How did YOU reach your goal?

Just starting with MFP -- time to get real and accountable. so i don't have too much advice yet.

i have same calorie range: 1200-1400. i practice [and teach] power yoga a few times/week and am kicking in the cardio with 30 day shred.

I'm in the same boat. I was eating between 1200-1400 calories and dropped 9 pounds in the first 4 weeks, then 3 addtional pound. At 6 weeks I stalled. I'm at week 13 now and I still havn't lost anything else. I am even exercising more. I used to just do cardio 3 days a week, but I have upped it to 5 days for the last month. I have been going harder and longer with no results. I started the 30 day shred yesterday and am hoping to see some results. I have seriously been thinking about upping my calories to around 2000/day. I have been reading a lot of things that say you need to eat at least your BMR, which for me is 2032. I'm scared to do it and put on any weight though. It's just frustrating, I've been at it for over 3 months, and working really hard with hardly any results.

I'm not at goal yet, but I'm getting pretty close (to my original goal anyway, I was overweight enough not to know what goal weight to pick....I literally had no idea what my body would/could look like at a much lower weight. I'll probably shoot for another 10-15lbs after I hit this goal).

I started out at 1200 cals, couldn't do it and upped to around 1400-1500. My hair fell out and I had no energy. I was exercising 5-6 days a week at the time. I did my research and started doing TDEE-20%. So right now, I'm losing about 1lb a week on 2000 cals or so. No loss in the last few weeks, but I haven't been counting calories very much due to holidays.

I run 2-3 times a week, take a spinning class once a week, and I do strength training 2-3 times a week. Over the summer, I was also pretty lax on my calories - and I only lost 4lbs from June to September. I did however, lose an entire pants size. Thank you strength training!

I plan on being able to maintain on 2200-2500 calories, depending on my final weight.

Monitoring progress and adjusting calories as necessary + patience

Preface this by saying that I've only been doing this for a few weeks so I am no expert. Changes I made:
1) Reduced calorie intake.
a) The first five days I tried for 1270 calories based on the MFP default and felt awful. I upped my goal to 1600 and have felt very good since then.
b) I log everything with the exception of Thanksgiving day and the Saturday after because I was with family. If I can't find it on the package or if the restaurant doesn't have nutritional info online (mom & pop type places), I choose the highest calorie option in the food search.
c) I've also stopped eating out/ordering in as much - went from 6+ times a week to 4 or 5 times the past month.
d) I stopped drinking soda - 4-6+ a day to a grand total of about 8 in the past month.
e) I was eating back half my exercise calories. Now that I have a heart rate monitor that will more accurately track my exercise calories, I'll eat back more.
f) I still eat everything I used to, just much less of it. If I want ice cream and it's in my calorie budget, I eat it. In the past I haven't been successful if I cut out all the "bad food" so this time I'm changing my focus.

2) Exercise & track calorie expenditure.
a) My gym offers a fee based small group training that's a good cross between a large group exercise class and personal training. It's 12-16 exercises in a circuit training situation using all sorts of exercises, weights, bosus, balls, etc. Even tho I'm so overweight and out of shape, I try to do each exercise as intended but do ask the coaches for modifications if they're too hard or causing pain in my knees or feet.
b) I bought a Fitbit One to help track normal daily activity. According to it, on non exercise days, I expend an average of 2600 calories a day.
c) I bought a heart rate monitor because I wasn't impressed with the calculations MFP was giving about exercise expenditure. The Fitbit is helpful if you're doing something like walking/running, but not as good for circuit training, group exercise, etc. My first night wearing it at class it calculated I burned about 488 calories in 60 minutes. According to MFP, the calories for 60 minutes was close to 800. Huge difference.

3) Drinking water. I drink 12+ 8oz per day. I have a 24oz Contigo water bottle that I take with me everywhere. I'm lucky that both my home fridge and my work place have a filtered water system.


So that's what I've done so far and so far I've stuck to it longer and have lost more weight that in the past. I realize I have a LONG way to go, but I'm feeling better about this than ever before. Hope this helps.

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I want you to think of what you ate today. Got it? Now cut that in half, this is called a diet, people, everyone start one today! Darcy, you should stop eating. You see, when you skip a meal, your body feeds off its fat stores. And if you skip enough, maybe your body will eat your *kitten*! \m/

How did I reach my goal? I cant answer that. I have a new goal every so often

How did i lose weight? : Easy, counting calories, working out and being patient.

5"4" 52yo
SW=153
CW=132
GW=130 (or maybe 125)
Started this journey January 16, 2012
I decided to eat TDEE for my goal weight of 130lbs. I have a desk job and I am not that active after work either so I used sedentary. For me, that was about 1500 calories. At first, I just ate whatever I wanted within that caloried deficit--basically same stuff I ate before.
I did mostly cardio,about 5 days per week for 45-70 minutes. I ate back my exercise calories.
In May I joined MFP just for logging into the database. Later I started reading the forums and started making additional changes.
Now I have my macros set to about .8 grams of protein per lb of LBM and .5 grams of fat per lb of LBM and them the rest carbs. I have fiber set to 28 grams and soduim to 1600 grams. This has REALLY cleaned up my eating. I still drink a glass of wine every day.
I have consistently lost .5 lb per week, so 2 lbs per month. Since eating cleaner in the past several months my blood pressure is lower, my IBS symptoms are fewer and I look and feel much better.
I am about to start lifting heavy to reshape my body.

This is what worked for me.

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I want you to think of what you ate today. Got it? Now cut that in half, this is called a diet, people, everyone start one today! Darcy, you should stop eating. You see, when you skip a meal, your body feeds off its fat stores. And if you skip enough, maybe your body will eat your *kitten*! \m/

But your body will start feeding off of your muscle mass too, not just your fat. Who wants to be "skinny fat"? Not me. We are not on diets on MFP, we are here to change our lifestyle. We want to be smaller, but healthy. I don't care if it takes me 2 years, I'm not going to starve myself to lose weight. That is just dumb.

I hope this helps you

I workout 30-45min 5x a week. Mostly elliptical and running/walking on the treadmill. i just recently raised my calorie intake to 1400-1600 because i have been told I'm not taking in enough calories for what i burn in exercise. I also measure out an exact portion of something so i know its calories. i love my measuring cups! I do eat more fruits and veggies, but i still enjoy what i like. For example...instead of 4 pieces of pizza i eat 1 maybe 2 depending on my calories. I'm about 15lb from my goal weight! Its taken me since Jan 7th of this year to lsoe 45lb so dont rush it. Good luck!


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just had extreme motivation and didnt let anything get in my way no cheat days no nothing just eating healthy

Diet and exercise. I kept to about 1200ish calories for a while, then upped it when I upped my exercise. I'm not real awesome at adhering to my "limit", but I'm very hard on myself in terms of expectations, so I don't really have "cheat" days. Instead, I try to live in moderation. My diet isn't super clean, super fancy, or even super anything, and that's mainly because I'm changing my lifestyle to fit my needs and what I KNOW I can maintain going forward. But I'm under my calories, I get my nutrition, and the thing I miss most is all the Starbucks I used to drink!

I think the biggest thing is find something that works for you in both the short and long run. Each person is different!

When I started I dropped myself down to 1200 calories and was working out at Curves on top of that. I quickly started feeling like death. I read up on BMR and found that my body needed at least 1600 calories or so so I could function in a coma so I quickly (and hesitantly) upped my calories and also started eating back my exercise calories. In addition to counting calories I'm at Curves 5 days a week. I've been doing this since the end of February and found out yesterday I am down 70 pounds. No plateaus, no starving and no push ups.

I ate above my BMR and below my TDEE. I was hungrier than usual at first so I started eating smaller portions with greater frequency. As I incorporated more and more exercise, I still ate between my BMR and TDEE. I incorporated more protein in the mornings. I've hit a few bumps in the road with respect to exercise recently but have kept my calories in check and have not gained.

Since the turn of the year I've lost 15% of my body weight, probably reduced my body fat by 20%, and increased my lean muscle mass.

I have not been super crazy motivated, obsessed, nor have I worked crazy hard.

Tortoise, not hare.

Love reading success stories too....

wouldnt say mine is a success story YET but i have had some success...

April 10, 2012 i started (once again) this journey of losing weight. but this time i took a different approach.
After my doctor telling me i was headed for diabetes, i still didnt do anything right away..
it was actually close to a year later...
my doctor recommended south beach diet.

instead of starting "tomorrow", i downloaded the southbeach diet and read it and reread it and
put out a date of starting for april 10.
and since then i have lost 45 lbs so far......the most i lost probably ever...and more importantly
this past physical, all my blood work was back to normal

i am not done, i am not even thinking of my final goal weight. it was too overwhelming so
i am doing it in "chunks". first goal was 25lbs, then 40 total and now im working on my 60, with
15lbs to go than will re-evaluate and make a new mini goal. this seems to work best for me.

the last two months though i have hit a plateau. but will say even though its frustrating, i am proud that
i didnt give up. in the past i'd get discouraged and negitive and then we all know what happens, the weight
comes back, and then some.

so joined MFP last week in hopes of shaking things up and keeping track of my food better.