Hello, I was just reading the boards and this one caught my eye!
I'm Katy. I'm from Maine and am ready to recommit myself for the millionth time in my life to my diet/well being.
My over all goal is to get down to under 135 pounds or a size 8.
For December, my goal is to lose around 8-10 pounds.
I know it will be hard, but hopefully I can make it a lifestyle change instead of a for now change.
Good luck to us all and may we all be successful in our goals!

Hey girlies! I finally have joined....

This month has been hard, I've had to literally kick myself in the butt to keep going.

My name is Heather, I'm 27 from Arkansas but living in Sacramento, CA. I started changing my eating June 24th, 2008. I lost 19 pounds in a month. I thought my journey was going to be like that the entire time. lol Boy was I wrong!!!!! I started working out since July 24th, 2008. Since then I've lost only lost a total of 32 pounds, but my saving grace is that I've lost 44 inches. I have come to the conclusion that my bones are made out of bricks.lol But I have gone from a tight 22 to a tight 16 in a little over 5 months.

So that's where I'm at right now. :) I look forward to getting to know you all more!!!

Hey everyone,

I'm Neeka and Im new to this forum. Actually I'm new to diet support of any kind! For the last 13 years, losing weight has been something I did in secret and came with lots of unhealthy behaviour. I want to try to do it different this time but I admit that Im struggling.

I'm 26, 5"4 and weigh 142 lbs. A week ago it was 145 so I am going in the right direction, but this is literally the heaviest Ive ever been. Usually when I start feeling uncomfortable and try to lose weight, I am anywhere between 129 - 134 lbs.

I want to go back to weighing anywhere between 116 and 120 lbs, which is when I fit into all my nice clothes again (my reward!). And I'm giving myself until April 3rd do accomplish this, which seems to be plenty of time.

However, at the moment I'm having a really hard time staying motivated! 3 more months of not giving in to bing cravings? Scary!

Part of me wants to do a crash diet because I cannot wait to feel good about my body again, and the other part doesn't know how to cope, doesn't believe I'll manage to shed the weight or keep it off and just wants to ravish the fridge and give up now. Sound familiar?

Oh and the third part just can't stop obsessing about food. Its all I think about at the moment... desserts, pies, burritos Mmm. Not exactly the perfect mind set for starting a healthy weight loss process!

I have limited my food intake in the usual way, by trying to stay away from carbs and unhealthy fats and by not eating sweets. I'm not sure how to east 5 small meals a day though - what do people eat for that? I don't eat meat but i do eat fish.

In addition, I try to do 30 minutes of running 3 times a week but on a day like today when it's raining I don't bother, and thus don't get any exercise. And it rains often here! But I do try to exercise much more than I ever did before (which isn't hard because I just didn't).

So yeah, I'm moody and it's hard but I really do want to manage this, so I hope you can all help me and I'll try to do the same for you!

Pleased to meet you,
Neeka

welcome to all of the ladies who have joined us!!! :wave:

we are glad to have you, u can never have too much support!

the recommitters challenge is in this forum as well if yr interested.

happy losing!:D:hug:

Hey y'all. I'm gonna try and come back to this site more often again. It helped me in the past to be motivated and inspired by all the "losers" here and I hope it will again! My goal is to be under 199 by my birthday in March. So I've started going to the gym again this week and I've been loggin my food at TDP for the last 8 days. I'm getting a head start on things before the holidays, and I'm determined they won't slow me down. I'd like to lose 6lbs by Jan.

Hello, Neeka! It is definitely hard to stay focused and motivated, but that's what we're here for! We keep each other on track during the rough times, and we'll be happy to do our best to help you with it, too.

Taking a look at your goals and timeline, I'd say be careful of pushing for too much too quickly, especially if you have a history of disordered eating behavior. April is about four months away at this point, and since a healthy rate of loss is about 1-2 lbs per week, you should be looking at having lost anywhere from 15-30 lbs by then. I know that 25 lbs is within that range, but it's toward the higher end, and it could be terribly demotivating if you hit your goal date without having reached your weight goal. Just my two cents.

As far as obsessing over food, do you tend to binge? Because if you don't, if you can eat a small portion of foods that are bad for you without eating the whole thing, you can find ways to incorporate treats into a weight-loss diet. That may take the form of eating less the rest of the day to have one high-calorie treat, or it might take the form of an "off day" once a month, when you let yourself eat the things you're craving. I personally do a semi-off day once a week: every Sunday morning, I go to Starbucks and get a mocha, because I really love it. After the mocha, I let myself eat what I want, but I still track the calories. I've found that that strikes a good balance between completely uncontrolled eating and feeling too restricted. I get what I want, but I'm always aware of what it's "costing" me to do it, so I make better choices.

If you have a tendency to binge, you might want to check out the Chicks in Control forum, where they have a bunch of great advice to help you control those tendencies.

Not everyone does the five small meals kind of plan. If you want to do that, perhaps make full meals (like you normally would) and cut them in half. Eat half for your meal and save the other half for a later meal or the next day.

For exercise, why don't you run in the rain? I know it's not fun, but if it rains a lot and that's your form of exercise...can you join a gym or buy a treadmill? Those could let you exercise even when the weather is foul. Or if you have the space, get some exercise DVDs and work out in front of the TV.

Hope my suggestions may have helped; come join us over in the Recommitter's Challenge thread! See you there!

Hey Nikaia - wow our names are close!

Thank you for your warm welcome and your advice. You are too right about me pushing too much too quickly, I have absolutely no patience whatsoever with myself when it comes to weight loss. Binge eating, starving myself (never anorexia though), throwing up - I've done it all. As have many people here I'm discovering - it's so refreshing to see so many people share their weight issues! I never thought Id be an online forum kind of gal but this is really working for me.

Anyway, maybe you're right and April 3rd is too soon. In the past what usually happens is that I set ridiculous, Beyonce kind of goals (like lose 15 pounds in a week), then fail, hate myself and over eat. Classic scenario I guess. So maybe I should give myself until May 1st? That gives me an extra 3.5, 4 weeks to shed those 25 pounds I am dying to lose. I think that makes sense.

Now all I need is one of those sliders and a few mini goals and I'm good to go!

Thanks! :)

Went off my diet yesterday. I got some bad news from my doctor yesterday and went to Ruby Tuesday's to perk myself up. Now, I feel so guilty AND still have the bad news. I have to keep with it. I can't give up just because I feel sorry for myself.

Neesy- Sorry about the bad news. I hope it wasn't too serious. :hug:
Tomorrow is a new day, pick yourself up and start over!

Not too serious. It's actually more relief really. My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for a while now and have been unable to. So, we've been going through all kinds of tests. It turns out that I have uterine polyps which I'm going to have biopsied/removed. Dr. says they are usually benign, not cancerous. So, thats good. So, once they are removed, my chances of getting pregnant may be higher. It's finally nice to know what exactly was causing all my issues. But now.. I think I'm going to hold off on pregnancy anyway. I really want to get under 200 before I do. My health is most important at this point.

Thanks for your support=)

Neesy- I totally know what you mean. Hubby and I REALLY want to start trying for a baby, but my health must be good first. How can I keep someone else healthy if I can't keep myself there? And honestly, under 200 was our point too before we would start trying. Interesting! Good Luck and keep me updated.

Alright, I am REALLY struggling right now.

I just came back from a workout that ended up being basically half what I'd intended to do. But the pain in my legs had gotten so bad I just couldn't keep going. I'm doing C25K, but for a myriad of reasons I jumped in way too fast and hard, and am now reaping the rewards of that. For example, excruciating shin, knee, and thigh pain. Not muscle strain kind of pain, deep, bone-deep pain. Did some reading on Cool Running and gods living, I hope I don't have a stress fracture (or two or three) because I have no medical insurance and can't do anything about it if I do have them.

But even if I haven't broken something, I'm still in agonizing pain and cannot run for probably at least a week, although we'll see if this starts getting better at all or not in the next few days. Like, it hurts to walk. It hurts to stand. I have to use my arms to lower myself into chairs, because I can't use the muscles around my knees to control my descent.

I'm debating whether or not to take anything for the pain, because on the one hand I'll be marginally more functional if I do, but on the other hand, I kind of see this as just punishment for being dumb and trying to force my body to do too much too quickly.

Anyway, the other thing I'm really struggling with is food. I want to comfort myself and make myself feel better with something tasty, like a piece of toast with honey or something, but I've reached my calories for the day.

I'm sorry for the pity party. But I'm trying to write my feelings instead of eating them, and I need somewhere to do that.:headache:

Alright ladies, so my ticker weight was 207 but when I weighed last wednesday it was 209.8 and when I weighed yesterday i was at 204.8!! YAy 5 lbs...so I am hoping to be down to 202.8 or lower next wednesday!

nikaia - you might have really bad shin splints... i got them when i was doing c25k in august. my trainer gave me these tips 1) space your workouts out more like instead of every other day do like sunday wed sat that gives a little time to rest. 2) when u run even though this will look dumb it helped me out a lot. crouch low with your leg extending really far and running from heel to toe it will take the pressure of your knees and shins. if u need a video let me know i will make u one lol. 3) for right now just rest your legs. before you do any of the above things let your legs rest till you dont feel pain then begin again. sorry so long but i know how that feels...

blcarter - congrats on the loss darling!

neesy - i will keep you in my thoughts and prayers for a safe procedure and recovery

so last night in class i was bough little vanilla cookies thinking i would eat a serving and put them down but i ate almost the whole bag. i gave the end of the bag to a classmate before i did too much damage. so last night i was ravenous from all the sugar in the cookies but i managed to come home eat a salad and soup and go to bed.

today i had a small cheeseburger and fries from rally's and i felt pretty bad so i worked out 25 extra minutes.

so from now on i promised myself if i eat off plan meaning not a planned "cheat" then i have to work out extra that calendar day no waiting!

how are u ladies doing?

today wasn't too good... i ate too much and didn't work out, i'm just stressed and exhausted.

Here's to a better day for all of us tomorrow!