August 2011 to August 2012

Thank you for all the support. To those of you saying I don't have 60 lbs to lose...I started out weighing 325 lbs and currently hovering between 195 to 193. I don't have any full body pics of me at my heaviest. The one I posted here is me at about 295. My goal weight is 135 which I admit is a bit lofty. When I first started MFP last year I set my goal to 150 but never thought I'd even come close. 150 is just barely under the overweight BMI and into the healthy range for my height. But when I finally hit 199 a few weeks ago I decided to reevaluate my goals. I have been overweight my WHOLE life. The lowest I've ever been was around 175 in high school. So I wanted to really push myself to be great. 135 is a healthy weight for my height. 135 is even considered overweight by most in our current society. But that is a number I think I will be happy with. I'm tired of being depressed about my weight. It's drug me down my whole life and made me feel like...well I won't have a cry-fest here...I'm sure you can imagine the self worth and self confidence issues I had and STILL have.

I am sooo glad I found MFP. It truly has changed my life. To the nice lady who asked if that is all I do, if it really works. The answer is yes! Absolutely. I did use it's guidelines in the beginning as far as calories and whatnot. I ate the calories it told me and exercised the amount it told me and so on. But as I hit plateau after plateau (while busting my butt and being super strict, terrified to cheat or go off the plan) I switched to custom mode and began to tweak the numbers myself. When I'd get stuck I'd up my calories by 200 for a few months and then when that stopped working I dropped em back down 200. After constantly getting "stuck" for weeks on end with no loses I took my mom's suggestion to examine my carb intake. For her genetics and diabetes (I was in the pre-diabetic stage when I started out) low carb helped her loose 75 lbs. (she also uses the HCG diet, which I am against, I don't want a quick fix or easy solution, I want long term success) So I gave Atkins a shot and found it worked great for me! I went back into custom mode and set my calories at 1600 but really are supposed to ignore calories on Atkins, set my fat intake at 65%, my protein at 30% and carbs at 5%. My loses are still sometimes a week or two apart but I can see them now! It has changed to burning a lot more fat now and trouble areas like my stomach and thighs have literally began to melt off me. Atkins works by changing your body from burning sugar (carbs) as a fuel source to burning fat as a fuel source. I started in a size 30 last year and currently into a comfortable to lose 16 and some 14's. I want so badly to be at least a size 8 or 6. That is what it will take for me to be happy with myself.