How I Lost 40 Pounds in 6 months While Working a 9-5 job

I recently accomplished something I never thought possible. I, a father in my mid-30s, lost 40lbs in 6 months after getting a health scare. I did this alongside my 9-5 job, no crash diets, no 6-day gym weeks and no miracle supplements.

Once I crossed my 36th birthday, my wife insisted that I get my long-awaited full-body checkup. I had been putting it off for about a year, dreading the results. This time, though, I relented. The results weren't great. I was obese; that was obvious. I knew I was heavy, and my knees were protesting having to carry me around all the time. What shocked me was that my heart was not doing great at all. The doctor told me that I had high blood pressure and that I should start medication ASAP. I was about 250lbs heavy with a 42 Inch waist. She also asked me to lose about 20lbs. If so, I might not need the medication anymore. My father had lived with hypertension throughout his middle age. I remember that his energy was always low. He had to rest most of the weekend to counter the stress of work he dealt with during the week. I started imagining a similar future for my family. No energy to spend time with my son and my wife. I needed help.

I reached out to a friend who is a fitness coach. He agreed to help me out with a plan and a weekly WhatsApp call so that we could tweak the plan when necessary. What I love about his plan is that it was simple and boring. It hinged on small, repeatable habits. Our time horizon was long, 6 months, that is, so that I could learn how to live that plan for the long term. I did not want to get back to my unhealthy self.

My plan had some non-negotiables:

• I had to commit to working out 5 days a week at a gym.
• I had to cut added sugar and alcohol completely for the duration of the plan.
• I had to measure my food.

I figured that I would stay consistent with a 5-day-a-week routing only if I got it out of the way early in the day. So I worked out first thing in the morning. Morning might be difficult for you, and that is totally fine. What you need to do is sit down and figure out a pattern you can stick to. It could be early in the morning, like me, it could be late at night, or even different times of the day on different days. What matters most is that you can repeat it every week.

My workout routine looked like this:

• Monday: Chest and Triceps
• Tuesday: Back and Biceps
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Core and Shoulders
• Friday: I could redo any other muscle group from the week and end with a half hour of cardio

For nutrition, I had to keep it clean and stick to only whole foods. He calculated how many calories I could eat to stay at my current weight (also called maintenance calories or TDEE). Then he reduced a few calories from that so that I stayed at a reasonable deficit. I had to up my protein intake a lot. Which for me meant 3 eggs in the morning, 200g of chicken breast in the afternoon and at night. Protein gives you the building blocks to build muscle and makes you feel full at the same time, so that you don't crave carbs as much. Coming to carbs, cutting out carbohydrates drastically is just too difficult from a long-term perspective. We all need energy to survive our work, chore and activities with family-filled days (without being hangry). That is why I find mild calorie deficit and long time horizons (like 6 months or a year) more meaningful than crash diets.

I will not say that those 6 months were easy, but I will definitely not say it was extremely challenging either. It was difficult enough to feel like a chore, but easy enough to fit into my busy life. I guess that was the end goal either way. At the end of those 6 months, I had lost over 40lbs, gained the most muscle I have ever had, and I came down to 34 inches. These were the changes that I had planned. There were a lot of pros that I had not planned on. For example,

• I could accompany my son atop any and all jungle gyms (that could fit me).
• I had all the energy in the world for all the activities that we wanted to do with my family.
• I had enough energy to explore side hustles apart from my job (that's why I am blogging here right now)
• Consequently, my boring 9-5 started feeling tolerable.
• I completely stopped snoring after years (my wife now says that I sleep too quietly now).

Since my transformation, I read a lot to find out the why behind workouts and nutrition. I now plan my own workouts with very helpful tweaks from ChatGPT. I do strength training thrice a week, with a day of Zone 2 cardio and a day of High Intensity Cardio. I go for at least one long walk on the weekend with my family. We plan our meals and keep to whole foods most of the week, and yet indulge in some tasty treats now and then.

I have learnt a lot in the past year, starting from fitness and nutrition, how long-term thinking, patience and showing up can transform a person. I want to share it with all who are struggling with wearing many hats and yet want to make long-lasting positive changes to their lives. If you like what you have read today, please feel free to subscribe below to my newsletter.