Note: This is a reprint of an answer I posted in the comments section of my article on Bodybuilding.com.
Question: Let me first say that you inspired me to start my own 12 week challenge. It's crazy what you have accomplished in 12 weeks! I thought to get your kind of results it would take at least a year. One question: Looking at your daily food items (what you listed here), it seems most of your primary source of protein came from protein powder and other supplements. Is this what you did everyday? Did you eat any natural foods like eggs, beef etc?
Answer: I am thrilled that you have been inspired! I wasted 5 years of my life feeling like crap and dragging down my wife and kids because I was tired and depressed most of the time, due to being in such bad shape. I did this for them and also myself, but I would love if others were inspired to change their situations as well. I am inspired in return. It gets me fired up to keep working hard to maintain my new lifestyle.
I don't recommend being as aggressive as I was in my quest to lose fat, but really, to me, it is mostly just a question of math and mental toughness. Here is the math for my transformation. When I started, I didn't know exactly how much fat I would, or could, lose and I didn't know how much lean mass I could gain. Let's just look at the actual numbers from my 12 weeks. I lost 46 lbs of fat and I gained 6 lbs of lean mass (I think I probably only gained 3 or 4 lbs of muscle and the other 2 or 3 lbs was due to taking creatine and being properly hydrated, but it still counts as an increase in lean mass), and I did it in 12 weeks. A pound of fat has 3500 calories in it and it takes approximately 2500 calories to build a pound of muscle (this is an estimate since there are differing opinions out there on how many calories it takes to build a pound of muscle). So the total fat loss in calories is 46 x 3500 = 161,000 and the total muscle built is 4 x 2500 = 10,000 (this number is pretty small compared to the fat loss, so it doesn't matter too much if I use 3 lbs, 4lbs, or 6 lbs as the change in muscle mass). The overall calorie deficit I needed to achieve over 12 weeks is the fat loss minus the muscle gain, so 161,000 - 10,000 = 151,000 calories. So, in 12 weeks I had to burn off 151,000 more calories than I ate. It sounds like a lot, but let's break it down to a daily number, so 151,000 / 84 days = 1798 calories per day. I needed to burn, on average, about 1800 calories more than I ate everyday for 12 weeks. It is hard to know exactly how many calories I burn in a day, and it changes as my body weight and body composition changes and obviously as my activity level changes, but we need an average estimate to work with so let's go to an online calculator. There is one that I like at freedieting.com. I put in 193 lbs for weight because that was my average weight over the 12 weeks (I started at 213 lbs and ended at 173 lbs) and I selected the 2nd highest level of exercise (Every day (intense) or twice daily). It says my maintenance calorie level would be 3023 calories, which is how many calories I burn everyday just being alive and doing all my daily activities. So, 3023 - 1798 = 1225 calories I can eat every day. I needed to eat, on average, 1225 calories daily while also doing, on average, enough activity to burn 3023 calories each day for 12 weeks. That is the math. The hard part is the mental battles required to put the math into practice. I am not an expert on these topics. The following is just my opinion and the way that I view things. I think some people will be shocked by the number 1225. They will say it's not safe to live on only 1225 calories a day! But I didn't live on 1225 calories a day, I lived on 3023 calories a day. It is just that 1798 of the calories came from my fat storage. I never starved my body. I ate, on average, 1225 calories worth of high quality proteins, carbs, vegetables, and oils every day, plus my body had access to all the fat calories it could want or need around the clock, since it was all over me. As far as protein sources go, I did use a lot of protein powder, but I also ate meat (fish, chicken, or beef) every day with my salad, and on weekends I would eat eggs and peanuts as well as meat. The nutrition schedule I presented in the article was my weekday schedule, so that is pretty much what I did Monday through Friday. I did use protein powder as my main source of protein during the week. Protein powders are a very efficient source of protein when you look at how much protein you get vs. total calories. Now that the Challenge is over and I have upped my calories to about 2500 daily (I have reduced my activity level, so my daily maintenance calories are around 2500-2600), I am using less protein powder and more food sources to get my protein. There is no need to be as aggressive as I was. If you achieve the same results, but do it in 24 weeks, it would still be amazing. The calorie deficit you would have to live with and the amount of exercise you would have to do would be much more tolerable. Do the math for your situation and see what the numbers tell you. A 4, 5, or 6 month transformation can be totally amazing as well. I wish you the best! God bless, and may you achieve your goals! And thanks for inspiring me to keep grinding away!
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