Losing Weight and Breaking the Weight-Regain Cycle

How I Lost 60 Pounds and Broke the Weight-Regain Cycle

On Macro Tracking, Temperance, and the Slow Work of Change

By: Dan Shell, BLOC Professional Coach, Head Administrator, PBC

Fat Chance: A Lifetime of Losing and Regaining Weight

For as long as I could remember, I have been trying to lose weight. Until recently, I have been stuck in a perpetual cycle of dieting and loss followed by rapid, undesired weight gain.

That pattern began in my youth and followed me into the Army, where I had to lose weight before every physical fitness test to meet Army body-fat standards. I was not particularly lean as a Soldier. While I lifted weights, I did not train consistently or seriously for most of my time in the Army. Worrying both about weight loss and performance brought unnecessary stress.

I also worried about how I would maintain my weight after the Army without the Army’s body-fat requirements hovering over my head. Despite hating having to meet those Army standards, I knew they were not the problem. My inability to control my body weight through healthy nutrition habits was the problem.

I now believe I have broken that cycle, though the work is not finished. The change came slowly, through a series of decisions that made weight loss a genuine priority and helped me develop the habits to sustain it. My story is about the practical and gradual work of losing more than 60 pounds, breaking the cycle of weight regain, and making a lasting change.

Never Again…Again: Why My Weight-Loss Attempts Didn’t Last

In 2018, I joined Barbell Logic as a client and took my strength training more seriously. During a novice linear progression, I allowed myself not to worry about losing weight. I took the training seriously. And, though I did not drink a gallon of milk daily, I ate lots of food, prioritized protein, and rested 12 minutes between RPE 10 squat sets. I did the program as well as I could, within the constraints of the Army. During this time, I broke through strength plateaus and surpassed my initial goals.

In 2019, I once again got leaner during a deployment to Qatar. It didn’t last, though. I gained weight after I ended my military service. During the COVID lockdown, I lost my job, I drank too much, and I ate too much. Fortunately, I continued lifting and even hit my biggest PRs in 2020, including a 565 deadlift, 330 bench press, and 210 press. I weighed 230 at my largest, which was about 50 pounds heavier than my Army weight. The strength was good, but I wasn’t happy with my health, my lifestyle, or how I felt.

I made no single decision that changed things. I had no rock bottom moment or single inflection point. For many people, those moments tend to be mirages. The disgusted look in the mirror followed by a proclamation that this time will be different may precede success, but it too often also precedes another shame-filled binge, another hazy substance-fueled DoorDash order, another secret slice of cake.

For me, through a growing realization of my failures, I made multiple decisions that moved me away from continued unwanted weight gain toward my goals.

Maybe my story can give hope to those without the clear “not one more pound” moment.

Change rarely comes cleanly. Change requires new habits and a new identity. Part of us must die. This takes time, patience, and effort.

The Turning Points in My Weight-Loss Journey

I first desired to both become and look like a nutrition coach in 2021. Gillian Ward gave a presentation and called for BLOC coaches to become nutrition coaches. Within a week, I earned my Precision Nutrition Level 1 certification and emailed her asking, “How do I become a nutrition coach?”

Gillian coached me on nutrition for a bit, and this helped. I worked on habit-based nutrition, and I got leaner. The coaching ended, however, and my weight loss stalled without Gillian.

In 2023, I worked on some videos for an Air Force coaching project. Editing those videos hurt. I was ashamed of my belly. I could not hide the results of my many decisions.

For a while, I could at least claim to be strong. While I hit my biggest lifts in 2020, I continued to deadlift 500 pounds. My body weight hovered between the 190s and 210s for a while.

After a vasectomy reversal, some shoulder injuries, and less serious training, I lost strength. I lost an excuse too.

Reorientation: How Macro Tracking Changed My Eating Habits

In 2024, I took on the vice of gluttony. Thomas Kempis in The Imitation of Christ says, “If we were to uproot only one vice each year, we should soon become perfect.” This idea finds its more modern, secular version in the concept that people overestimate how much they can change in the short term but underestimate how much they can change in the long term. We want fast progress, but long-lasting, meaningful change comes from sustainable action done consistently over a long period of time. Patience and perseverance matter.

My motivation to lose weight fell under the most important aspect of my life, and my values had changed after having entered the Catholic Church in 2023, previously having been an atheist. Because of regular spiritual practices, I took repeated actions to examine my progress and consider how I could improve.

Practically, I tried things I had not before. I tracked macros for the first time. During my nutrition call with Gillian, I told her I would not track macros. As a novice nutrition coach, I generally poo-poohed macro tracking.

That small change of tracking macros came with some practical effects. I tended to eat leaner cuts of meat. I reduced portions of calorically dense items. I measured cooking fats and oils. I ensured I got adequate protein, fiber, and fat.

I continue to track macros, but I no longer follow macro targets stringently. I focus on protein, fiber, and fat. The practice helps and, honestly, at some point I’ll need to experiment with healthy eating without macro tracking.

I sit around 165–170 pounds today, down more than 60 pounds from my high of 230. My waist is between 32.5 and 33 inches, down from more than 40.

New Habits, New Identity: Making Weight Loss Last

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What will be different about this time?” I can’t give you the answer. For me, my weight loss had to fall under my most important values. I aligned my life toward pursuing weight loss and temperance.

Before this, my actions ultimately meant, despite my protestations, that I would have liked to have lost weight but it wasn’t a priority—not really.

Reading weight loss books, listening to nutrition podcasts, feeling shame about body fat, and desiring to lose weight don’t amount to genuine prioritization. These things do not substitute for repeated action.

Extreme dieting and short-term food plans are hard, but they did not address the root causes of gluttony and sloth.

Lasting weight loss required me to abandon some habits and create others. It required me to become someone who eats, trains, and thinks differently.

My old self did not die in one dramatic moment. I have had to put him to death a little at a time—and I am not finished.

There was no single turning point. There were only small decisions, repeated often enough and long enough to turn me in a different direction.

Dan Shell is a strength & nutrition coach at Barbell Logic.