How I lost 66.6 lbs and turned my life upside down...

I’ve struggled with weight all my life. The common combination of inactivity and poor eating habits resulted 35% body fat and a very unhappy 27 year old.
In April 2012, I went to India for 3 weeks on a business trip. During the trip, a picture taken with some of the amazing people I met there was posted to Facebook. I knew I had gained weight but seeing this picture was the wakeup call I needed to stop wishing, hoping and planning to get into gear, lose weight and get fit. It was time to do it. A couple weeks after I got home, I discovered the app MyFitnessPal. This app and the supportive network of friends that came with it helped me track my calorie intake.
In the beginning, I started with the 1200 calories MyFitnessPall allotted and focused my attention on cardio. About a month in, I found the website eatmore2weighless.com This site and the two wonderful ladies that run it provided tools and knowledge I needed to not only lose weight or fat, but to transform my body and my life. I figured out my Total Daily Energy Expendeture, subtracted 15%-20% and got heavily into weightlifting, starting with the program in the
book New Rules of Lifting for Women. After I finished that program, I moved on to Cathe Fredrich’s Shock Training System.




The much healthier combination of fierce determination, amazing and supportive friends, family and online fitness communities, my newly discovered love for weight lifting and strict attention to what I put into my body resulted in the loss of 66.6 pounds and more than 15% body fat.




Eating clean was hands down the hardest part for me but I knew it was the most important. Quest Bars helped me keep to my calorie and macro goals while satisfying my sweet tooth. They are a staple in my home and my reward for a day of healthy choices.

Currently I am trying to follow the methodology of LeanGains, inetermittent fasting and macro cycling. It's helping me continue to lean while keeping the precious lean mass and strength I've developed.

Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way that helped me succeed….
1. The scale is a dirty rotten liar and cannot be the only method of tracking progress. I learned to monitor progress by how clothes feel, my reflection, muscle definition, pictures and measurements, and not just by the reading on the scale.
2. Setting and sticking to a rigid pound goal didn’t work for me. I originally set my goal to 120 lbs but to get there, I would either need to fall into the low teens in BF% or sacrifice hard earned lean mass. Instead, I focused on a goal BF%.
3. I didn’t have to starve to lose fat. A reasonable calorie deficit is not only healthy for long term sustainable weight loss, but I felt fueled for my workouts and just as importantly, my recovery.
4. I just kept going. So many times my goals felt so far away, so difficult to reach. But every healthy choice, every workout was a step closer to where I wanted to be.