60+ lbs gone. Got some new manly muscles too!

My story isn’t complete – I’m still in progress – but I’ve been struggling with some self-esteem issues lately and a friend urged me to post this today in an effort to encourage, motivate, maybe even inspire myself and anyone else interested. When I first got started on MFP – before knowing anyone or anything – I read the success threads everyday in an attempt to get myself motivated to workout. Seeing normal people having success without pills, diets, or other fads really helped me to see that I could do this too!

I never had a weight problem until I had kids, became severely depressed (not a result of the kids, I don’t think, hah!), stopped taking care of myself, and just let it all go to ish. I honestly don’t know what clicked one day to get me started – other than hearing my doctor say I needed to start watching my cholesterol unless I wanted to be on meds for it. :noway: I was 29 and I have a family history of high cholesterol. Oh, and I was 5’4”, 220 lbs, size 18, and felt grosser than ever. I don't have any full body pics.



So doc prescribed me phentermine (appetite suppressant) in an effort to show me some quick motivation. :huh: Within two to three weeks I was off of that drug – made me sick feeling and I was feeling too much rage. I lost 10 lbs (of water, hah) though and kept that off throughout the coming year. I cleaned up my diet a bit more and started walking a couple of times a week. Nothing drastic and I was still eating entirely too much, so no real changes or losses.





Well, October 2010 came and there was this new “diet” that was all the rage around my town. And seeing as how I was desperate, I hopped on board the awful HCG train. :sad: (If you don’t know what this is, please don’t ask – it’s not worth it!) Let me repeat – I was DESPERATE. Sure I lost some pounds but I lost a lot of other things too (i.e. my health, lean body mass, hair, money, etc). Oh, and the weight ALL came back within a few months as I hadn’t dealt with the underlying issues.



In June 2011 I bought a cheap treadmill at a garage sale. I figured if I could put this in my bedroom and see it first thing in the morning, I would have NO excuse not to get some easy exercise in. My joints ached, my knees hurt, but I had to do SOMETHING to get started. In July, I decided to start C25K – having never been able to run longer than two minutes in my life due to asthma. I’d read a lot of reviews from people saying they had exercise-induced asthma and yet they were able to complete the program so I got determined to do it too. Shortly thereafter I discovered MFP from the C25K facebook page.

Enter MFP. At first I wasn’t losing any weight. I had done C25K for seven weeks and lost about four or five pounds over that time period – mostly water, however, and I was discouraged and frustrated. I lacked any real support from IRL friends it was hard to stay motivated. I was using MFP merely for the APP and not any other part of it. In August I got fed up with no losses in weight or measurements (I was really trying to limit my calories and stay at 1200, didn’t eat back exercise calories either). I increased my workouts to 5 days a week for an hour (and eventually started 30 Day Shred). No changes. WTH was going on?!! I swallowed my pride and posted my first thread on the forum. Gulp I am so thankful for those initial replies and not feeling berated for my ignorance. :flowerforyou: It was recommended that I pick up some MFP friends for my support system and that was one of the BEST things I ever did for myself. At first I had thought – these are a bunch of strangers – what do I care what they think or have to say? But I quickly learned how priceless it was to have these strangers’ words and praise every day! These were my first "before" pics that I literally was shaking taking.





I started losing weight finally…and then it slowed. I stumbled upon some threads where the girls were encouraging us to EAT MORE. I didn’t buy into this right away – it just seemed so counterproductive given eating more had gotten me fat in the first place. LOL But the more I read about it, things started making sense in my little mind. So I ate back more of my exercise calories…and found that I was consistently losing at least a pound a week when I ate between 1700-1900 cals a day (to be fair – I was doing Turbo Jam/Turbo Fire workouts 3x a week and Chalean Extreme 3x a week). My body LOVED being fueled and responded in kindness! :drinker:

This pic below is in the middle of doing Chalean Extreme. My lower body is very slow to respond... :grumble:


Overall I have lost about 62-65 lbs (depends on the day), 30 of that from being on MFP. But more than having lost the weight, I have developed a healthy attitude about food, make MUCH better choices with food (usually, LOL), have an appreciation and love for heavy lifting, and am really enjoying the process of transforming my body. It’s been a slow process for me…no doubt. I’m not in a race and I have no one to impress, aside from my husband (who I really like to impress, *wink* ). And I want to do this slowly so that:
1. My skin has time to firm up (fast weight loss tends to equal saggy skin)
2. I can enjoy eating out and holidays without feeling like I am going to gain 5 lbs of fat if I eat too much in one sitting
3. The fat stays off
4. I don’t want to get burned out
5. I want to keep up this lifestyle for…uhm, life?! :laugh:
6. I need to eat enough in order to fuel my body to gain strength and muscles
7. To stay sane :drinker:





And this is a picture of my back taken two weeks ago. I never look at my backside unless I'm trying to see how big my butt is looking in some jeans and I happened to catch a deltoid so I decided to try to take a photo of some back progress. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw I had revealed some beautiful muscles!!





So I know I’m probably not nearly as inspirational as some of the people who have lost 100 lbs in a year…or 10 lbs a month….or whatever. I am a little envious sometimes of their ability to do that…but I know what’s right for me, my body and the slow boat to China seems to be getting it done too. Little changes here and there have equaled up to big results for me. Losing weight is surprisingly VERY simple…but the mental part is NOT, at all.

And that brings me to my problem today. I am struggling with my self-esteem. Occasionally I pass by the mirror and I see the fat girl still. :sad: It upsets me to think I got to that point, how did I let myself go like that? Depression was my biggest enemy. That fat girl is no less valuable or worthy…so why can’t I just see myself for WHO I am? I’m a freakin’ Bad *kitten*! (Okay so I tell myself that so that one day I’ll embrace it and believe it, haha!) I’m not in love with my body yet and even if I drop another 20 lbs, I don’t know if I will be then either. There is so much mental crap to this process – I now understand why we really ought to be in therapy in the meantime!

Every day is a new day and we get to make the decisions that will bring us closer to our goal. The only workout you will ever regret is the one you didn’t do. So get to it. Stop making excuses, find the time, and love yourself. Also – be a good encourager to others – my MFP friends will never know just how valuable they have been and continue to be for me in this quest for better health. :blushing:

Start weight: 220 lbs, who knows how much bodyfat, sz 18, XXL/1X-2X tops
Start MFP weight: 187 lbs – 36% bodyfat – sz 14-16, LG – XL tops
Current weight: 157 lbs – 27% bodyfat – sz 8, S-M tops

My cholesterol went from 224 mg/dl (Dec '09) to 155, HDL 77 to 57, LDL 128 to 86 (Dec '11) and hopefully it's still improving!

I don’t have any pictures of me at the full 220 lbs – I did my best to stay out of the camera’s view. My goal is to get to a size 6 and 18-20% bodyfat. Who knows how much I will weigh at those points...but I do know that having muscle in the body is making everything a lot less jiggly and whole lot more pretty. I am really enjoying being able to see my collar bones, finally! If you got to this point - you deserve a cookie - thanks for reading this far!! LOL