So I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I actually lost 125 pounds in less than one year. Today I want to share my full story and tell you exactly how I did it. Hey, what's up guys, this is Josh here. Today I want to share my weight loss journey that occurred around 2008 to 2009.  So I feel compelled to tell this story from beginning to end. Two hours later. So if you want to know about a specific part of the weight loss journey, there should be timestamps down below and you can go right to the part that you want. For everyone else, let's start at the beginning. I was not fat at all until I got to be about seven or eight. There's these little league pictures of me when I was five, six, maybe even seven.  I look actually really healthy. So somewhere around eight, nine, 10, I just started playing a lot of video games, eating a lot of junk food. It's crazy when I see pictures of myself at that time when somebody forces me to come outside and I just look so overweight and ugly and miserable.  Like if you want to go run, like you're gonna be exhausted, you're not gonna get anywhere. You can't really play basketball. It's just so hard for you to keep up with other sports. It's almost like you're at a disadvantage so you don't want to. And being overweight is actually really defeating because you know as an overweight person that's what's holding you back. That's what's stopping you from being the normal person. Like if you find a girl attractive, a guy attractive and they're in average weight, you pretty much are just completely screwed. There's little to no chance that you're ever gonna get that person.  You're the person deciding when you eat and very few people are force fed or forced into eating more. Your body is used to those sensations and those feelings every day. If you were to eat ice cream for just five minutes a day on top of all your normal meals, that alone is enough to keep you obese. So it's actually really easy to be obese. There was times where I would hype myself up. I remember the first day of summer after freshman year, I had these girls that I liked and obviously I had no chance with them. And I was like hyping myself up. Like this is, I'm gonna change. I'm gonna do a lot of pushups and like do all this stuff. It lasted one, two, three days. And what's so bad about that is you're telling yourself now I'm going to change and you don't follow through with it.  It doesn't mean anything. You almost can't change if you want to because you're laying down the law and you're not changing. I actually had a lot of fun my sophomore year and my junior year. And once I got to my junior year, a lot of my friends who were not taking school very seriously had dropped out. And it was probably the slowest, quietest year of all my years of school. I had nothing to do. I was just getting more fat, just, you know, blob of nothing. Like when I was in my sophomore year, I had a bunch of friends who would always be doing stuff. And yeah, I was still fat. But it's not like I had nothing to do like my junior year. So around March of 2008, I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I had a little flip phone and I decided to take a video or a picture of myself from the side. And at that point, that was the worst picture I had ever seen of myself. I mean, I'm huge.  I'm so glad I actually took that picture because now I have something to show the start of my journey. And I don't really know what my maximum weight was, but I remember weighing myself when I was really big and it was like 290. I might have gone up to 300. I don't know. I'm just gonna go with 290 because that's what I saw on the scale. Fast forward a few months later, now this is May, so we go March to May. And my parents announced to me, they were getting divorced in February and there was all this change going on. So it's perfect to change a lot of other things when you already have to deal with one big change. That's what I found. So I was like, man, I got all this stuff to deal with. Might as well just send it. I was stuck being fat from like seven or eight till 17. So every single year, like all my habits stayed the same. No matter what happened in my life, I always stayed fat, stayed obese. And I went with my friend, his dad and his sister to the desert hot springs out here. And it was like, I knew that was the last day. Like it's over.  I might've even been a BFC, which is 32 ounces pure sugar. But I knew it was like game over. It's done, it's done. As soon as I get back, it's done. I don't really know what clicked in my body, but I was thinking all I have to do is like eat a certain amount of healthy stuff. And that's it. It's not like I have to get to Australia in 24 hours. It's not like I have to run this marathon. I just have to make sure that I eat a certain amount. And that's it. I was just like, I could do this is for sure I got this. So it was actually pretty interesting because I stayed on a very low calorie diet for a while. And there was a point when I was first starting, I was barely eating anything and my weight was staying the same. I could have sworn it was about two weeks of eating very little, very clean. And my weight stayed the same. But after about two weeks, it was like every single day that I held the diet, I was lighter and lighter and lighter. So I don't know if my body was like expecting to stay fat. Like, oh, he's just going through a phase. Eventually he'll eat a lot of food again. And so we don't really need to cut this weight. And then after two weeks, my body's like, all right, let's start dumping this fat. So what I did to actually lose weight was very simple. Like I said, just eat very low calories. I would say probably no more than 2000 calories. Try to keep it to like 1000 or 1500. To me, I just tried to distract myself with anything healthy that I could come across. Like for me at the time, I viewed video games as being kind of like a waste of time. At the time I had the old school GTA San Andreas on PS2. And this was 2008. So PS2 had been old for several years now. And I remember I would just hop on the game, just waste time. Cause if I just waste the time, if I get interested in anything, the time is going to pass. And once the time passes, I'm just going to lose weight. There's things that you could find that to eat that are nice, that tastes good, that are also healthy. So yeah guys, I barely ate anything. Near the end, I got really crazy with it. I would probably have maybe 1000 calories. And then I would eat almost no carbs, which eating little to no carbs is one of the best diets to get lean, get muscular, lose fat. But when you go really, really low carbs, my body just doesn't feel good. I don't like it. Would never want to do it again. I usually limit my carbs, but I would never go to zero. I would also hype myself up with fitness motivation. Like I'd probably spend, I don't know, two to four hours a day at least watching P90X. Extreme results, P90X. Informercials on the TV, because we also had P90X in the house. Watching Fight Club.  Cause at the time Brad Pitt's physique was like something I really wanted to attain. I really wanted to get to, especially cause I was fat. And I would, he was so shredded in Fight Club. So I would just literally watch like people that were really attractive, people that I wanted to look like just over and over and over. It just, cause that's where I'm going. Literally if you follow the diet, you follow the exercise, it's a matter of time. You're going to be there. I started losing weight in May. It comes to December. And now when December comes, I'm like 190 or 195. I don't know if I have that picture still, but I had like dyed hair. And that was a really good weight for me. Like that's around the weight that I am now. Like I'm about 205, but I would say I've been about 215 on average for the last year or two. 190 to 195 was perfect. I was thinner, I was lean, but I wasn't like skinny, skinny. Okay, now we enter the anorexic stage. Now I don't want any pity here, but if anorexia is a real thing, I kind of had it. I had a girlfriend at the time and she wasn't the thinnest. And I don't know if your experience with girls has been the same with me, but they never want to eat or indulge more than you do. They don't want to get a big ice cream and have you get nothing. They don't want like a big chili cheese fries and a big meal if you're not getting one either, right? I've just noticed that about girls. I always try to like get something so they feel comfortable getting whatever they want.  I went with one of my exes and her friend is 7-Eleven. They got some slurpees and I literally wouldn't take one sip of the slurpee just because I'm like, I literally can't. Even though I was thin, I was fine. One sip wouldn't even done anything. Two sips wouldn't have done anything. And then another time I was visiting my friend Brandon at his house, one of the first times we were hanging out, they were all going out to get burgers and they're like, oh, what do you want? And I just had to like, nothing. And again, in the end I wanted balance and at that point I didn't have balance. Like people who hyper focus on food and sugar and calories, like I don't want to be that person. I want it to be gone. I don't want to ever have to think about it. I just know what to do and I do it. And I think that some people get wrapped around the weight loss thing their whole life. Like they lose some weight, but they stay a little bit over and then they just hyper focus on sugar and food. And I always get them gonna crave it and all these issues. Like no, I don't even want to think that I want to forget that I was ever fat, but that's just me personally. And after this anorexic stage, I got to about 165 pounds. So from context right now, I'm 205. That would be me losing 40 pounds right now. I don't really think I have an extra 40 pounds to lose.   You think the more skinny, the more better. Like just get rid of all of it. It's like a hate.  There were these pudgy, small twins in my gym class and when I got really thin, they could just push me and I would just fly. And I was like, as a guy, I don't like that. I don't like being easy to be messed with. You know what I mean? And I also don't think it looks really attractive to girls either. You seem kind of scrawny, weak, and I don't know. So there's a lot of negatives with being too skinny as well. So after that, my weight did fluctuate a little bit. I think I got all the way up to about 230, maybe 235 again. And I think one of the first times I started this channel around like 2015, 2016, I was pretty big again. I think I was about 230, maybe 240 pounds.  Because even though I was heavier and needed to lose some weight, I was still working out. And because I had lost the weight before, my vision of myself in my head was the way that I am now and not the person I was when I was fat. And I would say I got down to this weight around like 2016, 2017. I was going through a really stressful time. And then right after that, I got into snowboarding. So I never really wanted to gain too much weight so I could always snowboard nice and easily. I'm just so happy that my goal was to get to a point where I could eat food that I like, I could feel good and I could look good and I don't have any issues. And that's where I'm at now. I don't have to focus on anything. I don't hyper-focus on the craving sugar, craving carbs. Like I eat pretty much a high protein meal with some carbs and water. That's like the main thing that I eat. I will have some energy drinks. I will have some sweets when I want them. Sometimes I'll have those like protein cookies, those Lenny and Larry's, but the goal is to get it. So it's like not even a problem. Some people think if they have this problem, they have the problem for life. And for some people, maybe that works for them. For example, like addicts. Like they say if you ever did any sort of addictive drug for fun on your own, you're basically an addict for life. Like if you've ever had problems with a drug for a year or two, it's just like at any point, like that could happen again, which I guess it could because you're familiar with it and you know what it is. But for me, it's like when I notice something's bad, I never want to deal with it again. I don't want to think about me doing it. I don't want to think that oh, I'm this person or what if it comes around me? I want to be the person who knows nothing about it. It doesn't care about it and it's just nothing. And that's kind of the way I am with food and weight loss and everything. My dad wanted me to play a lot of team sports growing up. I just wasn't the biggest fan of team sports unless I'm like the leader or something. So going to the gym was phenomenal because I got to get out that physical energy, that aggression and I had something that I could progress that you could literally see the changes and it's all up to me and it feels great. So I love the gym. I couldn't imagine not going to the gym. So if you're somebody who wants to lose weight, what I would suggest to you is find like a really low calorie amount and stick to it. You know, I would probably get as low as you could go. Probably not lower than a thousand, like unless you're maybe if you're a girl but definitely low enough that you're going to guarantee to lose weight and then basically try to forget about it. Like do whatever you want to enjoy yourself. If you haven't done something fun that you like to do, go do that, go do everything. Like have as much fun as you want. Just follow the simple rule of you're not going to eat past this and that's just it. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to fight it. And there's so much good food to eat on a low calorie diet anyways. Like I love chicken sandwiches, grilled chicken, steak, ground beef, tacos. Like that's all the stuff I eat right now. It's like protein with a little bit of carbs. That's all you need. Anyways guys, that's been my weight loss journey. How I legitimately lost 125 pounds in less than a year. A little did I know losing the weight would bring on its own set of issues but now everything's balanced, everything's perfect. It says if I never had a problem being overweight and I never had a problem eating sweets or sugar and if you're an overweight person, keep fighting, keep pushing, you will get there. But anyways guys, let me know your weight loss tips down below. Have you ever lost a large amount of weight at one time?  What are your stories or what are your tips for fat loss? I'd be very interested to see down below. Also really quick involving supplements. I did take fat burners while I was losing weight and I don't really think they helped that much. I would say they helped maybe 10 to 15%.   I would say they helped maybe 10 to 15%. The two that I used were actually three. I used the original hydroxy cuts or not the original but it's a version you can't get now somewhere in the middle. And then I tried hydroxy cut hardcore which I really, really liked. I went through like one, maybe two bottles of that stuff and that formula is extinct now that use a different formula. And then the last thing I used was something called arson which is from Muscle Asylum Project which I think was a version of Muscle Tech. It was like a crazy asylum, psycho-based bodybuilding brand. So yeah guys, I did use some fat burners but I would say that they helped maybe 10 to 15%. And if you're having a lot of sugar, a lot of carbs the fat burners not gonna do anything. On top of that they had tons of caffeine and I didn't really understand caffeine at the time so maybe I was making myself more anxious. So that's been my full weight loss journey. Let me know what you think down below. I'm having a great day out here. Hopefully I'm a great day at home. See you all in the next video. Peace.