Gooooaaallllll!!!!

Had someone ask me about what worked....so I copied this from another post:

I had read so much about exercise/diet/etc that I don't know if I learned anything new that helped....but what DID help was realizing three basic rules:

1) It's what you eat.
2) It's what you eat.
3) It's what you eat.

BTW, did I mention that it's what you eat?

I had fallen down many times previously, because I just couldn't stop stress/anxiety eating, or I'd eat in situations that made it harder to manage my intake. When I finally recognized that I was eating for stress, and started disconnecting the two, it made things a LOT easier.

Here's what worked:

1) Tracking all food via MFP.
2) Drinking plenty of water.
3) Using a Fitbit, a Fitbit Aria scale, and Digifit to track all exercise and weight.
4) Weighing myself daily - that gave me lots of data to see what my trend was.Daily variations mattered less than overall direction.


Once I had lost 25 lbs, I started making things more public - I changed my Facebook profile photo to match the # of lbs I had lost (e.g., road signs, football jersey numbers, visual 'puns' like the '33' on a Rolling Rock label, a .44 magnum, a 45 RPM record, etc.

Once I got to 'milestone' numbers (40 lbs, 50lbs, 60, etc.), I would change my cover photo to how many lbs I had to go. Once I got into single digits with lbs left to go, I started posting videos from "Schoolhouse Rock" as my status. That got lots of other people cheering me on - because they got to 'guess' what the new status meant. I only told a select few people what I was doing, because I knew they'd be supportive. Same with the photos - I shared them only with people I knew would be able to help and cheer me on. I never told anyone I was on a 'diet', because I'm not.

Other things that helped:

Eating in a pattern - once I was confident my calories / nutrition were in line, I only had < 10 different 'meals' during the week. Lots of greens/salads, but also protein with every meal. It made planning a lot easier....and I was confident I was getting enough nutrients.

I kept almost all meals under 500 calories (with the exception of a Chipotle Burrito Bowl, which was 610 calories as a Friday night splurge).

I ate 4-5 times every day. Never more than 4 hours apart.

Target calories were 1800 a day. If I went over, I didn't get upset - I just adjusted over the next few days. Same thing with weight - I looked at the trend, not the individual #.

Don't drink calories. No juices, protein drinks, shakes, etc. If I was going to get calories, I wanted the satisfaction of eating something real.

Eat real food. Don't eat diet stuff. I tried NutriSystem and immediately gained 5 lbs. Ended up selling the entire 35-day box to get it out of the house.

Choose a motivating reward. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe, which cost a bit o'money, but with shopping aggressively, I kept the cost manageable....and I have some NICE suits now. It's good to feel and look better, but also good to dress up well and look good doing so. Here's a pic in one of the new suits:

1800 was a rough goal - I knew that I'd probably underestimate some things, in case I was off by 10% or so. According to MFP, and Fitbit, it was the target for a 2lb per week loss. I had fairly high activity, so I averaged about 2.5 per week. As I figure out maintenance, I'm upping by 200 per day for a week or so, to see how it evens out.

If I'm hungry, though, I eat - I'm just trying to make that food a positive choice instead of something I know I'll regret later.