My photos - 32 kgs lost - From 2010 - 2013

Kim55555

Hi

I started on April 8 2010 and lost 32 kg. It will be my 3rd year anniversary soon. I am currently 5 foot 2 and 60 kg.

I lifted heavy and vigorously exercised sometimes eating at a small defecit and at some stages during my journey eating at a moderate defecit. I took my time to lose the weight as I wanted to retain my muscle and also have enough energy to fuel my sports and exercise. The scale stopped moving last August 2012 but I still kept on losing fat! Since then I have been doing a recomp eating below tdee, losing fat and adding muscle. My body shape has changed a lot since August although not reflected on the scale.

I recently did an 8 week metabolic reset. It turned out my resting metabolic rate dropped down so low to just 870 calories. For the 3 and a half months prior I got a bit carried away and was exercising too much and not fueling adequalty. The rest of my journey before this I was eating more adequatly for my activity level. I worked hard eating a bit more than tdee and my metabolism recovered to be 1500 rmr after just 5 weeks. I'm now in my 8th week of metabolic reset and have lowered my net calories to 2150 to see if I can stabilise at my weight. Once I have stabilised for a full 4 weeks I plan to cut at a 10% defecit because I still have some fat around my tummy area I'd like to improve on.


So here is what I looked like at my heaviest weight back in 2008 at my brothers wedding.




Here is my transformation from December 2009 - December 2012




A rare photo of me In a dress in August 2012. This is when I started to notice arm definition. It was very exciting








Christmas time 2012



January 2013 in my first gym fitted top. Another exciting moment as before I just wore singlet tops to the gym.






I took another photo just yesterday in the same outfit and I need to create a side by side comparison. I think my waist looks smaller.


Some more photos I took at lunch time at work one day from January 2013








These ones were taken in February 2013 from the back








I started to worry because I had put on 1 cm on my arms in the past couple of months and 2cm on my chest and was thinking I was getting too big and worried I would get bigger. So I took 10 days off from the weights completely lol. But I went back yesterday as I missed it so much. I'm starting to wonder now if I have kind of a distorted body image in that I see myself bigger in the mirror muscle wise than what I actually am. The photos dont lie do they! Oh hey even though i put on cm's on my arms and chest I did manage to lose 1 cm on my waist and 1.5 cm on my hips.

I dont look too big in the photos do I ? I think I'm looking pretty good in the photos. Its my natural body shape. I am a stocky athletic short type of build. My general shape wont change, I just need to work with it to make improvements. I want to lean out some more in the waist area. I know its going to take some time.

heybales

Excellent progress, and determination to stick to it, it meaning a loss program that is working, even if it changed.

Keep up the lifting, the water retention related to those efforts in the muscles will decrease too, though definition should still be visible.

CariS001

Well done! Congrats!

amandacepstein

The changes are hugely visible. I see lots of arm muscles in the Aug 2012 photos (a compliment!!) Seems like you have done a great job balancing everything in a healthy way. Congratulations. I wonder if yoga might be a nice complementary activity for you - it tends to balance muscles within the body in an attractive way, since you expressed concern about that. And, I hear the stress lowering bits are helpful for flattening tummies. Haven't done it consistently enough to see that in myself.

Kim55555

Thanks!