Have you ever wondered what it would be like, and feel like, to be a guy who is in great shape?
It’s a profound and motivating thought… to connect your mind with what life might be like if you shed your extra weight and got in the best shape of your life.
Maybe you have always been overweight and have never known the joy of being in good shape… or maybe you used to be in good shape and gained weight somewhere along the way.
Either way, the question comes to mind, “how awesome would it be if I finally lost the weight!?”
I don’t know about you, but the thought of what my life could be life after reaching my fitness goals used to turn my stomach with a good feeling, and was at the core of what made me finally start eating healthy and led to me losing 80 pounds.
For men weight loss can be a completely life changing experience. Take the excitement that comes from the thought of succeeding and turn it into action, and before you know it you will be living the life you once dreamt about.
Gaining the vision of the future version of you
There are so many ways that losing weight improves the quality of life for men, both in a physical aspect as well as mental and social as well.
To go from obese to fit opens up a world of opportunities and confidence in pursuing those opportunities, whether it’s simply being able to go on a hike with friends, be an active dad and play sports with your kids, or being able to feel good about yourself when you meet an attractive woman.
Especially if you have always been big, you may be particularly interested in gaining the vision and confidence of knowing that what you are striving for is very attainable, and truly incredibly satisfying to achieve.
Hearing about just some of the amazing rewards that are around the corner is a great way to keep your energy high and your weight loss efforts on track. It gives you an avenue to visualize your future self and your ultimate goal, which will create a solid and powerful image that keeps you confident and taking action.
You may be tempted to ask one of your buddies who is in good shape, “what’s it like!?”
It’s obvious that someone who has always been in good shape would not know what it’s like to be fat, but they also may not be the best person to tell you what it’s like to be fit, even though they are.
Guys who have always been in good shape can’t really understand how amazing it is, because they always been that way, and have never experienced anything different.
Anyone of any shape or size can appreciate the change that takes place when you lose a lot of weight, but after you actually go through a significant transformation, you will have the exclusive right to really experiencing the incredible difference between living life overweight, and in shape.
Have you ever heard of Drew Manning, the weight loss blogger who gained weight and lost it again, just to better understand his clients? It’s an awesome story, a great gesture, and implies just how important it is to understand what it’s like to be fat, before helping others get thin.
I can only speak from my experience, and it’s not as though I was ever the biggest person, or that I am in anything near perfect shape today… but what I can tell you is that going from 245 pounds to 165 pounds was something that made my quality of life much better, and overall something that brought me tons of joy and confidence.
What it’s like to be a fat man
Being an overweight guy presents a few challenges in life, some more troublesome than others, but it all adds up to make being fat a very displeasing experience.
When I weighed 245 pounds, I felt the physical, mental, and social stress that it put on me, and eventually I wanted nothing more than to make a huge improvement in my health, for good.
Feeling unconfident in every situation
If you’re obese then you know how it feels to struggle finding your confidence almost everywhere you go.
You always feel like the odd man out.
Sometimes you feel outright uncomfortable about your size and appearance, but over time it just becomes a part of your normal life, and you end up lacking confidence subconsciously almost all of the time.
Very rarely do you feel completely awesome about yourself, or like you are living the life that you truly want.
Being really big can be even harder
When you are extremely overweight, your ability to do things in life becomes more limited.
The bigger you are, the more you look forward to simply living a normal life.
When I talk to people who have over 100 pounds to lose, and I ask them what it is that they look forward to the most after getting in shape, I hear lots of answers like, “ride a roller coaster,” and “be able to play outside with my kids.”
A phrase that means a lot to me and this website that I say all of the time, is “The more you have to lose, the more you stand to gain.”
If you are extremely obese, then when you transform your habits and body your entire life will transform.
Clothes don’t fit
When you are a fat guy you are often left with wearing shirts that are too big or too small. When a shirt fits right standing straight, it still doesn’t feel right, and your belly will often show when you lean or stretch.
You always have to keep pulling your pants up.
But it’s not just technical stuff, guys want to feel good in their clothes too.
Someone I spoke with who struggles with his weight told me that no matter the size, putting on his button-up shirt for work just doesn’t feel like he wants it to, it feels uncomfortable and that he wants to actually be fit/slim, have the shirt fit right, and to overall feel better about himself.
Sweating so easily
Being big means constantly being on the verge of sweating.
Any little thing can make you start, and once you start sweating it’s hard to stop.
Sweating is the last thing you need especially when you already suffer from lack of confidence, and it’s worse if you are wearing one of those nice dress shirts that show every little drop of sweat.
Another guy I talked to about what he looked forward to after losing weight, said something profound to me, and it again reflects simply just wanting to be normal, not necessarily over the top in shape. He said that he didn’t need to have a six pack, he just wanted to be able to not feel sweaty and gross.
Before I lost weight, I kept my house 5 degrees cooler, and couldn’t stand the temperature that most people preferred.
Just going up a small flight of stairs used to make me sweat, ruining the fresh feeling of my clothes that “normal” people get to feel all day.
Do people treat you differently?
It’s not a good feeling or thought, but it sometimes creeps in. “Do people treat me differently because of my size?”
You just may get your answer after you lose weight, if you come to find that all of a sudden certain people treat you better.
Women look right through you
It kind of sucks when you feel invisible because of your physical condition.
Pair this with the troublesome social trends we face today in the dating world and things look even worse for guys.
It goes both ways of course, we as humans are attracted to a fit and healthy counterpart. And as guys get fatter, our preferences for dates don’t change much, but wow do our chances to land them decrease!
Being super big is like getting friend-zoned before you even meet. Other guys don’t even see you as a threat spending time with their girl, and women don’t seem to consider you an option, making it far too easy to be, “just friends.”
Pool parties are not fun
Getting an invitation to a pool type party is exciting for lots of people, but when you are fat it feels like missing out on life even though you were invited.
You wish you could just be chill/excited about it and say, “yeah I’ll be there!”
You wish you could just be one of the guys who can take his shirt off when the situation calls for it.
Can’t keep up with your friends
Sometimes it’s your actual physical limitations that hold you back.
Have you ever been out with friends and couldn’t keep up, and you felt like you were holding everyone back, or simply had to leave early? It’s not a fun feeling.
Or sometimes you find yourself unable to even try something fun, like when your buddies go hiking and you all know that you can’t even go.
When I was big that was a bad feeling for me… knowing that if I went hiking I couldn’t go as far, to as many places, that my knees would hurt and my lungs would burn more, and that if I fell I would get hurt worse.
When I was fat I would go frisbee golfing and a few holes felt like it was too much, and I would go home early.
Everything makes you tired
Getting winded, physically exhausted, and sleepily tired, all happen too fast when you are carrying lots of extra weight.
It creeps up on you… you don’t notice every day, but sometimes it hits you and you realize how tired you get with the smallest task.
When people who have experienced weight loss success say, “I have so much energy,” do you ever wonder what it actually feels like to have lots of energy? I could never seem to connect my mind with what this actually meant until it started to happen.
It’s in everything that you do. Once you begin to lose weight you start to realize by comparison how much stress your body had been under, and how tired you had constantly been.
When you undergo a transformation and know what both sides of the coin are like, you have the advantage of actually feeling how amazing it is to be in shape.
A variety of aches and pains
The worst is when your condition starts to actually make parts of your body hurt.
One of the first things that starts to hurt is your knees, ankles and feet.
I have always had bad knees and ankles, and being heavy made standing up for prolonged periods pretty grueling for me.
The diet that led to me gaining so much weight also gave me constant stomach cramps, and heart burn as well which affected my sleep and overall made many of my days painful.
If you find yourself in a situation where normal exercises or even walking hurts, please know that everything can change, and will with consistent dedication!
Start by getting your diet under control, fill your diet with super healthy foods, and as you lose weight soon enough you’ll be in better condition and more and more exercise options will open up to you.
What it’s like to lose weight for men
The journey itself is just as exciting as reaching your goals.
As the weight you have lost adds up, the benefits you experience do as well.
You notice the first changes
The rewards for your effort and healthy decision-making come long before you reach your end goal.
The first changes that you get to enjoy actually come rather quickly as long as you are being consistent with improving your diet.
It doesn’t take long to start seeing the very first changes on the scale, and visually as you pass the mirror.
The bigger you are, the faster you will lose weight, and so the beginning of your journey will yield some pretty exciting results right away.
Everyone around you starts to notice too
Friends, family, women, people who barely know you, will take notice of the weight that’s coming off.
Before they know for certain that you’ve lost weight, it will be “just something different about you.”
But after a few weeks it will be undeniable to others that you have lost weight, and that you are beginning to look healthier.
Everywhere you go people will ask, “have you lost weight!?”
Then after a while they won’t even ask, they’ll just say, “Wow, you’ve lost weight! How did you do it?”
Your belly shrinks
Perhaps what you wanted to go away the most, starts to disappear in front of your eyes.
Your belly, likely the biggest thing on you, starts to go away faster than everything else.
Towards the end of your journey belly fat will become much more stubborn, but for major weight loss you have the opportunity to see yourself, specifically your torso, rapidly shrinking.
You’ll notice with your shirt both off and on, and begin to get an amazing feeling each day as you realize that you keep waking up in better and better shape, both physically and visually.
You walk around with less and less of a bulge, until it’s flat, just like you wanted.
No more man boobs
Yet another major thing that overweight men wish would go away are man boobs.
With consistent eating of healthy whole foods, these rapidly decrease just like your belly.
Man boobs quickly turn into pecs as your body fat decreases, and it will rapidly give you a more solid and masculine look.
Every part of you starts getting slimmer
You’ll start to notice that almost every part of your body gets thinner and tighter.
Your arms, your neck, your hands, everything.
It’s not just that things get thinner, as you remove your extra fat you begin to see the natural contours and muscles of your body.
All of a sudden you can see your arms take shape, and the lines that your bicep and forearm muscles form, and your veins start to pop a little.
Your waist shrinks along with your belly, and your torso begins to take on a V shape.
Your face transforms
One of the most profound transformations that takes place, is in your face.
As your face thins out, it’s like a whole new person is staring right back at you in the mirror.
Your jawline and entire face becomes defined, and it’s like seeing that you are the guy that you never knew you were.
So many new clothes
Getting new clothes after losing weight is a great accomplishment, and it feels awesome to have new threads that match your healthier frame.
Your clothes become baggy very quickly as you lose weight, and you are left to choose either wearing them baggy for a while longer or getting new clothes that fit better.
The more weight you have to lose, the more sizes you’ll go through so be ready to go through lots of clothes when you start a big journey.
You realize you’re going to make it the whole way
After you get to experience success and go through only a portion of your transformation, you’ll start to realize that you are going to make it the whole way.
Eating healthy will become a more natural thing for you as time passes, and rather than thinking of it as a task you’ll actually have healthy foods and meals that you look forward to.
Once you see that losing weight is entirely possible and also manageable, you’ll have absolute confidence that you won’t give up.
When you actually get to experience the rush of seeing your hard work make real improvements happen, and live the happiness of becoming/being fit, you won’t turn back.
What it’s like to be a fit guy
As you finally near reaching the shape and condition that you ultimately want it to be in, you get to reap the full benefits of all of your hard work and healthy decisions that you have made.
You feel comfortable in your clothes and your skin
One of the best things is feeling great about yourself, your physical condition inside and out, and how your image visually reflects outwards.
You wake up and see a trim/strong guy in the mirror, and you can’t believe it’s you.
Everywhere you go, you carry the pride of accomplishing your goal and the confidence of feeling great about yourself.
Clothes fit your frame just right, and lay flat over your torso/stomach.
You are even comfortable with your shirt off, which also opens up a world of opportunity and room to thrive as a man.
You don’t lose your breath or sweat so much anymore
When you are not carrying around all of the extra weight, it is so much easier to breathe, and do things easily without sweating.
Whether it’s just a quick trip up the stairs or a walk outside, you will be able to do what you want without getting exhausted.
When I was at my heaviest and unhealthiest, going up a small flight of stairs would start the unstoppable sweating, and doing yard work was a huge task for me.
Just getting my front and back lawn mowed would take all of the energy I had for the day, and I would come in for lots of breaks to rest.
After getting in good shape, now I can just get the yard work done, and still have energy to do other things in the day. And going up stairs feels like it used to when I was a little kid, where it was fun to just spring up the stairs in as few bounds as I could.
Your doctor may be thrilled
Okay so the feeling you get when someone says, “have you lost weight!?” is pretty great, but when your doctor says, “wow you’ve lost a lot of weight since your last visit,” that’s a feeling you can put in the bank, especially if the two of you had some serious conversations in the past about your weight.
There is no better reward for losing weight than gaining your actual health back, and potentially squashing any associated health risks you were carrying around before you changed yourself.
Women will notice you more
When you are in shape, you’re a whole new creature in the eyes of women.
Suddenly, there is a curious tension between you and some women you already knew, that was never there before.
It’s not just that you are more attractive to women because of your shape, but feeling better about yourself stacks on top of it and creates natural confidence, and an avenue of possibility for landing a date, being as neither of you automatically dismiss yourself.
Unstoppable!
As you reach your goal, and then continue getting stronger and staying healthy, you may begin to feel a deep feeling of motivation that outwardly extends into your fitness life, as well as into other meaningful personal goals you have.
After you see how strong you really are mentally, then you may just realize how much power you hold in pursuing any dream that you want.
From the extra energy you have and how much easier it is to do physical activities, to the knowledge that you were able to gather the ongoing willpower needed to reach your weight goal, you will feel inspired to keep improving every aspect of your life.
The world is your stage
When you shed your excess weight and reach your health goal, it’s easier to just “be” and live your life feeling normal and happy.
You feel more free to just be you and live your life as you wanted.
You become the man you wanted to be.
The world becomes a place of exciting opportunity, and you feel confident about being more social and actually doing more physical activities and being more adventurous.
After losing 80 pounds now I am free to play frisbee golf until my heart’s content, and not worry about my knees or feeling like I am going to pass out. Now I’m the one to keep up with.
When a friend invites you to go hiking, you can simply say yes, and go enjoy the outdoors.
When your kids want to play a game of baseball, you can be right there running the bases with them.
Like this article? Read more about what it’s like to lose weight for men in my article “losing weight can change a man’s life”
Want to read everything you need to know about major weight loss? Check out “The Ultimate Guide to Losing 100 Pounds”
Want today to be the day you start losing weight the healthy way? Try the 8-Week Weight Loss Challenge! It will show you exactly how to improve your diet step by step, so that you can lose weight easily, and without having to go hungry. Sign up below for your free PDF copy or read more about the course here.
