284 days, 60 pounds, and a 5K

Rays_Wife

Today has been my 284th day on MFP. This has been an amazing journey so far. I started back in January as a typical New Year's resolutioner. For the past 12 years, I have made the same resolution: to lose weight. 11 years in a row I failed. With every passing year, I just gained more and more weight. Without making this a long drawn out story, I will tell you what was different about this attempt. I BELIEVED IN MYSELF. I believed that for once I could do this. And believing led to caring about myself for a change. I started to care enough about myself to take charge of my health and my life. I put all of my past failures behind me (and lord knows there were hundreds of them) and wiped the slate clean. I told myself I could do this. And I have. I've been my OWN #1 cheerleader, almost to the point of narcissism and conceit :laugh: But you know what? After years of hating on myself, it's about time I started thinking positive things about myself. I threw out all that negative self talk, and replaced it with a positive attitude. Here are the results so far....

November 2011, 290 pounds
February 2012, 270 pounds (-20)
August 2012, 230 pounds. First 5K!
Today 230 pounds (-60)
5'7 tall

I had many days where I messed up and went over my goal. But I always picked myself back up and carried on. How did I do it? I ate between 1600-2200 calories a day.I exercised 5-6x per week, 30-60 minutes at a time. I did strength training and cardio. What started out as another diet has become a lifestyle change for me. Somewhere along the journey, my focus shifted from weight loss to fitness. I lost 60 pounds in 8 months (Jan-Aug). I started to feel burned out from having a constant deficit, and decided to maintain for the months of September and October. I have maintained my 60 pound loss for almost 2 months now. I have continued to exercise, and for the past 3 months my exercise has shifted to primarily heavy lifting 3x per week with moderate cardio sprinkled in 2x per week. The funny thing is, even though the scale hasn't gone down in almost 2 months I continue to lose inches. My legs have noticeably slimmed down in that time frame with ZERO weight loss on the scale. My body fat has gone down 3% since eating at my TDEE (maintenance) and lifting heavy weights. Let me just say, I squats and deadlifts :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

After my 5K though, I relapsed into my depression for the month of September. As a result, I am sad to say that I deleted all of my wonderful friends that I made on here I got overwhelmed with trying to support everybody....and just felt the need to pull away and focus on myself. I really felt like I could barely help myself let alone anyone else. I was in a bad place for awhile. So if any of my old friends are reading this I'm sorry and you are welcome to re-friend me :flowerforyou: I love you all.

I still have a ways to go, but I am confident that I will get there. My goal is no longer to lose all of my excess weight in a short amount of time. I went into this thinking I could lose all 140 pounds in a year. Well, THAT isn't happening :laugh: but you know what? I'm okay with that. I realize this may take 2-3 years to get to my ideal weight. Honestly I don't know what that is exactly anymore. My body will tell me when I am done losing weight. My goal is no longer a magical number on the scale. My goal now is to be healthy and fit. My new gauges are the mirror, how my clothes fit and how strong I feel.

Apologies for the long winded post, thank you for reading if you got this far

OH and a big shout out to HELLOITSDAN :drinker: I owe most of my success to the Roadmap :bigsmile: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
This has been the voice of reason for me in an otherwise chaotic crazy confusing MFP world :laugh: Thanks Dan!

-Andrea (formerly Andrea_78)

niecyc23

WTG you are doing it keep up the great work:)

BabyLeila23

Wow, what a great job!!!! Congrats

HappilyLifts

I loved reading that. You are going to get exactly where you want to be, you're doing so well and sounds like you have taken some time to take stock and refocus. Hurray for believing in yourself, it's something that is working for me this year. I wished I had discovered it years ago!

ttkg

Hi Andrea - I actullay just sent you a message but then I read this post. You have done a great job so far and you have been really committed and working so very hard, so it is no wonder you felt overwhelmed. If you want the support re-friend me...I promise you don't have to be such a hardcore cheerleader!!! Keep doing spectacular friend.

Rays_Wife

Thanks so much BabyLeila and Choccieaddict!

Ttkg - I sent you a FR and a message back hon I am so glad we have reconnected!

LorinaLynn

Fantastic progress! Congrats!!! :drinker:

SopranogirlCa

Awesome job!

strawberrytoast

5k at 230 lbs is amazing!!! i couldnt run 1k when i was about that. Im so glad you came back and shared your success and kept at it. Thanks for the inspiration.

darkangel74

Good Job, I still can`t force myself to real exercise

danasings

Congratulations!! You have done amazing things, well done!!

lose4good1

Keep up the good work

Helloitsdan

Awesome progress!
You figure most people lose a pound a week so you are well ahead of the game!

bassanne

the one piece of advice I got, from my skinny husband, was you did not get this way over night, you can't solve it overnight, was probably the best piece of advice I got. Stick with it, you are worth it and so am I. Good going. and thank you for the reminder that it can be done. I never admitted I had a problem to ANY one, ignore it, it will go away, doesn't work. Best of luck

Alamaug

your's is a great story, and a great example. keep doing what you are doing. congratulations.

70davis

Bump

anggxo

great story. You are so amazing, seriously. It's stories like these that keep me motivated to keep going!

Rays_Wife

Thank you everybody!!! Now that I'm nearing the end of my maintenance "breather" period I feel like I have the energy to get this weight loss ball rolling again. I highly recommend anybody that has a long weight loss journey ahead of them to take a couple breaks along the way and eat at maintenance calories. It really does re-energize you! (physically and mentally) Plus you'll already have experience at maintaining when you reach your goal so that won't seem so scary

larryc0923

Very inspirational!!! Thank you for sharing both your diet, exercise and weightloss journey and your emotional journey. Our emotions are important to understand and manage. Your ability to monitor them is exceptional and really gives you a major advantage in managing them. So many people struggle with being able to understand their emotions so they struggle managing them. Thank you.

jenniferrow

That's wonderful! Congrats!

LeanerBeef

Congratulations! You're looking great and congrats on your first 5k!

Rays_Wife

Very inspirational!!! Thank you for sharing both your diet, exercise and weightloss journey and your emotional journey. Our emotions are important to understand and manage. Your ability to monitor them is exceptional and really gives you a major advantage in managing them. So many people struggle with being able to understand their emotions so they struggle managing them. Thank you.

Thank you, I think this has been the key for me this time around. I have learned to work through and deal with my emotions in a healthy manner.

CandiSki

Bump. Congrats!