Getting in Shape Took Me 10+ Years: Maybe You Can Do it in Less
Do the preventive maintenance in to keep your body and mind running properly over the long term. DIET and EXERCISE changes that worked for me and might work for YOU.
My weight loss journey didn’t involve anything revolutionary, and it didn’t take much more effort than my previous workout routine, primarily involving weight lifting. A shift in priorities, simple diet changes, and sticking with it for about a decade resulted in massive weight loss over time.
Read on to see what worked for me, and how it might also help you get in better shape for the long run. Key takeaways at the end if you want to skip there first!
Post-college fitness setbacks
In college, as now, I measured in at nearly 6’4,” and weighted in at about 245 pounds–about 10 pounds more than my current form. Technically, this is just short of obese for me, but I’m a naturally large person. With regular weight training, lugging a backpack full of heavy engineering books through the hilly campus of Clemson University, and a lot of basketball between classes, I looked closer to a football player1 than someone who had packed on the freshman 15 (a few times over).
Fast-forward to six months from graduation, and I was in a car accident that resulted2 in my weight dropping to around 185 pounds. Within roughly a year, I recovered to a healthy 230 pounds, ran my first (and only as of now) 10K, and was generally in pretty good shape. And then…
I badly rolled my ankle, putting me on the sidelines for some time while I continued to eat in the same manner as when I was aggressively training. I then continued in this pattern for a year or two, allowing my weight so spike up to nearly 290 pounds–a 100-pound swing. Wow.
Minimal progress and a wake up call
As what one might call the beginning of my weight loss journey, we added a dog (circa 2010). The need to walk her correlated with a drop to 260 pounds, and I was also lifting weights and mountain biking. 30 pounds down, but still not great.
Roughly five years later (2016), our family moved to Florida3 from South Carolina. After a bit of harassment from my new doctor about cholesterol (circa 2018)–and her noting how lifting weights wasn’t the answer–I realized it was time for a change. Not long after that came COVID, and the link between obesity and mortality from this plague added extra motivation.
I didn’t change how much time I spent working out; I changed how I was working out. The fitness habit was already there, it just needed significant tweaking.
A change in workout priorities
Prior to this shift in 2018, I was lifting weights maybe 4-5 days a week with a little bit of cardio thrown in. After, I started taking long bike rides, using out elliptical at home, and doing pilates (via this DVD, purchased in 20114) on a regular basis.
All of this I could do at home (per COVID), and I actually got in better shape during this time. Now the pandemic threat has abated, I still do many of the same sort of things, but with the addition of visits to the gym twice a week. More recently, I’ve also started running more versus biking, but I think both are good exercise.
My current workout routine
Saturday - Lift chest and shoulders, ~150 decline sit-ups, short session on kickboxing pads or heavy bag
Tuesday - Barre class5
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - some combination of running/walking, planks/pushups/modified hollow holds, and/or pilates DVD mentioned earlier.
I suppose the real key here is that I do something just about every day, with really challenging workouts at the gym (YMCA) on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I think of gym days as when I grow/improve, and the other days as support.
However, I think that a few subtle diet changes may have been even more important for getting in shape.
Small diet changes ==> massive results/time
Diet-wise, while I’ve tried to limit my portions (just a little bit), I also haven’t dramatically changed my eating habits. I did, however, make a few tweaks that I believe did make a significant change over time:
Coffee not soda: Rough math here: if one soda per day is 200 calories and coffee with milk or what have you is ~50, that’s a ~150 calorie swing per day. Multiply by 365 days per year is 54,750 calories. I drink very little soda now, instead drinking cold coffee as a caffeine carrier.
Avoid snacking at night - Consider that if you have a glass of milk and a few cookies that’s ~500 calories per day. Multiplying by 365 days per year means a whopping 182,500 calories/year. If you don’t want to cut out snacking entirely, sub in a banana at ~100 calories and you’re saving 400 calories per day; or roughly 146,000 calories/year.
Vitamin D2 - the doctor also said I was D2 deficient, and I now take 1.25mg (50000 IU) per week of this substance, which seems to have stabilized things. I’m not sure how this plays into my overall health picture, but it likely didn’t hurt.
Protein - I often supplement my cold coffee with protein shakes for flavor, and often eat ramen noodles with a can of albacore for lunch. Is this a healthy lunch? Hard to say, but I am consistent.
Weight Loss Math
I could be better about avoiding snacks at night, but night snacking + soda amounts to over 200,000 calories per year. It’s widely estimated that you need to cut 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat, so these simple diet changes could account for a staggering 57 pounds per year.
Just the coffee not soda would equal out to be around 15 pounds per year, which seems a bit closer to my results–though admittedly I do imbibe more non-water drinks than I would otherwise.
Another thing to consider: if you’re trying to loose weight, what is the time and effort equivalent on the treadmill for that unhealthy snack. Is that worth the extra cookie?
Is this tech adjacent?
Well maybe it’s not tech, but I’d definitely call it tech adjacent. As engineers, makers, and hackers, we often make things and take excellent care of them. We must also remember to take care of ourselves. If you do the proper “preventive maintenance,” you’ll be able to do the things you love better and longer than if you’re unhealthy. Sure, much of the hard work we do is with our minds, but if your body isn’t working well, your brain won’t be at its optimum either.6
Working out is also a great break where you can let your thoughts wander, catch up on podcasts and/or music, and perhaps meet new people and/or get to know them better via group activities. You seriously never know what ideas and/or connections you’ll make from this pursuit. If you really want to amp up your gym/techie connections, a transistor shirt could do wonders. Or you could make your own for even more street cred!
Related fitness products/hacks/builds
As for my fitness stuff/projects, I changed my bike’s crank arm in this video (which has some neat sparking visuals). I also made a storage system for our family’s bicycles (and other stuff) that seems to work really well.
More recently, I started using these strap-on wrist weights in my Tuesday Barre classes and pilates video workouts. At 1 pound each, they make a small difference compared to my total weight, but consider that you’re using them all the time, and that they add quite a bit of torque (say 3 ft-lbs) at your shoulder.
Key takeaways for YOUR getting-in-shape journey
First off, I’m not a nutritionist, doctor, or medical professional. I’m just sharing what worked for me. However, what I might suggest if you want to make a change in your physical fitness is the following:
If your diet is terrible, working out will only get you so far. This may be the #1 area you can make a difference, especially if you are already somewhat active.
Consider your body type and experiment to find what works for you. I’m a very big person naturally, and lifted weights for years while staying relatively unfit. What I really need to focus on is cardio. As the quote goes - The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Incremental improvements eventually add up to big results. This seems especially useful for diet, and especially for liquid inputs, i.e. soda.7
If it took you many years to get in poor shape, don’t expect to snap back in shape in a month or two (especially if you want to stay fit over the long term).
Forced motivation - While getting a dog didn’t get me to my ideal weight, it did force me to exercise regularly, and helped account for a 10-20 pound drop.
Make workouts enjoyable - I can’t say I love running, but I do love being outside, often listening to podcasts or music. I do love punching and kicking pads at the end of a workout, even if that wears me out very quickly.
Striving for your optimum
Am I in optimum shape? Well no, none of us are. That being said, my back has less pain now than in years past (see my ergonomics discussion on this post), I can run for several miles, the doctor is happy with my bloodwork/cholesterol, and I appear to be healthy. On the other hand, I can no longer dunk a basketball (though I haven’t tried in some time) and my bench press isn’t as high as it once was.
Also, I could still loose some belly fat. Over the past few years I’ve found that there is a huge difference between having some definition in your stomach area and actually having a six-pack. At least I don’t have a keg anymore.
If you’ve read this far, I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to pursue a similar journey, and that perhaps I’ve even been able to shortcut your process. Too bad I didn’t have as much experience and/or dedication when I was younger! Also, happy 2025!
Note that any Amazon links are affiliate
Addendum/Footnotes:
Attending a school (Clemson University) with a good engineering program and a then-up-and-coming football program, I sometimes got mistaken for a football player. Perhaps the most humorous event was when I unknowingly started chatting with a kicker on the (actual) football team and he asked me what I was doing for a certain training event. I told him I wasn’t playing intramural football that semster, and he realized I was a “civilian” so to speak.
There’s a lot more to this story, but that’s for another day. Honestly, it’s not something I talk about that much.
Back to Florida, as my wife and I both grew up in this state.
Per the Amazon link, that video is also available on VHS for about 2x the price of the DVD, in a glorious 4x3 aspect ratio (4x3 for the DVD, assuming VHS too). And its a sincere 4x3 ratio, not some sort of hipster ode to technologies gone by, or as an attempt to better jam the video onto horizontal phone screens. That being said, I image we’ve paid pennies, maybe less, per workout between my wife and I over the years. Take that streaming!
The class I do is called “barre,” but it’s very loosely that format and involves quite a bit of planking and weights. One might describe this particular class as barre if barre was invented by by an in-shape, amphetamine-addicted raccoon that was inspired as it ate out of the trash bin in the alley between a ballet studio and a rave.
As you can imagine, it is great exercise. My wife also generally takes the class with me–if I must justify myself.
As for my white shirt that I’m not allowed to wear: I’d like to think that I’m simply asserting that I’m unavailable. My wife, however, is apparently more concerned with me (and thus her by association) not looking like a slob in public. Should I take this as a compliment? Maybe?
I don’t have solid stats to share on the mind/body relationship. Taken to an extreme, if your body is no longer functional (i.e. dead) your mind is certainly of no use either.
Also beer. This isn’t a significant source of calories for me, but it certainly is for some people. The phrase “beer belly” didn’t just pop up because it’s alliterative.
1) I also target and then wage years' long campaigns against items in Albert's wardrobe that I think need to go, so I understand Amber's hatred of the white shirt very well.
2) I can't recommend Gyrotonics enough for back pain. It's almost magical. Also, gyro's certification process is quite laborious, so unlike in some other exercise modes, you're pretty unlikely to encounter a trainer who does more harm than good. Totally totally recommend it!