How I lost 100 Pounds

My Journey from 290lb to 187lb

Yes. That's a picture of me with a squirrel. Pedro, the fraternity named him.  He joined us one afternoon while we were watching college football. At that time, I was probably around 240lbs. I was drinking and partying. Alot. And, I hadn't discovered Intermittent Fasting.

I was also eating what is considered the Standard American Diet, or SAD diet. Lots of grains, late night fast food, and basically no cooking for myself. I was hitting the gym. Hard. Like really hard - I was doing what's called a 2-day split routine. I was hitting the gym 6 days a week, sometimes 7 for 2+ hours a day. Between working 2 jobs and going to university, the gym was my meditation. My haven. My hobby. But, it consumed me. It consumed me in a way I wasnt aware of. I thought that to continue seeing results I had to keep working out this hard.

Up to this point, I had only heard of diets like adkins and low carb but I never saw any results on them and I never had any energy. So I just worked out really, really hard. As you can see, I was a big dude. but by no means did I have a 6 pack, not like the stuff you kind of see forming around august for me.

In Fact, the March 2012 picture and pedro marks the time in my life when two of the greatest things ever happened to me.

1) I swore of fast food for the rest of my life

and

2) I discovered Intermittent Fasting.


Now, these two decisions alone are probably what launched me from flubby to mostly lean.

The third decision I made was to research. I started devouring resources as fast as my hands could type and quickly as my eyes could read. I started learning about all kinds of hormones like leptin, ghrelin, and cortisol. I even discovered new workout methods which I still use today.

It wasn't easy. I had to be relentless in my desire and hunger (get it) to change. For me, I was the fat kid growing up. So weight was always a struggle and I am still tormented by some of those memories to this day.

Here's the deal, weight isn't that hard to manipulate, if you know the right hacks for your brain. I want to teach you those hacks, but it's very hard to convey over words and paragraphs alone. I highly urge you check out my training sessions on re-framing your brain!


“We would accomplish more things if we did not think of them as impossible.” - Vince Lombardi


It's going to be tough, but you will have to grind it out. You have to make the decision that you are either willing to hustle every day or unwilling to remain the same. Both are going to be powerful motivators for what we want to accomplish.

You have to be relentless. If others can do it, so can you. In my many years at the gym I've seen some amazing things. I've seen skinny kids grow to be muscular. I've seen people drop over 200lbs. I've seen people with one arm, I've seen people in wheelchairs working out. The one thing they all had in common was their determination and perseverance to accomplish whatever goal they had set for themselves.

My goal was to get lean and build muscle. And intermittent fasting was the key to this goal. I chose the method of 16-8. This means 16 hours of not eating and 8 hours of allowing myself to eat.

There are other variations and I highly recommend you trying out them all and finding the variation that works best for you.

For me, the 16-8 method allowed me to have 2 meals a day and still get my snacking in. That was my big problem, snacking. See, we don't need to "fuel the metabolic fire" by eating small meals every 2 hours. Studies certainly show that it can lead to desired outcomes, but you will never feel fully satiated on just a 200 calorie snack. I liked the feeling of being full and happy. Fat and happy haha. With research and trying out Intermittent Fasting, I quickly became addicted.

At first, when beginning Intermittent Fasting, I stuck to my regular Standard American Diet. Why change it up? I was seeing results, I had plenty of energy, and I even increased my 1 rep max on bench press to 375lb. This was great! Amazing!


This Time Restricted eating thing was really working out. And I encourage you to start if you haven't already. The easiest way to start is the 16-8 method.


Ok, so let's fast forward to a few months later, or even a few years later. You've been doing well on the new routine and you've seen some results. Awesome!

But like all good routines, you've hit a plateau. Don't worry! This is normal! There's a few options for you to choose moving forward.

Let me tell you about my personal experience. While I was still in the U.S. the first option I chose was to change up my workout plan. I began to study new routines and different approaches to what I was currently doing. (if you want to learn about specific workout routines, please request a 1 on 1!)

What I discovered was called Reverse Pyramid Training and the science behind it made sense. You want to hit the muscle the hardest at the outset and increase your reps while decreasing weight. So I changed and I saw new results and better results. I overcame the plateau, and you can too!

I continued along this journey. "Nothing tastes as good as lean feels." Years of effort and dedication have paid off. I was finally happy. But I still wanted more. I wanted to push myself further and so should you!

The other option you have is to change your diet. This is why it's a lifestyle change. When you begin the journey of educating yourself more and more on the quality of food you consume, you find out that you don't have to workout as hard or as long to burn the same calories. Don't get me wrong! You have to exercise and you still have to hit it hard! But, as I grew older, my time became more and more important to me.

I was evolving myself to work smarter and not harder. Previously, I was spending 2 hours in the gym, 6 days a week. I was eating everything I wanted, I had no education on the chemicals I was consuming through the SAD diet.

Also, tragedy had struck me. I had terribly injured my shoulder while attempting to play rugby in Spain. This is when I was forced by life to slow down and reassess how to control my weight. I no longer had the ability to exert copious amounts of energy in order to achieve the results I was striving so hard after.

So now, with the inability to workout as hard as I could, I had to find alternative workouts, I learned to come to love leg day at the gym. So at this point, I was still doing intermittent fasting, but I was learning so much more about different types of diets. I was coming to realize my diet had been garbage! I came across resources like Gary Taubes, and the book "Pure, White, and Deadly," internet bloggers like Mark Sisson and Martin Berkham. I invite you to dive down the rabbit hole.

"I would rather skip the stairs and skip the bread"

Once you start diving down the rabbit hole of genetics, you're ability to control your body type and habits becomes sensationally better. You gain a whole new ability to train your brain!


So diet and exercise, yes it's that simple! But it's that hard. Intermittent Fasting is hard! Maybe, after you've done it for a few years, challenge yourself to fast for multiple days! I once fasted for 4 days, just to see if I could.

While, I have fallen off the wagon my fair share of times in not eating bread, or consuming sugary beverages, I always seem to feel my greatest and my strongest and most disciplined when I  am eating a paleo-mimicking diet. Enjoy your cheesecake and grains, and ice cream from time to time, because cheat days are important for your sanity and long term goals!

As for what I discovered about diet, I think a mix of paleo mimicking, Mediterranean, and intermittent periods of keto are the best bet. To make it easier let's just start with cutting down on sugars, learning about the different carbohydrates, and the bodily processes of breaking down the different macronutrients. Further I would start learning the difference in what constitutes good fat and bad fat. For instance Monounsaturated fat is very good for you and can help aid in fat loss whereas trans fat can be highly harmful to your body.

While all of this research is going on, make sure you are being cognizant of the calories in vs calories out. One mental out that people look for is still an excuse to overeat! Nothing can change the laws of thermodynamics, it does have a lot to do with how fast you will achieve your goals. It's just a lot easier to get there while feeling full and satiated with real, whole, good for you foods.



I hope this was helpful and I wish you the best in your continued journey of health and weight loss!

How your lifestyle eating habits can affect your finances.

       One of the things that helped me reach healthiness and happiness was my choice to decrease my food intake. This involved several variables, including diet changes, eating habits, and shopping decisions.

       Let me preface by saying that I'm a big proponent of Intermittent Fasting which I learned from Martin Berkham. As soon as I implemented Intermittent Fasting into my lifestyle several things changed for the better... I lost weight and starting reaching my physical goals then I noticed that Since I was eating less, I was saving more money to invest in my Roth Ira and Mutual Funds. So not only am I living healthier by reaching and then maintaining a healthy body weight, thus saving money on future health care costs, I was also help invest in my own personal retirement as well as looking forward to creating a college fund for my unborn children.

      After a while of eating less through Intermittent Fasting I started reading experts such as Gary Taubes and Mark Sisson. A Paleo diet is something of another discussion, but after implementing major clauses in what constitutes a Paleo Diet into my Lifestyle Routine, I noticed exponentially significant changes.

      Similar to statistically significant, "exponentially significant" refers to small, impactful changes relative to time observed.

      By Eat. Stop. Eat. (Brad Pilon) principles, as well as, key principles in Paleo Dieting I have maximized my Fitness and Diet regime and also my Financial Regime.

     Previously, I touched on this same subject.

How Fasting and a Frugal mindset helped me achieve happiness

For over a year now, I have been preparing to enter the real world. This preparation has focused mainly on financial planning and lifestyle changes that I want to carry with me throughout my entire life. I grew up relatively poor and fat. I was sad on the SAD (Standard American Diet) diet. While there will be time for my story later (I can remember sitting in the kitchen eating spoonfuls of sugar! YUCK!), I want to explain one habit I changed in my diet and lifestyle routine that has significantly impacted the way I look, how I feel, and how I spend money.

I have been on the fitness and diet journey for a while, several years in fact. The first time I lost weight going from 270-280 (122 kg) down to 200 (+/-100 kg) in a very unhealthy manner. I lost a lot of hard earned muscle mass, but I got my first ever serious girlfriend! Yeah, we were in love, things were great. Until I started gaining weight again. The stress of a long distance relationship, typical first year of college diet, and general lack of knowledge led me down the road that most people all over the world (Im studying abroad in Spain as I write this post and I am seeing the exact same mistakes in the gym and on diets and diet knowledge that invade the fitness industry) take in regards to diet and health, buying into the next big trend. 

So, I got on the web, joined some forums, picked up a muscle and fitness mag and did what everyone does, jumped on the treadmill like an experimental mouse. In fact, as the fasting methodology is beginning to take hold coupled with my time spent living in a city with more daily activity along with my terrible history of diet and exercise I sometimes feel like I am just a mouse being used in these experiments.

Anyway, Financially this was a big mistake for me as I was spending so much money on supplements for weight loss and muscle gain. I was buying trendy diet food items like shakes and bars. Purchasing fad diet pre-boxed meals. This money could have been spent on a nice dinner date or stowed away for a future plan.

Alas, I mindlessly plugged away over training and over eating. Wasting precious time, energy, and money. When I could have been treating my taste buds a delectable fresh salad with chopped turkey breast, ingredients totaling ~$1 I was instead trying to enjoy every last bite of the $2.50 "natural" protein bar.

College budgeting was always tough because I go to school in a typical college town. Desert town in the summer with nothing to do but in the fall and spring traffic jams on the small country highway are frequent during peak social hours. Part-time jobs are seasonal, this may be a reason I turned to blogging and trying to find ways to earn money online. I remember having to forego going out with friends or buying a new whatzit because I had spent it on a textbook 3 days prior. Forced to stay at home and study or play a video game, I'd take a shower, look at myself in the mirror, and wonder why I was still fat and still struggling with money. I was a finance major, this should be easy! I keep doing what everyone tells me, eat 6 small meals, cut carbs, work this, etc. etc. 

No wonder so many of us burn out! Why do we regain weight after "dieting" and return to our old spending habits after weeks of successful planning and budgeting?

I think most of us just haven't taken the time and patience to find out what works for them by doing the research and making the necessary lifestyle changes.

This is me before I started on my final journey in weight loss to where I am now

Weighing in around 250 pounds

In the following, I'm on the very left:

In mid-november, I was making great progress at losing weight and becoming healthy again. I was taking a cross-fit class and really focusing on my diet. I was basing it all on the knowledge I had used before, the same knowledge we all probably use. But then, I hit the nightmarish plateau. This time though, I was ready. I had tried the "muscle confusion" B.S. before and had since found out it was just a sales tactic. This time, like every time, I hit the internet. Scoured the forums. Talked to my good friends in Exercise Science. How to get through it. What to do differently.

Looking back, it was destiny. I somehow got referred to Martin Berkham's website and his methodology of Intermittent Fasting. 

"Ok, I'll try it, but I dont like it. It goes against everything I've ever been told."

I was legitimately worried about going into "Starvation mode" and retaining fat being so food deprived during the day that I was going to be no fun to be around.

I was completely wrong. After 1 week, I dropped 10 pounds. The weight loss slowed, but that's because I was still making a few dietary mistakes here and there, but I stuck with it.

Here I am almost a year later before a major milestone:

 In the next few weeks, I would go on to set a new Bench max: 375# Deadlift 495# and Squat 365#

I would later implement reverse pyramid training because these ratios are way off. I am now focusing more on legs and deadlift. 

Not only has leangains worked extremely well for me, Martin's site has been one of the biggest driving forces in my reignited fervor for making Frugal Son a better resource.

My weight loss was further accelerated when I changed my diet even more. On my first year of Intermittent Fasting I was still eating a bunch of crap focusing only on method and numbers.

During my semester abroad in Spain, I injured my shoulder playing rugby. I thought this would greatly set me back, and yes, I did allow myself to binge eat and skimp on the diet just a tad. I gained some weight back, but I would later learn this was due to major glycogen depletion and overtraining. The shoulder injury was a result of going too hard, too long.

During my post injury depression the imagined weight gain drove me crazy. That's when I discovered Mark Sisson's website. After just a month of healthy, clean eating through natural food, yet with the allowance of some junk food post training (this is mostly due to the college/young person lifestyle) I'm looking better than ever before:

Weighing in at 85 kg (roughly 187 pounds)

Due to the muscle atrophy during my 3.5 week hiatus from lifting heavy and I'm still struggling with heavy bench and almost any form of Incline bench exercise. The injury has really been a blessing in disguise. I have been able to slow down and focus on building quality muscle using the Pyramid method Martin Recommends.

I may not be throwing up 375 pounds on flat bench anymore, I'm still much stronger than the other gym-rats (more like gym-mice) I'm definitely looking better than ever and feeling fantastic. Thanks to what I consider the Holy Trinity in Weight Loss and Exercise: Berkham - Sisson - Taubes. Taubes is the least important, he's like the Holy Ghost. You only hear about him once in a while and you know some stuff about him is important, but you largely pay him no mind. I respect Taubes for his (somewhat over-zealous) fight against obesity and his research skills. Sisson and Berkham are the like the Holy Father and Son ( I am not going to prioritize here)

So how does the story relate to Finance and Frugality?

Remember in my hay-day, I was chomping down on protein bars pre-workout and guzzling protein shakes with 3 raw eggs and 6 oz. of whole milk post workout?

Now, I skip both. Opting instead for an easy fast of anywhere from 12-20 hours. Drink 10g of BCAA's pre-workout. Post workout I take a fish oil and multi vitamin with plenty of salad and lean meat. On rest days I enjoy more fat heavy meats and lower carb options. 

I buy several ingredients for my salads: Tuna, Turkey, tomatoes, spinach, cabbage, and nuts. Sometimes broccoli, peppers, onions, etc. 

The greens cost no more than $2 each totaling $6 and through rationing and guess work when it comes to calorie restriction, they usually last me 5-6 days depending on how frequently I eat. That's a $1 a day. We will trade that for the $2.50 vitamin bar I was previously eating.

Tuna in cans is really cheap, and I consider one small can of tuna in water to be negligible in the fact of any mercury content.

Turkey is around $6 for 2 pounds of breast filet and will last me 2-4 days depending on days I eat white fish or chicken or turkey as the main course. It's tough to say what i eat as I ultimately eat primally as possible. We can trade the lean meat and eggs for the sugar rich protein shakes.

Without getting to intensive on budgeting and number running (which probably gets boring to read anyway) 

I haven't been to the ATM to withdraw money in the last week and a half and I've still enjoyed going out to eat with friends and socializing almost every night. The point I'm making is that eating healthy and being healthy is not expensive like the madhouse the fitness industry would have you believe.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Well yes, it is. I never said it isn't! But my definition of breakfast isn't the same that multi-million dollar fast food and restaurant franchises would have you believe. My definition is the concrete term of "breaking the fast" hence: breakfast. 

Skipping breakfast means skipping the bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin saving me my health, time, and money (and idling gas expenditure). The $2 coke and $3 sandwich I just skipped let me sleep in or gave me time to take my dog for a walk.

As Brad Pilon says in Eat. STOP. Eat.

"The fitness industry doesn't want you to fast, they can't bottle it up and sell it. How can they sell a habit?"

A habit that leads to naturally reduced calorie intake, better mental awareness, and the following straight from Brad Pilon's book, which I highly recommend:

In dozens of published peer reviewed scientific studies, short-term intermittent fasting has been found to have the following health benefits:

• Decreased body fat & body weight

• Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass

• Decreased blood glucose levels

• Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity

• Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation

• Increased Uncoupling Protein 3 mRNA

• Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels

• Increased Glucagon levels

• Increased growth hormone levels.

I never want to hear the excuse "Losing weight is expensive!"

It isn't.

I spend less than one hour in the gym and for only a few days per week. Allowing me to save time and energy. This extra time has allowed for me to pursue my passions and increase my knowledge. Im able to spend more time now doing what I want, which is figuring out a what I want to do with my life after college.

That's becoming more and more clear every day, and that's why this post exists...

I eat less food. I don't have the urge to spend $1 at the coke machine anymore. I skip the drive-thru. No more late night eating after a night of drinking with the amigos.

Not only that, during the lunch hour while everyone is clamoring to find a place to sit and eat, I'm in the library brushing up on the latest trends in utilizing Social Media for E-business, one of my current consultancy jobs.

Several resources exists to help you get a better understanding. My recent favorite is the Salk Study that took two similar groups of mice and fed each group a diet comprising of 60% calories from fat, this is like eating potato chips and ice cream for each meal! One group was allowed to eat ad libitum all day while the other group was restricted to a feeding window of 8 hours, when they were allowed to eat ad libitum. Control groups were fed a diet consisting of 16% calories from fat. Groups generally ate around the same amount of calories daily and after 100 days of observation the fasted group showed better health markers and remained 28% lighter.

What are your ideas on fasting? What sort of diet choices do you make to help make the end of the month a tad bit easier?