Nine months ago today...

... I weighed 270, and decided that was as far as I would go. My wife Sherry struggles with her weight, too, and she had come across the MFP site a few days prior to my decision to reverse the trend of gain and loss I/we had endured for the last twenty (probably more) years. We started on June 22, 2012, and today, I weighed in at 197. (My MFP chart shows it at 260 to 187, but that is due to finding out two months into the program that our scales were ten pounds light. What a serious bummer that was!) But! We forged onward, undaunted an undiscouraged. Sherry has done well, but hit a wall at the 36 pound loss bar, but she continues to maintain a healthy diet and exercise routine, and has faith things will payoff in the long run.
We have both learned to eat smaller portions, and the thing we enjoy most is that we can eat almost anything we desire, as long as we don't eat too much of it.
I'm retired, so I have an advantage in that I can exercise more than Sherry--and many people in general--and it doesn't hurt that I'm a fanatic when it comes to exercise. I ride my exercise bike 2-3 hours a day, and try to get in 1-2 fast-paced, two-mile walks per day.
When people ask me how I've accomplished the weight loss, I tell them about MFP, and explain it's really very simple. I call it the simple math diet. You simply burn more calories than you take in, and do it consistently. My son just started MFP, and he likes to refer to it as the awareness plan; you are reminded every day what your calorie intake is and how many calories you burn.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but, hey, I’m a writer; whatta ya expect? In fact, here’s one of my blog post that refers to my dieting adventures: http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/too-much-skin-in-the-game/