[kkjensen]

Hey all....I am new to this site and really like reading everyone's ideas and stories. Was wondering if anybody has any tips for me? I have been overweight as long as I can remember....once in high school I was at a healthy weight of 170 lbs. and felt so great....since then(10 years ago) I have gained a lot of weight and have been struggling to get healthy again. Just had a baby in January and am slowly gaining more since. I don't want to stay this way for the rest of my life....I want to get to a healthy weight so as my son grows he has a good example to look up to. I have a wonderful husband and son and I want to start living my life with them instead of being embarrassed to even leave the house. I want to start calorie counting but every time I start I do good in the morning and then blow it before the end of the day..getting bummed and feeling like I will be heavy forever! I do have a problem with compulsive eating/bingeing. Any advice would be great! Help!

Kira

[Rosinante]

Hi~!
My advice would be to look at what you aim to do as a long process but that one where you've got the option of trying to do it quickly or trying to do it right.

Working on the 'do it right', I would suggest a whole week of logging every single thing you eat or drink. There are programmes to help with this: I use DietPower but it's not free; sparkpeople.com is, and has the advantage of allowing you to log what meal you eat what at, including snacks. Once you've done a week of that, sit down and look at the patterns: When do you eat most? What do you eat? Is there some place where you can identify you ate mindlessly, and you could alter that by planning a better snack instead?
And so on.
These logging programmes show the calories of what you've eaten, as well as all the other nutrients. You might be surprised how many calories you eat and yet how lacking in nutrients your food is. Well, I was anyway.

You might find when you look at your week's records, that just by eliminating or swapping some foods in a small way, you already begin to see results; and that without arbitrarily imposing a tiny calorie budget on yourself, the way lots of us do when we start. If cutting out a cupcake and full fat milk (for example) gives you results, don't try for anything more draconian. The key is to find something sustainable for ever, not a punishment regime.

Good luck!

[Windchime]

I agree with everything that Rosinante said (big surprise there, huh!?). I started with very small changes at first. I think the first thing I did was to stop going to the candy machine every afternoon, and instead eat a big juicy orange. I also cut out potato chips (and all chips) at that time. Then I started bringing my lunch to work 4 days a week (I had a standing lunch date on the 5th day). I think I did this for several weeks before I actually started counting calories and trying to be more mindful of that.

Some people find that they do best by diving in head-first with calorie counting, exercise, the whole thing. I did better with a gradual approach. I did start seeing small results almost immediately, and I started FEELING better very soon as well. So that encouraged me to keep going.

I traveled a lot early this spring and kind of lost my way, gaining 15 pounds. So I am back at the beginning.....watching what I eat during the day. No candy. Packing my lunch and snacks for work. Cutting way, way back on alcohol. Soon, here, it will be time for me to start counting calories on a daily basis. I'm already feeling mentally better, even though the scale is not moving....yet.