Progress
Not a before and after. A during.
Under construction since COVID. The contractor is me, and I keep changing the plans.
How It Actually Started
Then COVID happened.
Swimming stopped. Everything stopped. The eating, unfortunately, did not. I kept eating like someone who swam, and then, with a lot of time to kill and a decent internet connection for the first time in my life, I discovered I really enjoyed food.
I got a lot bigger, and then I got uncomfortable.
So, because I have never done anything moderately, I dieted aggressively and did cardio every session.
I ended up thin and soft at the same time, an achievement I did not know was possible. Everything since has been slow. Nobody warns you how slow.
Built Through Repetition
Click each phase to walk through the system.
The Timeline So Far
Nine checkpoints, most of them mistakes. The ninth is not the last one.
COVID stopped the swimming. It did not stop the eating.
No pool, no routine, still eating like someone who swam. Then we finally got decent internet, and there was a lot of time to kill.
I got uncomfortable, then I got dramatic.
Bigger than I had ever been, and not happy about it. So I decided to diet like hell, a plan that has never once ended well.
A 1000-calorie deficit, and cardio every single session.
The number on the scale kept falling and I took that as proof it was working. Most of what I was losing was muscle.
The fat was leaving slower than the muscle.
Nobody explains this part. Lighter every week, and somehow still not the shape I expected. Skinny fat is a real place, and I lived there.
57 kg. The thinnest I have ever been.
I tried eating more and could not. If I could take back one checkpoint on this page, it would be this one.
I finally swapped the cardio for weights.
A 1.5-hour session with 45 minutes on just legs. I had no real idea what I was doing, but it was the first thing that worked.
My legs grew as if they had been waiting. Then my back went.
130 kg on the bar, because obviously. It was the fastest lesson of the whole thing, and the most expensive.
More upper body, less legs. The back insisted.
Chest, back and shoulders finally got attention, mostly because I was not allowed to do anything else.
The legs stayed. The upper body finally showed up.
This is the slow part, and it is still going. Some months nothing visible happens. Some weeks I barely sleep and it shows.
Stronger, more athletic, more capable, and able to sustain it.
No photo yet, because it hasn't happened yet. This one gets filled in when it does.
Stronger. Leaner. Not Finished.
It is better than it was. It was never a straight line.
I have wrecked my back, starved myself on purpose by accident, and spent long stretches where the mirror had nothing new to report. Most of the real progress was just not quitting during those.
These days it happens around work, a degree and not enough sleep, so some months it goes backwards. That is allowed.
“THE BODY IS A PRETTY HONEST ARCHIVE OF HOW YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING.”
Caloric & Mass Telemetry
I built this after learning most of the above the hard way. Set your calories, targets and activity, and it projects twelve weeks of body weight and macros. Please do not use it to do what I did.
Not Finished
I like the progress, but treating it as finished would miss the entire point.
The goal is no longer just looking different. I want to be stronger, more athletic, more capable, and able to sustain it.
The body never really becomes a finished project. It keeps reporting back on the standard you actually live by.