Two Lifelong Dreams, One Deadline

The Iron Man suit I am building doesn't fit me.

That's not because I measured wrong. It's because I measured on purpose for the body I want, not the one I have. 36 inches at the waist. The tape measure around my actual belly says 42.

So between me and my dream, there are six inches of plastic that doesn't bend and a stomach that hasn't gotten the memo.

Today is day one of trying to close that gap. I have 120 days to lose around 35 to 40 pounds, while simultaneously 3D-printing a fully motorized, $1,500 Iron Man Mark VII. If I succeed, I get to walk around as Iron Man. If I fail, I get a $1,500 plastic statue that lives in my workshop forever, judging me.

It is, on paper, an unbelievably stupid challenge.

But I think it might be the only way either of these things actually happens.

Why I keep failing at "just lose weight"

I have been trying to lose weight since I was a teenager. I have tried every flavor of "this time it's different". Keto, intermittent fasting, calorie tracking, group fitness, hiring a coach, copying my fittest friends, raw motivation, hating the way I look in photos, hating the way I feel in jeans, hating the way I feel period.

Some of it worked for a while. None of it stuck. I would drop weight, lose muscle, gain everything back, and tell myself the next attempt would be different. It never was.

Looking back, the missing piece was never motivation. It was always accountability.

Motivation is a feeling. Feelings come and go. Some mornings I wake up feeling like a hero. Other mornings I wake up feeling like an unloaded dishwasher. If my plan depends on me feeling motivated tomorrow at 6 AM, my plan is already broken.

Accountability is different. Accountability is something outside of me that doesn't care how I feel. It's the friend who knows we agreed to meet at the gym. It's the deadline that was already announced to the whole school. It's the suit that won't fit if the belly doesn't shrink.

That last one is new for me. And I think that is why this might actually work.

Why I am tying it to the suit

I have wanted to build an Iron Man suit since I was a kid. Specifically the Mark VII from the first Avengers (yes, I am that kind of nerd). For years I told myself I would build one "when I had the time". Time, as it turns out, was also never the issue.

The issue was that I did not actually believe I would wear it. Even if I built it. Even if it was beautiful. I knew, somewhere in the back of my brain, that I would never put on a tight suit and walk out of my workshop looking proud. So why bother?

This challenge inverts that. If the suit gets built and I don't lose the weight, I have a plastic monument to a thing I quit on. Permanent. Six feet tall. Bright red. Sitting in my workshop.

That is a much scarier outcome than not building a suit at all.

So I am paying $170 to Walsh3D for the print files, ordering filament by the kilo, and starting to print today. The suit takes around 120 days of nonstop 3D printing on my one and only Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus. I will be running it almost 24/7 for the entire challenge. If I lose interest in the diet, the printer keeps going anyway. The plastic accumulates. The deadline still comes.

Two lifelong dreams. One deadline. They will both happen, or neither will.

The actual plan

Here is what the next 120 days look like for the body half:

• Starting weight: 91 kg, or about 200 lbs (I'm 183 cm / 6 feet, for context)
• Target: around 72 kg, or 159 lbs
• That is roughly 1 kg per week, or 2 lbs per week. Aggressive but not insane.
• Weekly weigh-ins, not daily. My brain does not need that.
• Monthly measurements: shoulders, arms, chest, belly, hips, legs, calves
• 1,750 calories per day, tracked in LoseIt
• 10,000 steps per day, minimum
• Full body training three times per week, programmed around a bad hip
• 5g creatine every morning, which I will continue to choke on because I am too proud to dry-scoop and too weak to drink black coffee

That's it. There is no secret. There is no protocol. There is consistency, public accountability, and a piece of solid plastic that will not bend for me.

For the suit half:

• Walsh3D Mark VII model, scaled to my goal body, not my current one
• 18 servos planned, so it actually moves
• Print, sand, paint, wire, repeat
• Posted weekly on YouTube, including the parts that go wrong (and they will)

The honest part

I am not disappearing into a cave for four months. I still consult full time for US companies. I still run Devmystify. I am still a dad to a five year old who would very much like me to please come downstairs and watch Paw Patrol with him.

So this challenge is happening in the cracks. Mornings before the household wakes up. Lunch breaks. The hours after my son goes to bed. The 3D printer running while I work. The dumbbells in the corner of the office. The treadmill at 2 AM when the print needs babysitting anyway.

I do not know if I can pull this off. I genuinely don't. The math works on paper, but four months of clean execution on three fronts (work, weight, suit) while staying a present parent is going to break me at least once.

That's fine. The videos are going to capture that part too.

Where you come in

If you want to follow along, that is the entire ask. The channel is the documentation. This blog is the longer, slower version (the part you are reading right now). The newsletter is for the behind-the-scenes things I am too embarrassed to put in the videos.

If a stranger on the internet pays attention, I don't get to quietly quit. That's the whole mechanism.

So. Today is day one. 120 days. 35 to 40 pounds. One $1,500 plastic statue waiting to be either a suit or a monument.

Two lifelong dreams, one deadline.

Let's go.