For the first eighteen months of this, I was kind of winging it at the
gym and just trying to eat right to the best of my ability. I plateaued
at ~175 lbs and couldn't seem to make much more progress. It was then
that I began seriously reading these forums and discovered all types of things involving nutrition and fitness; most importantly, counting calories. I decided I wanted my abs to be visible. I learned that for this to be possible, a body fat of ~10% or less was required. So in June, I downloaded MyFitnessPal and began counting my calories. It was
also then that I adopted a vegan "diet", at first for nutritional
benefits, and