Hi!
As the title of my thread says I am new and ready to start losing weight again. I think being psychologically ready to lose weight is very important, so I think I'm ready now. I've done quite a few diets before, including the cabbage soup diet and eating veggieit's s straight for 2 weeks. It worked in both ocassions, but I put the weight back..even if it took 8 to 12 months, I still put it back. I attempted a soup diet recently, but could not do it. I find it harder to diet now that I'm married as opossed to when I was single as my husbamd eats whatever and offers me whatever his eating, and I have a hard time saying "no." Plus, I eat when I'm stressed and that's also not helping.

So, now I want to start counting calories, hoping that I will lose some weight. I'm 135 pounds and 5 foot and 1 ench, thus it shows and it's not pleasing at all.

The question is: where do I start? I find that I need a diet that is structured..that's why I liked the cabbage soup...so, now that I want to count calories where do I start? what should I eat? What kills me is the junk food I buy at work, so I'm thinking to prepare raw veggies and a salad maybe with chicken breast for work--I spend there most of my day. Does this sound like a good idea?

Also, for people who lost just about how much I need to lose, how long did it take for you to drop the weight. Thank you for reading.

Hey Lucia, i watched what I (no chips, no fast food, you know all the bad stuff) and I exercise cardio for 45 mins at least 5 times a week. I workout twice a week for an hour and love it. On average, I lose about 10 lbs per month.

Hey!

One good place to start with counting calories is with the Nutritional Panel on packaged foods. It tells you total calories, fat calories and grams, carbohdyrates, proteins, etc. per serving size, and tells you what a serving is. This helps you plan.

Also, you can use a calorie book and a notebook to track your calories, or you can use one of the on-line trackers, like FitDay or the Daily Plate--and there are others as well.

Read the sticky posts at the top of this forum also--lots of basic information there.

Jay

welcome

Thx for the welcome everyone.
Today I ate:
2 servings V8 juice, low sodium -100 calories
1 serving + cottage cheese-150 calories
turkey breast and ham on 6 inch wheat bread from subway with lettuce, tomatoes, banana peppers, olives, hot peppers, salt, pepper, and vinegar-yay, I skipped the cheese and mayo which I normally get-I estimate this at about 300 calories
2 slices tomato with feta cheese sprinkled on it -100 calories more or less
one piece of fried pork and 2 spoons of rice-my husband tempted me with this one and again couldn't say no, plus a sip of his beer so since none were a serving, I would say 100 calories for this
1 litre water
diet coke 20 ounces

Total: 750 more or less

P.S. I went on to use my daily plate feature I see some people are using but ended up not going with it as i did not know how to add the pork and rice which I ate very little off.
The calculator said I need 1098 calories per day to lose weight.

Is it that bad if I just estimate calories? I like to think I estimate them to be more than I ate.

I am trying to also quit drinking diet coke-I wonder if diet coke or pepsi can make one eat more/gain weight. I read something along these lines today on yahoo and I realized that everytime I eat smething i wash it out with diet soda (i also don't like the regular one)..perhaps over time this has made me eat more when I thought I am not gaining weight from this? Does anyone know?

Thank you.