[Flippy47]

My name is Cindy and I am 264.9 pounds. Yikes!

I've spent most of my life since age 16 (when the hormones hit hard) on one diet or another. When I was younger I was able to get the weight off, but after having two babies and, I think, age and more hormones, it has not come off & I've gotten heavier.

That's the bad news.

The good news is I've put some serious time into understanding biology, my biology and reading about what it takes to be healthy and successful at weight loss & I'm out to do it again in a whole different way. For a while there I was considering weight loss surgery but after researching that extensively I decided it wasn't the way I wanted to go.

This time around I created a plan for myself, based on what I have learned, that I think will be of great help.

I look forward to getting to know people on these boards and talking about the subject I most love to hate!

[JBJmommy3]

You sound very motivated! I've quite often thought about learning exactly how everything works, but can't seem to even try to filter through all the stuff out there! Any good reading suggestions? Thanks!

[firegirl441]

Welcome aboard! It is great that you have educated yourself and gathered the motivation you will need to get that scale moving downward. I would love to hear more about your plans. Do they include any exercise? I might add a personal piece of advice that has worked great for me. Drink 100 ounces of water a day until you get below 200 lbs then drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water. I contribute my past successes to the water drinking and exercising.

[JBJmommy3]

I will definitely try that water tip. I do plan on doing exercise. Lots of body weight exercise for sure and some HIIT. A few years ago had fantastic success with eating something very small every 2-3 hours. The weight dropped right off. However, I don't seem to be in that type of place mentally yet.

[Flippy47]

JBJ, as far as reading material, I don't have any one book to suggest. Mostly I suggest reading everything you can get your hands on and draw from those things what applies best to you. I think one big thing I've learned along the way is that we're all different so what works for one doesn't work for another. Know yourself!

[Flippy47]

Firegirl, thanks for the tip about water. Over the years I've tailored down the kinds of beverages I'll drink and I'm mostly down to just water with a root beer thrown in about once every couple of months (and boy was it a challenge to give up Diet Coke!). But I do find it a real challenge to get in 8 glasses of water each day.

As far as exercise, my doctor said something super interesting to me the other day that put exercise in perspective for me. I always really stress over whether I'm getting it in and I always felt like I was failing if I didn't, which had this odd way of making the whole weightless routine back fire on me.

But my doctor said focus first on what I am eating because eating healthy and creating a caloric deficit is the first huge step. THEN, if I can work it in, exercise. But don't stress about if I get it in or not. He said if you over eat 500 calories (which, for me, is nothing) it takes WAY longer to work it off then if you'd just not eaten that 500 calories to begin with. So, better to keep the calories down first, and if that is handled get in the exercise.

In other words, I don't want to exercise because I'm trying to get off the extra calories. I want to exercise for all the other benefits - stronger bones, heart health, etc. KWIM?

Anyway, I don't know if that makes sense, but it made me feel a lot less anxiety about exercising.

[maddierep]

Hey. i think it's great you're exercising for the benefits. I've been at this high weight for the past 10 years, but for the last 5 of them I've been exercising regulalry. In fact I've been increasing the intensity and regularity slowly.

So i started with yoga and am now hiking and running weekly. As a result, even though I need to lose a lot of weight - I sleep really well, my health is good and am able to do almost any physical activity without anything holding me back.

so yes - i too am here to whine about how much work it's going to take to improve my eating habits (the needle's on my scale's been stuck for the past 4 days!)

but yay! good on you about exercise cause that part's great and has such good effects other than weight loss