Goal Reached! 135 lbs down--please be encouraged if you have 100+ to lose!

Lizbethweat31

That is truly inspiring for us just starting a journey. I felt alone before joining MFP. would live to see how ppl lose the weight. When u first start out you feel completely clueless. You wonder am doing this right even have kids it with me. guess everyone different there no manual but stories like these make me wanna change better

pdmccone

Congrats on the weight loss, you look great!

KelGen02

Fantastic transformation... You look so healthy and happy! What does your normal day look like, I am always so curious to hear how people are successful at their weight loss. I am down 65lbs and still have 30lbs to go and I know that it seems to be getting harder the closer I am getting to goal.... Such a great inspiration you are!!!

jwcanfield

I'm the same height as you but when I looked at the BMI chart I thought 165 was no longer technically overweight. Like you, my wrist measurements (plus very long arms and broad shoulders) classify me as large frame. What amazes me about your loss (and I'm talking the skin issue here!) is that I don't see ANY on your upper arms. That's my problem area - and sure makes summer and dress-up clothes difficult to find. Did you do anything special for that, or was it just hauling the animals around as I saw in one of your photos?!

ldtamika31

Awesome job

vickiessecret

Congratulations! You look amazing! I'm 5 months into my journey, started over 300lbs, ive lost 39lbs since Jan 10th, not giving up, I will get there eventually

JulieSHelms

jwcanfield wrote: »

I'm the same height as you but when I looked at the BMI chart I thought 165 was no longer technically overweight. Like you, my wrist measurements (plus very long arms and broad shoulders) classify me as large frame. What amazes me about your loss (and I'm talking the skin issue here!) is that I don't see ANY on your upper arms. That's my problem area - and sure makes summer and dress-up clothes difficult to find. Did you do anything special for that, or was it just hauling the animals around as I saw in one of your photos?!

The standard BMI calculator puts the max normal weight for 5'8" at 164 (range=122-164). If you use the newer Smart BMI Calculator, it is considerably more generous and the max number for normal is in the 170s.

I do have some loose skin on my arms, but it isn't bad. There is absolutely no subcutaneous fat on my arms (unlike tummy and thighs) so the loose skin is really thin. The answer for me was resistance training (weight lifting). Do you do that at all?

And btw, I don't make a habit of hauling around my sheep (most of them are over 200 lbs)! But this was a special photo op because of a grand champion win.

JulieSHelms

vickiessecret wrote: »

... I'm 5 months into my journey, started over 300lbs, ive lost 39lbs since Jan 10th, not giving up, I will get there eventually

That is fantastic and you are moving at a great pace! One piece of advice I have that worked for me, is to make mini-goals. The overall big number can just be discouraging some days. I used ten pound goals, which came with rewards. And I treasured them each time I earned them. And unlike the final goal, they were never too far away to imagine.

JulieSHelms

KelGen02 wrote: »

...What does your normal day look like, I am always so curious to hear how people are successful at their weight loss. I am down 65lbs and still have 30lbs to go and I know that it seems to be getting harder the closer I am getting to goal.... Such a great inspiration you are!!!

I'm not a "clean" eater like many on MFP are, but I did try to make decent choices most of the time. A common day, at 1200 calories (plus 1/2 exercise cals.) would be Breakfast: 2 eggs (from my chickens of course ) and a piece of toast and cup of milk. Lunch would be half a ham sandwich. Dinner, maybe a salad with chicken on it and low fat dressing. Fruit or raw veggies during the day for snacks.

Then the thing I dreamed about every day....my one serving of Hershey kisses. That's 9 kisses for 190 calories. Every morning I would count out the 9 kisses and put them in a small bowl on the kitchen counter. Everyone else in the house was forbidden from touching them. I could eat them whenever I wanted, but I tried to save them as a treat for the end of the day. At more than 15% of my daily caloric intake, it may seem like a foolish choice, but it wasn't because it made me successful in the long run. That is my life as a chocoholic! I don't know why this changed but over the last few months--those 9 kisses might sit there for a few days now--how weird is that!?!

And finally, I go to the gym 6 days per week for 45 minutes (cardio and weights), and Zumba class once a week.

Keep up your good work-- you are past 2/3 of the way to your goal. Let that thought give you momentum to charge to the end!

JulieSHelms

Lizbethweat31 wrote: »

That is truly inspiring for us just starting a journey. I felt alone before joining MFP. would live to see how ppl lose the weight. When u first start out you feel completely clueless. You wonder am doing this right even have kids it with me. guess everyone different there no manual but stories like these make me wanna change better

I totally agree with you. When I got here to MFP, I asked a lot of questions. And people very generously answered! For me my questions weren't so much about diet, but the exercise part. I had never exercised regularly, never even been in a gym before. I was literally terrified of going to a place with buff body builders who I thought would take one look at my older, fatter, female body and laugh. But I was determined to do this, so after I joined the local gym (on the day of my 50th birthday!) I came to the people here on the forums for advice on how to proceed. Then I took those recommendations and talked with the trainer at the gym, and we came up with a plan for me to follow. So the people here made me feel not so ignorant when I went to talk to him that first time. Now the employees joke with me that I should be their poster child for a successful client! And those buff body builders? They turned out to be all fine people.

klaramarina

Super inspiring, how proud you must be of yourself. What I notice the most is your beautiful smile that you have in all your pictures, that spirit is priceless.
Have a good one

Sunshine_And_Sand

Way to go! You look great!

2011rocket3touring

Wow! Amazing!

lexiehtown

You look amazing! Go you!!

hperkins17

Wow! This is so encouraging! A year ago I was diagnosed with PCOS at 27, which explained why it took 2 months to lose 10 lbs but 4 days to gain it all back! I'm just restarting my weight loss journey to lose 100 lbs! I'm starting small though with 5 lbs, and I'm carb counting instead of calorie counting and seeing how it goes!

rheddmobile

You look so beautiful! Great job! Pcos is a bear.

mtcampbell1

Thank you so much for your sharing your story. It's very brave of you to do that.

JulieSHelms

rheddmobile wrote: »

Pcos is a bear.

I think in the final analysis, PCOS makes gaining weight very easy, but I don't think losing is that much different than anyone else's effort. It's really just calories in calories out. I imagine gaining it back would be really easy, too--but I hope to never give up the fight on that.

cndkendrick

You have such a radiating smile! WTG on the weight loss!

oysuzanna

You've really made my day. You are an inspiration to me. Thank you so much for sharing.

davengloria1

Awesome. Thanks so.much for sharing.

nowine4me

Your legs are fabulous!

MizMimi111

Such an inspiring post! Thank you for sharing your weight loss success.

Stormie956

Looking good!

hoffman2300

wow! totally inspirational. I'm also 50 and (re)starting my journey - thanks for telling your story!

gg2007

Thank you for sharing! so inspiring!!!

AZnewme

I needed this today! I'm 55 and about 80 pounds overweight. I have lost before but yo-yo'd and I just don't want to be "this" anymore. Thank you for.posting!

2annabelle64

You look FABULOUS! Well done...lots of hard work and very inspirational. You look so young too! Beautiful! !

lynder64

Thank you for my afternoon cup of inspiration!!! :-) Such a wonderful achievement, you look fantastic!!!

JulieSHelms

Thanks to everyone for your encouraging words. I wanted to post an update (I recently put this in the NSV thread, but thought I should put it here, too, with the rest of my story). One of the things a number of people here on MFP told me was to combat insulin resistance by lifting heavy. I took that advice to heart. I joined Planet Fitness one year ago. I had never worked out before at all. A friend snapped this shot of me, and I was actually surprised--there had been a change! My soft doughy back and arms have some definition now. :-)

One of the issues with losing 135+ lbs is extra skin--you can see it above my bra line and under my arms (bat wings) but I really believe the exercise has made it a lot better than it could have been. So if you are looking to lose a lot of weight--I totally recommend exercising (cardio AND weights) to help with excess skin.