An unlikely success story

My first (and perhaps only) post on the MFP message boards - today, to my amazement, I achieved my goal of losing 30 lbs., which I have accomplished with the help of MFP in approximately 30 weeks. I had been at my previous weight level for roughly 15 years, and have not seen a weight this low since 1990. MFP has enabled me to measure my food intake simply and effectively, and the ability to record calories burned through exercise is also a very good motivator. A few words of advice - the calories burned through exercise ARE NOT a one-for-one trade-off for calories taken in. You should assume that 400 calories burned equals 100 calories of food, or something like that. If you rely too much on exercise, I believe your results will come much more slowly. Managing the food/drink intake is 80% of the game, although I allowed myself 1,800-2,000 calories per day. Now I move on to the important work of maintaining my current weight - perhaps I will report back in 6 months. Good luck to all MFP users.