C.C. You've found a great place to be. I am fairly new here myself, but I can tell you that the support & motivation you'll find here is wonderful.
Here's my $0.02- I've tried every diet, pill, liquid, shake...out there. 3 years ago I was even considering gastric by-pass. I talked to my doctor about it. She told me to try this one last thing & if it didn't work, she'd help push my insurance to pay for the surgery.
Here's what I had to do: Count my fat grams, cut out the sweets and switch to diet sodas (& cut back on the amount that I drank of them) She told me to keep the fat grams below 30 a day to start, then the closer I came to my goal, if I saw the loss slowing go to 20 per day. I'm telling you it's the only thing that has worked for me & I could see the results almost right away. It's really easy I just buy a lot of reduced fat & fat free foods (not really high cal though). Most of your veggies are fat free. Also, fits great into my hectic lifestyle. When I did this I was a full time student, held down a part time job (sometimes full time) & married with 2 kids. I lost 90lbs that way, but then I got off track. I've kept 80 of that 90 off for 2 1/2 years, I'm back on track now to loose the rest.
This may not be what you want to hear
, but basically you're going to have to find what works for you-one plan may work for one person, but not for another.
Feel free to PM me & I'll give you some more details on it if you want.
Good Luck! You've taken a good step forward!!
Teri