I agree with jeminijad. You need to be bulking up your meals with low-cal stuff, especially at first. It always takes a while to get into the swing of things, break bad habits, and let your stomach shrink and your tastebuds adjust to not eating so much junk anymore. You can make some HUGE calorie deficits by swapping out higher cal foods for lower cal ones while still consuming the same volume of food. In fact, there was a book written about this a while back called "Volumetrics" and if you google it you can find a bunch of ideas/suggestions.

One thing that I have had to realize is that it is NORMAL to be hungry sometimes. As many people on 3FC say, "Hunger is not an emergency." I try not to get too hungry because I think that can lead me to making bad food choices, but when I started losing, I realized that I hadn't let myself get truly hungry in probably years. Losing weight is not an entirely pain-free process, you DO have to limit yourself, control yourself, and be conscious of what you are putting in your mouth.

Great job on giving up the soda. I think it is a good idea to start small and work up to bigger things, it is probably more sustainable that way. I was listening to a piece on NPR the other day and they were saying that scientists have done a bunch of studies on will power and that will power is essentially like a muscle- the more you use it, the stronger it gets and the easier it is to use. They did one study where they told people to be more conscientious of their posture for a few weeks, and at the end, the people who were watching their posture had an easier time losing weight, quitting smoking, etc., than did the people in the control group who were not told to do anything. Think of quitting soda as "practicing" for future calorie restrictions. You are gonna do great. Results don't come overnight, you just have to stick with it. You seem really young- it's great that you're doing this now. I know you know that being big will cut your life too short- that feeling of being over-full isn't worth a longer life! You can do this!

This may sound bizarre, but after a lifetime of failed dieting, I finally found success at age 49 by staying away from the scale as I started my diet. Like you, I always got discouraged by heroic effort (at least that's what it felt like to me) resulting in very little scale movement. So this last time I tracked my calories and exercise so I KNEW I was on track and didn't get on the scale for months. By the time I stepped on the scale after 3 months and found I had lost what seemed like a very low number for such a big girl, it was still a loss and I was on my way.

Believe it or not losing fat/weight is not rocket science. You can do it. You have to choose to do it. No one is perfect so making mistakes is part of what makes us, us. Count your calories for just one day to give you a starting point of what you are taking in. Find ways to cut back on "empty" calories and add in the good stuff. Believe it or not you will fill up just as much on fruits and veggies as you will on Chips and Soda.

Two things I will add to the great stuff that people have said:

1. Stop going on a diet. Diets don't work. Change your lifestyle.
2. Use baby steps. Eat a little bit less every meal. I recommend eating more often, but you have to do what works for YOU.

You really have to force yourself to take a longer term view.

What matters is not whether you weigh less today than yesterday. That is simply not the way weight loss works. Even if you are flawlessly on plan - and almost none of us is ever flawless - you will still see day-to-day fluctuations that mask fat loss. Most people experience daily fluctuations of up to 2 pounds, sometimes even more. Think about it - a daily fluctuation due to fluid retention, due to digestion, due to exercise, due to any number of factors outside of your control - that fluctuation can obscure 2 weeks worth of actual fat loss!

If you measure by success by whether your weight today is less than it was yesterday, you are dooming yourself.

Instead, learn to take a longer-term view. Stick to your plan as best you can. Tweak your plan to find out what works for you, what foods keep you feeling satisfied and what foods trigger cravings for more (those are the ones to avoid). Stick to your plan. When you slip up, get right back on with the next eating opportunity. And evaluate your weight loss results not on a day-to-day basis, but by whether you weigh less than you did a week or two weeks or a month or two months ago.

So much for strategy. As a matter of tactics, I second what jeminijad said - bulk up your meals with vegetables. I, too, am a volume eater. I eat a TON of vegetables. And I mean a TON - so that my plate can be a nice heaping pile of food that I get to tuck into and fill myself with. Day to day eating can still be enjoyable. You just have to give yourself time to develop some new tricks.

Thank you for starting this discussion. The ladies here are so supportive and give great advice. I am having the same problem you are having, so reading all this has been so helpful. This has already been said, but I'll say it again. I've been feeling very negative for the last two years. Always feeling like there is no point on starting a weight loss program or an exercise program if I will eventually fail. By having this attitude, I've gained over 50 pounds in less than 2 years. All I'm saying is that you have two choices, either change nothing and keep gaining weight or start doing something and start getting healthy one day at a time.

I've lost 68 pounds and I have none of the things available that you speak of. Half the time someone else was choosing the food in the house, so I had no control over that either. You can do it! I started running/walking and lifting weights because it was what we had, but you could do it entirely without equipment as well!

I just keep reminding myself of the quote:
"A year from now you'll be glad you started today."

Even if all you can do is tiny little steps toward a healthy lifestyle, it still has you moving in the right direction.

Being healthy and working out 6 days out of 7 is still better then being lazy or stuffing my face all 7 days lol!

You can do it just don't give up!!

I agree with this advice 100%! I need to eat more than some others, and in order for me to keep within a healthy caloric range for me, I eat volume. My meals are at least half non-starchy vegetable. Soups do a great job at filling me up, and are delicious to boot.

I saw you posted in the mfp "friend" thread. I'm going to add you so we can support each other. Every day has choices and we can choose to keep going or we can choose to give up. I recently saw a post I had in 2009, where I was ready to "start again" for the last time. Here I am, three years later, in the same spot. It's crazy to think if I had followed through, I'd be at my goal and in maintenance now.

It's one step at a time. One good choice at a time. You can do it!

I thought you were doing weight watchers. Are you not doing that anymore?

Everyone has given great advice so I won't repeat. But you have to decide what you love more - feeling overly full and hating how you look, or feeling satisfied and loving how you look. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and do it. What's harder? Being heavy and hating it or doing something about it and loving the results.

Lin