[tinamariefitforme]

I want to lose weight. I have been overweight all my life even during childhood I was the "chubby" kid. I just don't know where to start. I come from a family that is overweight and Mexican and even know the food is so delicious I know it's not the healthiest for you. Just lately I have been feeling horrible, lazy, and not motivated at all. I want to be happy, healthy and full of energy. I just don't know where to being on this journey. Anything helpful tips that helped you all start and keep on going would be awesome thanks!

[elvislover324]

OK...here is the good news!!!! Your post was the "start" you didn't know how to do!!! So it's all uphill and good news from here!!!

Seriously, joining 3FC was the first major step I made and making a few friends around here.

The next step I made was making small changes in my diet (limiting soda, cutting out cream and sugar in my coffee, adding in some minor exercise). Then it was onward and awesome from there.

We are here for you. Post often and ask away with your questions. It's the first day of your new life and we want to be a part of it!

[NemesisClaws]

I know what you mean about family and friends. Too often they are very resistant to any changes.

What you can do is like elvislover says, start small and slowly build your way from there. I cut out all sodas from my everyday life, and I can tell the difference now when I did have the occasional soda. I'm winded, can't get up the stairs easily, etc. Plus, I actually lost a few pounds just from dropping that soda habit.

Secondly, start exploring with food a bit to see what healthier alternatives you can make. For instance, instead of that heavy, calorie ridden Mexican dish, what can you replace in it that will still taste just as good with the original ingredients?

Check out some Mexican cookbooks that are designed to be lighter in fare. They can help you figure out how to modifiy some of your dishes. You don't have to do all of your dishes light, but some changes here and there do add up over time, and may even save you money too.

Thirdly, go get a blood test to check your vitamin levels, etc. You may be low in Vitamin D, etc, which can really affect your mood and get you depressed. (I had mine checked after the doctor noticed I was really depressed, and I had almost nonexistent vitamin d and iron levels. So they put me on some strong pills and it really made a difference in giving me energy and outlook on life.)

And lastly, try to see what exercises you can incorporate into your day. You could start with buying a pedometer to count how many steps you take a day, and try to challenge yourself to meet that 10,000 steps goal.

Baby steps are really important because if you can stick with these, then you're more likely to stick with it for the long haul when you start really getting into it. Hope this helps!

[Pattience]

Hi there. Welcome and good luck with your journey.

As said you've made a start now. Just keep taking one step forward after another. If you can stick with that simple plan, you will get where you want to go. don't be in a hurry. Don't set yourself unrealistic goals. And decide to start eating how you intend to eat for the rest of your life.

At this stage, diet is more important than exercise and ultimately its more important too because its easily possibly to do a lot of exercise and eat so much that you gain or don't lose weight. So calorie restriction is the ultimate key. Exercise is good but don't set unrealistic goals.

I agree to seeing your doctor, tell him/her what you are doing and if they can refer you to a nutritionist or dietician who's had experience with people similar to you. They will be a support for you and a source of reliable nutrition information. And you may find it motivating. If your mood continues to be flat you may need to address that and a counsellor for extra support may also help after you've finished with the nutritionist. Or even at the same time. Depends on the nature of your depression, if you are indeed depressed. ASk your doctor for an assessment.

If you can't get to a nutritionist, you should learn about nutrition. A lot of diet books skip on information about nutrition, although i know one that doesn't. Maybe ask your doctor or a librarian about a good book on this topics. GEt your nutritional information from reliable sources because there is a lot of junk information about. Superfoods and vitamin pills will not help you achieve your goals. They will just make you poorer more quickly. A normal healthy moderated diet will help you achieve your goals.

The good thing about mexican food is that beans are good for you. They are high in protein and are a vegetable, though not fresh. They are low fat and you mexican's know how to make them yummy. You mainly need to use less fat when cooking with them and with whatever you eat with them. When i cook, i use very little oil. Just enough to stop the onions or whatever sticking to the bottom of the pan. Maybe as little as 2 tsp. And i love olive oil. I know its not the perfect cooking oil but it is a good healthy oil (i.e. extra virgin olive oil and it tastes the best in salads). I made a nice frijole dinner recently. It had garlic, cumin, tomato paste i think and canned beans. Probably not at all authentic but it was yummy. I had it with finely grated carrot, diced tomato, and other salad things and probably only 1 level tbsp of sour cream. IT was filling and delicious.

Instead of eating your beans with fried bread (you've probably got to get around to ditching nearly all fried foods), you can eat it with rice and salads and only the smallest amount of sour cream or other high fat foods. It might be challenging if you're used to eating these sorts of foods with lots of cream or lots of cheese and things like that but its worth a try. Also unfired bread that is preferably wholemeal or whole grain is best. I don't know much about cornbread.

I personally don't buy into the total protein diets. I think they are unhealthy and not sustainable in the long term. I think its better to eat like you want to eat for the rest of your life. And that means working out what to eat that is healthy and yummy to you and in the right quantity. With high fat foods you have to eat less of them. If you don't you will never be satisfied. That's why low calorie foods are best. Because you can eat a lot and the risk of gaining weight is less. But you need to balance your proteins, carbs and fats in a healthy proportion. The calorie counting program called My fitness pal that a lot of people use on this site can show you about that. But i prefer to use that program just as a touch up rather than counting all my calories all day long. Its just too much work. Bascially i think its something like 25% protein, 55%carbs and 15% fats. Protein is for building muscles and tissue repair. Carbs are for energy for body and brain. And fats have a whole lot of little jobs that I can't remember. On an ordinary diet carbs and fats are burned at the same time when are active. Protein is used for other important jobs. Looking after your hair, skin, nails, muscles. Vitamins and minerals are important also but should gotten from all our fresh and unprocessed food. You only need to buy vitamins if your body has a problem taking them from food, or you life and diet is deprived in some way.

One day look into the meaning of the Glycaemic Index and learn how to use that in your food choices.

Start keeping a food diary. I'd love to follow your diary because i am sure i could learn some good cooking tips from you. I love cooking. I don't want to learn to cook sweets though. I am giving up sweets for life except on certain rare occasions when i can't lose control. I think this a food diary is where you should start. Do it privately if you have trouble facing up to what you eat in public. But do it religiously. I plan to continue keeping my food diary even after i reach my goal weight. Check mine out in the link below if you want. I try to be as vegetarian as possible.

In your food diary, list everything, every recipe how it was made. List the Quantities of stuff you eat. Use flat standard cups and measuring spoons or a digital scale if you prefer to measure your food. Don't guess its too easy to delude ourselves. I find keeping a food diary very useful. If things are not progressively as hoped, i have something to refer back to, something objective. And it is good to be a little bit obsessive when you start losing weight.

Don't try to lose your weight too fast. Steady is best. So don't cut down your food intake too radically. You will probably lose quite fast in the beginning anyway. And most of it at the very beginning is water as you start eating less salty and processed foods. A lot of people start out by reducing their food far too much and this is what brings them unstuck. They don't know how to deal with the hunger that comes along. I work to avoid hunger as much as possible.

I find there's a lot of psychological preparation and work that goes on in my weightloss journeys. Yes i've had more than one. You might need several turns to get really good at it. Try to maintain a positive outlook on your diet always. A set back is not the end of the world but its still better not to slip up if you can because it can make getting back on track difficult.

You've got to learn to understand your patterns and habits around eating. Do you eat out of boredom, for emotional comfort when things are going wrong, do you just always eat big serves without a second thought? Are you too depressed to care about what you eat and give in to every random thought about food? Makes notes about what you learn with regard to your thinking in your diary. You will learn more and more as you go along and you will come up with tips and ideas for improving the way your diet goes as you go along also. Figure out whether you are capable of eating your favourite foods in moderation or not. If not, you may have to think about quitting them, if not forever, at least for a while.

I always start my diets out with a few ground rules and refine it as i go along.

I think that's enough for now. I hope i haven't frightened you away. Life is so much more comfortable when you are not overweight.

[Pattience]

Have a browse of this thread tinamarie. They are talking about what meals they are eating on the south beach diet. I don't know a lot about this diet but it looks pretty good to me. And the food sounds rather delicious and quite a few mexican things in there. I am sure the books give you the recipes.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/sout...-dinner-2.html