Ginger, I'm not sure what a stone translates to in terms of pounds or kilograms, but the heavier you are, the easier you want to take the exercise and the more severe you can get away with making your diet. Even so, yours does seem extreme. My wife is 5'10" and started out at 272 pounds. She was 260 yesterday. She doesn't exercise nearly as much as I do (yet) but she's watching her food. Quite honestly, she doesn't do anything draconian. Like you, she has some food issues--hers are severe allergies to milk in any form and all artificial sweeteners, plus she has a mild version of IBS that won't let her eat oily or greasy foods without paying a price.
Right now, I'd say she eats between 1400-1600 calories per day. We both eat a ton of fruit and vegetables now, which helps a lot. She even had about half a funnel cake at the town fair Friday without feeling too bad about it, since she'd passed up the cake at work. She's my hero! She doesn't get to cheat with artificial sweeteners like I do. I spent Friday night and Saturday making lemon shake-ups to benefit our ambulance squad at the town fair, and I was making one with Splenda for myself about once an hour.
She couldn't have that, so she had ONE regular shake-up and gave up the calories elsewhere. She's strong like bull.
Now for the horn-tooting--I have officially lost 100 pounds! 295.5 lbs. yesterday morning, down from 396 on June 1st, 2004. I actually wore my old coaching shirt to the town fair, since it has the school colors.
I could not wear that shirt comfortably four years ago when I was coaching middle-school basketball in this town. Four years ago! That's approximately a sixth of my life. More importantly, that's taking me back almost to my college years, which means I'm approaching the best shape of my life. I ran into my uncle at the fair Friday, and he did a double-take when he saw me. He's seen me since I started dieting, but always wearing my "newer" clothes--my fat clothes, which are now quite tent-like and bunched up around the the belt line. He hadn't seen me wearing a shirt that fit. He blurted out "You've shed half yourself right off, haven't you?"
The sad part is that I have not. When I get to 200 lbs, I will literally have lost half my bodyweight. How weird am I going to feel then?