How did YOU do it???

jennpasic

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soehlerking

5'4"
SW: 170 (Feb 1, 2012)
CW: 142
GW: 125-130
Calories: 1500, but recently switched to 1200+ some exercise calories
Routine: Treadmill/elliptical for 6-8 hours/week

I hit a plateau at 148lb and stayed there for about a month. The way I finally broke out was by switching up my routine. I bought a groupon for a bunch of fitness classes at a local club, and I tried everything from spinning to zumba to an intense strength training/cardio class. That finally broke me out of my rut and got me losing again.

Now I'm incorporating 2 days of strength/circuit training into my routine; I plan to do more strength training as I get closer to my goal. I hope this helps--and good work so far!

spikefoot

Dropped calories mainly by eliminating snacks and fast food. Lost nearly 15 lbs in 5 weeks with very little exercise.

I eat about 1400 - 1600 a day.

soontobesam

Started MFP in early April of this year and was at 200lbs and I weighed in today at 172.6.

I started at 1200 calories and am currently at 1350. I started with just walking about 4 miles most days and now I am on Week 9 of C25K program.

So for me - running and paying attention to what I eat.

momto1g1b

I've lost about 20 lbs total, most before mfp, though I dropped the weight much faster once I started logging my food here. My diary is public, but to sum it up I calculated my military test body fat % on the fit2fatradio.com website, used that to calculate my BMR (on the same website) and added 200 to that number, and that is my daily calorie goal. There is a really awesome discussion on mfp that describes all of this, here is the link:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/567092--read-this-figuring-out-your-calorie-goals

I go to Zumba for an hour twice a week and 5 days a week I go for a 20 minute walk and I do a workout from bodyrock.tv (my favorite way to work out - they are short, but very intense). Every once in a while I'll do a yoga dvd too. Other than that I do my best to eat food that supports my training (my fave and most filling part of lunch or supper is usually half of a medium sized yam/sweet potato). I do eat carbs (usually whole wheat or ancient grains bread), and most nights I'll have my snack (protein shake and toast with peanut butter) around 10:30pm.

caraiselite

i don't count calories, i just count carbs. i stay under 20 a day.
try and do 30 mins of yoga or pilates or something a day.
planned cheat days help a lot.

Annafly3

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kadyjackson

For 5 months I have been on the 1200cal net goal.... I usually eat about 1500cal a day but I always make sure to work out for the extra 300 cal if not more. I started out with small workouts...I was going the wii fit. Then I moved up to zumba on my wii I did zumba on easy for 20min every night, pretty soon i moved up to 40min a night and before I knew it I was on expert for 40 min a night. In the middle of my zumba progression I had a friend convinced me to do a 5K. We got the couch to 5k app on our phones. We stuck with it every day you start out walking a min the jogging like 30sec pretty minor but those first days I thought I would die! Now I run 4 to 5 miles every night it is amazing what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it!

gmpearson

SW: 198
CW: 166
BF%: 13

I started running (my home-grown version of C25K) about a year and a half ago. I was running about 3x per week, about 2-3 miles. I decided to up my distance and increase the number of times I was running to prepare for running 5Ks competitively. This took a lot of the weight off. However, at the beginning of 2012, I started reading more about nutrition and eating healthier, as well as logging everything in MFP. I set my calories at 1,700 to start, and then upped them to 1,900 - but this was all based on the fact I was running 15-20 miles per week. I also started lifting weights 2-3 times per week.

I now try to keep my calories right at 2,000, but eat more protein and will up intake for longer runs.

Somebody mentioned using a measuring tape and NSVs for charting your progress. I highly recommend this - as you will see the scale go up when you start exercising, and it can be frustrating. If you start reducing clothing size, then you are leaning up and your effort is paying off. Another GREAT measuring mechanism is body fat %, using calipers. Most personal trainers and some physicians have these. You can do some estimations using tape measures, but they are not as accurate as calipers or underwater/submersion weighing.

Don't get upset over plateaus, they will happen. When they do, change up what you are eating, how much you are exercising, and what you do for exercise. This is where HIIT (high-intensity interval training) can benefit greatly by shocking your body into confusion. A good exercise combo session can leave you burning calories for up to 48 hours after the activity. You will come back off that plateau at some point.

Lastly, if you go too low on calories, your body may store those calories as it may sense that it is in starvation mode. Don't forget that you have a typical BMR (basal metabolic rate) which is the amount of calories you will burn just to live. Any additional burn on top of that just helps your net.

Good luck!!!

Greg