I Lost 68 Pounds in 7 Months and This Is How I Did It

Seven months ago, I began my weight loss journey which has led me to lose 68 pounds as of today.

I wanted to detail exactly how I was able to accomplish it, what motivated me to change, & how I plan to sustain my weight loss in hopes of helping others like me.

I've struggled with my weight throughout my adult life for various reasons. Sometimes I was emotionally eating and not caring about my food consumption but then other times, I wasn't being mindful about the food I was eating and how it was affecting me.

Senator Ron Johnson

April 5th was when I began to take control after ballooning over the pandemic to a size that I haven't been in many years. I weighed in at 275 pounds with a 24% body fat percentage, wearing 38-inch waist pants and a protruding stomach in XL shirts.

Coincidentally, about a month after I started to lose weight with the typical eating less and working out more routine, my doctor wanted to put me on a medication that gave my wife and me extra motivation to take my weight loss seriously.

Between April 5th and June 6th, I lost 14 pounds, which is a pretty steady weight loss. What we did was cut out all sugar, bread, & processed foods, which was a great foundation to allow me to drop weight quickly starting in early June with intermittent fasting. This was me then:

During that period I was also going to the gym in our building about 3 times a week and doing primarily resistance training. I would go on the treadmill or elliptical for a few minutes to get my heart rate up but then did weight training for 25-30 minutes a session.

However, the game changer was when my wife and I began intermittent fasting together. We spent weeks learning about the principles of intermittent fasting, and the benefits and myths surrounding it. We initially started with 12 hours and then in a week, graduated to 18 hours.

We began a fasting routine called alternate-day fasting. Basically, every other day, I would have only 2 meals, primarily skipping breakfast, to reach my 18-hour fasting period when I eat lunch. Once we started hitting 18 hours, the weight came off extremely fast.

At my peak, I was losing 4 to 5 pounds a week by doing a minimum of 18 hours of fasting (sometimes 24 hours) in combination with eating food only made at home and working out 3 to 4 times a week for 25-30 minutes.

The toughest part was that in the middle of my desire to fast, I had to attend two conferences, meaning that I had to eat out while I was away. What my wife & I decided to do was to eat one meal a day while we were away. At this conference, I was down about 27 pounds.

After that conference, when I returned home from being away for three days, I saw that I lost 3 pounds. It's become the go-to strategy for the days I have to go out to eat for whatever reason and I mitigate it by abstaining from meals throughout the day.

Without diving too deep into it, fasting the way I have been is healthy and I've suffered no health issues because of it. My diet is very healthy and it matters more about what I'm consuming than withholding from a meal.

When you really get into fasting, the longer fasts become more intriguing and possible because you learn to ignore the temporary hunger pains. By getting rid of sugar in your diet, when you don't eat, you won't experience any shakes because that's sugar withdrawal.

If you're experiencing hunger, you can drink black coffee, water, or green tea and that will help to reduce your hunger cravings. They typically last for 45 minutes to an hour and then disappear until another hunger cycle comes hours later.

Two weeks after the previous photo, I attended another conference and I lost 9 pounds during that period. This is me with Martha Bueno at FreedomFest in Memphis, Tennessee. After the conference, by following the one meal-a-day routine, I lost 2 pounds.

So you understand, the majority of my weight loss happened over 3 months, beginning of June to the end of August. In that window, I lost a dramatic 45 pounds, which was my goal to reach before my wife and I headed to Italy & Greece for our vacation.

Admittedly, while on vacation, I ate recklessly and gained 9 pounds in two weeks but was able to lose all of it in less than two weeks by going back on my normal diet of eating home-cooked meals (no fasting).

Often people will ask me what I eat but I think what's also important to focus on is how much I ate. My wife focused on portion control and meal prepping for me. We focused on protein like chicken and tofu and healthy food around it like black rice & dahl.

I would also suggest baking sweet potatoes as they have protein, relatively healthy and filling. As far as drinking, an important philosophy to follow is "Do not drink your calories". It became imperative that I only drink water and drink it often. There is no substitute for it.

None of this is about a diet but a lifestyle change. Sound cliche but it's true. It's about changing your habits and being mindful of what you consume. I truly believe that if I can do this, so can any one of you.

As of today, I am 207.2 pounds and have a goal of reaching 200 by the end of the year. I'm slowly getting back into longer fasting routines but my diet has been steady. I feel great and am looking forward to continuing my body transformation.