[thaisccs]

Hello everyone!

I haven't been on here in a while so I'll introduce myself again.
I'm Thais, I'm 27 and I need to lose weight. Well, more weight.
I started at 236 lbs a couple of years ago and stalled at 174-178 for the past year ( my tracker is at my lowest weight so far).

Looking at it from a positive perspective, I maintained - which is, in itself, a really hard task.

But, I still have about 50 lbs to go, so I'm trying to get back into all of it.
Exercise is not an issue - I have been going to the gym perfectly for the past two year (celebrated that in August) - but my diet needs a lot of work.

So here's a good discussion: everyone that has had a restart, how did you do it? Cold turkey into a diet? Slowly? Counting calories? WW?

I appreciate any input.

[Purplefirefly]

I am just now starting again, but I have not maintained. I have regained all my lost weight plus much more. I tried small steps with different approaches over the past few months and it did not work for me. I need to jump in all-or-nothing. That is how I did it last time and it seems to be what fits my personality. I am going through big life changes right now, so I feel inspired to get going with my weight loss again. The other changes will be permanent, so maybe these will too if I just do it all at once.

[Judy Lynn]

Congratulations on maintaining your weight loss, that is hard to do.

I had been trying for several weeks to get re-started after a large gain, but just couldn't get started. I decided to go back to Weight Watchers, and now I have been back on track for three weeks.

[thaisccs]

Thank you for the answers, lovelies.
I think I'm going to start writing everything down for the next couple of days.
Also, I'm going to go all in. I figured I should just discipline myself again once and for all.

[Beverlyjoy]

It's wonderful that you have had this wonderful weight loss and have maintained it for an extended amount of time too. This is really awesome.

I have restarted many times. I usually start off kind of slow the first few days as I ease into my plan. This time I went to see a dietician. While I already know alot about nutrition, I just needed a fresh start. I am using the exchange food plan. It's similar to a diabetics food plan. However, I am not a diabetic so I can sometimes eat more carbs at one sitting. The dietician really helped me to see what I needed to include in each meal/snack. I found out that my eating a very small breakfast was one reason I struggled during the day.

Glad you posted!

[Misti in Seattle]

Congrats on maintaining and getting back into it!!

I am not a believer in the "making small changes" approach, as I don't really think it works. But I don't think a "diet" is necessary either, although it seems to help some people... just healthful eating, watching the calories and making sure they are GOOD calories, plus working out does work.

[ubergirl]

Originally Posted by thaisccs

Hello everyone!

So here's a good discussion: everyone that has had a restart, how did you do it? Cold turkey into a diet? Slowly? Counting calories? WW?

I appreciate any input.

Hi Thais,

First, kudos to you for maintaining! I am restarting from the perspective of regaining about 2/3 of what I lost the first time around. But I'm happy to share my experience if it's helpful.

I maintained about 90 lbs of a 110 lb weight loss for over a year, but then I completely lost it and had a big and rapid regain over the course of about 6 months. (I'm a binge eater, especially a carb and sugar binger) I've tried restarting two times before, but didn't stick with it. I'm taking a different approach this time and I think it is working a little better.

I've tried to restart twice since the regain. The first time, I think I knew in my heart I wasn't ready, and I just didn't fully commit. The second time, I did fully commit, but I don't think my plan was sound-- I was eating more like the diet that I had been maintaining on, but not as strict as the one I had been losing weight on.... what happened was that I stayed on the plan very well for about two weeks, and the scale never budged at all. I got frustrated and gave up. What I learned from that is that it's worth it for me to really jump back on a fairly strict calorie counting and carb control plan in order to kickstart the weight loss.

I got a copy of the book The Skinny Rules, and read it to see if there were any fresh ideas. What I found was that most of the "rules" were the basic plan that helped me lose 110 pounds the first time around, but there were a few new things that I decided to try: give up the little bit of whole milk that I put in my morning coffee, drop artificial sweeteners and added salt, limit starchy veggies to half a cup and only before 2 pm.

This time, with those slight modifications, I've rapidly shed 9 lbs, which has made me super-motivated to keep going.

Everybody is different, but I can now see that I absolutely HAD to go cold turkey and get on a plan that really helps me shed the pounds fast. Otherwise, I get discouraged and give up.

You should be in WAY better shape than me to get going because you are not facing a regain and did not lose your gym habit.

Kudos on the good work so far and good luck!

[seagirl]

i started again by tracking calories on Sparkpeople. I started again last Monday, and have so far stuck to it all week and am feeling good.

[thaisccs]

Hey everyone,

First of all, thanks for the input. I decided to go cold turkey too. If I keep making exceptions, I'll never stop.

I'm tracking on my fitness pal and I'm going to use this forum a lot, I expect. I have a friend in Spain who is a fitness buddy as of yesterday. We'll lean on each other for support. I was missing a support system so I'm going to try that. I forgot how important that is.