Howdy--I've posted in the Living Maintenance forum a few times, but I have now officially earned my place here.
As of today, I have lost 115 pounds and have reached my goal of 145.
I plan to make a longer post with photos in the main Goal thread later today, but briefly: I'm 49 years old with PCOS. I've always been chubby. The lowest weight I ever had since childhood was 134 at the age of 18, but I had terrible eating habits so I started gaining again almost immediately.
I was in the US military from 1982 to 1986. I had thought that it would be good incentive to keep the weight off, but it turned out that the weight limit (about 147 or 148) was a constant source of stress that led me to flirt with disordered eating. When I got out of the military, I was so happy not to have a weight limit anymore that I gained 70 pounds in about a year!
In 1989, I dieted from 225 to 173, but it didn't take me long to gain that back with interest. I yo-yo dieted my way up to 260 by the end of 2008.
On December 29, 2008, against all logic and experience, I decided that I Was Ready. I took my knowledge and experience about what worked and didn't work for me and started calorie counting. I lost 77 pounds last year and 38 this year. The weird thing has been how stressful and traumatic it *hasn't* been for me to lose weight this time. I understand that maintenance has its own set of challenges, but I think I'm ready. I have already found the information and role models in this forum to be invaluable.
See you around!
New maintainer
What a great and inspirational story! And how cool that you're going to start your 50s in such wonderful shape!
