42 Pounds Down - GOALLLLLL! (with pics)

I didn’t ever think that I would be posting a topic of my own on the Success Stories area, but here I am.

I joined MFP back in April of 11. I started somewhere in the neighborhood of 175-ish. I managed to get myself down to 163 in June of 11 and stalled. For three months. It pissed me off, so I fell off the wagon and didn’t really care.

In the spring of 2012 I was weighing in just over 180, so picked it up again and stalled at 163. Again. Screw it. Maybe I’m just not meant to get smaller. Maybe the 170’s was where I was supposed to be. I’m 5’7” and figured WTH, maybe I could pull it off.

I took a fall in mid-January of this year and conked myself in the head pretty good and ended up at the doc’s office with a concussion. The hussy made me get on the scale, but didn’t say even one word about the fact that it said I weighed 192. ONE NINETY-TWO? You’re kidding me, right? I have high blood pressure (taking meds for that), hypo-thyroid (taking meds for that), and OMG, I also had fatty liver and THAT doctor told me it wouldn’t hurt me to lose weight.

The following picture was taken in April 2012:


I’m the redhead on the left.

Once I realized that I had a problem, 290 days ago I logged back into MFP. I started counting calories and logging food. I started doing the 30 Day Shred. I hated it, but it seemed to be working…weight was starting to come off and I was starting to feel better. A friend of mine also talked me into doing a 5K mud run later in the spring, so I started jogging, too.

By mid-February I had gotten halfway through the second section of 30DS and I really wasn’t loving it. I’d been reading a lot about lifting heavy, and joined the women’s 5x5 group here and lurked. I put the word out around work that I was looking to score a cheap bar, some plates, and a rack. My boss at the time had a ten pound studio bar and a few plates and she just gifted them to me. I found a reasonably priced bench and rack at D!ck’s Sporting Goods and on February 15, I did my first Strong Lifts workout. Granted, it was just the ten pound bar with no plates, but, hey…It was a start.

By mid-March, I had pretty much maxed out the studio bar and my husband took me back to D!ck’s, where we picked up my Oly bar and plates. Just tonight we were joking about how I struggled to get that 45 pound bar into the studio. :laugh: And the 45 pound plates? They were unboxed in the bed of the truck and carried in one at a time. I thought I was gonna die, LOL!

About that time, I screwed up my form on a bent over row, and ended up spraining my back. I finally went back to the doctor and she set me up with the Ortho, who confirmed a sprain. No lifting, no high impact anything for several weeks if I planned on doing the mud run. Fine. I walked. A lot.

The pics below are the progression from night one of 30DS to March:







Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m just vain enough to have been impressed by my progress to that point, so I KNEW that I was going to get back to it as soon as the mud run was over.

This is me during the run:



I was tired, but by gawd, I was gonna finish the race, no matter what. And then my back went out again, coming out of the tunnel:



I finished. I held up my entire team, but they said, “We start as a team, we end as a team!” and they waited for me and we got through it.

After another couple of weeks of taking it easy, I was back to lifting. Still watching what I was eating, taking measurements and decided that I was going to wear an honest to goodness bikini by pool season. I set my goal date for Memorial Day. Met that goal two weeks early. I even wore it in public at the beach. Was I where I wanted to be? Nope, but I wore that sucker anyway. I am hesitant to post this picture, as it’s not the most flattering image, but what the hell, right?



(I always feel better about my progress pics when I put them side by side with my start picture, LOL…)

Kept lifting, and had another 5K - a Color Vibe in June. Ran it, loved it.



I kept lifting and since summer was in full swing, I did swimming for my cardio.

By July, it was time for another progress pic:



I set some more goals. The important one was to be able to get into my wedding dress in time for our ten year anniversary this coming December. I did it in September.



The right side is me at 145 lbs in December 03. The left side is me at 157 lbs. They aren’t kidding when they say that the scale is a liar.

I started a lifting program in early September that I found on simplyshredded.com and have been doing that 4 times per week. Our gang is on week 8 of 12 and we are taking progress pics every four weeks. This is me before I started and then four weeks in: (I had to use different shorts because the first pair was getting kind of big.)



Then there was the Fitsperation thread, and I had my husband take a few of me for that, and I used this:



I ran another 5K last Saturday - the Color Me Rad in Raleigh. I went solo as my partner had a medical issue and she couldn’t join me. It was AMAZING!

This morning, before I logged in for my 290th day here, I got on the scale, and OMG, the scale said “150.0” which was my goal weight. Holy crap! I’m at goal? Really? Sweet!

After I lifted this afternoon, I asked my husband to take a pic to commemorate the day (because I PR’d all over the place, too!):



Was it hard? Yes, sometimes it was. Injuries suck, and I’m impatient.

Was it fun? Yes!

Was it frustrating? OMG, yeah! I hit a plateau at 163 again, but not a long one. The long one was the 8 weeks when I pinged between 156 and 159. I kept going, tho, because, dammit, I DON’T QUIT!

What have I learned? Form is better than weight on the bar. The scale is a liar, but the tape measure is my friend. I didn’t put it on overnight, so why did I expect to take it off overnight? Food is not bad; carbs are good, fat is good, chocolate and wine are good. The key is moderation. I didn’t give up one thing that I love to get to this point.

So what’s next? I’m sure not going anywhere, that’s for sure. I may end up logging food for the rest of my life, since I obviously can’t be trusted not to, LOL… Seriously, though…I would like to maybe ditch another five by Thanksgiving, but it’s not anything I’m going to lose sleep over. At that point, I will then begin a bulk so that I can build the muscle that I couldn’t on a deficit, and will cut again.

I promised my husband I would be bikini model hot by summer. Well, as hot as a 48 year old lady can be. :laugh: I am also contemplating doing a bikini division competition before I hit the big five-oh in June of 2014. I do know that I want to squat my body weight and deadlift at least 1.5 times more than my weight. I refuse to grow old gracefully, and I damned sure don’t want to be taking Boniva like my mom is...

I leave you with my two mantras, which I think are my words to live by:

"50 is the new 30"; and

"Will workout for wine!”



Edited because spelling counts...

Edited to further add that I have had the support of some very strong women over the past months. I don't want to single them out, but they know who they are. They've picked me up when I stumbled, let me cry on their virtual shoulders, worked out with me, made suggestions/corrections, and have just been THE most supportive group I could have ever asked for. :flowerforyou: