One Year Anniversary - BEFORE/AFTER PICS!

AllisonB145

Wow ~ Congratulation! I just began my weight loss/healthy living journey last month, lost 10 lbs and another 40 lbs to go. Thanks for sharing your story and being such an inspiration!

skunkman62

That's crazy awesome! Well done sir.We are pretty much traveled the same path, started a year ago, now 49 years old, 5'10", elliptical 30 mins, 1300 cal. Now this is where we deviate, started out at 210lbs, dropped down to 175 lbs (target weight), got bored, quit going to the gym, blah, blah, blah, back up to 190lbs. Started going back to the gym, down to 182lbs but this time it's a struggle not a challenge.What keeps you going?

nheilweil

You look really proud and pleased and so you should. Thats a great achievement.

Did you eat 1200 net or gross?

Thanks for all the support!

Bunch of questions around my eating 1,200 calories. That was definitely *net* calories (which is the way that MFP show you how many calories you have left). So, if I exercised 400 calories, I would actually eat 1,600 calories of food (1,200 + 400 exercise). that's part of why I learned to love working out in the beginning -- it let me eat those calories! Now I love working out because it makes me feel strong.

There are some people who are naturally light eaters and I think it's easier for them to use portion control. They can have one slice of pizza and be content, or stop after eating 1 chocolate covered apricot. They can eat less calories by eating less food. My mother-in-law can eat half a hamburger and save the other half for lunch the next day. That is not me.

I like to eat! That's the reason I put on so much weight. Because I was eating crappy high-fat, processed high-calorie-dense foods, I could easily eat 3,500+ calories a day before feeling satisfied. I would watch Biggest Loser while eating a big bowl of ice cream and wonder how those people could have gotten so fat. I was in serious denial!

I knew that for me to be successful, I'd need to find low-calorie healthy foods so that I could still eat a lot of food. I did not want to eat half a hamburger and 5 french fries and then be frustrated that I couldn't eat any more and still be hungry and probably just breakdown and pig out and then be depressed about my lack of will power. Instead, I successfully learned to make better choices and eat a couple big lowfat chicken sausages with 2 cups of steamed broccoli and a big salad with tons of veggies and a little balsamic vinegar and be completely stuffed!

When folks learned I was eating less calories, they typically looked depressed. The idea of eating less calories seems like it automatically means eating less food, going hungry and being miserable. I had to assure them that once I started "dieting", I had never eaten more food in my life!

It's really hard for me to control my cravings when I eat too much sugar or carbs. It's like a floodgate opens and no amount of thinking "I should be in control" is going to stand in between me and sweets! So, I focused on eating more protein and less sugars. I found that for me, eliminating sweets completely was MUCH easier than trying to have "just a little". And now that I've been in maintenance mode for 6 months, I still struggle with that. If I start off with a small bowl of ice cream and think "I'll be good", it's likely to end with ""I suck...why did I eat an entire pint of ice cream!" But, amazingly, once the sugars are out of my system for a few days, I TOTALLY STOP CRAVING THEM! I honestly think it's an addiction: craving it, not being able to control it, having to go cold turkey to get it out of my system.

I'm still trying to be healthier and move toward eating more whole unprocessed foods, more vegetarian (means finding good high protein non-animal choices), less sugars, less artificial sweeteners and less total food in my belly (learning to stop at 80% full, and being OK with being a little hungry sometimes, like before bed).

Fannyannefeisty

Amazingly inspirational - you have made me more determined to keep going with cutting the sugar from my diet. Good luck to you I am sure you will achieve anything t=you put your mind to. x

nheilweil

Started going back to the gym, down to 182lbs but this time it's a struggle not a challenge.What keeps you going?

Yeah, that's a feeling that most of us here have to deal with daily! Luckily, I have a family and friends and a community like MFP to keep me encouraged.

I keep going because I like the way I look better now. I like the way I feel better now, I like the feeling of my body becoming more powerful and stronger now. I like that I'm inspiring other friends to be healthy and lose weight. I like learning new things and shifting to more weight training is a new challenge for me. And, honestly, it's just a habit now, so on those days where I'm unmotivated, I do it just because it's that "thing I do now".

I'm not normally one for corny sayings to live by, but I was moved by Jillian Michaels in her "Ripped in 30" DVD:

"Transformation is not a future event. It is a present activity. That is why you must bring everything you that have to give in every moment. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not about perfect. It's about effort. If you bring that effort every single day, that's where transformation happens. That's how change occurs."

That really resonated with me: transformation happens when you bring effort every single day. I want to be stronger, faster, leaner, so I try to focus more on being more active and less on all the ways I'm not perfect and how hard it is.

foremate

you do look like an entirely different person and your features are more chiseled!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep up the good work!!!!