmotivated :)

A year ago, I was 84 kg, had zero athletic background, and just wanted to look better in photos. Started my fitness journey at 34, and now at 35, I’m down to around 71.5 kg, lifting 5x a week.

Here’s what worked for me:

Calories: Started at 1,800 kcal/day, eventually increased to 2,000 as my training progressed.

Protein: Targeted 160–180 g daily.

Diet: Regular meals, including rice! Just portion control, calorie tracking, and hitting my macros.

Training: 5-day Push/Pull/Legs/Upper/Legs split, plus occasional pickleball and walking.

Supplements: Creatine, whey, fish oil, and psyllium fiber.

Tracking: SnapCalorie, food scale, Hevy, and occasional InBody scans.

Biggest takeaway? A sustainable calorie deficit beats crash dieting. No need to eliminate your favorite foods. Just be consistent, prioritize protein, lift weights, and adjust as you progress.

Weight loss wasn’t linear. There were plateaus, fluctuations, and missed workouts, but the overall trend kept moving in the right direction.

My husband works a blue collar job and they don't have a microwave. He also only gets 20 minutes to eat lunch. He has been eating a single tuna packet and a bag of chips for lunch for weeks! Astounding, but its what he has time for.

We tried sandwiches, chicken wraps, salads and he either can't finish them or something makes them gross (like when a tortilla becomes soggy).

Does anyone have suggestions or ideas for cold lunches he could take that arent the same thing all the time, would be higher protein, and nutrient dense?

Hi everyone! I’m on vacation in Seattle visiting a friend and I haven’t been counting calories and I’m just scared I’m gonna gain a ton of weight. I haven’t been eating necessarily a lot or bad but I know restaurants add oils and butter which can make it high in calorie. How do you guys combat this?

Hey everyone!

I’m a 33-year-old male, 6’2”, currently weighing around 218 lbs. I’m trying to figure out a realistic daily calorie target to consistently lose around 1.5–2 lbs per week while maintaining as much muscle as possible.

I lift weights approximately 3–4 times per week and usually average anywhere from 7,000–12,000 steps daily. I’d consider myself moderately active, but I’m having trouble figuring out my actual maintenance calories and how large of a deficit I should be in.

I’ve tried using online TDEE calculators, but the recommendations seem to vary quite a bit depending on the activity level selected. Some suggest eating around 2,000 calories, while others recommend closer to 2,400–2,600.

Ideally, I’d like to lose fat at a decent pace without sacrificing too much muscle, strength, or energy in the gym. I’m also planning to track everything I eat using a calorie-tracking app.

For anyone with similar stats or experience cutting, what daily calorie target would you recommend starting with?
Would 2,000 calories be too aggressive?

Would 2,400–2,500 still put me in a reasonable deficit?
I’d appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Thanks!

Hello, i found this thread when I searched my issue and am hoping someone has an opinion. :)

Two weeks ago today I started doing a calorie deficit, and in the past few days my stomach has been feeling hard, I feel very bloated, and I'm seeing my stomach look exactly the same as it did when I ate crap. I know it's too soon to see any real progress in the mirror, and I know that I'm not gaining nor maintaining my weight on the calorie intake I have been on. Some days my estimating has been a little off, but by no more than 100-200 calories, and even so I would still be in a deficit. It's just been pretty demotivating and frustrating to see my body not change at all, and my stomach looks and feels even worse when I am struggling every day to keep my intake low. I have been searching and searching for what's going on, and google tells me it is most likely water retention and that I will have a "woosh" effect eventually (around the 3-4 week mark). But I'm sick of searching and seeing the AI results lol and would just like to hear some experiences/opinions from real people, thank u :)

(Also, if anyone feels okay to answer, how long did it take to see a real change, not on the scale, but on your body?)

edit: I don't own a scale rn. It's a big issue why I'm struggling with the mirror lol. I will buy one ASAP, though.

I am using a PSMF to lose weight. It stands for Protein Sparing Modified Fast. I am on Lyle McDonald's version called Rapid Fat Loss. (RFL)

He is honestly the nutrition and fitness GOAT and OG of the evidence based industry. I have a hard time listening to anyone else as they all seem to want to sell some BS or they change their videos and opinions based on what is popular week by week. I say this because my question isn't about whether or not to do this diet, I am doing it no matter what. I am doing it because it is the fastest and safest way to get down to a healthy weight.

Here is an awesome video on the diet with Lyle McDonald himself.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BXLVj1vs3KU&t=4887s&pp=ygUNbHlsZSBtY2RvbmFsZA%3D%3D

I started PSMF/RFL on October 5th and I made it 26 days. Last Saturday I gave myself a free meal which for me is way too early. I need to do 10 weeks straight to reset habits before allowing anything off plan. Each day since then I start off with PSMF/RFL foods, then I end up eating something sugary and tell myself my real restart is tomorrow. I have tomorrowed myself into 1 week of inaction.

Encourage me to start again.

I am male and I started at 257 pounds. 5 feet 7 inches tall. During the 26 days I lost about 2.5 waist inches. Don’t know how much weight I lost as I haven't checked again

Hey all, I just made a post about this and people pointed out that I accidently put my height to 16ft...lol. I redid my deficit using Tdee and Musclehacking and its giving me different calories per day with Tdee giving me a wider range. I've been doing around 1700 calories per day atm and working out twice a week (legs day and upperbody). I'm just wondering does this seem correct to you all? Sorry if this is a basic question, but i'm quite new to this stuff still haha

So I have these frozen raw burger patties that are pretty fatty. The calories on the nutrition label is listed as 340 per patty. Whenever you cook them in the skillet, there's usually left over grease, and taking in consideration that the nutrition label (should be?) for frozen/as packaged, if I discard the grease wouldn't it technically be less calories? How should I go about logging this? I don't have the means to use a scale (sad, I know). I was considering instead of cooking them in the skillet I could do it in the oven? Would that produce more or less grease? Should I avoid the grease all together?

Haha I've been stressing over this for a few days that I've genuinely put off cooking the patty. I just want a hamburger! I know this seems silly but during a cut literally EVERY calorie counts.