The real numbers

This Is What 93 Pounds Looks Like in a Spreadsheet.

I started at 280 pounds. I weigh 187 pounds today. My goal is 160 pounds at 10 to 12% body fat. I am not done. I am sharing this system while I am still running it.

Michael, at 187 pounds, July 2026
187 pounds, July 2026. Down from 280.

Where I am right now

Starting weight280 lb
Current weight187 lb
Lost so far93 lb
Body fat, measured25.1%
Goal weight160 lb
Goal body fat10–12%
Time so far18 months
Average rate1.2 lb/wk

Body fat measured by DEXA, July 2026. DEXA reads higher than smart scales or calipers, because it counts fat in organs and bone marrow that other methods miss. Do not compare it to your bathroom scale. These are my own numbers, not a promise of yours. See the results disclaimer.

My name is Michael. I am 48. I have a family, including a young son, and a full-time demanding career. No personal trainer. No medications. No meal plan from a coach.

What I had was a spreadsheet open on my phone all day, every day.

I tracked three numbers: calories per meal and per day, grams of protein per meal and per day, and body weight every morning. I planned each day's meals in the morning and checked the numbers throughout the day. When something was off, I adjusted. When something worked, I kept it.

The Transformation Playbook documents this system. Every principle. Every tracking method. Every decision I made to lose 93 pounds and keep going.

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How long it took

18 months. Including five where nothing happened.

Most weight loss stories skip the part where the scale stops. Mine had five months of it, and leaving that out would make my timeline useless to you.

Feb to Aug 2025, 7 months ~45 lb · ~1.5 lb/week

Intermittent fasting

I shortened my eating window and lost around 45 pounds without counting a single calorie. I thought the window was the mechanism. It was not. A shorter window meant less food, and less food meant a deficit. I simply could not see it happening.

Some of that early drop was water and glycogen, not fat. That is normal at a high starting weight and it does not continue.

Sep 2025 to Jan 2026, 5 months 0 lb · 0.0 lb/week

The plateau

The scale stopped for five months. Nothing about my routine had changed, so I assumed my body had. It had not. My intake inside that eating window had crept up until the deficit closed. I had no way to know, because I was not measuring anything.

The deficit did not stop working. It stopped existing.

Feb 2026 to now, 6 months ~48 lb · ~1.9 lb/week

Counting, protein, training

I started logging calories and protein before every meal, weighing in every morning, and lifting five days a week. Intake settled at approximately 1,500 calories a day. The remaining 48 pounds came off in six months.

This phase was faster than fasting was, and it covered more ground in less time. Measuring beat guessing, and it was not close.

93 pounds in 18 months averages a little over one pound per week. That average includes five months where nothing moved. If you are budgeting time for this, budget for a plateau. It is not evidence you failed. It is evidence something changed that you cannot see yet, and the only way to see it is to measure.

The scale went up plenty of times along the way

Gaining weight inside a deficit is normal and it happened to me repeatedly. A higher carb day refills muscle glycogen, and glycogen binds water. Extra sodium holds water. Starting creatine pulls water into muscle and can add several pounds in the first weeks. None of that is fat.

The arithmetic settles it. Gaining a pound of actual fat requires roughly 3,500 calories above maintenance. If you did not eat that, you did not gain that. What moved was water.

This is the single thing that kept me going through the hard stretches, and it is why the third free prompt exists.

The Playbook

The system that produced all of this

$10

Every principle, every tracking method, every decision across 93 pounds. Instant download, one-time payment.

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Keep reading

See how I built the plan

Where the name comes from, and exactly what AI did and did not do.

See how I built the plan