60 lbs down, first goal done

issiahs · August 2017

When I first started losing weight I figured that 180 lbs would be a good number to aim for. I weighed 240 lbs and was fed up with it when I began to have health issues for the first time in my life due to my weight. My father is obese and I see how much of a struggle it is for him to do certain tasks. I never wanted to be like that, but I slowly let my weight creep up on me while in college. Eventually I had to deal with it. My step mom told me about MFP in March and I've been rolling with it ever since. I wish I knew about calorie counting a long time ago. Before reading up on the community forums I thought I had to eat 5 times a day to keep my metabolism up. Haha, glad that's not true because intermittent fasting has been a savior for me. IF keeps me in my calorie goal, so I highly recommend it. Ive also been losing weight while still going out to drink with friends once a week and going to special occassions. I just eat at maintenance on those days and take it as a well deserved break. You can totally drink alcohol and lose weight. On days I drank, I just worked out more and accepted that I would probably be at maintenance after drinking that night. I would keep my alcohol calories at 600 if I went out. This is more than enough to get a good buzz. That's my tip if you like drinking. Learning that I didn't have to feel guilty about eating "junk" food as long as I record it also helped a ton with my relationship with food. I'm just happier now in general. It's an accomplishment to lose weight and I just feel like I've proved something to myself. I still have 30 lbs to go. I'm 5'6 and male, so I barely left the obese range, but I'm never going back. Just looking forward to the next goal of 150 lbs. MFP has been a godsend and I owe many thanks to the people on this forum that are hella informative and helpful. This place can be kind of snarky, but the people all mean well and just want the right info to be put forward. I respect that a ton and because of that I didn't follow any BS diets to lose weight. Hope this place stays a reliable source of info for more new people coming on MFP.