Goal weight finally achieved

I joined MFP, for the second time, on 1st January, 2012. The first time I was a member of MFP was back in May, 2010. I lost 41lbs to reach my goal at that time after eating 1200 calories per day and not eating back my exercise calories - the whole process took six months. Unfortunately, I put 30lbs back on during the following year due to overeating junk food, cakes and sweets. I had, by that time, ceased logging and visiting MFP and this, was a big mistake on my part.

I began a vicious circle, I would lose a few pounds, put those few pounds back on, lose a few, put a few back on and it went on and on like that until December 2011 when I finally realized that I would never shift any weight unless I, once again, became serious about weightloss and set my mind to it. I knew that trying to lose weight over the Christmas period was basically, for me, a waste of time, so I set myself a date and decided that 1st January, 2012 was a good date as all the festivities would be out of the way by that point.

When the 1st January arrived, I immediately logged back onto MFP and deleted my old account and created a new one. I got myself a new ticker and put my goal weight into my MFP settings - I had 30lbs to lose. I had already decided to go exactly the same weightloss route as I had done the previous time as it had worked then, therefore, I expected it to work this time round. That route was 1200 calories per day, NOT eating back my exercise calories and running three times per week.

The first week went well with a 5.6lbs loss, the following four weeks saw losses of 2lbs or just over, then it went down to 1lbs until I went on holiday, which resulted in me putting 2.4lbs back on - I wasn’t surprised, I drank like a fish LOL! However once back home and into my weightloss once again I saw that 2.4lbs fall off plus another 2lbs to boot.

The weightloss varied from zero loss (one week, due to not sticking to my 1200 calories) to 2.2lbs loss, until finally, I surpassed my goal this week, finally weighing in at 135.2lbs. After two or three months, I began to go into my exercise calories by 50 to 100 (very occasionally more), but I never ate them all back, ever.

Despite what many people will say, eating 1200 calories per day, for a female is NOT starvation. Not eating exercise calories does NOT automatically send a person into a lifeless, corpse with no energy. However, 1200 calories per day does mean that all food consumed must be nutritious, there is no room there for empty calories or a dozen doughnuts. Sure, you could eat a dozen doughnuts, but it will leave nothing left, at all, for the rest of the day and you would be over the daily allowance.

I was told time and time again, on the forums, you will stall, you will plateau, you will eat into muscle, your body will store the fat etc etc etc - I would just like to make it clear that NONE of that happened, not once in the six and a half months I was on my eating plan.

Therefore, if anybody is wondering how “dodgy” 1200 calories per day is and is worried about the amount of calories and the dreaded “starvation mode”, don’t be, it works just fine and always will.

Before (did not take a before photo, this one is from a while back, but is the same before weight that I started out with this time, same shape too):


After (taken yesterday):