32 kg lost since April 2010

Hi

I started on April 8 2010 and lost 32 kg. It will be my 3rd year anniversary soon. I am currently 5 foot 2 and 60 kg.

I lifted heavy and vigorously exercised sometimes eating at a small defecit and at some stages during my journey eating at a moderate defecit. I took my time to lose the weight as I wanted to retain my muscle and also have enough energy to fuel my sports and exercise. The scale stopped moving last August 2012 but I still kept on losing fat! Since then I have been doing a recomp eating below tdee, losing fat and adding muscle. My body shape has changed a lot since August although not reflected on the scale.

I recently did an 8 week metabolic reset. It turned out my resting metabolic rate dropped down so low to just 870 calories. For the 3 and a half months prior I got a bit carried away and was exercising too much and not fueling adequalty. The rest of my journey before this I was eating more adequatly for my activity level. I worked hard eating a bit more than tdee and my metabolism recovered to be 1500 rmr after just 5 weeks. I'm now in my 8th week of metabolic reset and have lowered my net calories to 2150 to see if I can stabilise at my weight. Once I have stabilised for a full 4 weeks I plan to cut at a 10% defecit because I still have some fat around my tummy area I'd like to improve on.


So here is what I looked like at my heaviest weight back in 2008 at my brothers wedding.



Here is my transformation from December 2009 - December 2012



A rare photo of me In a dress in August 2012. This is when I started to notice arm definition. It was very exciting


Christmas time 2012



January 2013 in my first gym fitted top. Another exciting moment as before I just wore singlet tops to the gym.




I took another photo just yesterday in the same outfit and I need to create a side by side comparison. I think my waist looks smaller.


Some more photos I took at lunch time at work one day from January 2013





These ones were taken in February 2013 from the back





I started to worry because I had put on 1 cm on my arms in the past couple of months and 2cm on my chest and was thinking I was getting too big and worried I would get bigger. So I took 10 days off from the weights completely lol. But I went back yesterday as I missed it so much. I'm starting to wonder now if I have kind of a distorted body image in that I see myself bigger in the mirror muscle wise than what I actually am. The photos dont lie do they! Oh hey even though i put on cm's on my arms and chest I did manage to lose 1 cm on my waist and 1.5 cm off my hips.

I dont look too big in the photos do I ? I think I'm looking pretty good in the photos. Its my natural body shape. I am a stocky athletic short type of build. My general shape wont change, I just need to work with it to make improvements. I want to lean out some more in the waist area. I know its going to take some time.