You said you believe the problem is that you lack willpower. I'm not sure that I even believe in the concept of willpower anymore. If it exists, I'm pretty sure I don't have it. But I've still managed to quit smoking for 6 years and I've lost 65 pounds, so maybe it's not necessary. I'll take the power of planning over willpower any day of the week.

You'll hear this said on this website over and over again, and I believe it may be the best advice you'll find: Motivation comes and goes. Commitment is the key. It's about deciding what you want to do and sticking with it. That doesn't mean not falling down. It means falling down 9 times and getting up 10.

You said it's a shame you can't eat healthy for a week straight. Neither can I. I can't do whole weeks at a time. I can only do one day at a time. There's a reason why this concept is the cornerstone of the twelve step program.

You can do this! Make your plan and work at it every day. Learn from your mistakes and change your plan as necessary. Rinse and repeat.

I look forward to hearing about your successes!

What I do is I take one or two small steps and do them for a week, then the next week I add another small step, then another and so on. It only takes about 21 days for something to become "habit" Once you hit that three week mark, it does get easier.

My first step is always water. I hate it LOL. So I don't modify my diet much that first week but I make it a point to drink water and get up to the daily intake I should be at!

Then the following week I continue the water and say add in a serving of fruit/veg with each meal.

and I continue like this untill I can be eating the way I should.

But sometimes like someone else mentioned...following a plan say like weight watchers can motivate you to make those healthy changes (It does for me!)

Good luck hun and you can do it!!!!

I agree that trying to suddenly go to being absolutely perfect is going to set you up for failure because nobody is perfect. As much as it sucks to hear, you are not perfect, I am not perfect, none of us are perfect and it is silly to expect anyone to be 100% perfect all the time. This is a lifestyle change and it needs to be manageable for life. I have always had problems with this because I would say to myself "Starting Monday, I'll be 100% on plan and lose tons of weight" and stuff myself Wednesday through Sunday. This led to 16 pounds of weight gain in one stinking semester. I could never do it and I think on some level, I knew I was going to fail and kept going with the cycle because it felt comfortable.

This time what I did was I tracked calories for two whole weeks. Just tracked, didn't change how I ate to get an idea of how many calories I was eating. I was shocked at how many I would eat in a day- sometimes it got almost as high as 4000! Just for that first step I tracked my calories. I'm on my next step, which is to be mindful of my mental/emotional state when eating and staying under 2000 calories a day. Next step: 1400-1700 calories a day and other nutritional goals. Then, phasing in exercise. I was always eating fruits and vegetables and whole grains, it was emotional eating that would get me. Still gets me, actually.

Goodness this post was long! Hope I could help; smaller steps set you up for long term, manageable success.

You made my mouth water. That there is to me what kryptonite is to Superman. I can no longer kick the asses of weight loss demons when pasta is involved. I am powerless.

I also suck at keeping track.

BUT! I came up with this really good idea (well, actually, MTV came up with this really good idea. Yes. MTV is my guilty pleasure.). In order to keep ourselves constantly remembering what's important here, we need to have a set number of days to reach our goal. Then, we write out "119 days" "118 days" on pieces of paper (like a calendar) and physically remove a piece of paper every single day. Keep it somewhere like in the bathroom.

It won't solve all our problems, but we will at least always be thinking about our goals. And perhaps right next to that, we can have a sheet of paper where once a week, we write down our weight. It's the kind of keeping track I can handle how about you?

Then you can figure out which kind of diet you want to do. I think healthy eating as a lifestyle is the best option. Look in to a place called "Curves." I wouldn't suggest joining, but their eating ideas are ace. If you're interested, I can go in to further detail.

But let's keep ourselves thinking about it, at least.

P.S. Joining the Airforce is very admirable. I wanted to go in to ROTC when I was younger, and I regret not doing it when I turned 18. Keep your goals fresh in your mind.

Hi Stasia,

Big hugs for you girl! DO not be discouraged, don't beat yourself up! You have been given some good suggestions! Don't try to be perfect with your diet, just set one little thing and then pat yourself on the shoulder for doing it. If you do end up feeling really powerless over food, that is ok as well. I often feel like food is stronger than me and it gives me cravings which i cannot resist. I had to find myself a support group that regards food as an addiction and by stopping the control, i don't have to lose the control, food just is and the cravings go away. PM if you want to chat about that!

You have several suggestions to track what you're eating, whether it's before or after you start making changes. You also indicated that you can't remember to write down your meals. Two suggestions:
1) If you're going to track after eating, put that pencil and paper where the food is - right on the counter, the refrigerator or the table where you eat.
2) Another option is to plan your day and write it down, then check it off as you eat it. Still keep that plan and paper where you see it whenever you're near meal or snack food.
3) If you snack or eat away from home, put the tracking paper in your pocket, your wallet, your purse, whatever will be with you when you're eating or tempted to eat.

I'm payoff oriented. There must be a payoff for me to continue. When I first started on Jan 3 this year I was drastic. But then I started seeing REAL results after about two weeks (loose clothes). I was SOOOO excited I kept going. I started counting calories and it was rough the first three days because I went too low. But now I'm a lot more balanced. You have to see what motivates YOU!!! Everyone has their THING. If you like payoffs like me find little things and reward yourself. For me the smaller was enough. But one thing you MUST of necessity do is PLAN. Planning is essential to any victory. Plan you meals for the day the night before or before you eat your first bite of anything. What was easy for me is the fact that I can eat the same things everyday. I picked things from a list on Dr Oz's website "You On A Diet" that I enjoyed. I only had to figure it out the one time and for the next two weeks all I had to do was go in and eat my planned meal. In the first week I was on this site reading the goal and mini goal threads EVERYDAY...ALL DAY especially when I got hungry or a craving. After that first two weeks my body had settled in and it got easy and I got my payoff.

I'm gonna tell you this though...IT IS W O R K!!! But if you plan correctly and stick to your plan you will be successful. There are going to be times you have to make adjustments to your plan but you will get it done!!