Good bye 75 lbs, hello healthy BMI!

I did it! I reached my goal of 75 pounds lost. I started back with MFP on February 1st when my 4th baby was 1 month old. I had lost 35 pounds before getting pregnant, but gained all that back and more so I pretty much was starting over at that point. My starting weight was 212 lbs and I am 5'2.5" so I was way in an obese BMI range. I set MFP to lose 1 pound a week and then ate an extra 300-500 calories a day to account for breastfeeding, and ate back half of my exercise calories as well. Honestly, I don't feel like losing weight has been hard! In the past when I lost weight, I always excluded all the foods I love. Now that I have been introduced to MFP and the CICO concept, I eat everything I love... just less of it or fit it into my calories for the day somehow. I feel like this is a lifestyle I could maintain forever. I am now 137 and officially a healthy BMI for my height.

Currently my goal is to possibly lose another 5-10 pounds and then do some recomp. But I'll probably do it slowly, or possibly even just maintain for a while and see how that goes. Either way, I'm enjoying my new body and feeling healthy and active! I have found that I don't enjoy the attention that comes with it. Seems like not a day goes by that I don't hear comments from people about my weight. It does make me uncomfortable for some reason. But I know people mean it to be a compliment.

I didn't take a "before" picture. I was feeling too bummed about my body. So the first picture I have is from a couple months in when I was already down 20 pounds.


Here's one for some motivation to work on your last 10 pounds! I was surprised to see such a difference between the first picture and second in my face and stomach.


And here's a picture that's actually several years old, from right after my oldest son was born. I don't even know how much I weighed, probably 220 or 230? Definitely the heaviest I had ever been. And then a picture from our recent family photoshoot a few weeks ago when I was around 140.