Four months ago my goal was clear: to feel good with myself again when I hit my 40th birthday. It was true challenge, because last year I barely did any activities, I gained weight and I did not look and feel well. Here’s my story I am truly proud of 😎!

How it started

I was always rather thin and physically active. But when I started my #OSS journey with #PHP-CS-Fixer, I went all-in which basically led to me sitting in front of the computer most of the time. I was sitting at work, and I was still sitting in my free time, really often through the night. I did not balance it, I was so fascinated about the outcome provided to all the users, that I did not see I am getting bigger and bigger. Of course, this is not OSS’ fault, it was me who did not care about physical activity and proper diet - watching football games or movies with pack of chips and a beer also was not good for my condition.

At the beginning of 2024 I reached the point where I really was not feeling good with myself. Not only my body started to be uncomfortable on daily basis (problems with knees, inability to bend myself properly, overall tiredness), but also I just looked bad and seeing myself in the mirror has been making me really sad. Going to the public swimming pool or to the beach was hard for me, as I was ashamed about my belly.

I’ve been trying to do something with this for quite some time, but did not have enough motivation, and I thought I don’t have time needed to improve my situation. And then tiny little thing happened, that was the missing puzzle for me - we met my wife’s cousin on the car park, and he joked “huh, the belly has grown a bit, right?” 😅. I know him, and I am sure he did not want to laugh at me, it was rather a friendly mockery, and you know what? It worked. In the following days I bought a gym pass, prepared my skateboard and started working hard.

How it was done

Before vs After

May 13th vs August 29th: https://twitter.com/_Codito_/status/1829065547876569446

I started my physical renovation in May, and it really became my new habit pretty quick. I’ve set myself a goal: be satisfied with my body again in the end of August. To be able to reach that goal, several things had to be changed in my life.

Physical activity

It was right about time for me to start working out and regain proper physical condition.

As it turned out, my foremost workout type was… skateboarding 🛹! I’ve been skating since I was ~15, but with variable frequency, especially in recent years. I am not significantly good at it, but I have so much fun from skating, so I decided to make it my main cardio and of course a way for losing fat. Not only I skated more during these four months than in few years back together, I also learned new trick I always wanted to do: crooked grind 😍!

Besides skating a lot, I’ve been working hard in the gym. I did not have any personal trainer or strict routine, I just did everything that looked interesting for me and involved different muscles. Since my goal was to lose fat, especially from the belly, I did many exercises around it (AB crunch, rower, elliptical), but also did many other weight-oriented stuff to build muscles too. My second goal was to strengthen my knees, so I did a lot of squatting and leg curling too. When my legs were tired, I just did exercises with upper body. When my arms were dead from lifting weights, I trained my abs. Since I did not have much time for exercises, I always squeezed it to the maximum and barely had any rest time during workout.

I was told that one of the best ways to burn fat is… walking. So I included long dog walks to my daily routine, and walked few kilometers almost every day. It was sometimes frustrating, as my dog wants to stop every few steps to sniff around or to pee, but we somehow managed to find a way to satisfy both of us. During these walks I almost always did DuoLingo lessons, so it was a double gain 😃.

In the end, I recorded 140 hours of activities, but I am pretty sure there was even more, I just only sometimes forgot to track it. Anyway, pretty nice achievement, considering the fact I always thought “I don’t have time” when it comes to such activities.

Activity summary

Activities tracked with Mi Band

When it comes to “freestyle” workouts, these were exercises I can do at home: Ring Fit, half balance ball, resistance bands etc. Instead of eating snacks in front of TV, I watched football games and TV shows while exercising. Actually, I tried to do even small exercises several times during a day - whenever it was possible.

I can tell you, this is addictive 😆.

Activity by month

Activities tracked with Mi Band, by month

To keep an eye of required workout load, I’ve set daily goals on my Mi Band - started with 700 kcal, 7000 steps and 10 hours with standing position. Later I bumped it to 1000 kcal, 10000 steps and 12 hours of standing. These numbers may not be huge, but I believe it’s not that important - the key is consistency and daily goals that are challenging, so you need to do significant amount of work to reach them. August was perfect in that regard, as I was able to hit daily goals every single day:

Daily goals reached every single day in August

Sometimes it required a lot of effort, but there’s a saying: no pain, no gain 😎.

Diet

As my main objective was to lose fat, it was pretty obvious to me that I need to eat less. Less in general, but also less fatty food. I did not go to any diet advisor, I just did few things:

  • got rid of sweets
  • got rid of snacks, especially chips
  • got rid of beer
  • started to eat protein puddings, muesli with milk and other nutritious food
  • started to eat less for a single meal, but more meals during a day
  • avoided eating in the late evening
  • avoided fried food

All of this not dogmatically, but rather as a guideline to follow. If I felt a need to eat something sweet or there was an occasion like birthday party, I just did it. If I did a superb workout and I was proud of myself, I allowed myself to drink good beer once in a while. I believe it’s important to not torment yourself with strict rules, because sooner or later you’ll start to hate the process. If you work hard, you deserve good things 😃!

Of course, it wouldn’t work without exercising a lot, but I believe what I did around my diet was also key in dropping around 10 kilograms in four months:

Weight loss chart: 10kg in 4 months

From 78kg to 68kg in four months

Sleeping habit

I always considered myself as a night owl - doing stuff when there’s silence is really great. My kids also don’t go to bed early, so this was probably the hardest part for me - find a way to be able to do workouts during a day, especially when it comes to skateboarding (as I prefer sunlight).

It was tough, but I cut off OSS almost completely. I went to bed almost instantly after my kids (and a dog walk). This made it possible for me to wake up really early, so multiple times I skated around 7am or even earlier (the weather was great and sun was shining pretty hard already). If I couldn’t get up, I just tried to exercise later, with gym as the last resort around 10pm (they close at 11pm).

Fortunately I don’t have problems with sleeping - I fell asleep quick and I rather don’t wake up in the middle of the night. So the only thing I needed to keep an eye of, was the length of sleeping (7h+), and going to bed as early as possible. It’s not easy to change sleeping habits, but step by step it’s possible to improve this routine.

How it’s going

Reaching my initial goal was great, but it would be a pity to waste such an effort and stop working hard. That’s why I continue my fitness journey, even though it’s a little bit harder after kids went back to school and there are additional activities I have to fit in my daily routine (driving kids here and there).

57h / 24695 kcal in 72 workouts

Activities registered in September 2024

Activity summary

Activities tracked with Mi Band as of October 3rd, 2024

Two weeks after initial deadline I looked even better, and could make a 3-month comparison with a one of not-so-many pictures of me taken during my fitness challenge:

How I looked June 15th vs September 15th

3 month difference

One month after my 40th birthday I had an opportunity to analyse my body composition, and it turned out I’ve burned too much fat, as it was only 5.7% 😅! The most impressive part is that my metabolic age is 25 😲!

Weight: 66kg, 5.7% of fat, BMI 22.2, metabolic age: 25

Body composition analysis result

If numbers don’t speak for you, here’s an actual result:

At this point I don’t need to focus on burning fat anymore, I just can work on improving my shape and building more muscles. I don’t aim for being true body builder, I just want to look good 😊.

Special thanks

My metamorphosis was possible thanks to my wife, who supported me along the way. If it wasn’t for her, I couldn’t have exercised as much as I did. I believe it wasn’t easy for her, even though I really tried to minimize the impact of my hard work, and really often skated/exercised early in the morning or late in the evening. Anyway, she made it possible for me to reach my goal, and I am really grateful for that 😘!

Also, I would like to thank Muhammed Sarı for an inspiration, he did such a wonderful job around his body that pushed me towards my own journey.

Summary

I really hope this article can motivate others to reach their own goals. Let me know!