I always came to this forum to find inspiration and motivation. Now I'm giving back. Pics inside.

MonicaBenavidez

YAY! You look fabulous- good job!

losingles

Yay for you! Congrats and thanks for motivating me!

Abberration

I needed this! I joined MFP because I've been struggling with accountability and have plateaued at 167 for almost a month.

You look amazing!

Liftng4Lis

Fantastic job! WTG!

tnmomof3boys

Good Job!!!

briannadunn

Your an inspiration!!!!

mimiteh35

Great work!

jamaicanlady

Great job!

chesnity3

Great job!

phyllb

Thanks for sharing. GREAT job. Happy new year

christhenix

Amazing. Well done.

timsgirl44

Thanks for sharing your story and pics! What a fabulous job you've done! Funny you said that about the pics.. I've lost about 15 lbs and have 33 more to go. I haven't taken any pics yet (I am not a 'selfie' kinda girl) and I know that I need to.

hyg99

Brilliant. Well done x

mrsKOrtiz

You look so awesome. I am actually 5'4.5 lol, and I am currently 223, I started at 231. So its nice to see your success story as I hope to get down to 140. Great job!!

mg_adina

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

Jeaniehop

Congrats you look great!

ojay85

jessieleah wrote: »

I'm 25 and 5'5". I went from ~230 at my heaviest and I'm currently hovering around 144 lbs. I've been at it for a year and 3 months now. I'd still like to lose another 15 lbs and get more muscle definition, but I'm very pleased with how far I've come!

I went from a size 20/22 pant to a 6/8. I used to wear XL/XXL shirts, now I fit in S/M (I even bought an XS reebok jacket the other day?!?!?). Went from a 38C (I was prooobably a band size 40, but I refused to admit it) to a 34B. I wish I'd taken measurements of my body at the beginning, but unfortunately I didn't!

I started sometime around September of 2012 by cutting out my "problem foods" which were fast food, regular soda (I still drink diet soda to this day) and chips. I started logging everything I ate, regardless of what it was. I slowly transitioned to healthier foods. I ate 1350 calories a day to start. When I got down to about 170 I upped my calories to 1500 per day. I also started doing p90x 5 times a week 6 months ago. I couldn't even do one push up when I started, now I can do close to 20. I couldn't even run a quarter (probably not even an eighth) of a mile a year ago, now I've finished a 5k in 36 minutes.

This has been a long road. It wasn't easy at first. It's still not easy. Eating healthier foods has become a habit now, but baked goods and chocolate still tempt me. I don't follow any strict diet, I eat whatever I want but I pay attention to my macros a bit more now. I love bread too much to go low carb or whatever haha!

I've suffered plenty of plateaus and ups and downs, I've stressed out about the scale plenty of times and felt like I was making no progress. But in the end, there were results. Losing the weight is the best thing I've ever done for myself, but my new passion is getting fit and working out. This is coming from someone who, at the beginning of this year, couldn't even fathom the idea of committing to working out 5 times a week. Seriously. I thought I would never be that person.

You guys can do anything! You all inspired me and kept me going, and I hope I can do the same for you!

P.S. My one piece of advice is to take plenty of pictures. BE A NARCISSIST. It's so damn nice to have an entire library of progress photos to look back on, and it's the best way to track progress in my opinion.

God Bless You For Sharing

sizesixorbust

thanks so much for this! you carry your weight similar to me and it's great to have a good idea of my goal weight!!

Francl27

Awesome job!

Holla4mom

It's hard to believe both pictures are you. What a total transformation! Bravo.

skinnybjasse

Omg you're like a whole new person! Thank you for sharing and for motivating the rest of us to keep going, you look fabulous and if you can do it, we can do it!!

mixedbag4444

Wow! This really was inspirational... I've been falling off the wagon for the past few months, but it's posts like these that get me feeling motivated now that I've had a bit of a "break"