200lbs+ to 135lbs - from obese to healthy (with pics)

Weight kinda creeps up on you... or at least it did for me. One day you're 'you'. The next moment you're 'you but plus sized and then some'. That was me.

I hadn't had a set of scales for years but knew from my clothes that I was getting bigger... and more uncomfortable with how I looked. I was ill all the time. Exhausted most of the time. And hated the way I looked to the point where I couldn't even look in a mirror. As 2012 ticked into 2013, I'd just had my 4th chest infection in three months and I'd had enough. Next year I turn 40 - I thought 'if I'm this ill now, it's not going to get any better unless i start to look after myself'... so I did. I created an account on MFP and started to log what I was eating.

O. M. G. How many calories are there in stuff?!?!?!?! And how small are *real* portion sizes meant to be anyway?!?!?!

What a wake up call!

My New Year's resolution was to cut the junk from my diet and to get fitter. With the junk, I know some people can exercise moderation, but I can't. One bar of chocolate turns into two. A multipack turns into a single serving. I'm much better off without it and the cravings have completely gone, replaced by healthy stuff I know I won't binge on.

As part of my getting fitter thing, I decided to start the Couch to 5K program. The first time I tried to run I managed 45 seconds, thought my lungs were on fire and that my eyeballs were going to pop with the exertion. I'd picked a quiet lake to run around so that no-one would see my hauling my backside around painfully slowly and it took months before I felt confident enough to run on the streets. And though I could happily have stopped running, miraculously I increased the time I could run from 45 seconds to a minute... to 3... 5... 8... 20... and when the C25K podcast I was listening to said 'you can now call yourself a runner', I could have cried with pride and happiness! Now I can run for miles. Me? The overweight, pushing 40, mother-of-two-who'd-let-herself-go. Or rather, the formerly overweight me. I'm still pushing 40!

It wasn't just fitness though, even with the junk cut from my diet, I still felt like my throat had been cut with hunger a lot of the time during those first few weeks. So, because I knew that a few friends had tried the 5:2 fasting diet and it had worked for them, I decided to have a go. 500 calories two days a week, and 'normal' for the rest of the week. Sounds doable, right? Those first two 500 calorie days were sooooooo ha-a-a-a-a-a-rd! I ended up in bed by 7pm just so I wouldn't eat the furniture in hunger! But gradually it got easier and the weight started to disappear. My chins became 'chin'. My waist stopped being the wobbly bit between other wobbly bits and I remembered that once upon a time I'd had an hourglass figure as my waistline reappeared.

I don't know how much I weighed on January 1st... I know it was more than when I got a set of weighing scales at the end of January. I also know that I'd estimated that I was 30 lbs less than the 200 lbs which appeared on the scales when I stepped on them first of all. I'd been kidding myself that it was bad but not *that* bad. But 200 lbs for someone who's 5'7" makes you obese. Not overweight but obese. How did I end up at 200 lbs+?!?!?!? How I ended up at 135 lbs, I know about. Consistency. Caring enough about myself to get back in control. And getting myself off the couch!

Now I exercise just about every day. I run several times a week. I swim. Cycle. Skate. Walk. I have fun with my kids and have LOADS of energy. My skin is better. My health is better. And I haven't had a single chest infection all year.

Come on 40... do your worst. I'm ready for ya!! :happy:

January 2013 - 200+ lbs (UK size 18 / US size 14)



200 lbs (and starting Couch to 5K)



March 2013 - 183 lbs



May 2013 (the day when my BMI went into the 'healthy weight' area for the first time in years!) - 158 lbs



July 2013 (the day I reached my goal weight!) - 140 lbs



August 2013 (me today) - 135 lbs (UK size 8 - 10 / US size 4 - 6)