r/progresspics

PCOS is so frustrating, these photos are literally a week apart, the one on the left is due to just drinking coffee and eating some carbs it’s all bloat too… I’ve minimised my carb intake, eat mostly protein and leafy greens and it’s gone down significantly… but I miss caffeine

Diagnosed with PCOS at age 29 which helped me finally make sense of my body. Treating this and becoming more active allowed me to lose the weight within 6 months. Been maintaining and weight training ever since, with some ups and downs. Always remember fitness isn’t linear!

I can honestly say I've never been this confident in my life. At first my focus was losing as much weight as possible, I started lifting in August but ended up cutting down my lifting due to fears of gaining weight. I stuck in a low carb calorie deficit (eating very little) and ended up down to 158lbs from 189. It was miserable and I was too weak to lift. At my highest I was about 240lbs, but that was a few years back. What really drove me to want to build muscle was a desire to fill in loose skin, as it's been a major insecurity of mine.

In January I decided to really focus on building muscle and increasing strength, I conducted a little experiment and decided to bulk. Had major strength gains and minimal fat gains thanks to still being in newbie phase, and ended up putting on about 5lbs in 3 months of bulking (eating roughly 2.4k to 3k calories a day.) I gained about 3 inches on my glutes and 1.5 inches on my waist from my lowest weight. I decided to start cutting again in early March, managed to lose ~2% body fat. I stopped focusing on what the scale had to say, and now I'm at 27% BF (from 36% when I started, and 29% in January.) Waist is back down to 26 and I've retained my glutes! My strength is still steadily climbing, honestly if anyone would've told me I'd maxing out machines and thrusting/squatting over 300lbs I wouldn't have believed them. I spend roughly 8-10 hours either lifting or doing cardio/being active a week and I've never had more energy or felt this strong. I genuinely enjoy going to the gym and I'd rather die than ever cut carbs again. I've come to realize that carbs are friends, and I've had incredible results from carb cycling. I eat 80/20 whole foods and focus on a proper macro split to maintain my strength/recovery.

I've changed my body composition and shape, and I've come to realize that I don't have to let the scale dictate how I feel today. I've been sticking to a 300-500 calorie deficit and my current goal is to get to about 23% body fat while still maintaining muscle mass. I don't have a timeline but I know it'll come in time because I know now that I have the self discipline and motivation to make it happen! I can cut on about 1900 to 2300 calories a day, and love how I don't have to starve myself miserable or go to bed hungry to reach my goals.

My before is from 4 weeks in when I decided I wanted progress photos. My after is today.

I still have a long way to go, but I know this is a lifelong journey to find myself and my health again.

Over the last two years I’ve slowly but steadily lost a lot of weight and fell back in love with strength training. I’m nearly at my goal, and ready to start maintaining/continuing to build muscle, as opposed to eating in a deficit/slowly losing weight. As I transition into maintenance, I’ve decided to train for a hyrox race this fall in order to have a new goal to work towards that isn’t weight loss related. Give me all your tips for maintaining weight loss long term!

Both photos are just woke up, no flex, no pump and taken in the same bathroom. I wanted to compare apples to apples.

Always second guessing myself because I don’t see the difference when I look at myself in the mirror but when I pull up pictures from then and now… I’m like damn kid you’re doing pretty good now.

Sounds weird but I never really like saying it but shieeeet I’m pretty proud of myself at this point 😂

probably only 30-40lbs left to go 🤭 i just started a compounded semaglutide a few days ago (feel how you want about that) but this is all natural progress 🥲

It’s been quite the journey to get here. After finally escaping a DV relationship, I continued to spiral downwards for a few more years before I decided enough was enough and I needed to push myself to absolute limit. I am still 100% natural and see no need to use PEDs as I’m still making gains, albeit they have slowed down now. My last true rest day with zero workouts was December 25th, 2024. Initially I wanted to have a perfect 2025 to prove something to myself, but it rolled into 2026 and I’m going to keep going until my body tells me to stop.

Having never eaten clean my entire life, changing my diet was the hardest part of it all in the beginning. Fast food and alcohol had been my coping mechanism for the prior decade, and while I could deal with the physical pain from working out, the pain of earning that mental discipline almost made me turn back many times. I’m proud to say I cook almost all of my meals (1-2 meals a month eating out) and have had zero fast food in 2 years. And while I still enjoy 2-3 drinks a month, it’s nothing like the daily blackouts I was putting myself through. My current diet is 3800-4200 calories 325-350g protein 60-100g fat 300-400g carbs per day.

The old me on the left might have looked happy from the outside, but inside he was dealing with so much hidden pain and suffering. He built up thick walls around himself so his friends and family couldn’t see what was happening behind closed doors. The new me is still dealing with a ton of pain and suffering, but it’s a chosen and controlled pain and suffering.

To anyone feeling stuck and helpless dealing with DV, please I encourage you to reach out to your friends/family. I’m lucky that I have such a loving and supporting family, I wish I would have asked for their help sooner.

I've been struggling with my weight since I'm taking antidepressants. My mental health is well. I've been doing my best to lose some weight and gain my body back. Trying to maintain muscle mass and reduce fat mass, but it's difficult. The goal is to be between 15-20% body fat so I can start to build some muscle. WDY think?

Recovering from huge unwanted weight loss to do with my ADHD medication. I was originally around 73-74kg prior to my diagnosis and got all the way down to 64kg. I didn't realise things had gotten that bad until a friend pointed out to me that I was wasting away.

Now up at 77.3kg and I plan to keep going. Also finally started going to the gym after years of saying I would.

I've been on what I would consider to be an aggressive bulk (4,100cal/day) and a PPL/PPL gym split for a little over 9 weeks now.

This is a huge difference from the 1,200-1,500cal/day I was able to stomach beforehand.

It took me about a year to lose that weight from the medication, it was gradual and I never realised how bad it had gotten until now when I look at the before photos. Super happy with my progress so far, the gym is now a part of my day that I really look forward to.

The road to hell feels like heaven, the road to heaven feels like hell.