2 year anniversary

tomorrow, 4th Jan, marks the 2 year anniversary since I embarked on my MFP journey.

some time over Christmas/ New years 2012/13 I was eating a bowl of peanuts and drinking a beer and chatting with my nephew who'd lost a considerable amount of weight. I asked him how he'd done it? his reply was beautifully simple, 'eat a little less, exercise a little more'.

I'd tried various diets over the years, ended up eating things I detested, stopped eating things I liked and inevitably fell off the wagon repeatedly. I had some real reasons to take it more seriously this time; my father had died of a heart attack aged 51 & I had just turned 53; and my cholesterol readings were way high & I'd begun medication. So I decided to do something about it.

I searched the internet a lot and eventually found MFP which captured me pretty well straight away; the tools to manage one's own intake and the overwhelming wealth of information and support had a huge impact on me.

I decided to walk as my 'increase in exercise', and input my measurements into the MFP profile, set a 20% caloric deficit and on January 4th set out on my first walk, 3 miles around my local park having weighed in at 98.5kg, 217lb.
this is me at the beginning.

[img][/img][img]I'd read on here that weight loss is 80% in the kitchen and 20% in the gym so I did a lot of research into nutrition and different food stuffs. A mention here for Sarah & Side Steel of the Eat/Train/Progress forum, they have a ton of links and threads of the highest quality of advice, even now I surf their threads over whenever I think of trying something new, I'm yet to find a topic they haven't covered. after 3 months or so I'd successfully lost my first 14lb (a stone in the UK) and people began to notice, which was lovely it gave my ego a good boost and reinforced my dedication to carry on. by then I'd customised my own macro nutrient goals and calculated my own TDEE, which at just over 2200 calories was pretty low, but it made my goal settings pretty easy and for the next longest time I ate pretty exactly 1765 calories per day. as I was pretty lethargic other than my walking I didn't eat my exercise calories back and the MFP did exactly what it said on the tin, I was losing 1.25lb per week. this is me after 5 months.[/img][img]as you can see, we can't choose where our bodies deposit fat, my jowls were a popular choice for me so much of my early loss came from my face and neck. and I carried on walking. I upped my basic walks to 4, then 5 miles and late in the summer I walked 7 in one go, which felt like walking a marathon! but felt great I went on holiday & ate & drank as I'd normally did, inevitably I 'stalled' but hey ho that's what happens when you over eat and as soon I got back and started weighing and logging again the weight began to fall off consistently again. and on the subject of eating there's no doubt that my eating habits changed, almost on their own, I cut out fatty foods, the most obvious being good old fish & chips, I pretty well cut out drinking beer, I ate more lean meat, chicken mainly, tins of tuna, salmon, whole grain rice, pulses, chickpeas, lentils, all delicious, and drank a 175ml glass of wine with dinner just about every evening, so I still very much enjoyed eating. on the 16th October 2013 I hit my original goal, 80kg, 176lb, in roughly 40 weeks I'd lost 40lb, after the 1st elated feeling of joining the '100 club' on the 19th of March this was very much the 2nd, day 285! and boy did it feel good. and this is how I looked.[/img]