Hello everybody! Its a beautiful day here in Oklahoma-a great day to start my diet...yet....again....... I will be 45 in August. As you can see by my name, the first time I signed up here I was 39 years old. I have tried several times since then to lose this weight and all Ive managed to do is gain more. I have to go look at my posts but I think I weighed around 160 then? I now weigh 185
My problem is I LOVE to eat and I absolutely HATE to excercise. I love to cook and bake for my family which doesnt help at all. When I read posts here of people who have had or are having success and they say "I cut out carbs, sweets, etc..." I just want to scream! I need to know WHAT to eat! I just dont know how Im going to please my family and still lose weight. My hubby especially is no help what-so-ever. Hes overweight and disgusted by himself yet he refuses to eat more healthy. Hes a meat and potatoes man and I swear if he had to eat healthy he would starve. Doesnt help that hes a truck driver-its cheeseburgers and fries everyday for him then when he gets home he wants cheeseburgers, pizza, etc....I love chicken-he will only eat it occasionly. I love salad-he wont touch it. I cannot afford to fix a meal for him and the kids and then a seperate meal for me!
I just want to cry...

Edited to say..just noticed my ticker..I weighed 175 when I was here last.Gonna have to change that!

Hi Jaimie! Sounds very frustrating, but just keep focused, and try to make healthy changes throughout your day. If you fix them a bad meal, just try and cook a few extra healthy sides for yourself. Cut out night time snacking for yourself, bake only on holidays, etc. If your meal is going to just be completely brutal and there's no way of keeping it healthy, work out extra hard that day. Take the stairs, walk a lap or two at the office if you can, walk outside around your neighborhood, etc.

Yes there will be some changes for them, but the changes you need to make for yourself are very important. Just talk to your family and be open with them. Best of luck!

I highly recommend calorie counting to you. Yes it's a lot of work at first, but once you find a system (generally an online tracker that works for you) it is very very easy and really takes very little effort. You literally can eat whatever you want, you just have to rethink your portions and over time you'll start to crave healthier options (especially once you realize you can have twice the food if you choose wisely). I too have meat and potatoes husband and so this really means getting creative or just commiting and cooking double. What is easier to do is say he loves hamburger so ok...he can have a hamburger for dinner and you can take the leftover meat and make yourself a low cal meatloaf or tacos add your veggies and you're good to go. He likes steak, ok so BBQ some steak for him but make sure to take out some chicken to BBQ for yourself add a salad and complex carb and you're set! Check out the recipies here for other ideas. Good luck!

What you are going through sounds very frustrating. It's hard enough to lose weight and eat healthy when you have a solid support system, but to have a husband who won't go near healthy food is another challenge. Since you are not getting support from your family I would suggest finding someplace/someone in your community who can support you. I know these boards are great but it really helps to have a person who you can meet with and talk to face to face. Also, you can still bake for your family and cook what your husband likes, just work on practicing portion control. You can lose weight eating meat and potatoes, heck you can lose weight eating just oreo cookies, as long as you don't eat too much. Hopefully once your family, specifically your husband, sees how good it makes you feel to get healthy they will follow suit. If not, just remember that in the end you can only control yourself. You can't change other people. Best wishes,

No day but today,
Dana

Thanks guys! Your ideas are helpful! Calorie counting....yeah Ive tried that. But as someone who cant even blog on a regular basis, calorie counting is aggravating too. I dont have the fastest internet and to look up the calories (fitday)was taking entirely too long. I think Ill join the accountability thread. I think it would help me greatly to just post what Ive eaten dailyand get some imput on it. BTW...Ive done really well the last two days!

Welcome! Glad to hear the last couple of days have gone well. As for prepping different meals or calorie counting - it's like SickCycleCarousel said, it's not all to do with what you eat, but how much.

Also, I live with a meat & potatoes guy, too, and through some planning and a couple of failed attempts, managed to broaden his food horizon with some delicious recipes. I didn't always tell him what was in them, just put the food down and said "that's what's for supper". A couple of cookbooks that have proven to be really useful are Looneyspoons, and Eat Shrink and Be Merry. You might be able to find used copies if you don't want to buy new. They're full of yummy recipes that are family friendly (i.e. not full of weird ingredients that will be a hard sell for kids or fussy hubbies).

Good luck!

If you don't like calorie-counting, I would suggest trying the South Beach diet. There is a subforum here for it. Yes, South Beach will tell you what NOT to eat, but it will also tell you what TO eat for weight loss and optimal health. There are also many great recipes on these forums for South Beach, as well as recipes in the South Beach book itself, and books of just recipes for South Beach.

When I first began changing my eating, my husband wasn't interested either; he drank a few liters of soda each week and ate complete crap. But over time, he has changed hugely, and lost a lot of weight as well as experiencing major health benefits of our dietary changes.

You don't actually have to exercise to lose weight; it's not the most important part of losing weight, for sure. It's beneficial and it can feel good, but I wouldn't concentrate there first if you "hate" it.

Good luck to you.