After tracking 30 months of weight loss, my erratic progress taught me important lessons you rarely hear
Between October 2022 and May 2025, I lost 28 pounds naturally. No GLP-1s, no magic pills, no surgical procedures. It was mostly about establishing good habits and sticking with them (mostly) over a long period.
But here’s a surprising truth: my weight loss chart looks nothing like the smooth downward curve most people imagine.
It’s messy. Full of plateaus. Sometimes gaining weight for weeks. Two steps forward, one step back.
Looking at my data, you can see the reality: weight loss isn’t linear. I’ve found most things in health work that way. There are ups, downs, stalls that last weeks, and sudden drops (or increases) that aren’t always predictable. Sound familiar?
Why Your Body Fights You (And It’s Not Your Fault)
The science is clear: your metabolism slows down within weeks of reducing calories. Your body literally thinks you’re starving and fights back through:
- Reduced daily calorie burn (up to 175+ calories less per day)
- Increased hunger hormones
- Water retention that masks fat loss
- The dreaded “set point” your body wants to defend
For busy executives, this gets worse. Chronic stress elevates cortisol, poor sleep (under 7 hours) increases obesity risk, and decision fatigue makes willpower unreliable.
What Actually Works When You Have Limited Time
After reviewing the research and living it myself, here’s what moved the needle:
- Reduce calories, but not drastically
Skip breakfast or lunch. Try intermittent fasting (IF). Research shows you don’t lose more weight in a “fasted” state, but IF reduces your eating window. Less decision fatigue. Perfect for packed meeting schedules. I can eat a protein bar for lunch and if I stay busy, never notice skipping lunch. - Get your metabolism going through movement
I shoot for 10–12k steps daily. Research shows 8k steps hits the longevity benefits, but more steps = more calories burned. During active weight loss periods, it rarely happens unless I’m getting my steps in. - “But walking takes too much time!”
My answer: walking meetings. At Bionic Health, we baked this into our culture. Plus walking boosts creative thinking. - Batch prep on Sundays
Studies show meal planning beats willpower every time. Cook proteins, grains, and veggies separately. Have healthy snacks ready. Makes avoiding the sugar bombs your co-workers bring much easier. - Replace fat mass with lean mass
Muscles are hungry. The more you have, the more calories go to maintaining them. Want to get serious about weight loss? Get serious about muscle. Just 20 minutes of strength training 2–3x per week makes real progress. - Avoid drinking your calories
That iced mocha or coke at lunch really adds up. Doesn’t make you fuller. Not to mention the sugar blast. First place to look when getting serious: replace calorie-rich drinks.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Success Rates
Here’s the reality check: only 20% of people maintain significant weight loss long-term. Most regain 80% within 5 years.
Here’s my annual weight going back 13 years — you can see this recent journey in context:
The encouraging part? Those who succeed share remarkably similar habits, regardless of how they lost weight initially. They move daily, have consistent diets, weigh themselves weekly, and — critically — they don’t aim for perfection.
Consistency Not Perfection
The biggest mindset shift? Missing one day doesn’t matter. Missing two consecutive days starts to matter.
Research shows it takes 66 days to form a habit, and missing one day has virtually no impact on long-term formation. This is liberating for executives with unpredictable schedules.
The key is building systems that survive your worst weeks, not optimizing for your best ones.
The occasional “off the wagon” experience on vacation is okay too. Special occasion splurges are fine. You’re going to have slip-ups. What matters: in your day-to-day life, do you have good habits?
330 days of good habits at home trump 35 days of special occasions throughout the year. This approach won’t give dramatic weight loss, but dramatic isn’t sustainable.
My Biggest Lesson
Looking at my 2.5-year journey, the plateaus weren’t setbacks — they were normal physiology. The weeks where my weight went up weren’t failures — they were part of the process.
The line isn’t straight, but the trend is clear.
Your weight loss journey won’t look like a smooth downward slope either. And that’s exactly as it should be.
After my most recent DEXA scan where I weighed in at the lowest I’ve been since college, I went out and celebrated with a Bojangles Chicken Biscuit. 😊
What’s been your experience with weight loss plateaus? Have you noticed the non-linear pattern in your own data?
