My Weight Loss Journey

About 13 months ago I saw a picture of myself and I was shocked. I couldn't believe how much weight I had put on ... it was incredible. I had been sitting around 170-180 pounds for several years, which for me is about 30 pounds or so overweight. That picture made me realize it was time to get serious ... the picture and my sore knees. So two main tools helped me lose the weight:

1) An app on my smartphone called MyFitnessPal. There is no magic to weight loss; it really comes down to counting calories for most people. This free app helps you track exactly how many calories you are eating. I slowly lowered my intake from 1600 to 1400 to 1200 per day. The hard part was figuring out how to "feel full" and take in foods that didn't have a lot of calories. That's when I found a second "tool".

2) IdealShape. IdealShape is a meal replacement shake. In that past I tried SlimFast, but: 1) I didn't care much for the flavor; and 2) it has way too much sugar. So, after researching replacement shakes, IdealShape seemed to be the most healthy. I was scared to sink in such a large amount of money for a one month supply, but I figured my health was worth it. So I ordered some of the chocolate. I think it's very good. One scoop costs about $1.50 and has 120 calories. I started off using vanilla sweetened almond milk (90 calories), then I tried the vanilla unsweetened almond milk (only 30 calories). So, my breakfast was only 150 calories and my lunch was only 150 calories ... I still had 900 calories for dinner. Sometimes I found myself trying to find a way to get all 900 calories for dinner because I was so full. I know how crazy that sounds ... and it wasn't every night ... but sometimes I had a hard time getting to 1200 calories. But I tried to make it a rule to never go much over 1200 calories per day.
In about 8 months I lost 65 pounds: from 207 to 142. That works out to close to 2 pounds per week, the fastest you really want to lose weight. I looked in to metabolism a lot and talked to a few doctors and I decided to try and hold my weight in the 140's for a few months. So from November through March I've been holding steady. My BMI (body mass index) is about 22.2, which is pretty much in the middle of normal ... 138 would be right in the middle of normal. That's my next goal.

Tomorrow I'll give some more news on IdealShape and Monday I'll share some of the different "formulas" I've used with IdealShape.