I decided to look into my older threads started and I realized in a lot of these posts I'm very sad in the last few years (even though I don't remember being sad). I also seemed a bit lost. By 2008, I was bored with my food and my exercise. This year is different. I have a plan!

Now, my question for you is how will you succeed this time?

I have a plan this time (not just cutting down on foods like last year) since I rejoined Weight Watchers (which has been the only successful thing for me). I have an active hobby that encourages me to get fitter. I'm a certified hoop instructor. I've been having a feeling that if I just lost the weight people would believe me that hooping is awesome. No one says this when I ask but my husband agreed with my niggling worry. People want to see that things like that work.

My goals are not entirely vanity based. I want to do things with my body like bellydance, pole dance, and learn aerials. I want to be able to become a better hooper. I do plan to use Beck Diet solution and make WW work for me (crafting my own body specific rules within WW) since that worked in 2007. My mother is amazing. She's been helping me get healthier food. I am so blessed. I feel like I owe her now to make sure I lose the weight. Plus I don't have a lofty goal this year.

My one and only goal this year is to reach my smallest weight of 212 in 2013. That can be 1 pound a week. Of course, if I reach it sooner, I'll be fine. I also have fun vacations planned that are super active. I really want to go to PlayThink thinner and get these people that I see once a year to be like, "OMG!" I think I need to make a self rule to check in at 3fc once a week at the least. When I stopped posted, I started gaining. I felt guilty when I was on 3fc when I was gaining, too. I realize that I will have set backs but if I let one set back ruin everything, I'll regret the last year. I'll be in the same place again. I don't want that.

This time, and there have been many times that I have lost weight, I want to keep it off.

How will I succeed? I will stick to the Atkins plan just like the last 3 years in which I lost 50 lbs each (so I know the plan works). If I start emotional eating, I will work with my psychiatrist to tweak my meds. (which helps a lot).

I really want to go hiking but my bad knee prevents me from doing it until lower weights. I also want to be able to say that I lost 100 pounds so getting to goal is really important to me, I won't stop halfway. When I get to goal, I am going to go on vacation to a hot place where I can go swimming in the ocean. These are the things that motivate me.

For me.... I will focus on one day only at a time. Learn from the past, plan for the future, but... take it one day at a time. Hoping for the best.

I lost 30 pounds between September 2010 and May 2011. Then from May to maybe August I lost 5 pounds and then maybe another 5 by October. I was basically maintaining and only managed to shed a total of 10 pounds during this phase. Getting under 140 has been crazy hard, mostly because of how lazy I've been during the winter.

I believe it will work this time because my roommate is on what I feel is a crash diet...but because she's trying so hard, it's making me want to do the same, just my way. I'm wondering if I can get close to 130 by about April or May without exercise because it's so cold out it's unbearable. =(

My husband asked me the same thing a few weeks ago (when I was 14 pounds heavier. to you, DH!)

This year my motivation to lose weight is one that I can't ignore. When it was for men, I thought- "If they don't love me know, they don't deserve loving me at all." When it was for me, I thought- "Rocky road ice cream sounds delicious right now."

But when I read the following,
"The latest research, which pooled and analyzed dozens of earlier studies, found that the risk of spina bifida was 2.2 times higher for babies of obese mothers compared to infants of normal weight women, while the risk of other neural tube defects was 1.8 times higher. The babies of obese mothers faced smaller increases in risk for heart defects, stunted limbs, a congenital malformation of the anal opening, and hydrocephaly."

I couldn't ignore that...

And then I found the Metabolic Research Center. I meet with a weight loss consultant twice a week. The program encourages exercise and work with your mind and soul- and reward for it! For every six classes I attend, I get two free weeks on program. I had to get doctor approval, but so far- it's been so worth it. In three weeks, I have lost 14 pounds.

If I ever saw their silly ad, "Lose 15 pounds in 30 days!" I NEVER would have walked in, but I saw a co-worker just melting away- so I went in to check it out.

I also have an incredibly supportive husband, which helps. He is going to do a couples massage with me when I get into ONEderland!

I miss running. Last time, when I got below 200, I had just restarted running and was sidelined by a broken leg and arm. That's the same knee I've already had surgery on twice, so I know I can't safely start running until I'm closer to 200. But I can walk and I can do short jogs until I'm back down. My body and mind are craving those runs.

I also dont see the last 3 years as failure. I learned a lot about myself, about what foods I could consume easily without gain, and those I can't. Instead of putting on 100 lbs without noticing I was aware when the scale moved and more importantly when my clothing sizes changed and I did self correct to keep myself in the Jr dept. What I didn't do is self correct back down to my 13/15 sizes and settled in at 17/19. But I didn't go back to full on plus sizes. That's improvement, not failure.

Keeping yourself mentally in the game is one of the keys to weight loss. I think coming to 3FC is a fantastic way to do that. I would have not lost the weight I have without it, I'm sure.

Two reasons that I'll be successful this time. The first is that I really want it and I actually believe that even with needing to lose 230+ pounds that I can do it. I'm dieting for me this time as opposed to dieting because the doctor said I should or I'm interested in some man or in essence dieting for someone else. The second reason is I finally accepted that I needed support. Thus, I've joined this forum, put my weight out there, and got a dieting buddy on FB. The support part of this has been key to being able to stick with it. I realize it's only been a month. However, that is approximately 3 weeks longer than most of my diets last.

I have an ultimate goal in mind of losing about 110 pounds. But I've decided to concentrate on miniature goals of 5 pounds. Nobody can keep their head down and lose a steady hundred pounds, it's daunting and it takes a year of your life. That would overwhelm anyone.

But I can lose 5 pounds, and I can do it 20 more times. And then, if I plateau and decide I need to just maintain for a while before I can start losing again, I won't feel like a failure. I will know that I succeeded in achieving my latest goal. I will be able to feel proud of having achieved that goal I set for myself, and that will help me keep my resolve to conquer the next goal.

I lost my 40-50 pounds in 2010 after my diagnosis with pre-Diabetes. Fear can do that do a person. But after holding at 260 since 2011, I got pretty discouraged. More and more I was hearing my inner voice say, "It doesn't matter. I don't care." And eventually I acted upon it, and regained almost 20 pounds (I was 270 after Christmas).

In the past six months, I've had on-again, off-again knee pain. More on than off, but I kept thinking I had sprained something and it would go away. Finally, because it kept getting worse to the point where I was two-stepping up and down stairs and using a cane if I had to walk more than 15 minutes, I went to the doc. Arthritis. Aggravated by weight. At 48.

I have been using an online calculator to track my food (when I'm motivated, anyway) and I had been following a friend of mine who had bariatric surgery and lost over 100 pounds. Her days are between 1200-1400 calories. I know from my own journey that I am not willing at this point to go the bariatric surgery route (though my doc has mentioned it a couple times). I DO know that lowered calories does work for me; the problem is always sticking to it long-term.

Now, I KNOW that I am insulin resistant, have PCOS, and am pre-D. So lower-carb works best for me. I have a blood sugar meter and I have tested what high-carb meals do to my blood sugar.

Plus, I realize from JUDDD (intermittent fasting), that I can tolerate lower calorie days so long as I know there are higher calorie days coming. Otherwise the hunger and drudgery of low-calorie days just drags me down.

So putting all these things together, I will be successful this time because my mobility and health are the goal, not just my weight. This is not a vanity issue, or even a "healthy old age" issue anymore. This is a "I need to be able to walk around and get to work and back" issue. It's much more immediate.

The plan is much as it has been before, because I know some of what works. Lower-carb, almost no alcohol (because when I drink all eating restrictions go out the window!), and low calorie (1200-ish) most days, with a couple days a week of higher calories (1800) so I don't get into the "poor me, I'm starving" mode.

I've already lost seven pounds of the 15 I gained in the past few months. I WILL continue.

I think about this ALL the time. And I think this time is going to be different because while I have been a yoyo dieter, I have tried to think about everything I've learned in all of those other attempts, and am working to apply it all this time.

I've learned that I am pretty good at losing weight, so that's a huge positive. I've learned that I have to be vigilant all the time to do so, though and it helps to know and acknowledge that.

But the biggest thing for me is sticking with it, long term - well, permanently of course. Part of that will be continuing to log in and post here on 3fc. And part of it is that I think I am giving myself a better start in terms of timing. Last time, I started in May and did great for 6 months. But then it was Thanksgiving, and then Hanukah and then all the other celebrations and parties and holiday lunches and office full of goodies, and well, I kept saying I'd just take a break for those few weeks and get right back right after the New Year. Except that soon enough, I stopped even bothering to think about it as a break, and instead of getting right back in January 2012, it took until January 2013.

But I'm back and that's a victory. And I think that by the time the holidays roll around this year, I'll have proven to myself that I can stick to it longer than 6 months, and I will have both the strength and motivation to keep going. And while I don't take anything for granted, who knows, I could even be at or very close to goal by then!

And really, what other choice is there? I have to start again and try to have faith and confidence that this is the time that will work, because the alternative is to stop trying and accept the consequences. And that's not something I'm willing to do.

I want to be healthier. I want to have more energy, to enjoy my body and free my spirit. I was in a very bad place a few years back, so fat and sickly that I could barely able to walk from one side of the room to the other. I spent a lot of time despising myself, cursing the fact that I lacked the energy to get through the basics of every day life. I couldn't even find jeans big enough to fit me at the plus size shops.

It's been a long journey; years of baby steps to exchange my bad habits for good, years of learning to love myself and feel worth the effort.

This time I'm staying mindful of making healthier choices rather than going on autopilot or wallowing in bitterness over being handed the fat card. I'm setting time aside to focus on what will help me, I'm arming myself with knowledge, I'm using tools that will get me there, and I'm doing everything in my power to set myself up for success. I don't beat myself up over mistakes, nor do I give myself excuses to keep making them. My food journal has become my most valuable tool, getting me through this latest chapter of my journey.

I can't feel better if I stay on autopilot or wallow in bitterness or self-pity, so I'm stubbornly sticking to my guns. I not only know I'm worth it, but I actually believe it now. While I used to have trouble walking, I just started jogging last week. And while I couldn't find jeans at the plus size stores, I've just begun to fit into them from regular stores. My energy is increasing, my confidence is growing. And unlike the past, I feel I have a lot to look forward to as long as I keep going the right direction.

Life is getting better, and I don't ever want to go back. And I'm the only one that can decide where to go from here.

This time will work because I've learned it's not about motivation, it's about commitment. I am committed to lowering my weight, I am committed to raising healthy children by modeling a healthy life style. I am committed to my goals!