I was wondering if you all had before and after pics. Id be interested to see all of your successs!!

Why... if you don't me sharing! I haven't made an official goal thread yet (just hit on Monday) because I'm waiting on taking an awesome after picture at home, but here is my before and after from my weight loss clinic. (I didn't do this without a lot of help )

Wow - you look amazing!

OMG - WOW!!!

You look amazing; like a whole new person!! Congratulations on your success! Did you do this by counting calories and exercising? How long did it take you to lose all the weight? Girl, you look fabulous! Go treat yourself; you deserve it!

Thank you Cookiebell and Dianne! I did it with a low calorie/low carb meal replacement plan (Medifast) and only started exercising about a month ago doing 30 Day Shred 6 times a week. I started my journey December and haven't looked back since!

Now it's the hard part - integrating normal food back into my diet and learning how to keep the weight off for good!

When you say low carb; how low carb are you talking? lol Like only 50g a day?

It's between 80-100g total carbs a day. Basically, you eat their meal replacements 5x a day (each one has about 100 calories/13 carbs) and then you have one meal made up of a lean protein and 3 servings of low-to-medium carb vegetables.

Wow thats not too bad! How many calories were you averaging a day?

Dianne, you look better in that pic than I do now! You look amazing! I am so jealous of your stomach - I'd have to get down to like 15% body fat to get that stomach, lol! I'm at 25% right now, which I'm content with.

The calorie range was 800-1000. There's a higher calorie range you can use if you workout a lot, but I did almost no exercise the whole time so I stayed in the lower range. It sounds very low, but there's no empty calories, you know? Each meal replacement is fortified to give you 20% of all the critical vitamins and nutrients you need (so at 5 per day, you get 100%). The lower carbs keep you from being hungry, so that's almost a non-issue.

The hardest part is just getting used to the taste of the food and dealing with boredom.

Oh, btw, I forgot to mention! I actually had almost no period for a couple of years before losing weight. It was one of the reasons why I really needed to do so.

But my first month on the diet, I got my cycle back to completely normal and being totally regular. Amazing what losing 10 lbs will do for you when you were obese like I was!

You guys both look amazing!

Chickapea,

Thank you for your nice words; however, I do not look like that anymore lol That was two months ago and 5 weeks of no carbs. Since then Ive gone crazy on the bad food and bad carbs

I think you look great and just need to maintain now. You really have morphed your entire body and look amazing. You said you were obese. Although you were a lot bigger in the before picture, I cant see you being obese there!

800-1000 calories is rather low. Did you not eat a lot of calories before you started the diet? Do you know how many calories you used to consume before doing this? It just seems to me that if your body is used to getting 3000 calories and you cut it down to 1000, it would go into starvation? I could be wrong.

Nonethheless, you did it and you look great! Good job on such a great accomplishment!

Thank you Genetjen, I am trying to get back to that picture weight by my cousins wedding! Then just 9 little annoying pounds after that

You know, when I was that weight - I didn't think I was obese. But I was at an obese BMI, I was suffering from sleep apnea, and the most alarming for me was when I found out I wasn't ovulating. DH and I want to start a family, and somehow I never connected the fact that since I rarely got my period, I might not be actually able to conceive. I was in such denial!

You know, I was worried about the low calories too, but when I saw success stories of people losing over a hundred pounds on Medifast, I knew that it could work for me. I definitely don't recommend it to everyone - for me it was a measure of last resort. But it helped me change my life (look at me, you'd think I'm on the Biggest Loser or something LOL!) and so I'll always be grateful for the program.

The secret isn't in the packets though - you could take a good multi vitamin and get that. The secret is keeping your carbs moderately low, your calories and fat low, eating every 2-3 hours, chugging water like there's no tomorrow, and eating lean proteins and lots of veggies.

Ready to start a family? Chickapea, you look like you are in highschool!! You look great girl!

I think everyone generally has a sense of what is healthy and what is not. Everyone generally knows what it takes to lose weight and how to eat healthy. Its just hard to implement it in your life and actually make the change. Bad eating habbits are truly an addiction. Breaking that addiction takes support, determination, willpower, and lots and lots of self talk lol I admire each and every person that has lost weight and kept it off. It is truly an accomplishment!

Congrats again and good luck with starting a family