A Few Simple Diet Tweaks Helped This Guy Lose 75 Pounds
• In his 30s and 40s, lifestyle changes led Dylan Thomas to gain weight, topping out at more than 230 pounds.
• A regular workout regimen including free weights, pushups, and planks helped him begin to achieve dramatic results.
• He also restricted his calorie intake to 1200 calories per day, which helped him complete a dramatic 75-pound weight loss transformation.
That philosophically resigned perspective came after a lifetime of fluctuating weight. As a kid, he’d had a heart defect that left him chronically underweight. At age 10, an open-heart surgery corrected the problem, and he started to gain weight. “I never really thought about it,” he says, “and didn’t recognize that I was becoming ‘chubby’ until I was in Jr. High and other students started to tease me about it.” When puberty hit, he slimmed down again; an active lifestyle kept him slender throughout his twenties.
In his thirties, though, a desk job and what he calls the “creature comforts” of adulthood had him putting on weight again. He crested 200 pounds, up 30-40 from his twentysomething figure. “I thought to myself, ‘This is normal, a man at this stage of life—200 pounds must be the norm,” he says. The weight kept creeping up, and Thomas noticed it. “I saw some family photos, and thought to myself, “Oh god, do I really look like that?” he says.
He even avoided weighing himself, until one day he just had to know. He stepped on the scales and there it was—230 pounds. He tweaked his diet a little and dropped some weight, easy. But he was still sedentary. “And then it struck me,” he says, “probably a part of a midlife crisis, but I thought to myself, “Why the hell can’t I live like the person I was in my 20’s?”
Dylan Thomas
He jumped into earning back his old body, with a daily home regimen of free weights, push-ups, and planking. Cutting back on calories, he consumed about 1200 a day; in about four months he’d dropped to 180 pounds. He started shopping for new clothes, and as he got even skinnier, started consulting a dietician and working to build lean muscle mass. He’s looking to stay around 155 pounds—75 pounds less than his peak.
Reclaiming his body has given him a new confidence. He’s not afraid of selfies anymore. “I feel more like a man than I have in years,” he says, “and, as bad as this sounds, people treat me better (which I am still mildly resentful of).” He’s able to hike up a mountain the way he did at 22.
For anyone looking to follow in his footsteps, he says it’s about committing fully. “There are no ‘cheat days’ because there is nothing to cheat on,” he says. “Either you are doing it or you are not. While every day is a new day, all of those days when put together make a significant impact.”
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