7 months of progress - photos inside!!

In the past couple of weeks, I finally hit the elusive and so-called “Onederland” - I am under 200 pounds for the first time in 9 years and I don’t plan on ever weighing that much again. My body composition has started to change again and the difference between last month’s photos and this month’s is pretty obvious. While the photos only show a loss of 43 pounds, my total loss is 70.1 pounds at this point. I have increased my protein to compensate for the increased strength training I am now doing. I dead lifted 105 pounds last Thursday and my trainer wants me to try dead lifting 115 pounds this coming Thursday and I’m ready to face the challenge dead on. I’m also up to bench pressing 65 pounds.

Now that I’ve lost 70 pounds, I’ve been reflecting on how much lighter I feel, how much faster I walk, and how well I can now move. My knees rarely bother me and my feet don’t feel like they’re going to fall off after standing for an 8-10 hour shift. I’m less clumsy, have better balance and my flexibility is more apparent. I sleep better, have more positive and consistent moods, and have tons more energy. I enjoy exercising and being active and I’m starting to consider new fitness goals. I love preparing and cooking my own food and going food shopping. I’m much stronger and have more stamina. All things considered, while I’m still considered clinically obese, I could probably stop here and be considered completely healthy, but I plan to keep going because I want to get as far away from 200 pounds as possible because I absolutely do not want to ever weigh that much again.

Enough rambling, onto the aforementioned photos, but first, some before pictures. These first two are of me in Christmas 2011 and Easter 2012 respectively, when I was at my highest weight ever, (between 265-280 pounds):




I initially started on MFP on 7/3/12, lost almost 32 pounds by Thanksgiving 2012, quit because I lost my job and gained back half of the weight I'd lost. On 7/13/13, I decided to give this weight loss thing another go and after a month of getting back into the rhythm of things, I decided to start taking monthly progress photos. Today I decided to put the initial photo from August 2013 next to today's photo:




Bonus photo of me flexing my bicep just for fun since I just realized how defined it's beginning to look from all the lifting and strength training my personal trainer has been having me do:


Last but not least, some stats:
Age: 32, (33 in March!)
Height: 5'2.25"
SW: 264.7lbs
CW: 194.6lbs
GW: 140lbs
Daily calorie goal: 1600 with 45% carbs/25% protein/30% fat
Activity: 3x/week at the gym, 1 hour workout w/HRM - half hour cardio followed by half hour strength training, (low reps, high weight). I go pretty intensely at the cardio. Every Thursday, I do a half hour of cardio followed by a half hour of lifting/strength training with a personal trainer and then have a 25-30 minute walk to therapy. On non-gym days, I work 8-10 hour shifts as a front desk receptionist at an animal hospital, but it's a standing position despite being reception and there's a lot of movement involved. I walk at a fast pace 15-20 minutes each way to work, and I do count the calories burned during those walks as exercise calories. I eat any exercise calories back.

**Edited to make the photos smaller.