140 Pounds Lost In One Year!

Hi everyone!

My journey to a healthier me began around 3 years ago. I had some great initial success, losing 88 pounds in a few months. Then I lost my focus and I gained about 60 pounds of that loss back. Very discouraging to say the least.

Then on July 12, 2011 I decided enough was enough. Although still a few pounds down from my heaviest recorded weight, I still felt like I had an impossible task ahead of me. I took the lessons I learned from my first big loss and improved my diet and my work ethic. The pictures below represent a calendar year of this effort. I am 140 pounds lighter in that 12 month period, and it feels amazing!

If I'm honest with myself and all of you I can say that out of the full year I was only truly focused and making the right choices for about 9.5 - 10 of those months. I had setbacks and weeks where I didn't eat right or exercise. But I have learned to minimize those times and I can only imagine what I could have accomplished if I had been on my game the entire time.

So to anyone who is struggling or feels like they have an impossibly long way to go to reach their goals I say this: even if you don't always make the right choices, all it takes is making the right choice more often than not, some patience, and a desire to change yourself. I still have a long way to go, but I have no doubt I'll get there.

Thank you so much to the MFP community, the active forum members, all of my awesome friends (here on MFP and in real life) and of course the creator of MFP, Mike, for creating an amazing tool and community that has played a huge part in helping me change my life.

Now on with the pics!