I hit goal today after 27 months

257_Lag

Still no pictures of me (maybe soon) but as a data freak I thought I would share some charts since I am a daily weigher. Wake, pee, weigh, record.

GOAL!!!



In January 2013 I went on a warm weather vacation. I had trouble picking out clothes to pack that fit and I was uncomfortable the whole trip in what I was wearing. In the airport on the way home I googled "Best weight Loss App" and the rest is history.

6'1" 47 year old male. I started eating 2350 when I weighed 257 and eating 1925 now @ 200 lbs and still losing slowly. The margin really is that tight, the key is time. I probably could have lost it faster but I was ok with this time frame.

It was easy right? Just look. Down, down, down...



Not really, there were plenty of problems on the way! Like this short stall. Yup, two months can be a SHORT stall in the big picture:



And this much longer stall. Actually gained a few over 4 months:



In hindsight my stalls were all due to getting careless. I weighed and measured everything at the start but eventually you can eyeball stuff pretty accurately. Over time 3oz of meat the size of my palm became 6 oz of meat the size of my hand but still logged as 3.

I saw some interesting things along the way. I had many instances of baby stalls when I changed exercise routines like here when I started lifting:



And LOTS and LOTS of spikes!!! Often you don't know why you have a spike but sometimes you do know. This was my highest daily spike ever, 6 pounds in one day but my god that sodium laden Easter ham was yummy! (also note the 6 days in a row that I weighed the EXACT same, that happens too)



After a spike, don't freak out. Drink plenty of water and be patient. This is the two months after that spike. Note the other spikes along the way! Life happens, forgive yourself and move on:



My exercise has been very sporadic the whole time. I work a lot and can go a week with no exercise and then work out 5 days straight. I am going to guess it was 90% diet and 10% exercise. I have eaten all of my exercise calories except when I was trying to break a stall and then I went to half for awhile. I will admit that there were many times I exercised just so I could eat more My go to exercise was walking, both treadmill and outside. Also some biking, lifting, DVD's (hate you Jillian) and recently indoor rowing.

My single best piece of advice is to log EVERYTHING, good or bad. If you eat a whole pizza so be it but OWN it. It's easy to have a bad day and part way through say "Screw it. I'm already over for the day so I am not going to log again until tomorrow." Resist that urge.

In the beginning I cut out a LOT of food entirely. I made the same mistake that many do and cut out fat entirely. If I eat fat I'll be fat right? Wrong. Cutting out all fat is a great way to tighten up, your bowels that is

Over time I added most foods back in but in moderation but I will admit there are certain foods and I just can't have around or can't eat in moderation. I still no not want 4 chicken wings, I want 20! The same with milk. I love milk but I want a big glass, not 8 oz! I switched to almond milk just so I can have larger quantities fir the same calories.

So now what? Now that I reached the goal that I pulled out of thin air when I really didn't think losing weight was even possible I guess I will set a new goal closer to a healthy body weight. Probably 180-185. I do not think I will have to log my whole life but I do intend to weigh myself daily forever. Not weighing for extended periods of time is what got me in trouble in the first place.

Good luck people, you CAN do this!

ewhip17

Outstanding work - congratulations. And I love your tracking and attitude.

wannaloseit77

Wow, huge congratulations!! I love your post (and the graphs too - another data freak here)! Well done!!

bfmummy

This is an amazingly helpful post! Thanks and well done on getting to goal!

SeriouslySta

Fantastic post - and congratulations!

crazyjerseygirl

Oh my! You can talk nerdy to us anytime!

Marlene1667

THANK YOU SO MUCH! Wow, what great information and advice. I could relate to everything you said. I get so discouraged sometimes and seeing your very REAL story has helped me enormously. Sometimes you see success stories where people lose 100lbs in a ridiculously short amount of time by just not drinking pop and not eating fast food 7 days a week . I am happy for them but at the same time I think - there has got to be something wrong with me. Congratulations on your success! Looking forward to your pictures :-)

Emilia777

Wooow, good for you, and congrats on your amazing results! I love your approach and attitude, and I’m a huge fan of data, so

Funny you should mention spikes, because just last week I gained 5lbs of pure bloat in 2 days (I had cake, so much cake, and takeout). My instinct was to panic, but then I thought: hey, lots of people on MFP say they see big spikes like this too, and I can’t have eaten 17,500 extra calories, no matter how inaccurate my tracking might’ve been. In other words, keeping it real helps keep everyone else on track! So thanks so much for your data, info, and encouragement.

greaseswabber

Excellent post. Congratulations on your achievement. It's great to see someone achieve their goal in almost exactly the same way I am doing it (daily weigh-in, track on Libra, deficit mostly from diet).

tesha_chandler

Where did you find the graph that you used? I want to use it! lol I love your idea of weighing. Wake, pee, record! lol

qn4bx9pzg8aifd

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

This is one of the most information-filled, and important, posts I've ever seen, on all of MFP...

And thank you for being a "data freak" (your words! ) -- and for including so much explanatory context and specifics in your post. I have no doubt that this data-laden 'walk-through' the timeline associated with your weight loss, and your pointing out several spikes and stalls that occurred 'along the way' -- and providing context for each -- will help MANY people.


If I had learned of your story 'in person', I'd launch into hugging you right about now (to convey the so-happy-for-you delight that is currently keeping a smile on my face)...


This is so terrific, and SO important... and so *real*... and relateable... and understandable... (and my goodness, those fantastic graphs you so diligently provided data for!) -- all of this is so *powerful*...!

THANK YOU for being who you are, and for 'swimming in' that data, and for putting your story 'out there', for others to see (and undoubtedly be encouraged by, relieved by, inspired by, and most important of all -- informed by)...! WAY TO GO!

257_Lag

Emilia777 wrote: »

Wooow, good for you, and congrats on your amazing results! I love your approach and attitude, and I’m a huge fan of data, so

Funny you should mention spikes, because just last week I gained 5lbs of pure bloat in 2 days (I had cake, so much cake, and takeout). My instinct was to panic, but then I thought: hey, lots of people on MFP say they see big spikes like this too, and I can’t have eaten 17,500 extra calories, no matter how inaccurate my tracking might’ve been. In other words, keeping it real helps keep everyone else on track! So thanks so much for your data, info, and encouragement.

Those spikes are why I am a huge fan of daily weighing and learning about the fluctuations rather than letting them upset you. What if your weekly or monthly weigh in is on a spike day?

Let's say I weighed once a month on the 5th because 5 is my lucky number. Crap! I've been good all month and didn't lose ANYTHING right? I may have even GAINED a little!!! How upsetting would that be?

gothchiq

That's awesome! Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

charmmeth

257_Lag wrote: »

Those spikes are why I am a huge fan of daily weighing and learning about the fluctuations rather than letting them upset you. What if your weekly or monthly weigh in is on a spike day?

Let's say I weighed once a month on the 5th because 5 is my lucky number. Crap! I've been good all month and didn't lose ANYTHING right? I may have even GAINED a little!!! How upsetting would that be?

It is so inspiring to see your chart, and I totally agree about the spikes. I weigh and record in most days (except when I am travelling) but I also look at gain/loss on the 1st of each month. On 1 March I was in the middle of one of those spikey/weight up times; on 1 April I was lower than I had ever been. It looked like I lost 4.3kg in March and only 0.8 in February and 0.6 in April, but the daily graph tells a rather different story.

qn4bx9pzg8aifd

And to add yet another helpful chart-with-explanatory-comments!

257_Lag, you are a gift(-to-the-MFP-community) that just keeps on giving!

THANK YOU!!!

culberjo65

Wow do I love this post! Thanks for sharing your data. It's very informative and encouraging.

257_Lag

tesha_chandler wrote: »

Where did you find the graph that you used? I want to use it! lol I love your idea of weighing. Wake, pee, record! lol

It's a free Android app called Libra but there are many out there like it. You can even use Excel if you don't need anything snazzy

257_Lag

I matched my all time high spike of 6 pounds yesterday! I got into a late night fight with a tub of Costco Spinach Dip Saturday night and lost. That stuff is like crack for me. The calories aren't so bad but the sodium! Puffy fingers and face the next morning. I went ultra low sodium yesterday and pounded the water to get 4 of them back off by this morning. The rest will be gone tomorrow.

BigLifter10

Very nice! Congrats!! Nice way to view your tracking too!

magairlin

Congratulations and thank you for sharing your insight. I think this is the first time I have ever seen advice to weigh every day. It seems like good advice to me. Best of luck.

subversive99

As a fellow data nerd, all I can say is awesome awesome awesome. Your story lets me know I'm on the right track, thank you.

ChristineE63

So awesome, thanks for sharing.

YolliB2014

Congratulations!!! Thank you so much for sharing your journey, the charts are quite amazing. It does put the entire journey into perspective and why we shouldn't get so caught up in the day to day and stall out because of a single bad day. Thank you!!!

ladieofthebees

This is awesome! It's really cool to see someone else who is as much of a data freak as I am! My husband thinks I'm a bit nuts for weighting/logging every day and tells me I'll just "depress" myself, but I actually find it quite fascinating to watch how weight goes up and down - and educational. Now that I weigh every day, the fluctuations actually don't upset me. I'd rather weigh all week and watch a trend than weigh once a week or weigh twice a week and hope THAT happens to be the day my body wants to cooperate. Totally feel you on the sodium spikes - I "gained" 4lbs last Thursday after going out for a big steak dinner the night before...

I record everything in Excel (control freak, I like to record EVERY single metric I can, and I also use it to chart predictions) but I will have to check out this neat little app you use

Well done on your weight loss!!

losergood2011

Awesome! I have found weighing in more frequently very informative (spikes) and it explained why certain days were really bad for sure. now I find weighing in more 'interesting' and less stressful. thanks for giving us hope that if we stick with it we will succeed!

gracie11lexi13

Way to go. I wish I could tag people to these because I weigh daily as well and it drives my mom nuts. She thinks people should weigh once or twice a week. I like to weigh daily so if i have a slight gain then I can work harder the next day to get rid of that little weight that was gained or I have noticed trends in what I ate (in moderation at that) and gaining the next morning.

keithcw_the_first

Great thread. I'm a big proponent of daily weigh-ins and trendlines.

fr3smyl

Emilia777 wrote: »

Wooow, good for you, and congrats on your amazing results! I love your approach and attitude, and I’m a huge fan of data, so

Funny you should mention spikes, because just last week I gained 5lbs of pure bloat in 2 days (I had cake, so much cake, and takeout). My instinct was to panic, but then I thought: hey, lots of people on MFP say they see big spikes like this too, and I can’t have eaten 17,500 extra calories, no matter how inaccurate my tracking might’ve been. In other words, keeping it real helps keep everyone else on track! So thanks so much for your data, info, and encouragement.

This has been helpful to me as well.

LilannB

Congratulations on reaching goal. I enjoyed reading this post because I'm a slow loser too. But I've been making slow but steady progress since I started in Jan 2014.

taco_inspector

Amazing data @257_Lag ; second only to the real accomplishment here. All great work, and thank you for so complete and inspirational of a posting. I plan to return and re-read your success as I continue on my significantly less documented journey.

Well done!

believeinme0430

Thanks for sharing your story! You have done an amazing job!