Shoutout to the legends from Easy Company, 2-506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, for kicking Nazi ass in the winter of 1944. They didn’t just break the back of the Nazi war machine when they claimed victory in Bastogne, they gave Dad’s everywhere a new joke to make.
Okay, maybe just my dad, a retired U.S. Army infantry officer with 26 years of service.
He retired over a decade ago, but the man still gets up every day at 4AM, no matter the weather, being on vacation, or what happened the day before, just to knock out some “PT” (“physical training” for the non-military types).
It used to blow my mind, especially as a little kid, and he’d say the same thing to me every morning.
“Yeah, you know, I’m just trying to win the Battle Of The Bulge!” Then he’d laugh and slap his belly the way dads like to do. This is still an every day occurrence even though he is approaching senior citizen status.
Now that he’s in his 60’s, he doesn’t “PT” as hard as he once did. However, he gets in enough that, despite being an “old fart”, he was able to drop 20 pounds.
His only reasons for doing it were that he thought he’d look a little better and it would probably be good for his already good health.
If your health/appearance is something you care about, I’d urge you to look into taking on a “cut”. If my old man can do it, so can you.
Hell, it’s almost summer anyway.
Gotta do something to impress the girls at the beach. God knows none of us are impressing women by talking to them.
The Benefits
A simple google search will yield predictable benefits of losing weight. They include:
- Improved sleep
- reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke and other morbidities
- Improvements in joint pain and function
- increased energy
While researching for this post, I found some other interesting benefits that aren’t quite as well known:
- Improved sex drive and sexual performance
- Improvements in the taste of food (the linked study is pretty interesting, suggesting that weight loss makes sweets less desirable)
- improved testosterone levels
- improved finances (less money spent on fast food means more money to invest)
- quick math: lets be conservative and say you spend $20 on food delivery every week, if you stopped doing that you would have an extra $1,040 at the end of the year. (When this article was written, Google estimated the average American spent closer to $35 a week on food delivery)
You after you lose one pound:
My Experience
“Dude, all I ever see on social media is how to get bigger, I want to look like Schwarzenegger bro!” – you, probably.
Again, I have nothing against this. If you want to get huge, go for it. Don’t fall into the trap of just crushing burgers to do it, though. We all know a guy who’s “been on a bulk” for over a decade.
I’ve been on the aforementioned grind myself. Freshman year of college, I reached 215 pounds at 5’9” (basically 6 foot). I got there by drinking as much beer and eating as many quesadillas as I could afford.
Then, I decided I should join the Army, and become an infantry officer on top of that. But, infantry officers run…a lot. They also run fast.
From personal experience, I can tell you that 215 pounds of beer and quesadilla “mass” is non-conducive to the paces that are required for a respectable run time on most military fitness tests.
I struggled through that weight for a couple years without realizing it. I dropped down to 185-190lbs, but a lot of that remaining poundage was useless. It didn’t seem to matter how many different running workouts I tried, I just kept sucking at running.
No one would tell me to put the burritos down, they just kept letting me believe I was a bad runner.
(Me, circa 2018)
By my senior year of college, I was out of time to keep underperforming. I’d have to be ready to run a sub-40 minute five mile soon after graduation. I decided to get serious and solve the problem with the only solution I had yet to try.
My Strategy (That Should Be Taken With A Very Large Grain of Salt)
I set a goal: lose 20 pounds.
Once I did that, I started running fast enough, and I was able to pass the 5 mile tests at the Infantry Officer Basic Leader Course and at Ranger School.
The strategy was simple. I continued working out normally (ran 3-4 days a week, lifted 2-3 days/week) and I used my running watch to track my burnt calories. Then, I tracked every calorie I ate and forced myself into a minimum 1,000 calorie deficit, daily.
(DO NOT DO THAT, EVERY REPUTABLE SOURCE WILL TELL YOU IT IS UNHEALTHY).
This strategy was simple but not easy, especially considering I lived in a frat house. Still, I was meticulous about counting the calories. That included calories from booze.
I would try to budget calories based on the number of beers/seltzers I wanted to have. That meant eating a small enough amount of food that I could afford the booze calories.
This strategy was effective, but probably a bit unsafe. I was 22 and a functioning idiot.
What’s The Right Way?
I went with the unsafe option above because I had a timeline to meet and I was uneducated.
If you aim to lose weight, you should drop the weight safely. That means no more than a 500 calorie/day deficit. You should also ensure that you are still eating protein, carbohydrates, fats and other essential nutrients. Make sure you prioritize hydration as well. As always, consult a doctor before any diet. If you have the access, consult a dietician.
Some things you can do that have worked for me (when I did it intelligently):
- Workout or move your body for about an hour every day, choose exercises you enjoy and will actually execute
- Cut out snack
- Limit sugar and especially sugar filled drinks (the calories on most juice products are surprisingly high)
- Prioritize protein (eating protein generally leads to feeling more full and reduces the craving to eat more)
- Have some healthy snacks sitting around (you still need to track the calories on these, I like pickles for this because they are crunchy, salty and low in calories)
- Drink one glass of water before every meal (seems to reduce cravings for me)
- Get a watch or other wearable that can track your energy expenditure (Apple Watch, Garmin Forerunner, Polar Grit, Whoop, etc.)
- Download MyFitnessPal or another calorie tracking app and actually use it
- Get a food scale (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, your serving size calculations will be far more accurate which will improve the accuracy of your calorie math)
- Significantly reduce alcohol consumption or remove it from your diet entirely
Worked for this totally natural guy:
Do not prioritize alcohol over food like I did. That is dumb…
The Semi-Smart (But Definitely Still Dumb) Answer
I’m not going to sit here and tell you I don’t still find ways to prioritize having fun when I’m trying to cut weight. Alcohol and going out late at night are arguably the center of today’s social scene.
I’d argue that they are also the center of the dating scene. So, if you’re a single guy who wants to lose weight, but doesn’t want to become a monk, balancing those desires can be challenging.
Luckily, there are some methods you can use to keep having fun while meeting your weight loss goals. I found most of these methods by doomscrolling on social media. That being said, they may not be totally science based. However, they seem to work for me.
1. The Swap
Start swapping the beers and whiskey cokes for tequila sodas or tequila waters with a lime. Yeah, they don’t taste incredible…at first. There’s a reason every super hot chick drinks clear liquor though.
The average light beer has a little over 100 calories. The average beer has around 150 calories. Those add up quick. The heavier the beer, the higher the sugar and calorie content will be. The same is generally true for dark liquor.
100% agave Tequila, by contrast, has around 97 calories per standard shot and its ingredients have been linked to potential health benefits. Just make sure you ask for the silver or blanco tequila.
For the sake of your wallet, just take the “well” tequila. Bartenders and bar patrons will look at you like you are a mad man. This has started more than one conversation for me, though. I see it as a positive. My tastebuds probably have a different opinion.
“The Swap” is arguably the least painful method I’ll be suggesting. Personally, the morning after a night of drinking only tequila, I feel far better than after a night of beers and dark liquor. This makes it easier to follow some of these other, increasingly painful, methods.
2. No Drinking Alone
We can all appreciate the post work day beverage with dinner. Few things satisfy like a beer after a long day.
Those calories add up, though. Specifically because they come from alcohol, they also have the potential to reduce your sleep quality which can make it harder to lose weight. Alcohol is fun but we should all be drinking less of it. Live it up with your friends, be semi-responsible when you’re alone.
Didn’t want to drink alone with the fellas
3. Eat Healthy The Next Day
The first thing we all want upon waking up hungover is a big greasy meal. There’s a reason almost every burger joint has a “hangover burger”. It will 100% make you feel better in the short term but those calories, on top of the calories from drinking, will count against your goals in the long term.
Do your best to opt for a healthier choice the next day. Maybe a grilled chicken sandwich with avocado instead of a cheeseburger. The protein and fat in the chicken and avocado will help with that hangover craving.
This one’s tough, I’ll admit. I think I follow this maybe 50% of the time.
Remember, I said these will get more painful.
4. Hangover Cardio
If you’re an extrovert with a serious vulnerability to F.O.M.O., like me, you’re probably trying to go out on Friday and Saturday. You still want to meet your physical performance and health goals, though. Allow me to lightly suggest that you take on the following challenge.
Get in a minimum of 60 minutes of low intensity cardio throughout the course of your weekend.
I choose to run for an hour every Saturday or Sunday morning, no excuses allowed.
It is a long, slow, run and it sucks when you’re hungover and sleep deprived.
This may be psychological but it usually “cures” my hangover and allows me to feel like I have counteracted the caloric damage from the weekend. This is probably only minimally true but let me live in my delusional world.
Be careful if you do this, and do NOT do it if you are inexperienced in your chosen form of cardio. Do your best to hydrate before and definitely after you finish.
Somehow, this is the one strategy I have been able to adhere to without fail. There’s a reason I went on about how much infantry officers run. I think I’ve run about 50 hungover miles so far this year.
Don’t ask me if I’m okay.
5. Go To Ranger School
This is the sure fire way to lose a ton of weight. You will also lose the ability to sleep normally forever. And the ability to enjoy hiking as a hobby. And your will to live (for legal reasons, that is a joke).
Ranger School is the best diet plan on the planet. Few other diet plans can guarantee you a loss of over 15-20 pounds in less than 2 months.
Your very invested Ranger Instructors will keep you accountable to a two-meal-a-day diet plan.
They’ll even force you to walk across enough mountains, rivers and swamps that you’ll end up in a 5,000+ calorie daily deficit.
This one is a joke that you earned by making it this far.
(Unless you’re in the military. Go get your Tab.)
Getting Off The Soapbox
At the end of the day, your weight truly does not matter. As long as you are healthy enough to keep getting after it with the fellas, the number on the scale should have no bearing on your daily life or your self-esteem.
I encourage you to look at the things you want to be able to do, ask yourself if your current weight is helping you do those things, and go from there. Maybe that means losing weight, maybe it means staying the same or putting some weight on.
As always, keep crushing it.
If you have opinions, drop them in the comments. Want us to cover something else? Hit us up on instagram with the button below.
Cheers!