Six Month Check in - Down 56.5 Pounds (with pics)

I haven't posted much here but I know I (and a lot of other people I am sure) get some motivation from seeing the success stories so I thought I would share.

My background growing up and into my late 20s (I am 41 now) was always rooted in athletics and I played a number of sports in high school and college (intramurals). I am pretty tall (between 6'5" and 6'6") and have a fairly muscular build so I was always able to keep my weight down to between 220-240 pounds in my twenties. To give you some idea I actually trained for a marathon when I was 28 and was able to keep up an 8-minute mile pace while tipping the scales at 230 pounds... my friends at the time always told me I looked very skinny. Because of this I have always considered my "goal weight" to be right about 240 at the end of this process.

In my 30s I stopped playing in leagues, stopped hitting the gym on a routine basis and on average I was probably putting on 5-10 pounds a year... I sometimes would get on a little gym run for a month or two and drop 5-10 pounds but could gain it back pretty quickly. I know when I moved to Arizona back in December of 2009 I had gotten to 310 pounds... and was motivated to hit the gym for 3-4 months but then stopped and lost my motivation. Cut to Christmas 2012 and I had just returned back home to Arizona after a vacation back with the family and I hopped on the scale and tipped it at 335 pounds :sad: - which was the time I finally said "ENOUGH" and decided to try to do something that was going to last long term to start taking the weight off for good.

My regimen I came up with was very simple... use My Fitness Pal to watch my calories (I set it at 2 pounds per week) and to try and get out and walk as much as possible. I use RunKeeper to track my walking and I set my goal at 750 miles for the year. In addition to watching my calories I also chose to mostly cut out potatoes, pastas and breads to help with the carb intake ... and believe me, I LOVED my potatoes and pasta.

The progress has been great and the realization of how many calories are in some foods is amazing. When I started my walking I could only do 2-3 miles at about 17-18 minute/mile pace. Now I am doing six miles at just over 14 minute/mile pace about five days a week (and starting to toy with running again - just did 3 miles at 10 minute/mile pace two days ago). I am way ahead of pace and have put in 575 miles walking this year so far and another 20 running. I am sleeping better, I am more active, I am not winded while doing simple things and I even found some jeans I bought 6-7 years ago with the intention of getting in them and they now fit (and are actually loose).

For the coming months I plan to get back into the gym to introduce some weight-lifting to the routine as well as work on cutting out the diet soda (Diet Dr. Pepper is still a vice of mine that I need to stop).

Here's the Before/After pics... Keep up the good work folks and the pounds will come off.

Before Picture (This is actually less than 335 pounds but it was the best one I had)




After Picture (Currently coming in at 278.5 pounds)