One year on MFP, lost 75 lbs (with pics)

swellswede

Wow! Just wow!! Reading your story is a true inspiration for me to keep at it daily and to not let the fluxuating scale numbers get me down. I have to admit it...I'm a habitual scale stepper. I feel the need to weigh in every day. And I do get upset when I see the numbers go up instead of down when I know I have been sticking to my plan. Thank you for all your encouraging words. Also seeing your pictures of transformation over the year is a boost to all of us here at MFP!! Keep working toward your goals!

JenCatwalk

Bump

manda1978

Awesome job! Be proud of yourself.

kar328

Incredible work, you should be so proud.

jamie610811

Thank you for posting, you have given me hope and inspiration

pmermakov

Thank you for sharing your story. I weigh myself first thing every morning and it can be discouraging after what I consider an excellent day of tracking and exercising to see the scale go up. It is very helpful to read that happened to you 43% of the time. You showed by sticking under your calorie goal you can reach your goal. No two week crash diet to fix years of weight gain!!

ElizabethObviously

It is amazing that you had so many life issues happen yet still had the motivation to keep going on losing weight!

You are amazing!

Erica262

Great job!!! :flowerforyou: You're an inspiration. Thank you for posting all the information about your "science experiment." I think it gives the rest of us a lot to think about it. And it makes me want to start an excel spreedsheet to track my weight everyday!

denitraross

wow, wow, wow!! Amazing story...and I am so glad you noted about the slow progress, a lot of people dont get that - I have been on MFP for over 3 years...it took me little over year to reach my goal, and I logged my food for an additional year after.....I finally stopped my logging of food as I feel I have a good handle on poritons, calorie goals, and balancing sodium, fat and sugar....but I still log my excercise to remind myself of how much work it takes and keep routines going!!

GREAT JOB!!

ericnealdavis

You Sir, are an inspiration! Thank you for sharing your story with us. I know that you will be an inspiration to me when I am despairing of the scale moving or looking longingly at that cake the rest of the group (of overweight people mostly) are devouring infront of me. Good luck with your tri and keep up the good work. I'll be sending a friend request and I hope that you add me so that I can keep up with your amazing journey.

swiftjen77

This is the best success story post I've ever read. I too, weigh myself daily and I frequently see the scale go up but I don't despair because the overall trend is down, not up. I know sometimes it's water weight so I don't get discouraged. I have to weigh myself daily or I'll drive myself crazy. No way can I wait one week between weigh ins. I'm glad someone finally addressed this because people need to realize that just because the scale goes up a little or doesn't move for a few days it doesn't mean you're not losing. And muscle weighs more than fat so that causes gains also. There have been days when I was 2-3 lbs heavier the next day but then a day later I was back to normal. Then there have also been days when I had seemingly lost 2-3 lbs overnight! Those are awesome days! The BEST days are when I see a new number on the scale I've never seen before. That's when I know I'm really losing and even if I'm higher the next day, I know I hit that new # and I will see it again in a day or so. Thanks for the great post and my thoughts are with you, your wife and your job.

Randyfat2fit

Conrats!! I love reading these posts in success stories. It seems you have discovered what I have, that simply paying attention works!! and MFP helps us pay attention. I stopped using MFP last fall after a weight loss challenge was over at work. I gained back 20lbs. So like you shared, using MFP will now become a way of life for me or the weight will creep back on. Thanks again for sharing.

powrwrap

Congratulations! Amazing testimony that sticking to it will get the job done. Way to hang in there with all the stresses on your life.

I saw this in your profile:
"[MFP] has shown me so far that losing weight is a scientific certainty if you follow a logical process. "
Exactly right. It's simple: Energy in and energy out. Less energy in WILL cause weight reduction. Knowing how much energy you are taking in is the key and MFP is the tool to track that. As a daily weigher I loved your analysis of the ups-and-downs of daily weigh-ins. It is so true.

I see that your goal weight is 200. C'mon, admit it, knowing your drive you're going to get to 198, right? Just to say you did it? Your hard earned success has got me thinking of adjusting my goal weight down to 199.

Q: How tall are you?

dalecarnegie

Wowie Larry,
I needed the pictoral motivation. You look lean and in control. The graphs must of taken a while to put together. I avoid the scale, but I will be stepping on it more often to track my journey. You are an awesome person,:bigsmile: who I am sure really struggled with the weight loss. Good luck with your weight loss goals and god bless you and your loved ones.
You have a lot to celebrate and I hope I can stay focused as I start my journey to lose 54 pounds.

Dalecarnegie

alienrite

Fantastic transformation and a wonderful way of looking at your weight loss. I am a huge proponent of weighing myself and learning to understand the natural ups and downs of my weight even though I was losing at a consistent pace (0.22 lbs per day to be exact). Brings a reality to the scale that I had missed before and allows me to keep myself motivated and balanced throughout my time here. In the end, it helps keep my head level when my weight seemed magically to drop very quickly because my tendency in the past was to think my maximum weight loss pace was my ideal weight loss pace and I would become discouraged. Keep up your hard work and focus and congratulations!!

kateauch

I initially started this journey as a science experiment so here are some observations I have made:
1. Weight measurements increase 40% of the time but still weight goes down. I weighed myself everyday (except the last week when I was on vacation). I observed that 40+% of the time my daily weight measurements are higher than the previous day. For example during one 30 day period I weighed myself 30 times (same time, place and scale). Of those 30 times, 13 of those times (43%) the measured weight was higher than the previous day. The largest increase was 1.0lbs. So there were 13 days that I could despair about the lack of progress or about why am I doing this or that I may as well just quit. But wait, there were 16 days (53%) that measured weight was less than the previous day. There was one day that there was no difference in weight. The largest decrease was 1.8lbs. So there were 16 days that I could rejoice. So do not despair if your weight measurements show short term increases simply continue to log and stay under your calorie targets and you will lose weight.
2. Perfection is not required for results. What is required is consistency and dedication on the LONG-TERM.
3. It is a small calorie amount over our daily target over a long term that is the primary cause of weight gain. For me it was an average of 28 calories over my daily target for 30+ years that put me almost 100 lbs over a healthy weight. I believe that this is true for most everyone. It is also one primary reason why when asked if a person should log for the long time I say yes because I do not believe it is possible for someone to track to 28 calories.

Thankyou, this is really helpful info for me. I have been only logging weight when it goes down from the previous lowest but like this way of looking at daily weigh ins. I'll be interested to see if my rate of Up/Down days is similar to yours.

I also found MFP the inspiration to seriously attack the issue. But only 4 weeks ago. I still have that belly from your pic 1, so it's really good to see it really can be gone in just 1 year!

I completely agree with this!! Sometimes it's so discouraging to not only be constant in your weight but actually gain while you're trying to lose. Like you said though, 16 days to rejoice and to me that glass is definitely half FULL!

Thank you for inspiration. Congratulations on your accomplishments!!!

tberrycastle

Awesome story and a great inspiration! Thank you so much for sharing. Keep up the great work and hang in there with your wife; modern medicine does wonders with breast cancer. There are many happy, healthy survivors. With your tenacious and fighting spirit, she will be just fine :-)

larryc0923

Congratulations! Amazing testimony that sticking to it will get the job done. Way to hang in there with all the stresses on your life.

I saw this in your profile:
"[MFP] has shown me so far that losing weight is a scientific certainty if you follow a logical process. "
Exactly right. It's simple: Energy in and energy out. Less energy in WILL cause weight reduction. Knowing how much energy you are taking in is the key and MFP is the tool to track that. As a daily weigher I loved your analysis of the ups-and-downs of daily weigh-ins. It is so true.

I see that your goal weight is 200. C'mon, admit it, knowing your drive you're going to get to 198, right? Just to say you did it? Your hard earned success has got me thinking of adjusting my goal weight down to 199.

Q: How tall are you?

Height - 6' 3". You are right 198/199 would be a good number and I am going to strive to get there and technically that says I am in a healthy weight range but to be honest for my height and now increased interest in building strength/muscle I think that being at 205 +/- a couple of pounds is probably pretty good.

tammymusic1

UH WOW great job

larryc0923

Wowie Larry,
I needed the pictoral motivation. You look lean and in control. The graphs must of taken a while to put together. I avoid the scale, but I will be stepping on it more often to track my journey. You are an awesome person,:bigsmile: who I am sure really struggled with the weight loss. Good luck with your weight loss goals and god bless you and your loved ones.
You have a lot to celebrate and I hope I can stay focused as I start my journey to lose 54 pounds.

Dalecarnegie

Thank you for your kind words. The graph actually did not take very long. I just took a "screen shot" of MFP's 1 year weight report, chipped to get just the graph, and added the words/pointers in Power Point.
You can achieve your weight loss. You have already started the most important part of the journey.

Lisha_R

Great job. You look great and I am sure feel amazing.

uneik3

Thank you so much for collecting and sharing all your data. I found that bit about your day-to-day weight going up 40% of the time especially encouraging. You've done a great job and keep up the good work!

catneon

Wow great job!!!! thank you for sharing!!

greeshu_89

You are an inspiration .. great job keeping the steady weight loss!!

larryc0923

Thanks everyone for you kind and encouraging words.

MusicLee_

CONGRATS! TRUE INSPIRATION!

larryc0923

One other piece of information for those people that weigh themselves once a week. I studied the one year of data (~ 350 measurements) and even with a steady long term weight loss (say averaging 1 to 1.5 lb a week) and determined that weekly are higher about 25% of the time. For example in a typical month with 4 weekly weigh-ins on average 1 of 4 these measurements were higher than the previous week. So do not despair the other 3 weeks will be under.

larryc0923

Wow! Just wow!! Reading your story is a true inspiration for me to keep at it daily and to not let the fluxuating scale numbers get me down. I have to admit it...I'm a habitual scale stepper. I feel the need to weigh in every day. And I do get upset when I see the numbers go up instead of down when I know I have been sticking to my plan. Thank you for all your encouraging words. Also seeing your pictures of transformation over the year is a boost to all of us here at MFP!! Keep working toward your goals!

Thank you for your kind words. Yes, some people are frequent scale measurement personalities and others less so. In any case the key is stay on track logging and on average stay under your daily target. If this is done for a long time then weight will be lost.

larryc0923

Once again thanks to everyone for their kind words. One other key observation I have made in this year long experiment is if you want to see if you are going to lose weight then monitor your weekly net averge calories (you can easily see that on the app). If this is under your target then you will lose weight. If it is at least 20% under your target then you will lose weight at least by your target weight loss rate.