losing weight - from irritable to feeling good

itsbasschick

on may first of this year i started a food diary in a small spiral notebook. i cut my calories drastically without finding out how many i had been eating, and when i felt dizzy and weak, i raised them a bit, to between 1200 and 1400 a day, which worked because i'm just over 5' 3" and had over 40% body fat. i was losing weight steadily and started going on walks.

then after a couple weeks, i started feeling really irritable. i had no patience, everything pissed me off. i was just mad all the time at everything, and i read a couple other posters here who seemed to be having the same experience, so i decided it was part of the process and pushed on. i'm happy to report that after a couple weeks, the irritability had passed.

somewhere along the line, i found MFP, which makes tracking the calories a lot easier than writing the calories for each food in my notebook. MFP decided i should be eating 1200 net calories per day, so i decided to go with that, eating back at least some of my exercise calories as my walks got longer and i added resistance training.

as i lost weight (i went from 184.8 on may 1 to 166.8 as of yesterday), i stopped having hot flashes, which my doctor felt was just a part of life at my age. my blood sugar is down to approaching normal without medication (i have type 2 diabetes) and my blood pressure is also down a little. even though i'm not getting as much sleep as i'd like, i generally feel good. sure, i obsess about my workouts and counting calories, but i admit that it's like a hobby, and i enjoy it.

and last night i realized something. i feel better than i have in years

BrownEyedSister

Thanks for sharing your story. Right now I'm at that "will I ever stick with this phase?"

Great job!