People have various reasons for why they exercise. Some want to lose weight, some want to build muscle, some want to perform better in sports, and some just want to look good. There are plenty of other reasons than these, and I’ve had these goals myself at different times.
But four months ago, I changed my goal from bulking and building to lose all the excess weight I gained since the Covid lockdowns. Through a consistent exercise routine and gradually improving my diet plan, I dropped my weight from 237.4 lbs on 12/26/2023 to 197.4 lbs on 4/27/2023.
Everyone’s results will differ, and what worked for me may not necessarily work for you, but if you take some notes from my journey to make tweaks in your day-to-day life, you will see some progress of your own.
A Path to Losing 40 Pounds in 4 Months
- Getting to My Heaviest Bodyweight
- Sleep vs. Diet vs. Exercise: Which Matters Most?
- My Sleep Habits
- A New Approach to My Diet
- What I Cut From My Diet
- What My New Diet Looks Like
- My Exercise Routine
- How to Perform Each Workout
- Optional Equipment
- My Results
- Tips for Following My Plan
- Losing 40 Pounds in 4 Months: Summary
Getting to My Heaviest Bodyweight
Prior to the Covid pandemic in 2020, I weighed between 190 and 195 lbs. At about 5’ 6”, I was happy with this weight because I was able to still be active and lift a decent amount of weight. I could bench press over 300 lbs, squat over 400 lbs, and deadlift over 500 lbs. Not too shabby.
Once Covid hit, between the lockdown and overall change in my daily routine, I quickly fell out of my habits. This was a huge blow because I had maintained my routine going back as far as 2016. Every day I did some kind of exercise, whether it was running, circuit training, strength training, or yoga.
Since Covid, my weight started to climb and would eventually reach 230 lbs in 2022. This was a trigger for me to start getting back into my routine, and I had a brief stint of getting back on track and getting down to 210 lbs, but I quickly fell off track again and my weight climbed to just over 240 towards the end of 2023. Granted, this heavier weight was a by-product of having been working towards lifting heavier weights. My bench got up to 350 lbs, my squat to 505 lbs, and my deadlift to 570 lbs.
Sure, I could lift a lot of weight and that was something I could hang my hat on, but I didn’t feel great. My clothes were getting tight, and I didn’t like how I was starting to look. I knew I was eating poorly, and I dreaded going back to a workout routine that included cardio through circuit training, which what I did from 2016 to 2020. It was a tough routine, but I knew from my previous results that it worked.
Approaching the end of 2023, I decided to just dive in and returned to my old workout, but I also decided to revamp my diet plan with the initial goal of getting back to 215 lbs, where I was a year prior.
Sleep vs. Diet vs. Exercise: Which Matters Most?
When considering a healthy lifestyle, three main things are typically at the top of the list: sleep, diet and exercise. Different studies come to different conclusions on how important each one is, but let’s not get lost in the weeds. Let’s agree all three are important, and all three should be improved to help us reach our fitness goals.
But when starting a fitness routine, my personal philosophy is to make the easiest transition, line the three up like dominoes, doing one at a time. Of course, you can do all three at once, like I did in this case because I wanted to blitz my routine immediately, but doing one at a time can help you ease into the new routine.
Sleep
First, focus on improving your sleep. Try to get to sleep and wake up at the same time each day to get your body back into a good rhythm.
Personally, I prefer to workout before work, which means I have to wake up at 4:00 AM to do so. This is a big hurdle when starting out, I’ll admit, so it’s important to start getting used to waking up early and accepting the first couple weeks of morning workouts may not be great.
Another reason I recommend improving your sleep first is it affects your mood for the rest of your day. If you’re groggy, you may be more likely to cheat on your diet, or even so tired as to skip your workout altogether. That’s why I think sleep is the foundation of your fitness routine.
Diet
Second on the list is your diet. For me personally, diet and exercise worked best when I did them together. If I was eating a healthy diet, I would be more energized to exercise because I didn’t feel bloated or groggy from unhealthy foods. On the flip side, if I was putting myself through vigorous workouts, I’d feel guilty about eating poorly and wasting my efforts.
In this case, I think shaking up my diet may have been the biggest factor. Because I had started avoiding foods with a lot of highly processed ingredients, my body was able to digest my meals easier.
What also helped me is the way I changed my diet made it easier to follow. In 2016, I was able to drop from 225 lbs down to 180 lbs by tracking my meals and trying to stay within set ranges for my macro and micronutrients. Tracking calories can be a pain, you end up budgeting everything you eat. In this new strategy, I focused more on the ingredients of the foods I ate. I didn’t track anything. Instead, I merely focused on eating more natural foods with less ingredients.
Exercise
Finally, my exercise routine. With better sleep and a better diet, I also shifted my exercise routine from a primarily strength training focus to a mix of cardio and strength training. This style of exercise helped improve my cardio, which compounded my gains and make my circuit training workouts easier over time, and the mix with strength training would help continue to build and maintain muscle.
Don’t think the first day was all sunshine and rainbows, though. I couldn’t even finish my warmup because I was so out of shape. Being able to squat 500 lbs for 1 rep is a lot different from moving for 10 minutes straight. Sure, the first couple weeks of returning to my old workout routine were terrible, but it got the ball rolling. And as I proved to myself before, if I could get some momentum, I knew the process would take me to my goal.
My Sleep Habits
Admittedly, this is one area I can do better on, but this is what I did, so if you don’t have the greatest sleep schedule either, this proves you can still achieve your weight loss goals.
My weekday routine is going to sleep between 9:30 or 10:00 PM and wake up at 4:00 AM. On the weekends, however, those times went out the window depending on what was happening. I would still workout first thing in the morning, but if I stayed up late, that 5:00 AM workout sometimes turned into a 12:00 PM workout.
Even during the week was subject to change. Sometimes we have issues at work I would need to support. One night, I didn’t get to bed until midnight, but I still woke up at 4:00 AM and got my workout done. Sure, it wasn’t my best workout and I’m sure I may not have been very pleasant to be around that day, but I kept my routine on track, and that was more important.
I haven’t spent as much time learning about a proper sleep schedule. The rule of thumb that we all hear a lot is somewhere between 6 and 8 hours of sleep each night, but I think trying to go to sleep and wake up around the same times is what helped me the most.
A New Approach to My Diet
Diet was by far the biggest change I made compared to anything I’ve done before.
In 2016, when I went from 225 to 180 lbs, I was counting calories with the goal of losing about 2 lbs per week, but a major factor I learned during that time was limiting or eliminating sugar was the biggest part of my success at the time.
In 2023, I started seeing more and more about how our foods are “poison”. That borders conspiracy theory, right? But when I kept seeing videos pop up of people going through the list of ingredients and showing all these chemicals and industrial byproducts and other garbage in the foods we eat every day, I started to give it some more thought.
I forget where I heard it or where I read it, but this statement sticks with me every day:
“We should be counting ingredients, not calories.”
So many of us hear the key to losing weight is to focus on calories. Want to lose weight? Eat less calories and spend more calories working out. Calories are still part of the plan because you don’t want to overeat even good foods, but when you shift to the idea that eating ingredients your body can more easily process, you start focusing more on the quality of the foods than the calories.
My diet may not be perfect, and it may not suit you, but this is what I did to drop 40 lbs in 4 months.
What I Cut From My Diet
First, I created a blacklist of ingredients and purged my kitchen. You’d be surprised how many different foods, drinks, and even condiments you can find these ingredients. Some are more well-known than others, but here they are:
Seed Oils
Canola Oil, Soybean Oil, Vegetable Oil, Palm Oil, Hydrogenated Oil, Sunflower Oil, and similar oils. Seed oils overall are highly processed and contain high amounts of saturated and trans fats, which can lead to various chronic diseases over time, such as heart disease, diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Instead of seed oils, I started using Extra Virgin Olive Oil, but Avocado Oil is a good option as well.
Corn Syrup and High Fructose Corn Syrup
Both corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup have numerous unhealthy traits, but one of the biggest is they both cause rapid spikes in blood sugar levels. When blood sugar spikes, it causes both a crash in energy and a feeling of hunger, which can tempt you to cheat on your diet over time. Aside from that, even though we aren’t counting calories, corn syrups are just empty calories that don’t provide any real nutritional value.
Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners
Just like before, I cut out sugary foods like candy or ice cream, but I also went after anything with artificial sweeteners as well, such as aspartame or sucralose. Despite the artificial sweeteners not adding any calories, their side effects can still impact your diet. Artificial sweeteners impact how your body regulates its blood sugar, which hurts your metabolism and can also give a craving for sweets, potentially leading to overeating.
Carry-Out
Not technically a food or ingredient I had in my kitchen, but getting carry-out or delivery a couple nights a week can quickly add up. By getting into a routine of cooking a few nights a week and saving leftovers for the off-days, I was quickly eating better and saving money at the same time.
Breads and Grains
This is another one I plan to dig more into going forward. I’ve heard mixed things about which breads and grains are good and which are bad. But I wasn’t sure, so I decided to cut them out almost entirely. Granted, I’ll bend the rules and have rice or pasta here and there, but it may only be once every few weeks because I’ve simply taken it out of my rotation.
Fruits
Yes, fruits in moderation are healthy and have natural sugars. But I wanted to make my gains (or losses in this case) as fast as I could, so I decided to cut fruit from my diet. This meant I had to cut the apple and banana I would have with lunch every day.
What My New Diet Looks Like
After clearing out my kitchen, I had to restock on cleaner food for me to eat throughout the week. Here’s a breakdown of what I typically eat for each meal.
Breakfast
For breakfast, I have 4 scrambled eggs and I mix in cut-up two turkey sausage patties, diced red bell pepper, white onion, jalapeno, shredded cheese, minced garlic, hot sauce, salt, and crushed red pepper.
To butter the pan, I use 1 tablespoon of salted butter.
To drink, I have a glass of water and a cup of coffee or green tea as well.
Lunch
For lunch, a few of us at work order out on Mondays and Fridays to ease the pain of another work week and to celebrate its ending. When ordering out, my go-to has been Greek salads with chicken. It may not be “perfect”, and I can’t confirm the dressing is free from the seed oils I mentioned above, but it’s a healthier option overall.
On the other days, I have chicken breast and broccoli. One day each week, I bake a week’s worth of chicken breast and meal prep it throughout the week.
Of course, with lunch I drink water, but I always drink a cup of green tea afterwards as well.
Dinner
For dinner, I have a salad with more diced red bell pepper and cucumber slices with Good Seasons Italian dressing made with apple cider vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.
Then, depending on the day, my main course is one of the following:
- Monday and Thursday: Ribeye Steak
- Tuesday and Friday: Either burger bowl or taco bowl. For the burger bowl, I mix in sliced jalapenos and diced onions with pepper jack cheese. For the taco bowl, I mix in sliced jalapenos, shredded cheese, and sour cream.
- Wednesday and Saturday: Chicken fajitas with diced red bell pepper, diced onions, and sliced jalapenos with shredded cheese and sour cream.
- Sunday: Our group of friends usually hang out together, so we typically order out and I opt for something healthy depending on what we get. Or, if I had to change my dinner pattern throughout the week, I move one of those dinners to Sunday.
Same as with lunch, I drink water with dinner, and afterwards I have a cup of either chamomile or peppermint tea.
Drinks
Even before I started this routine, I had cut alcohol 100% out of my diet and almost all sugary drinks, aside from an Icee or Slurpee on a hot day. But now, I’ve narrowed my drinks down to three:
- Water: Self-explanatory. You need to stay hydrated, so I have two or three glasses in the morning, several throughout the day, and two or three with dinner.
- Tea: Up until this week, I had completely replaced coffee with tea. I drink green tea with lemon throughout the day. After dinner, I’ll have a cup of either peppermint or chamomile tea. Then, sometimes before bed, I’ll also have a cup of sleepytime tea. Tea is also a great drink to add to your diet because of how it helps boost metabolism and promote fat loss.
- Coffee: Like I said, up until this week, I had completely cut out coffee. I drink coffee black, so it wasn’t a matter of whether coffee was good or bad, I just started got on the kick of having green tea in the morning.
Snacks
Early on in this routine, I would have a snack of mini peppers and homemade hummus. At a certain point, and I can’t remember when, I went through my day without being hungry for my snack. Each day is different, but at this point, I had cut all snacks out of my diet.
Key Foods
So, what are a few things you notice with that meal plan? You can tell I love eggs if I’m eating 4 every morning. Eggs are a great source of protein and essential nutrients and are a great food to support weight management because they are low in calories but high in protein and essential fats.
Another highlight is the red bell peppers in two meals almost every day. Red bell peppers are high in several vitamins like Vitamin C, Vitamin A, and Vitamin B6. Red bell peppers are also low in calories and high in fiber, which help promote a feeling of being full after a meal.
Lastly, every meal has animal protein. Eggs in the morning, chicken at lunch, and either beef or chicken for dinner. Obviously, this doesn’t appeal to vegans and vegetarians, but centering my diet on unprocessed meats, I’m getting quality food without any extra garbage ingredients.
My Exercise Routine
For my workout plan, I returned to some of the same workouts I did back in my stint from 2016 to 2020. These workouts were variations I created based on Shaun T’s “Insanity” and Men’s Health’s “Spartacus” and “Spartacus II” workouts.
Initial 8 Weeks
In the first 8 weeks, I focused entirely on cardio and strength training circuits, but they were primarily cardio focused.
Before each exercise, I do the warmup from Insanity’s Max Interval Circuit, and for the first two months, I followed this pattern with my variations of the programs I mentioned above:
- Monday and Thursday: Insanity Max Interval Circuit
- Tuesday and Friday: Spartacus
- Wednesday and Saturday: Spartacus II
- Sunday: Insanity Insane Abs
Throughout all my exercise routines, I follow the same set of exercises for 4 weeks before I update the workout with new exercises. This keeps the workouts from getting boring and to keep challenging my body.
Week 9 and Beyond
After the first 8 weeks, I dropped from 237.4 lbs down to 216 lbs, so I felt I was ready to start incorporating strength training again. I still did the Insanity Max Interval Circuit warmup, but now my routine shifted to:
- Monday: Strength Training Back and Biceps
- Tuesday: Insanity Max Interval Circuit
- Wednesday: Strength Training Chest and Triceps
- Thursday: Spartacus
- Friday: Strength Training Legs
- Saturday: Spartacus II
- Sunday: Insanity Insane Abs
I’ve followed this general pattern since February, but I still change which exercises I do every 4 weeks, or I’ll change the sets and reps when strength training.
Gains and Losses
Recently, I was curious how much strength I had lost. I had simplified my diet and my workouts shifted more towards cardio instead of strength training, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I couldn’t lift the same weights as before. My new goal was to at least exceed the multiples of my body weight in a 1-rep max:
- Bench: 1.5x bodyweight for 1 rep
- Squat: 2.0x bodyweight for 1 rep
- Deadlift: 2.5x bodyweight for 1 rep
At a point when I was about 205 lbs, I decided to give it a shot, and here’s where I ended up:
- Bench: Target = 307.5 lbs, Actual = 315 lbs
- Squat: Target = 410 lbs, Actual = 415 lbs
- Deadlift: Target = 512.5 lbs, Actual = 515 lbs
So sure, I was not able to lift as much as before, but I had dropped almost 25 lbs of body weight at this point and I was still able to beat my targets for all three of my desired lifts. I had previously achieved my weightlifting goals, but now my focus was on getting back to a healthier and happier bodyweight.
How to Perform Each Workout
Each workout is different and that’s what keeps the routine fresh but still challenging in different ways.
Insanity Max Interval Circuit Warmup
For the warmup, you do three rounds of 8 exercises. The first two rounds you do each exercise for 30 seconds before going immediately to the next, and the third round you do each exercise for 15 seconds. The intent is to go faster each round.
The exercise sequence is:
- Jog in Place
- Straight-Arm Jumping Jacks
- Side-to-Side Shuffle
- Side-to-Side Jump Rope
- High Knees with Arms Extended Outward
- Heel Kicks
- Touch the Floor and Jump
- Floor Hops
Insanity Max Interval Circuit Workout
For those who have done Insanity, you know how brutal Shaun T’s program can be. I had completed it a couple times myself, so now I decided I wanted to take the same structure and mix in different exercises.
The Max Interval Circuit workout is broken up into three rounds. Each round consists of three sets of four exercises. In each set, you do each exercise for 45 seconds before moving immediately to the next exercise. Once you complete a set, you rest for 30 seconds, and move onto the next set.
At the end of each round, you perform two “easier” exercises, rest for 30 seconds, and then move to the next round.
Once you complete the third round, you do one more set of three exercises that you perform for 60 seconds each, and then the workout portion is complete. After that, you move on to your cooldown stretch.
Spartacus I
Spartacus I was a workout marketed by Men’s Health when the show “Spartacus” was first released on STARZ. Workout-wise, Spartacus I is what I consider my bridge between the cardio of Insanity Max Interval Circuit Workout and the strength training of Spartacus II, which will cover shortly.
In Spartacus I, you complete three rounds of ten exercises. In each round, you perform each exercise for 60 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, and move to the next exercise. After completing all 10 exercises, you rest for 2 minutes, and move to the next round, repeating the same exercises.
Spartacus I is a little lighter on the cardio, giving you time to rest between each exercise, but each exercise is still 60 seconds and 15 seconds isn’t a long rest. Either way, newcomers to Spartacus I will find it can be very challenging, but over time you will find it a great way to mix cardio and strength training.
Spartacus II
Not long after the release of Spartacus I, Men’s Health presented the Spartacus II workout. The design is similar, but now the workout is split into four rounds.
The first two and last two rounds include the same exercises, and each round has five exercises you do for 40 seconds each, rest for 20 seconds, and move onto the next exercise. When you complete the fifth exercise, you go back to the first exercise and repeat, having you perform 10 cycles to complete one round. Once the round is complete, you rest 2 minutes, and then move to the next round.
The first and second rounds will use the same five exercises, and the third and fourth will use a separate set of exercises.
Because you perform each exercise twice in each round, you can choose to work one side of your body at a time. For example, you can do single arm dumbbell rows with your right arm on the first exercise, and then do the exercise on your left arm the second time, all in the same round.
Optional Equipment
For the first 8 weeks, when I was only doing Insanity, Spartacus I, and Spartacus II, I completed all the workouts at home. Starting on week 9, I would go to a local gym to get my strength training workouts in.
Depending on how you customize the workouts, you may be able to perform a challenging workout without any extra equipment. However, based on how I customized my Insanity, Spartacus I, and Spartacus II, I didn’t even need a lot of equipment, but this is a brief list you can reference to start your own home gym.
You can mix and match different pieces of equipment based on the exercises you plan to do, but this list has been more than enough for me to complete full body workouts from home.
My Results
Primarily through my diet and exercise, although I do try to get at least 6 hours of sleep each night, I reach quite a few of my goals.
First, since starting the day after Christmas and weighing 237.4 lbs, I managed to get down to my goal weight of 215 lbs, then to 205 lbs, then under 200 lbs, and now I’m 1 lb shy of my newest goal of 195 lbs. Honestly, I’m not worried about dropping anymore weight. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I just following the diet and exercise plan I described and I’m still heading in the right direction, almost like I’m on autopilot.
My weight loss graph from an app called MyFitnessPal, which I use to log my weight and workouts each morning.
A secondary goal I reached that I didn’t really consider when I started was my physical fitness. For example, when I started this routine, I couldn’t finish the Insanity warmup without at least two or three breaks. Now, when I finish I’m sweating, but I get it done no problem.
Another example is I managed to get back to and actually exceed how many pullups I can do. My all-time record was 20 pullups in a row, and I was able to rep 21 last week. The mix of building strength while dropping weight only makes it easier to perform more pullups.
Between plowing through my weight loss goals, watching my physical fitness progress, and get back to some of my old records, all within four months, is still something even I think is unbelievable. In the months leading up to me starting this routine, I absolutely believed there was no way I was getting under 200 lbs anytime soon.
But I fixed my diet and got back on my exercise plan, and in only four months, I’m miles ahead of where I could have hoped. You just have to get started!
Tips for Following My Plan
If you’ve made it this far, I commend your spirit. But I don’t blame you if you feel like this is a lot to take in, so here are some tips to help you get started and to keep going.
Focus On the Routine
Life can be chaotic at times, so don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always feel like you have the energy to workout, or if you want to have a cheat meal, or you’re not able to get a good sleep pattern. Define your routine and stick to it no matter what, but also add ways to be flexible if need be.
Make It Your Own
Please don’t blindly follow the exact diet or exercise plan I’m doing. Sure, go ahead and try out what I did, but make your own tweaks for what works for you. If you cut the bad stuff out of your diet and are active all seven days of the week, you’ll start seeing great results.
Progress, Not Perfection
A lot of us want to do everything perfectly, but life is anything but perfect, and you will quickly burn yourself out if you try to be 100% perfect 100% of the time. This is why it’s okay to occasionally have a cheat meal (read: OCCASIONALLY, like once per week for example), or if you feel you didn’t give your all during your workout.
Let’s say you have 3 meals per day, 7 days per week, but one of them wasn’t up to par with your diet. That’s 1 cheat meal out of 21 total meals, or only 5%. That means you’re still dieting at 95% efficiency. Where I come from in the automotive industry, anything over 80-85% is fantastic!
Same goes if you have one bad workout each week. 1 bad workout out of 7 total is 14%, so there you go: you’re still at 86% efficiency. That’s awesome!
If you’re heading in the right direction, 80% is still better than 0%, so take pride in the fact you’re doing the work so many others aren’t willing to do. But be ready to check yourself if you see that 90% drop to 80%, then 70%, and so on. If you see a gradual decline, be ready to adjust your sleep, diet, or exercise routine to get back on track.
Diet Gradually
I may have cleared out my kitchen of anything with bad ingredients, including food, drink, and condiments, but I wasn’t fully engaged in my diet until maybe 3, 4, or 5 weeks in. And that’s okay! By simply starting to cut out bad foods from my diet, I was still seeing great progress towards my weight loss goal.
Over time, I started to see the results of my dieting choice, which helped me double down and continue to make healthier choices when ordering out or to continue learning about what is and isn’t healthy for us.
Conclusion
When I started writing this, I had no idea I would cover this much. Friends and family have asked me how I was able to drop so much weight so fast and still feel good and energized. I normally sum it up with “oh, I cut out seed oils and sugars and started working out every day”. And honestly, if you want to get started, that’s it. Cut out the garbage food from your life and start moving, whether it’s cardio, strength training, or yoga.
Once you get past the first big wins, however, you start running into diminishing returns, meaning you don’t get as much of the result as you did before with the same amount of work. And like it or not, that’s part of the process too! This is why we need to continue changing up our workouts or learning about new foods to either add or remove from our diet, all while getting enough quality sleep.
We hope this guide helps set a good foundation for you if you plan to kickstart your fitness routine and follow a path similar to mine. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to Contact Us so we can continue to help!