5' 6" Female, 53 Pounds Lost, Pics!

TL;DR - 34 year old female, 5',6", 217 pounds to 164, history of disordered eating, figuring it out along the way :bigsmile:

i've been AWOL from MFP for a couple of months now but last weekend was one year since I first decided to try losing the weight and getting in shape and I wanted to post my success since looking at success stories was so inspiring for me!

I was not a significantly overweight teen but thought of myself as a whale. In college, when I was about 20, I lost about 40 pounds and developed an eating disorder shortly thereafter and starved myself down to about 130 pounds when I was 22. At 130, I wore a US size 2-4, I ate almost nothing, and spent most days trying not pass out on my job. Fast forward a few years and some very stressful years with deaths in my family and other things and food became my therapist. I think the years of barely eating really destroyed my metabolism because I packed on a ton of weight in a very short amount of time. I was eating more but it wasn't like I was eating 5000 calories a day - I know because I did track it from time to time back then. I tried more than once to stick with a plan, but eventually my weight topped out at 217 and stayed there for years.

I started reading a lot of things about weight loss sometime last year; thanks to my disordered eating over the years, I already knew about "calories in calories out." I also remembered my previous weight loss and how I had to keep eating less to keep the weight coming off and I didn't want to go that route again. I read a lot of material about metabolism and strength training and decided that i needed two things - to keep a food diary for awhile and to 'strength train.' I joined MFP and started logging my food on July 28, 2012. It put me at 1800 a day plus exercise calories to lose 1 pound a week. This number slowly reduced over time but it worked very very well. I dropped 40 pounds in 5 months (this should have been a big clue that the MFP guesstimate of my TDEE was not accurate). Around Christmas last year, I got a bad cold I couldn't shake. This was followed a month or so later with a wicked sinus infection I couldn't shake. I think was netting around 1550-1600 by then and working out 5-6 days a week. At 45 pounds lost by the end of January 2013, I had only dropped two sizes. From a US 16 to a US 12 and though I'd lost inches, I hadn't lost nearly as many as I felt I should have with that much weight lost. I also felt run down constantly, exhausted, and was terribly irritable all the time.

During that time, because of the logistics of price vs distance for a gym, my only option was Planet Fitness. I thought I could make do with the weights they do have, at least for awhile. I decided to reevaluate my whole program and concluded what I was doing was really circuit training and since real weight lifting wasn't really an option for me, I had to find something else.

I switched to a bodyweight strength training program in February (Mark Lauren's Body By You which is his newest book in the You Are Your Own Gym 'family'). Within a week, I knew I could not continue to eat so little. I was absolutely starving. I thought I was failing but eventually wandered over to the Eat More 2 Weigh Less, used the tips there to find a new calorie target (2300), and adjusted things accordingly. For cardio, I would jump rope or walk or jog once or twice a week but I did the bodyweight program 3 times a week; that was my focus. From Feb - May of this year, I lost another 8 pounds but went from a US 12 to an 8. I haven't lost anything per my scale since May...but I bought something recently in a size 6! I took a break from logging my food in May as well to see how well I can do this without measuring and logging every bite. So far, so good.

34 years old
5',6"
Starting weight - 217
Current weight - 164
Clothing size change - 16/18 to 6/8 (US sizes)
Inches lost - A Ton :bigsmile: (I need to take updated measurements)

I'm not "done" - my stomach is not where I'd like it to be just yet. I'm trying to lose fat only without sacrificing any muscle and I want to eat like a boss while I do that. What I'm doing seems to be working so I'm sticking with it and will just keep on keeping on! I may start logging my food again soon.

I don't have tons of before pics available and my face is blotted out in some of these due to crazy eyes haha but I think you'll get the picture.

Full Body Before/After:




A few recent pics: