Success, Failure, Everything in Between (My Story)

Okay, so I know that there is a forum for "success" stories, but I wanted to post this here because I wanted to share my story and hopefully give hope to some people who are struggling on their journey.

To begin, I started my weight loss journey in March of 2015. It was the first time I had stepped on a scale in years and I almost broke down in tears when I saw my weight (208 lbs). I was devastated, but I also knew that if I wanted it to change I would have to do something about it. I got myself a fitbit, joined MFP (I had a different account that I have since lost access to) and began counting my calories. Very quickly I began reading the forums and based on everyone's advice I went out and bought a food scale. I carried it everywhere with me and weighed everything that went into my body. I also downloaded an app called C25k, got a gym membership and began running every single day.

Fastforward to the end of summer, I returned to college. At this point I was roughly 153 lbs. I had lost 55 lbs through exercise and calorie counting, but I was still not at my goal weight. I still had roughly 20-25 lbs to lose. When I returned to college, my roommates did not recognize me. They were floored by my transformation from the beginning of summer and it felt so good. For the first two months of the semester, I stuck to my weight loss plan as best as I could and lost a few more pounds, but nothing significant.

However, with my weight loss I began to realize that there were a lot of doors open to me that hadn't been before. I began to party a lot and eventually my goals of weight loss fell to the wayside. I began to only eat when I was hungry, but didn't log anything. I stayed between 150-155 lbs for the next year. In September of the following year I got a job that was very physical and while I was not counting my calories, I managed to drop to 145 lbs, the lightest I had been in years, while eating a lot and just enjoying myself.

In January I moved in with my boyfriend, got a less physically exerting job, but still continued to eat the way I had been. Slowly, I began to put on weight, but I wasn't too concerned. That is until the beginning of September when I realized that I only had two pairs of jeans that fit me. I sucked it up and stepped on the scale. It read 165 lbs. Although not a horrible number, it was the heaviest I had been in almost two years and I was not happy.

Since then I have begun calorie counting again. I try to be more active and am focusing on weighing my food. I realized though, that the reason I didn't stick to my plan two years ago was because it was too hard. I was being too strict and not allowing myself time to relax or have fun. This time around I am still trying to lose weight, but at a slower rate. I am not being so hard on myself if I mess up and giving myself more freedom to enjoy the things I love.

What I have learned is that it is okay to fail at this journey. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from that failure. I still have a long way to go on my journey before I reach my goal and I am probably going to have to stick with this in one way or another for the rest of my life. However, I have learned that the only person who can make this happen is me. If i choose to give up then I will end up back where I started. I need to just keep moving forward and pick myself back up when I fall.

TLDR; Weight loss is hard. You are going to fail. Learn from your mistakes and keep going even if you have given up for a while.

Below is a side by side from March 2015 (208 lbs) and Oct 2017 (151 lbs).