70lb down, in stats and pictures.

I'll quickly preface the pictures with a some background info on myself, and my "Journey".

TL:DR - I was fat, I still am, but look at my pictures anyway.

I wasn't always fat. I have a fairly rare heart defect, however it has always had relatively little effect on my day-to-day life, and when I was in school I used to play rugby league as a centre for both the school team and a local youth team. The only sport I was ever unable to compete at was distance running, so much unable that the only time that I actually did attempt it, I was very unwell for quite some time!
During a school football match in my last term of high school I suffered a nasty leg injury, and was unable to put any weight on it for several weeks and was unable to run for months, it took me out of the teams I played for and also out of the final months of PE. This, coinciding with moving schools meant that I stopped doing pretty much all exercise, and replaced it with parties and beer. I have only a vague idea of my weight at the time of my injury, but I know that at one point during university I tipped the scales at 19 and a half stone (273lb). I made only a token effort to improve my diet (I was living basically on take-outs, beer and curries), but didn't monitor my weight in any way.
Several years later (and coming to christmas 2011) I suffered from pneumonia and became quite ill for some weeks. On a visit to the doctors I was given a very blunt warning about my weight, my general fitness and they're consequences given my condition, and so started looking into diets.
I stumbled upon The Hacker Diet and although I didn't read more than the first couple of chapters, the principles it laid out became the basis for my strategy ahead - calorie counting and exercise is the easiest and most obvious way to lose weight - I also used the advice of using some form of technology to assist me , being an apple fan-boy and an iphoner, I hit the app store and downloaded MFP.
I also sold my car (it broke and I couldn't afford to fix it) and used the money to buy a pair of walking boots (it was a cheap car!).

When I weighed myself for my start weight I was 256lb - I allowed MFP to set my goals automatically, and followed them as well as i could.

I am a fairly good cook, and so modified my own recipes (mainly european and asian things, with a napalm-hot chilli con carne in there too) (and portions) to fit in with my calorie goals, and started walking regularly (an hour every other day, at first).

The walking increased (I walk home from work almost every day, now - 4.5 miles, plus the occasional hike/trek on a weekend and in the school holidays).

I've now reached the weight goal I set myself (9-10 months later) and I don't care if I never lose another pound. I am now working on changing the bits of me that are still "squidgy" (I still have man-boobs) and I've taken up swimming (I didn't have the confidence to do it until I had lost a LOT of weight).

I've lost 5 stone (70lb), as the title suggests. My jeans have gone from a 42 waist to a slightly loose 34 (sadly, my leg length is still a "short"... so no Armani for me!) My tops were xxl in generous shops (M&S, Debenhams, etc) and are now a M or L most places. My minor goal was to be able to buy clothes anywhere I wanted to, and I can now!

As a side-note, through MFP I met the most wonderful girl I could imagine, Stacy has been fantastic in keeping me sane and motivated and for giving me a confidence boost when I need it. For those reasons (among many others) I absolutely love her... it's just a shame she lives almost 4000 miles away!

Anyway... Pics!

Before



Now


A couple of comparisons