I recently lost 70 pounds...how I did it.

First of all, I have never been a thin person, although I am fairly tall (6' 2' - 6' - 3" range).  I didn't mind too much because I felt good and I was very physically active.  Usually I would experience a stretch of weight gain and then lose 20 or 25 pounds.  I basically stabilized around the 265 mark.  Then, in my mid-forties, my  hips started to go really bad.  My primary activity was hockey and I just couldn't continue playing.  I tried to keep up with alternate activities such as going to  the gym, swimming, cycling, etc., but it's not the same.  As my hips became worse I could hardly ride a bike and walking was out of the question.

One thing that I did which paid dividends in the long run was cut back on my coffee intake.  Then I switched to decaf coffee and finally I eliminated the cream and sugar.  I went from about 8 to 10 cups a day of double cream double sugar to 6 cups of black decaf.  I think this is hugely important because caffeine plays hell with your blood sugar levels and makes it difficult to maintain a diet.  This coffee transition took me months to do and while I was doing it I did not worry about my weight.

Also during this time I was recovering from my hip surgeries, so I tried to be active but I ate pretty much as much as I wanted.  I also think this was important because I certainly felt weak after the surgeries.  My activity was primarily cycling with some weights thrown in.

In the summer of 2012 I maxed out with my weight, probably around 305 and that's when I started dieting seriously.  I bought digital scales for measuring weight and food portions and I signed up for a web-based diet and exercise utility called "Lose-It" which allowed me to track weight, calories from food and exercise in a very convenient manner.  I weighed myself every day and maintained the entries for food and exercise diligently.  Lose-It allows you to set goals to make it easier to monitor how much you can eat and it automatically adjusts the calories allowed based on your current weight.

I set my weight loss goal so that I would lose a pound a week from calorie reduction, so that is about 500 calories a day.  Then I worked out like crazy.  Not super-intense, lots of moderate cardio and weights.  I was typically losing about 3 pounds a week this way and I almost never lacked energy or experienced hunger pangs.  In fact, I lost over 75 pounds, but my goal was 70 so I have allowed myself to come up a bit.  I am just under 235, which was my goal weight and I am currently tweaking my activity and caloric intake to see what a maintenance lifestyle will look like.  The weight came off over a period of 6 months.

While doing this I was 52 years old and had both hips replaced two years prior.  I think that if I could do it, then anyone can.