Weight Goal Met!

Boom Shakalaka

I started tracking my weight and what I was eating on April 3rd. Starting at ~250lbs: I set a primary goal to reach 200 pounds. Then I decided when I reach that goal, I'll re-asses and pick a new goal.

Well, today I weighed in at 199.8 so, I've reached it! After many months, I've reached it. I'm positively, super-duper, blooming elated.
I'd like to think that I lost weight in a healthy way. One that will have lasting effects and won't have a yo-yo effect.
How did I do it? Well I took the advice of the many doctors I've spoken to... I ate right and exercised. Amazing how what they've always said is the best method really is. ;)
As for specifics here ya go:

Exercise: I knew that if I added in cardio, it had to be easy on my body because I didn't want to get injured and need to halt my progress. So I took up swimming. When I was a kid I used to swim a great deal, but it was tough in many ways to get started as an adult. I started with what I knew, breaststroke and I swam basically until I couldn't swim anymore. it was about 10 laps (there and back in a 20 meter pool) and it took me about 30 minutes. yes, there was a LOT of resting. I set a schedule for myself. Early morning swimming on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The most important part, much more important than what I did in those windows is doing it consistently. If, for whatever reason, I missed a day, I would go the next day and make up for it. I kept with it. and about 3 months in, I was swimming about half the distance in breaststroke and the other in freestyle, which was more draining for me.
I've worked up my pace and my technique. I now swim a mile in about 40 minutes. my best time being 37:54. I usually swim 1 mile which is 44 laps in my 20 meter pool at the local YMCA.
In addition to swimming, I added in walking during lunch with some colleagues at work. I also looked for chances to do activities on weekends that would help my body get into the shape it needed to be. I had to push myself hard and I learned to enjoy that. ;)

Diet: My first step was identifying the issue with my current diet. It wasn't hard to find, I ate too much. I had my sensors and expectations about food totally off. It was my sub-concious decision that I should eat until I'm full, that it doesn't matter what I eat, just that I was full and that the food was tasty.
The best way to  learn how to eat right is to track everything you eat. For this one, I needed some method to track. I began tracking with Sparkpeople.com which is an inspirational fitness and wellness site. It also has an app for the phone which I leveraged heavily. I set a very aggressive goal to lose 2 pounds a week. it gave me a daily calorie range of 1580-1860. I didn't really know what that equated to until I started logging everything that passed into my gullet. Then I learned that's not much. But I stuck to it, tracking everything as honestly as I could without being TOO strict. One thing I knew is that I enjoy food. I knew that after I dropped weight I still wanted to have some pizza or a nice cheeseburger. So I learned to have these things while losing weight. I had at least one cheeseburger and some pizza each week during my weight loss. You see, many folks go into extreme diets and learn an incorrect lesson. That there are 'Bad foods' and 'Good foods'. Well.... Don't learn that. All foods have their time and place. What is bad is eating too much or too frequently or just 'too anything'! I learned I can totally polish off some awesome pizza if I've eaten right during the rest of the day and I've factored it into my weekly diet.
During the process of tracking my intake, I learned about the composition of food, that if I didn't eat enough carbs for instance, I got much more tired the next day. That if I planned on having a long day of swimming or hiking on Saturday, I'd better eat some extra carbs for that energy I needed.
I also learned that I wasn't eating enough. :) at 1580-1860, you can't do much in the way of exercise. I learned I should really be eating more like 1800-2000 in order to have enough energy to power me through exercises. I learned that if I didn't eat enough and kept exercising at the rate I was, that my body would NOT lose weight like it should because it was under the impression it was starving and would start saving instead of burning.
I've got about 20 other tips I can offer to those that would like to know more.

What's next: I'm not taking any time off from living a healthy lifestyle. The best part about losing weight this way is that I don't miss anything. I haven't had a 6-month long craving for something. I've worked in my desires throughout so that I don't have the urge to suddenly consume an entire Chipotle Burrito followed by a quesadilla, chips, salsa and a drink. I no longer feel the urge to finish off an entire pizza, which I used to do.
So, that being said, I'm going to keep up with fitness. I'm going to stop tracking everything I eat and start tracking more my fitness goals. I'm going to pick out a 5K in about a month and train for it. Then I'll see if I can get in a 10K before the year is out. I plan to eat for fuel more than for weight loss. I'll still track my weight, but I'm not going to be so focused on it anymore. I know that as I improve my physical fitness the weight will continue to drop until I hit my ideal weight somewhere around 170-180lbs.