Question for those of you who lost 20 pounds or more

April 2010, I decided to commit to this lifestyle forever..was so sick of being big, unhealthy, an misrable..and wanted to do something about it. I decided to grab my MP3 player, lace my sneakers, and go for a walk. I ended up liking this too much and walked for weight loss..didn't do anything else, just walking. Thats what works for me and still does. I didn't keep track of calories, just ate what I liked in smaller amounts. It took a few weeks, but it worked out. Then September 2010, I found this site..and found it was a good fit. I did have a few friends, my mom, and fiancee for support..but felt like I needed more support from friends who were trying to lose weight as well. I managed to lose about 25lbs on my own pre-MFP. Then i kept myself on track on here, lost more, gained more friends/support and boosted my self esteem and confidence. Now im down 57lbs!!! I'm so good. I even went for a doctors visit to have a health check...all my health numbers have all went down! That made me a very happy camper!! Now for workouts, I do Jillian Micheals 30 day shred and love it, continue to walk, do Wi fit occasionally, and Zumba. I went from wearing a size 20 jeans at 240 and now I'm comfortably in a size 14!! :happy:

This is the first, and only site that I have ever used, I've lost my weight in 140days with not awhole lot of excercise...now I am beginning to incorporate excercise to help tighten up my body more and gain some strength back...

Oh and I started out with the phone ap and didn't discover the website for couple weeks...I love the phone ap, let's me see calories of fast food, resturants, etc when im away from home and stuck eating sumthing, and I get to track all categories, not just 5chosen categories, so I see all my vitamin levels and everything else, so if im low on vitamin a I know to choose carrots with my dinner, or if im low calcium then adding milk with breakfast, and so on..the website is nice but I can only see 5things and nothing else (carbs, protein, sodium, fat and sugar). But the website is nice cuz it has friends, forums, and a support base, etc.

I've lost 36 lbs and can honestly say just using MFP has helped me.. and of course, adding exercise to my lifestyle. I stay at 1200 cals a day and if I exercise I usually eat back half or almost all of my exercise calories.. depends on the day I'm having. If I don't exericse, I almost always stay at 1200 or a little below. Works for me!

Only MFP for me - if you stay within your daily calorie goal you will lose weight, especially if you combine with exercise (I always eat back my exercise calories too which works for me). I've also found if I go a few weeks without losing much (maybe 1lb), having a couple of blowout days where I eat whatever I want actually seems to kickstart the loss again, and I usually lose 1-2lbs the following week, sometimes more!
Another tip, MFP is great but they are a bit over-generous when it comes to estimating the calories burned through exercise - I usually halve the amount they say so only eat half my calories back, and I've lost 34lbs since Jan 2011 without ever gaining.
Hope this helps!

I've used MFP as my main tracking tool, and incorporated information from the Fat 2 Fit podcast (http://www.fat2fitradio.com/). In addition, I used the Couch to 5K program (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml) to get into running.

57 down using just this website.