Tired of being the fat friend
 

Welcome! I hear you! I want to be the "thin" friend too! :carrot:

I believe it's all about the good combo of diet and exercise. One or the other never seems to work alone. This time around I am practicing portion control, better food choices and hitting the gym hard and it's starting to show after a few weeks!

Welcome & take a look around in the exercise forum as well!

Hi Jamie! So glad you've found us!

:wel3fc:

For me, every time I started trying to lose quickly, I ended up giving up and gaining the weight back. It was important to me to make LITTLE changes...changes I could make, sustain, and add to. That way, it never felt extreme, but I ended up making some very big changes nonetheless.

So why not take a different approach? Make some lifestyle changes that you'll stick with...for life! Keep on those changes and you'll be on your way before you know it.

Can't wait to see you around!

I don't know how much you want to lose, but a couple things struck a cord. I'm not sure there is anything on the planet that can give you "the results you want." I know I have never, in my whole life of dieting (first diet in kindergarten, obese from the age of 5 to 15 and 17 - present). My only short experience with a normal weight was with the help of diet pills. Even with amphetemines, it took three years to get the weight off.

For many people, there just is no "jump start," there's nothing that can give us the results we want, in the time frame we want them. It's why I went on and off diet after diet. It "stopped working" or wasn't working fast enough, or I'd feel so frustrated and deprived for what seemed like so little progress, and I'd get discouraged and quit.

I've finally learned that the two things that "don't work" in dieting are unrealistic expectations and giving up. If you vow not to give up, you will succeed. You will keep tweeking your diet and exercise until it does work, though it might work slowly. You've kind of got to come to grips with that from the start, unless you have less than 15 lbs to lose (and if that's the case, I have no advice at all for you, because it's just too outside my personal experience). The odds are better for keeping it off if you do lose it slowly - no more than 1% of your body weight per week. Your odds (statistically based on some research) may be even better if you lose no more than .5%.

I don't think that means that if you lose 5% one week, you should try to gain most of it back, but it does put weight loss into perspective. The only way to guarantee immediate weight loss is with a chainsaw (very dangerous, painful and messy, I don't reccommend it).

Seriously though, I don't think "jump starts" work all that well. In fact, I think they kind of set you up for a big disappointment when you lose a lot early on and then have to decide whether to continue the disordered eating of a humming bird in order to try to lose as rapidly as the first weeks (which you never will) or to start eating healthier, but try not to compare every weight loss to that first glorious week. Or worse, you try a "jump start" plan that worked amazingly for someone else, but because you've been chronically dieting, your metabolism responds to the starvation mode by barely coughing up a pound, and you wonder if this is the jump start, how can I face the "slower" weeks to come.

Ok, I have crazy diet issues. If you don't yet, don't take them on. Dreams of quick weight loss, cause these crazy diet thoughts. If you can learn patience with modest progress, you can stay in for the long (sometimes, slow and boring) haul. Persistence is the real secret to success, not quick progress.

While I agree that a good balance of eating right and exercise is the way to go, the way I jump started my weight loss is by doing to weeks of no sugar or carbs. I followed the South Beach Diet which gives you good, managable guidelines to follow. I lost 13 pounds in those first weeks, so I definetly recommend it!

Thank you all so much!! Its good to know I am not the only one who has these issues.