Sharing some success

VanishingMan

What a great collection of inspirational stories here! Motivation to the max.

In September of 2013, on my sons 19th birthday, I looked in the mirror and asked myself..."how much longer are you going to go on looking like this?"

I decided that his birthday was as good a place as any to start dieting and losing weight. I am 57 years old and 5' 10" tall. I weighed 227 lbs and my doctor had been hounding me for several years to lose some weight.

I asked some friends for a doable diet. I didn't want some thing that would cause me to drop a lot of weight but not be reasonable for me to keep going after the weight was gone. I got a load of conflicting advice, and some whacky suggestions.

I cut out all sodas, and eliminated fast foods first thing. A month in I had lost 10 pounds. But I still needed a plan. One of my online friends recommended this place to me and I checked it out. I'm so glad I did.

My Fitness Plan gave me a workable plan that allowed me to enter the foods I was eating and see the calories adding up. But more importantly it allowed me to plan a days meals and take some snacks into consideration. The most useful thing to me was the huge food database. I could pick up some off-brand Himalayan Snapper-Cod fried in duck oils from the Dollar General store and the stuff would be in the database!

So here we are three months (14 weeks actually) later and I am down 30 pounds.My clothes no longer fit me, and I am not going to buy new ones just yet because I have 20 more pounds to lose.The staff here at work comment everyday. In fact, at the last staff meeting I had to speak and as I was walking to the front of the room someone yelled "You look fantastic!" and the entire staff gave me a round of applause. THAT felt great!

I know that I don't really look fantastic....yet! But I do look way better than I used to. And I feel better as well. My wife is very supportive and the kids are helping me out as well.

I honestly feel that the program here was/is a primary reason for my success. I could not have done this without checking in everyday and logging my food.

Thank you MFP. Here's to the New Year and another 20 pounds gone!

Livin4me1969

:drinker: Congratulations on the loss!! MFP has been a life saver for a lot of us. I do not think I would be where I am at this point either without using it. It does make the weight loss so much easier to track but you still had to put in the work so GREAT JOB!

MissySpring

Congratulations on your new healthy lifestyle! That round of applause at work must've just made your month. Weight loss can be a touchy subject for others to acknowledge...what a great support network.

dgbrash2

A couple of friends also suggested to me to try this site. I'm 52, and wanted to get my weight down to 170. I'm there now, mainaining each day. I'm not as tedious about cataloggin my foods, but am abouting getting on the scales. When I see the scales start to inch up, I cut back on what/how much I eat. For a point of reference, my heaviest was 193, but when I started MFP, I have already worked my way down to 182, just by cutting down on portion sizes.

leslisa

How wonderful for you that you are down so much. Congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. :drinker:

bbubb1

That was an awesome testament!!! I too absolutely love this program. I wish I would of found this before!! I have lost and gained so many times in the past. I wish you the best of success in you journey!!!
Barb