Tell me your weight loss success stories?

[singingpinkmonkey]

I have 6 stone to lose and am feeling like it is an impossible task.

For those of you that have lost weight and kept it off, will you please share your story and any tips?

I am in dire need of some inspiration.

Not 6 stone but I lost a stone and a half last year through low carving and seriously upping my exercise. I was really strict for the first six months then relaxed it a bit.

I recommend you take a look at an online calculator to work out your basal metabolic rate and your calorie needs, dependent on your activity levels.
Have a look here:
www.active.com/fitness/calculators/calories
This will give you an idea of how many calories a day you can eat in order to lose weight. They say a deficit of 3500 calories per week will lose 1 Lb weight. Think about what you can manage and how quickly/ slowly you want to take it...
Then you can use an app like MyFitnessPal to meticulously log your calories... It really does make you pay attention to what you eat and helps you be accountable...
Think about what really motivates you. I'm not bothered about 'being thin'- what's the point? But I do want to be fit and healthy.

I've lost 3 stone in the last year- tho Ive gone through times of dieting and weeks/ months where Ive relaxed but not gone mad.
If I eat 1200 low carb calories per day - my lifestyle is actually fairly sedentary- I lose 2lb a week. At first I was hungry but I stuck with it and got used to eating less. It IS hard though - that's why I take the breaks where I can eat a few hundred calories more but I am so careful not to put any weight on during the breaks, and just to maintain my weight.
It's hard- I'm such a boredom/ comfort eater but I want to reach a healthy weight more than I want to eat giant bars of chocolate.

As my username suggests 5 stone down here. I had gained weight steadily over 3 years then had my DD and put on loads. I decided one day I had enough. Just ate healthily for a few months and added in 10 mins of hiit at home. Then took up running. Then went to low carb. I wanted to lose 6 stone but I look good now and this last stone isn't shifting, to be honest I'm happy where I am now! I eat mostly low carb still, run twice and week and gym 3 times. That keeps me at maintenance

Oh and it took just under a year

I’m only two months into my weight loss journey, but what’s working for me is to not focus on that ideal weight at the end of the line. You’re not just successful when you hit that magic number. You’re successful with every pound you loose and every day you eat healthily.

I try to focus on how much I’ve already lost and how much better I’m feeling. I’ll probably need to be on a diet until at least the middle of the year to be a healthy weight, but I don’t need to wait until then to feel better

I recommend downloading the NHS 12 week diet plan and use it to track your progress. The first few days were a challenge for me, but it does gets easier fast.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/start-the-nhs-weight-loss-plan/

I lost 3 stone last year and went from a size 14/16 to a size 8, as I was about to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I'm now no longer at risk of it.

I lost the weight by using myfitnesspal at 1200 calories a day and increasing my exercise and did two half marathons. I'm still watching what I eat but not as strictly as last year. I found the hairy dieters books to be really good.

Thank you all so much for replying. It's great to hear about all your weight losses. It has given me some direction and more importantly, a bit of a confidence boost!

I have lost 4.5 stone (with 2 .5 more to go). I second the idea of using my fitness pal. I started by just sticking to the calorie limit it gave me. When that started to stall I limited my carb intake - not dramatically but to fewer than 100g a day. I’ve increased exercise a bit but again not dramatically.
I’ve also found that not giving myself a deadline or treating it like a diet has helped. I have made peace with the fact that I’m going to have to track my food and weight forever but that that doesn’t mean I have to go without. I look for delicious recipes on the internet and cook every night. We eat really well so I don’t feel like I’m on a diet.
I relax the rules a bit when on holiday or whatever and just start back again when I’m home. Any weight gained soon comes off and actually seems to kick start further weight loss.
I feel much better in myself and others tell me that I look different (I can’t really see it but then I look at myself every day!).

I did it before around 12 years ago, but it's all back on now and I'm giving it another go for some health reasons.

Im using MFP to log calories along with an excel graph to mark targets and progress and it is going well, I've lost nearly 1.5st so far. Ive given myself smaller targets like lose a stone by half term, lose 2nd stone by easter etc, less intimidating and individually more achievable than lose 6st.