How I Lost 30lbs Permanently With Decompression Dieting
Below is the transcript for the video: How I Lost 30lbs And Got Ripped Permanently- A Step By Step Guide
So, in this video, I’m talking about how I lost 30 pounds over the course of 12 months without doing anything extreme, no cardio and training just three times a week. And in so doing, I was able to not only drop down to a 10% body fat percentage, but most importantly, I did this five years ago. I’ve been able to maintain this degree of conditioning to this very day, as it’s permanent, not a temporary look I was able to achieve for a short period of time for a contest or a photo shoot, it’s permanent. And I think over the years, I’ve seen so many people struggle after doing extreme things to lose weight, like extreme dieting, often coupled with cardio can get you into really fantastic shape for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, maybe even a couple of months, but at some point if you don’t do something that’s sustainable, you’re going to revert to where you started and you’re going to put whatever weight you lost back on.
For a lot of people that creates a sense of despair and it leads to so many formulating this party line that it’s impossible to have a lowered body fat percentage all year round, which is absurd. It’s just that the current conventional ideas of bulking up and cutting down using extreme methods, don’t really make it possible for anyone to explore what you can sustainably do to bring your body fat levels down because it can be done, but it takes time. It takes a focus on self-care. It takes patience and in today’s microwave of mentality, patience isn’t something that tends to be popular here in the fitness world. So in this video, I’m gonna talk a little bit about how I did it, what I did step by step to gradually reduce my body weight without doing anything extreme.
And I hope it can help you have a sense that it is possible. To have a lower body fat percentage without doing anything extreme and following a dietary process, that’s actually based on self-care, stay tuned. And we’ll talk more about this.
I do love that intro. So today we’re talking about how I lost 30 pounds in 12 months using what I call decompression dieting. And before I go any further, I’d like to thank everyone for tuning in. I really appreciate the tremendous support this channel has had so far and do be sure to like, and subscribe, and also hit that bell to make sure your first in line, when new content comes out and I’m putting out new content on a regular basis. So do be sure to tune in.
Sustainable Weight Loss Through Decompression Dieting And Zero Cardio
So how did I lose 30 pounds over the course of 12 months? I decided early on that I wasn’t gonna use drugs. And if I wasn’t gonna use drugs to get ready for bodybuilding competition, I sure as hell was not gonna put my body through what, for me, didn’t really feel healthy and based in self-care. I was gonna find another way, and I was able to come up with a way of looking at food and looking at producing body fat, that’s really based on, like I said, decompression. Really slow changes over time and not expecting much in the way of so much return and results on the scale, but part of a big picture approach that will focus on the process. A process that over time will certainly allow me to get to where I want to be.
Now I did that very successfully during my competitive years in the late 90’s, early 2000s. And I retired from bodybuilding in 2004. That was my last competition. And over the years I put some weight on so much so that I was eventually finding myself at 236 pounds. And at 236 pounds, I didn’t look bad, in fact, I looked pretty good. I could still see some abdominal definition and I was relatively muscular. But I got invited to appear on a talk show and to be very honest, a natural bodybuilder who isn’t really cut to shreds doesn’t look that impressive. And for this particular show, I was supposed to be representing natural bodybuilders and showing what natural body builders look like.
So I resolved I was going to get into shape and look my best. And as I started doing it, I decided, you know, this is gonna be it. This is gonna be the end. I’m not going to cut down and get into that lean muscular look that I had for most of my younger years and then bulk back up. This was gonna be the end. And it has been, as I said, I was 42 years old and I swore to myself that by 43, I was going to be back where I was back in the day at somewhere around 207 to 205 pounds.
Decompression Dieting Step 1: Optimizing Carbohydrate Intake
Now I was eating very, very well avoiding processed foods as I’ve always done, but there were some improvements I could make. And I did them slowly. First thing I did, I looked at my carbon intake. So the carbs I was eating at the time were predominantly white rice, sometimes brown rice. And I figured that the first thing I needed to do is to replace this lower fiber carbohydrate with some higher fiber carbohydrates.
So, I switched out from eating white rice, brown rice to consuming plantains and/or Oriental yams. Now both plantains and Oriental yams are much higher in fiber. And so, I can eat them and feel completely satisfied and even eat a little bit less than if I was eating the equivalent amount of rice because the fiber intake is a little bit higher.
Decompression Dieting Step 2: Increasing Protein Intake
So that’s where I started off at 236 pounds. And over the course of about a month, I was able just from doing that alone, to go from 236 pounds to 231 pounds, a five pound drop. The next step came as I started feeling a little more hungry than usual because of the change in my diet about a month in. And what I did at that point was increase my protein intake slightly.
So to compensate for the reduction in carbohydrates, because my overall carbohydrates came down slightly. I stayed with that reduction until it came to a point where I felt a little bit more hungry than I normally did. And I made the second change in increasing my protein intake. So, I took my protein intake up by about 30 grams or so.
And our body has to utilize energy to break down solid proteins into the individual amino acids that our body needs. And so by adding a little bit more protein in there, it made a little bit of a difference to my overall metabolism, because like I said, protein has a slight thermic effect. So, I did that and I stayed just on that course for the next three months. I went down very, very slowly until I was 225 pounds. And I also used my strength as a gauge when I was training, I made sure that there wasn’t any drops in how much weight I was able to lift.
Decompression Dieting Step 3: Increasing Fiber Intake
So that was three months in. And so for the next several weeks, I slowly increased my fiber intake. I doubled my fiber intake and included a little less overall carbohydrates. So, at that point in time, I was eating mostly oatmeal and I went from eating oatmeal to oat bran cereal. And I increased the amount of oat bran cereal I had in the morning. That’s when I would have it for breakfast. And I reduced the amount of Oriental yams and plantains by about half at the same time. The combination of having a higher, a fiber intake in the morning and slightly less carbohydrates later in the day, really made, not that much of a difference in my overall energy levels. And like I said, I always used the weights I was pushing in the gym as a marker. And of course my overall mood. And everything seemed fine.
Just about a month later or so I was down to about 219 pounds. I still felt good. I still felt like I could probably drop my carbs slightly and see how I felt. And so that’s what I did. I made another drop in my carbohydrates. This time, taking out the Oriental yams, and only having a slightly lower amount of plantains, which I love and could eat forever, but keeping my ultra high oat bran cereal intake in the morning the same. But I only had the plantains on days that I was training. On days I wasn’t training I would have vegetables instead.
Over the course of another two months or so, I was down to somewhere around 212 to 210 pounds. I felt really good. And given the fact that I had lost so much weight, I no longer had the same nutritional requirements at 210, 212 pounds as I would’ve needed to maintain at 236 pounds.
Decompression Dieting Step 4: Optimizing Protein Intake For Weight Loss
So, what I did was I dropped my protein intake. I didn’t need that much protein because I’m not as large as I was. And so my very last meal was a protein meal and I just took it out. I literally just dropped one meal. So I was eating six meals a day, more or less. And I went from eating six meals a day to five meals a day.
And that one, I was a little concerned about. I was concerned that I was gonna feel a drop. I was concerned that I might have some loss of strength because as a bodybuilder, we all have this built in idea, if we drop our protein, we’re gonna disappear and muscles are gonna go, we’re gonna get weak and shrivel up.
Decompression Dieting Step 5: Optimizing Carb Intake For Weight Lost
And that didn’t happen at all. So, because I felt good, because my numbers in the gym were the same, I stayed the course. And over the course of another several months, I was able to go down to 207 pounds. I was just about there. Take out the plantains unless I felt like I needed them. So, I’d have predominantly vegetables as my carbohydrate sources. And oat bran cereal in the morning, but a lot of oat bran cereal in the morning. And for the next several months into the 12th month, I was able to drop down to 205 pounds. And at 205 pounds, I was just kind of like right there. I could, if I wanted to put some plantains back in there, sometimes. I could have some potatoes in there sometimes. I could have increase in my protein here and there. But I think because I dropped the weight so slowly and so slow that even when I dropped down to 205 pounds, no one really noticed. My body didn’t rebel. My body didn’t say, hey, you need to go back up. You need to start eating more.
Most importantly, I felt better.
Yes. I was healthy at 236 pounds. No question. Given the fact that my blood pressure was perfect and my cholesterol was perfect and everything else. But losing that much weight, I was just so much lighter on my feet. Yes. In the mirror, I could see all the cuts and the abs and the lines and everything else, but I’ll be very honest with you at my stage in life, those things aren’t that important to me anymore. It’s great for business. It’s great to be able to be an inspiring, example of what a natural bodybuilder could look like in their late forties. And I look forward to being an example as I go into my fifties as well, but it’s not really something I think about.
I don’t spend my time in front of the mirror flexing anymore. I haven’t done that for decades. Because for me, it’s about feeling good. So that’s a pretty big drop in weight. And you can see side by side before and after pictures, which I’m not very fond of at all. And before this video, I never posted it because I don’t believe in before and after pictures, because I think it puts too much focus on the result when it’s really a process based on the journey.
And like I said, it was all about decompression. It was all about making slow, small changes and just staying the course and monitoring myself and making sure that I was healthy. Making sure that I wasn’t moody because I remember competing, getting ready for a competition. I would be moody. I would be stressed. I would be uncomfortable. And I can take a lot of suffering. But when you do that, you also make people around you suffer and people around you didn’t sign up for it. And you’re really not a great example of the health and fitness lifestyle, being something positive if you’re always grumpy and low energy.
And I didn’t use any drugs, I didn’t use any fat burners. It’s not impossible. It’s just that no one does it. And because no one does it there’s not enough of an end number to look at and say, well, this is something that’s possible because people don’t really do this. I want you to consider it. I want you to think outside the microwave mentality of, I need to lose weight fast. I need to cut down fast. I need to get ready for summer. I want you think to in terms of years.
If you have any questions whatsoever, please feel free to leave comments below, and I will answer them. My job here is to always do my best, and to try to share as much as I’ve been so privileged to learn over the years and help you not make any of the mistakes that I’ve made, or I’ve seen so many make.
And also create a place where you can learn about fitness that’s a little bit outside the box, that doesn’t have to be extreme, that’s based on self-care. That’s sustainable. So hopefully this video helps you and the way you look at dieting and thank so much for tuning in and most importantly, Excelsior!
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I don't think there's that much that special about me.
There's nothing enhanced, nothing boosted by testosterone and there weren't any special "supplements" along the way.
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Being 90% on point each week means you are 100% off after 10 weeks and I can't emphasize enough how much of a difference unshakeable consistency makes to your overall results.
Most of the natural athletes didn't get where they are by any genetic advantage, they just did what is so very rare- which is stick to their process 100%.
It's not easy as it's not always easy and certainly not always popular, but you owe it to yourself to see just how far you can go if you go all in!
Looking forward to seeing your results and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
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Post workout physique check in.
The contest gets closer and closer as the sun meanders across the sky, as my contest is and always will be, did I do everything I possibly could that day to improve?
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Nope it's not a contest cut- it's just another day on the Path.
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Or the Path-based way. Whereby your lifestyle and sustainable healthy practices get you there and keeps you there.
It takes time. It takes patience but it's an extremely honest endeavor.
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It takes time but as long as you draw breath, you have the time and you can do this.
So take the Path-based way and as always, Excelsior!!!
#naturallyintense
And my thanks to my son @reid_443 for snapping the shot, and the approval rating! 😂
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