I hit my goal weight recently. And since I had been slowly watching the number decrease for months, it wasn't the celebratory moment you might expect. It was just another morning on the scale. But it felt like a good time to write down what this past year actually looked like. Not the highlight reel. Not the advice (I wrote that separately). Just the honest, messy process of losing 35 pounds.

The Backstory

In 2015, my wife went on a serious weight loss journey and I tagged along for the ride. She did the research, she changed the meals, and I just ate what she provided (I'm very spoiled). I went from around 183 down to the low 150s by 2016. It worked. But I didn't really learn anything. I hadn't built my own understanding regarding which foods were choloric or develop the habits to eat heathly on my own. I was just along for the ride.

In 2018, I started working at Google. Google has micro kitchens (MKs) which are basically little snack stations on each floor in an office. Water, soda, chips, granola bars, yogurt, and sweets. They also provide cafeteria lunches, which always include dessert. Lucky me, when I started, my office (CL5) had 3 seperate cafeterias within a 3 minute walk. After lunch, I could easily walk by each to see what dessert options there were. Walking is good, right? Eating two or three desserts... maybe not so much.

Over the next six years, my weight slowly crept back up. 170. 180. 190. By late 2024, I was hovering around 200 lbs. I had gained back nearly 50 pounds from my lowest weight. I knew I needed to change, but I kept telling myself I was playing the long game. No rush. I'd slowly lose the weight.

Except I didn't. Year after year the same thing. My small "changes" didn't actually change anything.

Phase 1: Just Eat Less (January - June 2025)

At the start of 2025, I weighed 199 lbs and I decided I was done making excuses. My approach was simple: eat less. No calorie counting. No special diet. Just cut the snacking, eat smaller portions, and stop eating desserts during the week.

The first few weeks were rough. I was hungry a lot. I remember going to bed some nights genuinely starving, my head and stomach screaming for food. But I also started to notice things. By mid-January, I went for a run and for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel my stomach shaking while I ran. That was a small but meaningful win.

The weight started coming off fast. About 1-2 lbs per week. My eating habits were so bad that even modest improvements had a big impact. By March, I was at 184 and the jeans I just bought were already getting loose. By the end of April, I was in the 170s.

I developed some mantras during this time. My goal is bigger than today's desire became my go-to when I was walking by the MK. Being overweight was the result of hundreds of small bad decisions. Every time I had a new decision, like if I should try that new dessert at lunch, I had to remind myself I had already followed those urges in the past and I wasn't happy with the results.

One of the harder lessons was Saturdays. All week I'd be disciplined, and then Saturday would come and I'd treat it like a reward. Three Oreos, a chocolate cookie, ice cream, and a big meal. I'd wake up Sunday morning having reset the entire week's progress. I eventually reframed it: Saturday isn't a cheat day. It's my chance to practice maintenance mode.

By early May, I was at 174. Twenty-five pounds lost in four months. I felt my goal weight was around the corner.

Phase 2: The Plateau (July - November 2025)

And then everything stalled.

For the next six months, I bounced between 170 and 176. I'd get down to 172, have a work dinner, potluck, or a vacation, and pop back up to 175. The same mental tricks that got me through Phase 1 weren't enough anymore. What got me here wasn't going to get me to my goal weight (pre-Google weight).

The frustration was real. In July, I went on a 9-day family trip and gained 8 pounds. It took weeks to undo that. In October, I wrote in my journal: I am frustrated with myself that I'm not losing weight. I see some new pastry at work and I grab it. I eat everything on my plate even though my body doesn't need it.

I'd slip into making justifications like "I've been pretty good lately," for eating something I shouldn't. But "pretty good" wasn't getting results. Social situations were especially hard. I had a hard time saying no. But those extra bites added up.

I tried adjusting my targets. I tried being more aggressive on weekdays. I tried different meal strategies. I stopped being strict and starting eating snacks and desserts with the goal of just eating smaller meals. Nothing seemed to break through the plateau. Looking back, I was doing the same thing I had done in previous years and expecting different results.

Phase 3: Counting Calories (December 2025 - Present)

Around December, it finally dawned on me that I needed to change my approach entirely. I started to actually tracking my food. Nothing fancy -- I'd take a picture of my meal, describe it to an AI, and have it estimate the calorie count. Where I had recipes or packaging, I'd use those numbers instead. I wasn't pulling out a scale for everything trying to get it 100% accurate. It was enough.

It was like seeing the Matrix.

I had been eating foods I thought were reasonable and they were way more caloric than I realized. A muffin at work? An extra 400 calories. That's as many calories as I was budgeting for my entire breakfast and I was eatting that muffin in addition to my normal breakfast (I would tell myself that if I didn't snack that day I'd have the extra budget). I started understanding why certain weeks I hadn't lost anything even though I felt like I was being careful.

The biggest shift was getting comfortable leaving food on my plate. That goes against years of conditioning. When I budgted ~560 calories per meal and realized that the pre-plated food I got at work was closer to 800 calories, I had to adjust my portion size. It felt wasteful at first. It is starting to feel normal now.

I also realized that when a snack at work could be 110 or 150 calories, that snack represents 20-25% of an entire meal. When I thought about it that way, the answer was almost always no.

The results were immediate. December through January, the weight dropped consistently. I hit 170 right before Christmas, and kept going. By early February, I hit my 2025 goal weight of 163 lbs.

What I Learned

After 13 months and 35 pounds, a few things stand out:

Every food decision matters. You are either gaining weight or losing weight. There is no neutral. This sounds exhausting, and it is at first. But it becomes eaier over time.

What works early on will stop working later. Phase 1 habits got me from 199 to 174. But they wouldn't work for the last 10 lbs. I had to adapt. If you plateau, don't do more of the same. Try something different. And realize that you are in a plateau within 2-3 weeks, not months like me.

Hunger is temporary and informative. I had to get comfortable with being a little hungry between meals. Not starving, not lightheaded, just a little hungry. That feeling means your body is dipping into its reserves, which is the whole point. You adjust to the new normal.

Your identity matters more than your willpower. At some point I stopped thinking of myself as someone who is trying to eat less and started thinking of myself as someone who doesn't eat that much. I'm someone who feeds their body well. That shift made the daily decisions easier (not perfect, but better).

Progress doesn't have to be perfect. I had vacation setbacks, holiday binges, and weeks where I went in the wrong direction. The overall trend still went down. Just try not to have a single day undo a week's worth of work. Everything in moderation.

What's Next

I'm still learning. I'll probably start tracking macros soon as that's the next level for improving body composition and enabling increased focus. But hitting my new goal weight is only the beginning of the next stage: maintenance.

In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years. Source

I have a lifetime of habits I'm still rewiring. My goal is to make this new identity stick.