Being miserable while trying to make this big of a life change is never a good thing. Off the bat you're setting yourself up for failure.

There is a lot of great advice here. I would personally recommend a gradual decline, if you're not a cold turkey kinda person, trying to eliminate calories from your body that it's so used to getting could result you making some really bad meal decision (been there). It's a really good idea to plan a head too, I'm pretty good around the kitchen and have young kids, so where I often plan to plan my meals, that gets thrown out the window for creativity. So what I do instead is read every label on ever package of food, use things like calorie counter/myfitnesspal to determine average calorie counts per portion and go from there. I've also introduced a lot of fruit and vegetables into the house and make sure that I am getting my full serving of those when I can and i've found that my saving grace has been herbs and spices. The more the better.

I know this seems tough right now, but imagine where you'll be if you give yourself time. You'll be so proud of yourself and no one will ever be able to take that away from you.

Good luck and I hope that we continue to hear of your progress.

NEMom-I LOVE LOVE LOVE that post! It's so true and very eloquently stated!

One thing I try to do when I'm having a rough day and some motivation is to close my eyes and try to *really visualize* all of the benefits of losing weight...how i will look and feel, all the new cute clothes, the health benefits, etc. It's kind of like meditating...it calms me down and refocuses my negativity into something positive.

I did a lot of what Iyakamae said. In the beginning I knew I would not stick with a complete overhaul of my diet. So I slowly changed things. Giving up things I didn't care about as much at first of course. That way every time I hit a plateau I would also have more changes I could make without feeling like I was starving. It was still hard but much more doable for me. And not so hard when I looked back on it. And also the herbs and spices helped so much. As my meals got smaller using more flavor made them more satisfying to replace the higher fat and carb levels I used to eat.

You know what is funny? I thought I was doing it all cold turkey diet, but when I would make dietary changes, I realized that I could get healthier, have fewer cals etc more...and more....so in a way I did ease into my weight loss methods unconsciously. Just try an inch past your limits I guess!

The kinds of foods you eat can make a big difference to how hungry you feel.

Generally speaking - high protein, moderate fat, and low carb tends to be the most bang for the buck.