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"The problems started at the beginning of the lockdown"
Like many people, I think, the problems started at the beginning of the lockdown. I became very sedentary, I wasn't moving or walking anymore. I started gaining weight and reached a point where I weighed 110kg for 1.80m, so it was starting to become debilitating, especially since I was 17 at the time.
Even from an "outside perspective", it was starting to get complicated, so I decided, in that context, to start going to the gym.
"It was more about wanting to lose weight to feel good in my body"
At first, I didn't have a specific goal in mind; it was more about wanting to lose weight to feel good in my body. I didn't set a goal that I absolutely had to reach, but I thought in stages. For example, I started by motivating myself to get back under 100kg.
"There isn't just one number, there aren't two, there are three"
I saw that I was gaining weight, but I minimized it a bit, telling myself it wasn't serious, it would pass.
Then one day, I was talking to my mother and she made me understand that I was gaining a lot of weight, and she asked me to stop eating as if I were eating for 5 people.
And I told her she was exaggerating a bit and that I couldn't have gained that much weight. I said to her, "You know what, let's get the scale and see." So I went to get the scale; my sisters and my mother were there.
You have to know that before the lockdown, I weighed about 80 kilos, so I told her, "Don't worry, Mom, I'm max 90 kilos, I gained a little bit but it'll come off quickly."
So I got on the scale: and there, there wasn't one number, there weren't two, there were three, I saw 110 kilos and I was like "woah!"
The look they gave me was like: "dude, you messed up," and that was the trigger that made me say, "okay, this isn't good at all."
"I started by cutting out snacking and reducing meal portions"
At first, it was also step-by-step, actually. Like everyone else, you're a bit lost when you want to lose weight and you start looking around on the internet, so you see things here and there. Initially, I went from eating about 3000 calories a day to easily halving my intake.
And I started by cutting out snacking and reducing my meal portions. Well, then I was really going to an extreme, so it wasn't great, but that's how it started.
I didn't really change my diet because I was eating what my mother cooked, so it was healthy, but I almost halved the quantities and stopped snacking on chips, switching instead to fruits, yogurts, etc.
"That's when I started buying my first whey"
When I started bodybuilding, I didn't take supplements at first; I focused mainly on nutrition. And over time, as you do your research, you learn that you need a certain quota of protein to build or maintain muscle.
And so that's when I started buying my first whey from supermarkets, so it was easy to find and not too expensive.
It was after that I looked for a brand that was a bit more qualitative for my supplements than just the big stores. The problem is that, very often, there's no transparency about what's in the product, where the ingredients come from, etc.
So I started searching a bit on the internet, and Nutrimuscle was the brand that came up often. It was the transparency and quality of the products that led me to Nutrimuscle.
I never really took supplements purely for weight loss; it was more to supplement my diet. So, one of the first supplements that came after whey was naturally creatine, and currently, I also take ZMB and omega 3.
I take them daily. I know there are specific times to take this or that supplement, but the problem is I have the memory of a goldfish. So I'm a bit of a barbarian, I take them all at once in the evening.
Today, I think if I really had to put one supplement above the others, it would be whey. Because I struggle to reach my protein quota, and meat is expensive; frankly, whey is still more cost-effective than meat. And you can do a lot of things with it. For example, you take a yogurt, put some whey in it, and there you go, you have something. So really, whey is great for convenience.
"I went from 110kg to 68kg"
I went from 110kg to 68kg, and for me, it happened in several stages.
At the very beginning, I starved myself and also lost water, so I immediately saw a big visual change. I had become a little flatter, and that's always nice. I felt lighter; I think I lost 25 kilos in about 3 months. So that was a first phase of weight loss. I went from 110 to 85 kilos just like that.
After that, there was a long period of stagnation. And then I got a bit tired of bodybuilding, so I did powerlifting. I wasn't really keen on fully committing to my weight loss, so I was in "let's just let things go, I'll maintain" mode. And all year, I enjoyed myself with sports.
And then came the last period. That's when I saw the most drastic changes, from about October 2024 to today. And this time, I went from 85 to 68 kilos. So I dropped very low in body fat, I put everything back in order, and I count my calories. Also, I eat a lot, seriously, I eat like a pig, it's crazy.
Currently, I'm at 3400 calories for 68 kilos. I walk 15,000 - 16,000 steps a day with work and everything. Frankly, it's super easy.
Math's anecdote
When I started weight training, I was lucky because I had a lot of bros who practiced with me, and they each had one or two years of experience, so they already had the technique, so I could watch and learn from them.
They were kind of my dream physique at the time, because they had better performance and I saw them very lean with athletic and healthy physiques.
And recently, we met at the pool. And what's funny is that I was the fattest of the three, and in the end, I became the leanest of us. And honestly, they're super happy with my progress. And then, of course, it's really great to realize your results and to see them from the outside.
