Third Year MFP Anniversary

Three years ago, this coming Saturday, I joined MFP. I set myself one goal - to not gain the weight back.

I'm 5'6", it was my 58th birthday, I weighed 242 pounds. I'd been fighting being overweight all my life. I'd lost 50+ pounds and then regained it plus more, at least once a decade. Although I'd always been healthy, I was facing the last third of my life and I knew I was destroying that good health.

I used the MFP tools to figure out how much I could eat once I reached a healthy BMI and that's been my calorie goal (including exercise calories) ever since. I lost 67 pounds the first year and 28 pounds by August of the second year. I've been maintaining that weight loss for the past 16 months.

I log everything I eat after I've eaten it.

I started out exercising on our elliptical trainer for 20 minutes at a time, 5 days a week. Now I run, bike, swim and use the elliptical for an hour every day, 6 days a week.

Very importantly, I've made some good, supportive friends on the Motivation forum (yay Black Team of Champions!), something I never expected and they've helped me tremendously through maintenance. I wouldn't have lasted this long without them.

My weight fluctuates within a five pound range on a day-to-day basis. I weigh myself every morning but I only record an "official" weight on Wednesdays. I use the top range times as motivation to be careful, I use the bottom range times as motivation to stay being careful.

I posted this on an earlier thread about maintenance and I'm going to repeat it here:

Maintenance is harder than losing because:

1. You exercise all the same self-restraint that you do when losing and it doesn't get much easier to do;

2. You don't get any of the thrills of losing - no lower numbers, no smaller clothes, no excited compliments. You and everybody else get used to the way you look. Life becomes normal.

3. There is skin sagging somewhere on your body.

4. Life has the same hard/sad/devastating moments that it always had. You can't comfort eat your way through them anymore so you have to find new strengths.

On the other hand,

1. You never look in the mirror, see a photo, catch a glimpse of your reflection and have that automatic cringe response. Lots and lots of times, you have a "looking good!" response.

2. You feel great physically. Your doctor loves you. You can read every article on "how to eat healthily" and think, "Yup. Got that one." You have bursts of joy when you run/bike/swim or just move. You don't get out of breath unless you want to get out of breath. You start taking up activities that never even crossed your mind before just to see if you'd enjoy them.

3. You have deep down pride in yourself. You're living life the way it is meant to be lived. You start applying what you learned about yourself to your other problems. You start owning your life.

To have those last three, I'll log every bite I eat and work out every day for the rest of my life.

And now, the pictures. The top is me about three months into MFP. The bottom three, from left to right, are me on my first, second and third MFP anniversaries.



My advice to everybody is: only do what you know you will do for the rest of your life. Take it one day at a time. Be patient and persistent and persevere through the tough times. Start learning how to love yourself today and you'll make it through.

Jeanne

Edited to add:

To those of you who have been fighting weight for years, here's my blog post from August 2011 when I officially was at a healthy BMI. It's full of pictures of my weight changes from age 11 and on.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/JeanneTops/view/official-135794

My goal is now and always will be: To Not Gain the Weight Back.