I’ve never really gotten completely “in shape.” I’ve always gotten close, then stopped, quit, failed whatever you want to call it. This has been the story for much of my 31-year life. At 14 I was probably about 28% body fat, pretty high for a guy and tough on a teenager. Then from 18 to 26 I oscillated between 18% (during summer) and 24% or so. At about age 26 the numbers just started going up… By November (1999) I was 5’ 11, 238#, about 26% b/f again. I decided I wanted it to change…
At first the weight came off quickly with just a moderate amount of cardio and better eating. I was back down to 18%, and got stuck, by March of 2000. I started rotating through all the “helpers” I could find (ECA, Xenedrine, Lipokinetics, Triax) they all helped some. I would go to 13 or 14% b/f for a month or so. Unfortunately, you have to go off them at some point and no matter how I tried to keep the cardio/exercise consistent, I would bounce back to just slightly less that what I had weighed before I took all the crap. By December of 2000 I was at 16% b/f, not a huge improvement over that 9 months. Then, I decided to “do it right.”
Eat well. Enjoy yourself, but be reasonable. You don’t need ice cream every day. Exercise, but be reasonable. You don’t need an hour of cardio a day. Do this consistently. I am now at 8 or 9% b/f and 200#. Certainly not perfect but pretty damn good. On the one hand it felt like it would take forever, on the other hand I can’t believe how easy it actually was. For the first time in my life I actually feel like I achieved a physical goal that I can sustain, I didn’t starve myself and I stopped trying to cheat.
Don’t waste your time with all the shortcuts. They really do work, but they’re temporary. Best of luck, I know you can do it. I did…