I hit goal today after 27 months

Still no pictures of me (maybe soon) but as a data freak I thought I would share some charts since I am a daily weigher. Wake, pee, weigh, record.

GOAL!!!



In January 2013 I went on a warm weather vacation. I had trouble picking out clothes to pack that fit and I was uncomfortable the whole trip in what I was wearing. In the airport on the way home I googled "Best weight Loss App" and the rest is history.

6'1" 47 year old male. I started eating 2350 when I weighed 257 and eating 1925 now @ 200 lbs and still losing slowly. The margin really is that tight, the key is time. I probably could have lost it faster but I was ok with this time frame.

It was easy right? Just look. Down, down, down...



Not really, there were plenty of problems on the way! Like this short stall. Yup, two months can be a SHORT stall in the big picture:



And this much longer stall. Actually gained a few over 4 months:



In hindsight my stalls were all due to getting careless. I weighed and measured everything at the start but eventually you can eyeball stuff pretty accurately. Over time 3oz of meat the size of my palm became 6 oz of meat the size of my hand but still logged as 3.

I saw some interesting things along the way. I had many instances of baby stalls when I changed exercise routines like here when I started lifting:



And LOTS and LOTS of spikes!!! Often you don't know why you have a spike but sometimes you do know. This was my highest daily spike ever, 6 pounds in one day but my god that sodium laden Easter ham was yummy! (also note the 6 days in a row that I weighed the EXACT same, that happens too)



After a spike, don't freak out. Drink plenty of water and be patient. This is the two months after that spike. Note the other spikes along the way! Life happens, forgive yourself and move on:



My exercise has been very sporadic the whole time. I work a lot and can go a week with no exercise and then work out 5 days straight. I am going to guess it was 90% diet and 10% exercise. I have eaten all of my exercise calories except when I was trying to break a stall and then I went to half for awhile. I will admit that there were many times I exercised just so I could eat more My go to exercise was walking, both treadmill and outside. Also some biking, lifting, DVD's (hate you Jillian) and recently indoor rowing.

My single best piece of advice is to log EVERYTHING, good or bad. If you eat a whole pizza so be it but OWN it. It's easy to have a bad day and part way through say "Screw it. I'm already over for the day so I am not going to log again until tomorrow." Resist that urge.

In the beginning I cut out a LOT of food entirely. I made the same mistake that many do and cut out fat entirely. If I eat fat I'll be fat right? Wrong. Cutting out all fat is a great way to tighten up, your bowels that is

Over time I added most foods back in but in moderation but I will admit there are certain foods and I just can't have around or can't eat in moderation. I still no not want 4 chicken wings, I want 20! The same with milk. I love milk but I want a big glass, not 8 oz! I switched to almond milk just so I can have larger quantities fir the same calories.

So now what? Now that I reached the goal that I pulled out of thin air when I really didn't think losing weight was even possible I guess I will set a new goal closer to a healthy body weight. Probably 180-185. I do not think I will have to log my whole life but I do intend to weigh myself daily forever. Not weighing for extended periods of time is what got me in trouble in the first place.

Good luck people, you CAN do this!