I just finished up the 12 Week BodyBuilding.com Transformation Contest, but I'm sad to say I didn't reach my ultimate goal of being about 6% bodyfat and very trim (<200 lbs).  I made some great progress, but plan on giving it another month or more to try and get another 10-15 lbs off, hopefully most of it being fat.

I overestimated my metabolism to start off the contest and was eating too many calories so I didn't lose weight like I wish I had.  Eventually I cut my calories and carbs down while adding some cardio (but not too much) where I was finally seeing some consistent weight loss.

All my meals were kept clean except for scheduled cheat days/meals.  I would usually rotate my carbs from day to day, for example, going 300g > 100g > 100g > 100g > High carbs or something along those lines, as long as it fit my overall calories.  I did this to help with food cravings and energy levels for training and to hopefully spike my metabolism a little bit.

I also incorporated a fat burner about a month in to help keep my already slow metabolism elevated best I could.  Other supplements I took were whey/casein protein, BCAAs, and a preworkout supplement (SuperPump MAX).

I weight trained about 4x/week - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fridays and then did cardio on the other days.  As the weeks went on, I incorporated high intensity sprints after my weight training to get added cardio in.

When I started the transformation, I was over 220 and now I'm under 210, so that's great progress and my clothes are a lot bigger on me.  As I mentioned earlier, I plan on continuing for another month hopefully getting those last 10-15 lbs of fat off me so I can be leaner and this time I plan on having more control instead of ballooning up while I try to add muscle!

A darker tan and better lighting certainly would have helped my AFTER pictures a bit better too, but maybe I'll get some professional shots when I lose more weight.