Meet Josh

Josh is your average 30 year old who let his weight get out of control after college. Realizing he didn’t want to spend the rest of life over weight and out of shape, he decided to take control and do something about it. Here’s his story:

704Nutrition.com: Tell us about your weight loss.

Josh: I started about 4 years ago when I started at the Y.  I was 253 lbs.  After about 4 months, I dropped down to 213 lbs, but I had no structure and no discipline, so I went back up to 245 lbs after a few more months.  Finally about a year ago, I made the decision to drop it all back off, and I went from 245 down to 185 in about 6 months by working out daily and following some sort of structured diet. Now I float between 195-205 from gaining muscle mass, but my measurements are all going in the right direction.

704Nutrition.com: So, it sounds like your success came this last year. What changes did you make?

Josh: Everything started when I got P90X.  I followed that program, and tried to maintain the diet structure that they had set up.  When I originally lost the weight, I ate the same, but smaller portions.  This time, I ate healthy, but not so healthy that I burnt out on it and didn’t enjoy what I was doing.  Doing P90X and eating right, I lost a bunch of weight.  Once I got down to 185, I started getting into weight training, and that’s when I gained some muscle mass and also gained a few lbs, but it was muscle.

704Nutrition.com: So, how have you kept it off?

Josh: The first part of my weight loss was maintaining a decent diet along with lots of cardio and conditioning training.  After my weight loss, I wanted to get into bulking a little bit and that’s when my measurements started to go up.  I followed a more protein heavy diet as well as supplementing before and after workouts, which proved very helpful, and also at night a casein protein drink before bedtime so that I could feed my muscles overnight.

704Nutrition.com: Give us some results.

Josh:

Before:

Waist – 40”

Biceps – 14”

Chest – 39”

After:

Waist – 36”

Biceps – 16.5”

Chest – 41”

704Nutrition.com: What are your plans, goals, etc. for a healthy 2011?

Josh: Plan and goal is to work on cutting the rest of this fat off and get to a lean muscle weight. Then after summer I plan to start bulking again. Never had a six-pack in my life and that is my ultimate goal. I also have plans of running some 5k and 10k races as well as a USMC mud run. 

 

What can you learn from Josh? 

There’s a lot you can learn from Josh’s success story, but here’s a few points worth highlighting.

• Diet combined with exercise is imperative. Rarely will you be able to succeed in your weight loss by doing one without  the other.
• Building muscle helps burn more calories, thus helping to keep the fat off.
• Successful weight loss is an evolutionary process. Start with one lifestyle/diet change that you can stick with. Then progress to another, then another. 

Josh Before:  

Josh After:

Josh's favorite products (click each name for more info):

NO Shotgun, Chef Jay's Tri-O-Plex Protein bars, Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey, and Optimum Nutrition Casein.