[DRU]

5'9", 190 lbs with 23%+ body fat as of 81 days ago. Turned 40 and decided it was time.

Counting calories is the best thing that works for me. I use MyFitnessPal with my lifestyle set to sedentary.

With my age, height, and weight my BMR calculates to ~1,752 calories/day. As such, with a goal of losing 2 lbs per week I set my daily NET calorie goal in MFP to 1,500 calories/day. Working out earns me more calories to eat more food.

I can eat ANYTHING I want as long as I stay within my net calorie budget. If I want to eat something and I don't have enough calories left, I have to go do some sort of workout to earn those calories (or don't eat that thing.)

I use a Polar H10 heart rate monitor with the Polar Beat app to calculate calories burned. The H10 itself is considered one of the most accurate HR monitors available. Then it depends on what app you load that HR data into and what algorithm it uses whether or not you get relatively accurate calories burned results back.

I compared the Polar Beat app to 2 other HR / calorie burn devices, and the other 2 were telling me I burned around 1k calories after the same workout where the Polar Beat app tells me I only burned 500 - 600 calories. That felt more realistic, so I stuck with the Beat app.

Workouts consist of some mix of the following every single day:

* Quest 2 VR Headset

* Supernatural - Very cool workout VR experience. Makes it fun, keeps it fresh, and I have had many experiences of the natural "high" you get from working out to the point where I was teary eyed and vocalizing. I think that just comes with getting in shape and being healthy.

* The Thrill of the Fight - Think Tyson's Punch Out, but you're the little guy. This thing is awesome, fun, gets your adrenaline pumping, and burns lots of calories.

* Mountain Biking

* Yoga

* MyFitnessPal Plans - These are built in workout plans (premium upgrade). I've been doing beginner bodyweight and Yoga workouts.

As of today I weigh 166.2 lbs with 18% body fat and I'm officially in the "normal" range instead of "overweight" on BMI metrics.

I feel better than I've felt since high school. I'm flexible. I have strength. I don't have to pull my seatbelt forward and then around me...I can just go straight to the buckle, no problem.

I was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis years ago. You get these white blood cells (eosonophils) in your esophagus which aren't supposed to be there. It causes the muscle to stop working, and the "swallow" just stops working. This results in food compaction, where the food just sits inside the throat. Water doesn't help, it sits on top and makes it worse. You just have to wait until either slowly makes its way through or comes back up. The whole episode sucks and could last a few seconds or hours. They don't really understand why it happens and they don't have any good remedies.

I used to have episodes every few days, at least. I haven't had one in about 70 days now. So just about 11 days into this thing I stopped having those episodes. Just an interesting side note.

One thing I'm going to add is a high protein goal. I've been reading how this will put me in an anabolic state to build muscle while at the same time maintaining my calorie deciciency and losing weight / burning fat.

The goal is to get to about 15% body fat which whould put me around 155 lbs. Then I can give myself a big calorie budget raise (eat more food!) and continue what I'm doing with some more bodyweight workouts to build muscle and stay lean.

I'm energized, and I'm loving it. This feels sustainable.

I used to eat 3 days worth of food in 1 sitting...3 or 4 times per day. LOL That's insane!

Doing this, and still eating whatever I want but doing it on a budget, has allowed me to naturally find high volume (filling), low calorie meals, and they're just as delicious as the other garbage I was eating all the time, and without all the hassle of eating that garbage.

Here's to health and happiness!