So this corona situation is pretty crazy, amirite? One minute life was normal, the next minute, the whole world shut down. On the fly, we were forced to rework our day to day lives. Work, school, kids, whatever. Everything changed.
For 4+ years I’ve been regularly hitting the gym a few times a week. Starting on March 15, my gym workouts would be on pause. Leading up to quarantine I had been spent a few months working on my strength. I was eating more calories, and training with the goal of getting stronger. It was working. I hit new personal records for my squat. I was loving it. But then I had no access to the gym.
Since I was thrown this curveball, I decided to change up my goal. I didn’t know how long the lockdown would last, but I decided I’m going to dial in my diet, and try to lose some weight. No specific goal. Nothing too drastic. But I wanted to trim down and get leaner.
If you’ve been following me then you already know the #1 factor for losing weight is diet. By consistently eating fewer calories than your body uses you will lose weight. Since diet is the main impetus for fat loss, this is something I could still do despite the lockdown. So I decided now is the time for me finally buckle down and do this. Now is a great opportunity.
Why I Wanted to Do This
Even though I’ve been working out for 4+ years, I’ve never been lean. I’ve lost fat before. I’ve gotten stronger. I eat a lot better, but I never got to a point where I’m lean. I never had that defined look. In theory, getting lean isn’t too complicated. In practice, it’s a grind.
Healthy and sustainable fat loss isn’t a quick-fix thing. If I’m serious about this, I have to put in work, and it will take time. So much of what I tell clients is that they have to be patient and consistent. If I’m serious about this, I have to be patient and consistent with myself.
How I Approached The Diet
Since I’ve tracked my calories before I have a pretty good idea of how many I need to eat. I didn’t want to be in too big of a deficit. I’m not cutting weight for anything specific, so I can be patient with it. I’m going about it with a more sustainable goal. My aim was to be around 2,000 calories/day, plus knowing I’d go a bit over that on weekends.
Also, it’s important to note I want to retain as much muscle while dieting. When you’re in a deficit, you can’t pick where you lose weight from. Ideally, I’d lose only fat and retain all of my muscles, but unfortunately, that’s not possible. I’ll lose from my belly, from my arms, from my legs, from my back. All over.
That said, there are things I can do to help retain muscle. Weight training and eating an adequate amount of protein are two ways. Drinking a lot of water and getting good sleep can’t hurt either.
I’ll tell you something I didn’t do the past 2 months, and that is, deprive myself. I still ate well. I ate a lot, I ate when I was hungry. I made sure that I ate smarter so that I wouldn’t be hungry, but I’d enjoy lower calorie foods.
My Diet Was Solid
Overall, my nutrition was dialed in over quarantine. I ate a lot of the same things, but you know what, eating like this was working. Every morning I had a cheese, mushroom, and four egg omelet. Just about every day for lunch was chicken breast with salad. Snacks were usually fruit, veggies, and some popcorn. Dinner was the ‘wildcard’ (and always more delicious, thanks to Lea), but usually still was on the lower calorie side.
My meals were consistent. I went for a bunch of low-calorie items, while also making sure I ate a good amount of protein every day. I aimed for at least 160 grams of protein every day. Fruits, veggies, lean proteins were my staples.
My Exercise Was Shit
While my diet was on point, my training was pretty much non-existent. I have a set of 10 & 5 kg dumbbells at home, which I used for a few workouts early on, but that didn’t last long. Even with how much I love working out in the gym, I just wasn’t really enjoying these workouts. I did a few Facebook Live workouts on the Grossman Gainz page, but it didn’t keep me consistent.
I’d go through waves of doing pushups. Some days I’d knock out 100 or more, some days I’d only get 20. Spending a good chunk of the day working/watching Coby made it harder for me to get into a groove with pushups.
Excuses, excuses. I could have worked out more if I really wanted to. Since I was doing well with my eating (and nutrition is more important for weight loss), I felt OK not giving the effort for exercising. Does this logic make sense? Yes. Is this approach ideal for my goal? Not really.
Well, there’s no point in me guilting myself over my lack of workouts. All I can do is move forward and take advantage of the gym access I do now.
Walking Everyday Made A HUGE Impact
This was huge. Not just for my weight loss goal, but for my mind. Just like everyone else, I had good days and bad days over lockdown. I looked forward to my daily walk with Coby in the stroller and catching up on my podcasts. I’d usually go on at least one 45-60 minute walk a day. Some days even two. The difference these walks had really added up. I can’t stress enough how underrated walking is for fat loss. Just going on a walk I would burn a few hundred extra calories, and if I stuck with my nutrition, that helped with the calorie deficit.
My Progress
So after 2 months of quarantine, how was my progress? It was solid! Overall I’m happy with it. It wasn’t drastic, and that’s good. It’s not like I got shredded, but I can spot a difference between the pictures. I’ve also been tracking my weight every day. On March 15 my weigh-in was 102.5 KG (225 lbs), and on May 21 it was 97.8 KG (215 lbs). Down 4.7 kg (10 lbs). 10 lbs over 8 weeks are solid, steady, and sustainable.
Here are some comparison pics from the start of quarantine and two months after.
Quarantine was a pretty shitty situation for just about everyone. Having this goal and the structure that came with it really helped a lot. The goal kept me motivated. It kept me working towards something. I lost the fulfillment of making gainz for myself and my clients in the gym, but this gave a me lot of that fulfillment.
Here are my main takeaways from this two-month weight loss journey.
Losing weight wasn’t that hard
I really love working out in a gym
I love training clients in the gym
Shitty situations are gonna happen, it’s about taking advantage of what you can, given the circumstance.
While real-life is slowly coming back, for now, I’m planning to continue losing weight.
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