Goal Reached WOOOT WOOOT

Hi Everyone.

I am a 5'10" male. I started my diet on Dec 15, 2011 at 250 pounds.

I joined MFP in mid January 2012 at 245 pounds. I set my goal at 200 pounds. Today, I reached my goal weight. But I am not done. I changed my goals to 180 pounds.

Here is how I acheived my goals. They may not be for everyone, but they worked for me.

First off, I was fat and didn't want to be fat any longer. I started by going to the gym everyday and trying to eat better. In mid January, my son gave me the name of this site and I joined. I realized something very quickly after I joined. Losing weight is basically SIMPLE MATH.

I punched in my height, weight and age and activity level(I actually cheated myself). The site told me how many calories I burn n a normal day and how many calories I could eat to lose 2 pounds per week. I quickly became like a mad scientist. Weighing and portioning out all of my food. Thankfully, wifey was on board and she quickly came around and starting eating the same way.

I had Very good weeks, decent weeks and not-so-good weeks. I only weigh myself on Sunday mornings. And every week I was happy to lose 2 pounds. If I see a larger weight lose, I am excited. I think I only had one week in which I didn't lose at least two pounds. That week I lost one pound and was PISSED. Got right back on track and have been ging strong.

I am eating the same foods I always ate. My diary is open for all to see. I refuse to totally cut any food out of my diet. I still eat ice cream(real ice cream) 4-5 nights a week. I didn't pay attention to Micros or macros or any other crap other than CALORIES. I quickly learned where alot of my calories were coming from and slowly started reducing, avoiding, or using alternatives to what I considered WASTED/USELESS CALORIES. Simply by default, I started eating healthier. Less and less olive oil(I don't care that olive oil is good for you, it has a ton of calories) and dressings. Switched from regular potatoes to sweet potatoes. White rice became brown rice. You get the picture.

I never ate back my work out calories and was under my calorie goals for the day, 95 percent of the time. I have, not once, felt any hunger while dieting. I plan my meals so I can optimize my night time snacking. I love snacking at night.

Also, I have a cheat night at least once, every single week. My bride and I go out to eat every Friday or Saturday night. Sometimes both nights. I am not talking about fast food(mcdonalds, applebees or crap like that). I am talking about restaurants, Italian, steakhouses, chinese, whatever. Not being with my scale, I would TRY to make healthy choices and would eye ball what I was eating and make sure to log it when I got home.

I am here to tell ALL of you, that you can accomplish this as well. I am/was a PROFFESIONAL EATER. I don't eat fast food or garbage. My wife and I can cook, and I mean COOK GOOD food. Real, fattening, tasty food.

Ok, now I am gonna get on my soap box and preach for a minute.
ANYONE that has any excuses as to why they can't lose weight, simply is making excuses.

I have a torn ACL and miniscuss. I can't run at all. That doesn't stop me from walking on the tread mill. I started slow and now I do an hour at 15 incline and any where from 3.6 - 4 on the speed.

I don't have time to diet or go to the gym. I work 60 hours a week. My bride works full time as well. WE MAKE TIME. We go to the gym together always. Even if it is 8-9 o'clock at night.

We have 3 teenagers that don't like what we eat. We have 3 options for that. One, we basically eat the same foods, so there is no difference. 2 They enjoy certain foods that we don't, so, for example, they love fried chicken cutlets. We will fry theirs and grill ours. 3 If they don't like what we are eating for dinner, the next meal is breakfast.

If your spouse, mother, father, who ever, won't cook what you NEED to be eating, cook for yourself.

Dieting is expensive. FALSE. We are spending less money on food every week. Simple math. Eat less, spend less.

This is the last thing I will preach about. WE ARE FAT AND OVERWEIGHT. When we eat ourselves to death, our significant other will take our insurance money, hire a trainer of the opposite sex. Lose weight. Have an affair with the trainer and probably spend the rest of the insurance money on plastic surgery(implants or something like that)

And no, I am too lazy to post pics.
Before


Today