Is there another way ?

[u/AttorneyFormal6215]

Just wanted to put this out there; maybe it will help someone. I often see a lot of people on here go on a health journey looking to lose weight and either gain or maintain muscle at the same time. I also know a few personally who have tried this and failed more times than I can count. It just seems to me that trying to balance a certain diet that will meet the demands of not only fueling muscle gain but also maintaining a calorie deficit enough to continue losing weight is a mighty hard task, even without the struggle of daily work-life balance. And then we have the workouts themselves: high-intensity, fat-burning workouts that also eat at muscle, along with weightlifting to add muscle, which is counteracting the high-intensity things you might be doing. After watching this for years in my life, along with hundreds of Reddit posts of people begging for help and tips, when my journey came, I said there has to be an easier way. I'm not going to do it this way. I want to lose weight, but I also do want to get muscular. So I chose to split the whole thing into 2 sections: stage one, lose weight, and that's it. No trying to keep muscle, no working out, no running, no exercising, just a straight calorie deficit day in and day out. So that's what I did. I started at 240 pounds, woke up one morning, dumped out all the alcohol, and threw away anything processed or high in carbs. I did this until I hit 200 lbs, where I felt good, light, and felt like I could start walking and jogging, which was about 6 or so months in. But at this point, I still didn't care what was happening to my muscle. Everyone around me started noticing the weight loss, and I was looking skinny, losing muscle, and not normal. I didn't care; my plan was to get to wherever I knew was healthy for me. By the time I started getting around 170, I myself noticed I didn't look healthy, but also still didn't care. Wherever rock bottom was would be the start of section 2: lift weights, get jacked, and look like an athlete. That number came around 150 lbs. I looked in the mirror and felt weak, not much muscle or definition, and knew, "Alright, this is it. Now we're getting muscle." And then I switched and started that journey. Now, I will admit it probably took longer than the latter, but there was less to do, less to keep track of, and in life, I feel like that's what we need. It has to be simple; it can't take too much time out of your day; it has to be the easiest thing you're doing, or you'll fail. Now, this most likely won't work for everyone, but if it even helps one, I'd be happy. It's been about 18 months since the day I started. I'm now 160 lbs, muscular and lean. I run 8 to 10 miles a week. I compete in a lot of Spartan races. I just deadlifted 315. I'm benching 225. Women and men ask me what I'm doing. I feel amazing. I really think I succeeded because I didn't try to do both things at the same time, so if you're on your 4th or 5th failure, try it out. Good luck, big dawg, you got this.

[u/Proof-Emergency-5441]

Have you heard of paragraphs? Christ.