270 wanting to be 160

I started at 307 and now hover around 170. It took me six years to lose the weight and I've kept it off for over four now...occasionally I do hit the 160s and then always bounce back up to 170 but I've made peace with that and focus on maintaining where I am. At 41 and 5'8" I feel happy with this.

A lot of people hear that it took me 5+ years and think I must have done something wrong...I feel totally opposite about it. I didn't join MFP until four years into the process and calorie counting very much accelerated my progress. The way I viewed the journey was slow and steady wins the race. I know a lot of people who have lost over 100 lb in a year and didn't keep it off because their methods weren't sustainable. I believe you are on the right track with smaller changes and calorie counting, FWIW.

I know people are different. I'd never lost a lot of weight in the past, never really dieted. I'd been over 250 lb since I was seventeen years old and then something changed for me in my early thirties and I was sick of being so big. I always liked thinking "I'm doing good for myself and in a year I'll be closer to where I want to be". For me that was enough.