Over 100 lbs lost! Milestones galore! *With Pics*

I have now lost 107 lbs, lost 35% of my original body weight, and hit ONEderland for the first time in about 12 years!
I am less than 2/3rds of the woman I used to be, and I am now 3/4ths of the way through my weight loss journey-- only 33 lbs away from my goal weight!

First, the pics, then the story





Septebmer 2011:

November 2011:



Transformation:



My story:

I'm 5'10" and I tipped the scales at 305 lbs in Feb 2010 when I decided to give up fast food and pop for Lent. I quickly decided to take it further and wanted to get healthy because around that time my grandfather passed away (not from being unhealthy, but it was a wake up call for me that I was shaving years off of my life because I WAS unhealthy). Anyway, in about 5 months, I lost 43 lbs and was feeling great! I got a lot of compliments and thought I had a handle on the eating and had even exercised a little over the summer. But when school started up in the fall, I was completely caught off guard at how much harder grad school was than undergrad and I slipped into my old habits of stress eating fast food and desserts pretty much every day. I had also not gotten into a rhythm with the exercise and I thought it took too much time away from my homework, so that was one of the first things to go. Needless to say, I regained 10lbs I had lost and lost a lot of the confidence I had gained! So after the semester from hell, I rededicated myself to watching what I was eating and decided to get a trainer at the start of the new year (2011). Through the semester, I lost about 20 lbs with the trainer and watching what I was eating, but still hadn't really committed to any of it-- if I got stressed out, I was still slipping into bad habits-- until I found MFP and c25k! I started c25k in May and MFP June 1st and I honestly feel like a whole new person. I have run a 5K race, a 3.5mi leg of a marathon, and a 5 mile Turkey Trot race. Now I'm gearing up for my first half marathon in May! I've realized that instead of going to food to treat stress, I can exercise and feel SO MUCH BETTER! Even when I don't have the time to exercise like I want to (just finished my last semester of classes for grad school-- student teaching next semester), I make sure I stay under my calories and I've been able to stay on track.

Some of my advice: Get a digital food scale (cheap on amazon.com) and make sure you stick to serving sizes! For exercise, do what you like to do (or at least what you can make yourself get through) and get a heart rate monitor so you really know how many calories you're burning! This is always a hot-button topic, but I do eat my exercise calories so I'm netting at least about 1200 calories a day. I generally only eat at Subway or Panera if I'm out for meals when I would have just swung through a drive-thru for McDonalds or Taco Bell before- or even for a heart attack in a wrapper, the Baconator from Wendy's! I make sure to get as much fiber and protein in my diet as possible, but I'm not carbaphobic either. If I want pizza or a dessert, I count it in my diary and make sure I'm still under my daily budget for calories.

YOU, too, can make this a lifestyle and not just a diet! That's the only way it will work in the long run, anyway!