65 lbs down, with pics

Thanks James! This has been a long journey, I started in August 2014. Initially my focus was health, and I think that was a good thing, because if it had been all about how I looked, I might not have had the patience to see it through.

The first thing I did was cut out sugar, wheat, and processed food. Completely. I did that for a few months, and my health slowly improved. Then I gradually added in exercise (I had to go slowly because of my health problems). I bought a recumbent bike, and worked my way up on that, starting off with just 10 minutes a day. I continued eating healthily, but I didn't count calories or anything (this was pre MFP). That got me down to about 180lbs, so not quite halfway to goal. By then I was getting pretty fit, so I really ramped up my exercise. I do 45 minutes HIIT three times a week, and 60 minutes weight training four times a week. I started tracking my calories about July, mainly because I was so close to my goal weight that it was getting harder to lose. I currently eat approx 1800-1900 calories a day, and I think that's maintenance, because I'm not losing or gaining at this point. It's been trial and error because it's hard to track my calorie output when the exercise I usually do is either weight training or HIIT.

I truly believe that if I can do it, anyone can. It really helped having a bigger incentive than simply my appearance - when you see a big improvement in your health, it's really not hard to keep going. You get daily rewards, instead of having to plug away day after day, waiting for the eventual reward of hitting goal.

My dream was to get to 140lbs, but I know now I could only do that by being skinny, and I'd rather be lean and have muscle, so I'm happy at 147.