55 pounds lost!

Thanks to all.

lemonychild wrote: »

you look good! what is your height

I am 5'4".

jls1mum wrote: »

Youve done brilliant
Tell me how you managed it

I just followed the calories MFP gave me and ate whatever I liked (although I tended to go for healthier foods so I could eat more). I generally ate back exercise calories (all in the beginning) and then ate back about half toward the end. Toward the very end I would not eat back exercise calories at all a few days a week to lose those last few. I also have found an exercise that I enjoy- I ride a recumbent trike and we have a lot of rail trails around here. Husband and I go a few days a week in the nice weather.

Melissapaige1 wrote: »

That's amazing! So proud of you! I'm 5'2 my starting weight was 180 on Sept 3rd, 2016. Today im 175. My goal weight is 125-130lbs. I'm getting a bit sad, and discouraged, although I love to excercise and I won't stop. I'm wondering what's going on that I've been stuck at 175 for the past 2-3 months? Sorry I hope I'm not taking away from your success story, i just find your success story so motivating.

When I look back at my progress I saw that I consistently lost about 5 pounds a month for the first 4-5 months (and I didn't even use a food scale). After that it slowed down a bit so I bought a food scale and started weighing everything. That helped a lot. For a couple of months last year from March through May I was stuck and I would swear I was logging everything, but if I'm really honest with myself I would say that I was adding a lot of calories with BLTs (bites, licks and tastes). I usually come home from work /gym hungry and tend to snack when making dinner. I think I started losing again when I stopped this habit by eating some high protein snacks before my workout. That helped me not to be so famished when I got home and I could make it until I actually sat down to eat. I have hypothyroidism and I even visited my doctor last summer when even when eating 1300 or so calories per day (plus eating exercise calories back) I could not drop any weight (my second plateau). She said that my TSH levels were in the normal range and would not change my meds (grrr). I still contend that some people (small frames like me) need a higher dose, but I couldn't convince her- I think she just saw that I was a healthy weight and decided I didn't need to lose more (but mathematically it didn't make sense for me not to be losing). Just annoying that she was deciding that I was "thin enough". Anyway I digress- after that I lowered my calories even more, and started doing intervals when I worked out. That broke that plateau. My final 10 pounds took, no joke, about 6 months to lose. My body just didn't want to give it up. Now for the hard part- maintenance! Don't give up- it will happen. Try different things if you are stuck- something has to work eventually. I have heard intermittent fasting can work to break a plateau although I've never tried it. I was afraid I would just end up binging.