100lbs Down (And a progress pic if I'm brave enough)

I finally hit the big one-zero-zero this morning, and I couldn't be happier. First a few stats:

Starting weight: 290
Current weight: 189.4
Starting shirt size: Going into a XXXL
Current: L (that's beginning to fit pretty loosely)
Starting pant size: 40
Current: 30

I remember just starting to live healthier was hard enough. I was always telling myself that I'll start tomorrow morning, but then the morning came and I'd forget about everything I was going to do until after I had a large meal and then I'd tell myself I'd begin the next day instead. It turned into an ugly cycle until I'd think "screw it" and forget about being healthier for another couple of months.

The real kick in the pants was when I came out of the shower one day and was completely disgusted by what I saw in the mirror. It took a few days after the shower, but I was finally ready for a change. The complacent feeling I had about myself was finally gone. Instead of starting the healthy eating tomorrow, I started it with dinner that day. It's how everyone says, it's easy to do things tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes.

I started the diet with nothing but eyeballing portion sizes and deciding what would fit into my stomach and just be filling and not overstuff myself. I did that for about 5 days and did pretty good at that. I had lost 5 pounds before I added my next step, which was to join this site.

I work at a school, and I had remembered a teacher doing a choose your own work type assignment the previous school year. One of the assignments was to join this site and track their food intake for 2 weeks and write a 2 page paper about what they found out about themselves. So I figured I'd check out this site and try it out for myself. And it helped my change in eating immensely. I was still estimating food portions by using measuring cups or eyeballing, but it helped me remain more accurate in what I was eating, how much I was eating, and my calorie intake.

Then, the most important step I took was purchasing a food scale. It took about 2 months for me to get to that point, and I only wish I bought one so much sooner. At least when I was using the measuring cup it wasn't off by too much, but I can't eyeball things to save my life, lol. The scale was impeccable when it came to my new way of eating, and I can't not encourage people to use one if they are trying to eat better.

I have had numerous ups and downs while getting rid of unwanted pounds. One of the hardest was when I got stuck at a weight for 3 to 4 weeks. I won't lie, there were a few days when seeing that unchanging number (except to go up every once in a while) discouraged me enough that I thought about quitting. Thankfully I didn't entertain that thought for long. I kept telling myself that I would get past this bump, I just had to keep doing what I was doing.

Then there was the week I went on vacation and gained back about 8 pounds, which took a week to get back off. And most recently I had a birthday weekend (cake is the devil, there is no question about that). Luckily my birthday weekend only took 2 days to return to where I was and then some.

And this is where I am at now. 100 pounds gone, I am a middle-schooler more lightweight (or a 2 month old horse). I'm sad to say it took until I was 290 pounds to change my life around, but I have to say that I'm happy I did decide to start.

And now before I lose my nerve, here's some pictures of when I was about 275 pounds on the left, and one from today on the right.