Hi everyone!

My name is Rachel. 19 going on 20. College student with about a year and a half to go.

The reason I am here is because I am definitely overweight. I currently weigh 163 pounds and for being 5'2 it shows! I started at around 196 back in August by changing my eating habits, which have slipped a few times. Now, I have hit a plateau and in order to get over it I am incorporating exercise into my fitness plan. For me, this is the hardest part!

So, I researched online to see what I could find about exercising productively and ended up here. This website looks wonderful and I am so glad to join and hopefully get the support I need to finally make it to 125 and finally feel good about wearing a bikini!

Rachel

Hey Rachel, welcome to 3FC!

I only joined last week so I'm still a bit of a newbie here. I've been on all kinds of diets all my life, but I've never tried doing it openly and healthily before. Now I'm completely hooked on online support though, especially with this forum being very friendly & helpful! I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Have you tried tracking your nutrition and exercise daily? You can do it online on either sparkspeople or the dailyplate and I find it very useful! Especially when I really want a piece of chocolate and simply can't remember why I shouldn't have one

Good luck with your journey, nice to meet you.

Neeka

Rachael, welcome to 3FC! on losing 33 lbs already, wow! Plateaus are tough, but they eventually end. You are doing the right thing by shaking things up and adding exercise.

The best exercise is anything you can stick with, so don't overlook sports that you may have always wanted to try, or starting with 5 mins of walking, anything you can stick to, and do it every day. One of the first things I did was to start doing 15 crunches each morning, before I even rolled out of bed...I just did them on my bed. It doesn't sound as impressive as a mega ab workout, does it? But, it was easy to do, and got my day started with exercise. It also helped strengthen my ab muscles, to help lift things up and in, so that didn't hurt, either! Think about what you like to do, or always wanted to do, and if it can be called exercise, start with that. Once the habit of daily exercise is in place, it's easier to add minutes, miles, or try new things.

You might like to check out the 20-somethings forum, to meet some people here, or just cruise the boards and jump in where ever you feel most comfortable!

Welcome to the board. You will find all the support and suggestions you need here!

Jamsk8r- thanks for the exercise suggestion. I think I may start trying to that. I walk about 4 days a week at a slow pace for about 1hr each, but it really doesn't do that much. So I think I'll start trying a bit each day! Thank you

Princess, I'm glad to help!

If you have any interest in learning to jog or run, you might check out the Couch to 5K program. It is all laid out for going from walking to running or jogging. It was a fun program, and being already laid out by somebody else, kept me interested and inspired for quite a while. There are usually some folks doing that on the Exercise Forum, so if it interests you, look for a "C25K" thread there. Otherwise, you can check out the program on http://www.coolrunning.com, look under "beginning runners" on the home page, if I'm remembering right. Hopefully that is the correct addy, off the top of my head, otherwise google "cool running couch to 5K" and it will turn up the correct link for you.