I started Jan 2017 with the goal of losing 30 pounds and wound up losing 35. Started this year with the same goal, now I'm about 15 pounds to my goal. I dont have a set goal weight but if pushed I would say around another 30-40 pounds. I mostly just want to be healthy.

When I started I began by simply counting calories using MyFitnessPal. I used what they said I should eat to lose about a pound a week and shot for about 100 calories less. I wanted a slow decline and something that I could sustain. It sucked at the beginning figuring out what the calorie trade off was for certain foods. Tracking was initially a pain mostly because I needed to get into the habit. Now its second nature to scan, weigh or portion out food. It also sucked at the beginning when I hit my calorie limit earlier in the day. I ate a lot of eggs and cheese and jerky.

A couple months ago I decided to go Keto. Restricting calories obviously had a natural effect of limiting carbs but I felt I needed to go a little further. I'm down about 10 since doing keto. I still track everything I eat but I'm not avoiding higher fat foods. In fact I feel full for longer.

Starting in January of this year I started spinning regularly. Back in 2016 I bought a spin bike but it just sat there. Because of having bad knees (multiple acl and meniscus surgeries) spinning is just about the only cardio type of exercise I can do. I found that the GlobalCyclingNetwork on youtube has a TON of great workouts. I've been tracking max heart rate, average heart rate, duration, and calories burned during my workouts. I wish I had power numbers but my bike doesn't have that at the moment. After spinning several times a week I've gone from barely able to hit 20 minutes with an average HR of 128 to being able to go for an hour with an average HR in the 160s and not feel like I've been hit by a truck afterwords. I think that spinning has helped to reshape (if that's a good word) my body composition. I've been able to fit in clothes that I haven't worn in 10 years, am down a ton of belt loops and my FitBit band is almost too big even on the smaller links.

I see a lot of posts (and I was one of them) asking what the secret is. I'm no expert (I just know what's worked for me so far) but in my opinion it's doing something that you can sustain and turn into a lifestyle. My family still eats what they want but my wife has been incredibly supportive. She's now in the habit of weighing and portioning out the ingredients for recipes. Having some support is key. It's rough to go at a weight loss and lifestyle change alone.