Fifty Pound Milestone (With Pics)

Very happy I hit the 50lb milestone this morning. I started out at 322lbs (I’m 6’3”) in January at a weight loss clinic taking Phentermine, B12 shots, and a very restrictive diet of 900-1200 calories a day and 0-20 carbs. I did that for six weeks and the first 30lbs just fell off- but then for the next month it slowed down dramatically to maybe a pound a week if I was lucky. About then I started using MFP just to try to stay within the clinic’s diet. We went on a 10-day vacation in mid-march and I decided to just leave the scale and diet pills at home and try to eat healthy reasonable portions. We were fairly active for the whole trip (20K steps most days according to my pedometer) but I ate pretty much what I wanted. For a week before the vacation I was completely stalled at 284- and after 10 days I was pretty worried to get back on the scale. I was bracing myself for a huge setback- what a relief it was to see I had only gained 2 pounds.

About then I read a few of the ‘Eat More Still Loose Weight” threads here and decided to reevaluate my whole approach. I checked and according to my BMR/TDEE numbers I should have been eating between 2235 and 2629 calories a day plus what I burn with exercise. It was a little scary to pretty much double my food intake but I eased into it by just dropping the MFP goal settings by a half pound at a time until everything matched up. There were a few ups and downs but I never went back to the diet clinic- in fact I still have the 2-weeks worth of pills they gave me to take on vacation. I’ve lost 15 more pounds since then eating more and eating better nutrition- avoiding restaurants (especially fast-food) or at least having a ‘plan’ when I do eat out- exercising a lot more (thanks to a lot more energy) and drinking lots of water.

The best NSV so far has been getting to ride roller coasters again with my 11 year old daughter. She loves them so much and I just got too fat to ride them with her- and since mom won’t ride them at all (and won’t let her go alone) she was pretty much out of luck. On our March vacation I was just able to squeeze into the ‘modified’ big-people seats on all the coasters at Universal Studios Florida & Island of Adventure. (There are whole discussion board topics dedicated to these seats on roller coaster forums by the way- who fits and who doesn’t at what size and how horrible it was to do the ‘walk of shame’ when you couldn’t get it buckled up with two workers trying to help in front of a whole audience- you get the idea- most intense rides are designed to fit an average body type.) But last weekend we were back there again and this time I could actually fit in the regular seats which means we could go in the front row which was an awesome feeling.

Anyway- I have a ways to go yet but am really happy with my progress so far. At 42 years old this is the first time I have enjoyed working out since I played high school sports. I’m thinking of ordering INSANITY to celebrate.



(Not sure when this was taken- not too many 'Before' pics of me lol)



Taken this morning