My 35 Pound Loss from awhile ago. :)

I have lost 35 pounds but I never posted a success story because I was never at my goal weight. Well, I'm still not at my goal weight, but I going to post anyway because I'm proud of myself. This is to reflect on the progress I've made and to keep in mind the further progress I want to make.

I went to New York in the Spring of 2011 and had an amazing time. Until I saw the pictures from the trip. I couldn't believe how much I had let myself go. I was a greasy, fat, slob. At 5'8" and 190 pounds I was almost obese. I was depressed from it, but it wasn't enough to make me lose weight.

Then in May I performed in this stupid, stupid play which I hated. I thought I was finally done with it but then my mom bought pictures of me from it. You can see how much I hated it in the picture.

I finally looked in the mirror and realized I needed to change my habits. Before I never even imagined myself getting overweight, but I was almost obese. I didn't want to live my life like this anymore. I needed to change.

So I started going to the gym 3-4 times a week. I didn't do strength training, I mainly just ran on the treadmill, did the elliptical, and did zumba, but I enjoyed it and after every gym session I felt better about myself. In the fall I joined the tennis team.

I used to eat huge portions of food and a lot of junk food, so I limited my portions and started eating better foods, but I didn't restrict anything. It was hard at first since I struggle with portion control, but eventually I got used to it and felt better since I wasn't stuffing my face all the time. I didn't count calories or track my macros because I didn't know about MFP then.

By the end of 2011 I got down to 155 pounds. I was a lot happier with myself, but I still had a high body fat percentage. Then I gained some more and lost some more and gained some more.

Here are some before and during pics. I wish I had taken "good" full body pics, but I think these still show a big difference. I deleted most of the pictures taken of me at my highest weight because they just made me depressed and thought if I couldn't see them then I wasn't really actually that big. Super silly, I know. I was in denial for a while.

Before:







^you can see I'm sucking in my stomach and trying to twist around to hide everything, but it didn't work very well.



^Here is the picture form the play. I know, I know, I look freaky. :laugh:


^I wore this loose black dress to slim my body (especially my stomach) and well it did help, you can still see my stomach and the fat on my face.

During:







^my face has gotten a lot smaller!

In clothes:



Here is a swimsuit pic. Eek! I still have a lot of work to do. This was taken in early November when I weighed 157. I have gained some back since then.




I am now 5'8" (no I didn't grow another inch sadly) and about 162 pounds. I still have around 20 pounds to go and lots of other goals too like starting a strength training program and becoming stronger since I'm pretty weak. This is the year I will reach my goal weight and finally be happy and confident with my body! :flowerforyou:

I wish everyone the best of luck with their goals for 2014! Let's make this a great year! We can do it!