6 months today, 42lbs lost!

So today is 6 months until I started using MFP and I wanted to share my ‘journey’ with you all!

Six months (and about 2 days ago!) I felt really ill and I didn’t really know why. I had been eating crap, drinking like a fish and generally having a really bad attitude towards my health. I’d read in the Metro that a girl had lost 6 stone by following an app on her phone and I thought “Meh, let’s give it a go” and genuinely thought that it was just going to be another app that didn’t get used. When I weighed myself it was 265. 265! 18st 13lbs. It was disgusting, and I was horrified that I had let myself get this way. My first ‘official’ week (I had guessed my weight when I first started and then bought a scale a week later) was pretty disastrous; I lost 6lbs and then put 4lbs on the day after by walking the three miles after work and then eating a pizza. It was a horrible blow and almost made me wonder what the point was. But you know, I stuck with it and it started falling back off again, 2lbs here, a pound there and sometimes if I’d been particularly good 3lbs.

There have been challenges, set backs and miserable “OH MY GOD THIS CHOCOLATE NEEDS TO GET IN MY MOUTH!” moments but I think the biggest thing I’ve learnt is to not give up. My eating habits are much better than they used to be, I eat much much more fruit and veg and smaller meals but I haven’t cut any foods out. I still eat takeaways and drink cider but I do it in moderation and make sure I exercise my calories back. Completely changing my eating and cutting out the foods I love seems pointless and I know it doesn’t work for everyone but when I get to goal I still want to be able to eat out and enjoy everything that I did before.

I’ve become almost competitive with my pals on here – there are a couple that have lost a very similar amount of weight to me and a couple who are where I want to be and it really keeps me going. I think that having a good network of people on here to encourage you and pick you up when you fall is really helpful and I would recommend everyone have a great set of fitness pals on here. Thank you so much to mine, you have all been so helpful.

My goals for the future are simple. I want to be 210 by my Christmas party on December 3rd and at 220 now I feel that’s very achieveable. I’d like to be around 175lbs as a goal – it will put my BMI at 27.4 which I know is still overweight but I have wide hips and shoulders and feel that anything else will make me look silly. But I don’t know how it’ll be when I get there. I just feel that 175 is achieveable and is a good goal for me to set and I will see how I feel when I get there. With 45lbs lost in 6 months, I feel that another 45lbs is going to take longer but I believe in myself for the first time in a LONG time so I know I can do it.

Biggest things I’ve learnt: not to feel disheartened if the scales don’t move, not to cut food out because you’ll miss it too much and then stuff your face with it and feel super guilty, soup is super (honestly, if you’ve got a load of veggies in the fridge that need cooking, boil them up and blitz them! Low cal soup is a great fridge food as you can have a cup when you want a snack and it’s very low cal and high in veggie goodness), don’t be too eager to lose because it’ll happen, log EVERYTHING because if you don’t you feel guilty and when the scales don’t move it makes it even worse.

Biggest regrets: not doing it sooner. I think I’ve given myself some irreparable damage (oodles and oodles of stretch marks, bad ankles and a couple of gnarly veins in my legs) that I know will get better the more I lose and the fitter I get but I shouldn’t have let it get this bad.

Biggest advice for everyone: don’t give up, it may seem hard but you know it’ll be worth it

Thanks for reading my rambles and I hope that there is a little bit of what I said that makes sense and if anyone wants to add me you are more than welcome!

And now for the fun part. First picture is me at my heaviest over a couple of different points, second pictures taken this week!