Good morning Everyone! I am loving this website and I think it's just what I need.

I'm 29, 5'2", 255 pounds and while I always said I'd never do it, I started counting calories this week. I know what it feels like to lose 45 pounds...I did it once...of course a couple years later I had a bad personal year and ate it all back plus another 10. So here I am...bigger than I ever have been and hating all the extra fat on my body.

You know what I'm sick of the most? I'm sick of feeling like it's a long way to go to wipe myself after using the bathroom. Does anyone else feel that way? I never felt that before but those extra ten pounds more than I ever was must have made the difference between comfortably wiping and starting to think I need to pick up my gut to do it. EW. Enough is enough, right?

So anyway I'm about 8.5 months to my 30th birthday and I'm really excited about it...because I know that if I'm consistent, I can be smaller than I've ever been going into my 30's. And I want that. I have a really great attitude about it. I just can not see another birthday go by without getting there.

My name is Mela and I'm 100% all in right now. I've got a great gym, and a good attitude so I'm hoping for big things.

My plan right now is to count calories. I'm trying to stick between 1200-1500 and while the planning and counting is tedious, the result is that I'm shockingly not hungry because I've put so much effort into spreading out my food. What I want is optimal long term health, so I'm going in phases with the food.

Phase 1: Do what it takes to nail down a 1200-1500 calorie diet. if that means eating pre-made, calorie counted dishes here and there that's fine.

Phase 2: Transition to a whole food diet. Stop eating the processed stuff out of convenience.

Phase 3: Transition my whole food diet to a clean eating diet that I can live on for life.

Okay, so if anyone wants to be my buddy I'm ready and willing. I want to help other people, and especially other women achieve their goals and I can always use more cheerleaders.

Take care and good luck everyone!

Mela

Looks like we're in the same boat! I'm looking to lose about 83lbs total, and for now I'm hoping to do about 1500cals a day. The biggest pain in my butt is counting out all those calories and planning meals, so do you wanna maybe do it together? I'm not really an avid cook haha, so I'm having trouble coming up with stuff that is healthy and good for me (and under 500cals per meal) but also, with small modifications, healthy and filling for my family (my SO needs to lose about 90 as well, but my 4yo is skinny and needs to eat looots!)

Anyway, my name's Tihana, I'm 25, and I'm totally ready to go!

Cool. Nice to meet you Tihana! I'm really thanking the creators of Special K right now because they have so many tasty things that you can just buy. I really don't have time each day to prepare a lot of things (BUSY LADY) but I'm hoping to get into more easy-to-freeze meals eventually.

Hey there! Today is my first day of round 2 and I'm looking for buddies as well! I'm 22, 5'3 and 245 so we're kind of in a similar boat. I too recently lost about 30-40lbs and did round 1 of Insanity and loved it, but their protein shakes and everything that went along with it just got too expensive..so I gave up, got depressed and ate it all back. I'm hoping to just make a great change all around..eating clean, exercising regularly and am going to lose 100lbs in the 10months I'm away at College. Are you doing any specific workout programs or anything? Just curious

Nicole

Hi Nicole!

Not OP, but I'm doing Leslie Sansone's 2K in the morning (in front of the TV, hah), some random Kinect stuff during the day (Your Shape, Just Dance, etc, it might be a game but I sweat my butt off this morning), and I bought the C25K app this morning so hopefully that will be a nightly thing.

You?

Mela, I'm not buying meals (finances are bad, hah), so I guess I'll have a lot more planning and counting to do

I'm kind of doing a bunch of things fitness-wise. I love LOVE yoga and zumba, so I try to catch a couple classes a week of that. As for cardio, I am a fan of the elliptical machine. I know I need to start doing a full body resistance training type routine but the weights scare me lol.

As for buying meals, I'm trying not to buy a lot, but I will say that on the days I don't want to cook, it's nice to have something I can just put in the microwave.

I'm not much of a meat eater so chicken is basically my main protein aside from eggs. I'm also really big on greek yogurt so I make sure to get one of those in each day. For this first week I'm just trying to incorporate more veggies into my diet...lots of brussel sprouts and beans. My garden is going to be ready soon so I've got a lot of veggies coming (nice for the ol' bank account as well).

I'd really love to start running. I'm not sure I'll ever be a daily runner, but I'd like to be able to run someday without wheezing and moving the earth and feeling gravity do it's thing on all my extra bundles of junk.

Hi there, Mela! I'm Dana, and we have some stuff in common! With height/weight and such... I am a few years older than you, though!

That aside, I think that it would be great if you could meet your goals by your 30th birthday! I wish I'd had that resolve when I first started dieting, but then... I wouldn't be here right now, and this website has done a lot for me. You seem to have started on the right foot though, and I commend you for that! Getting started is sometimes the hardest part.

I don't know how well I'm doing with planning meals so far? I set a night out at the end of the week and I consider things that sound tasty and healthy and write them down, but I add in other options if I happen to not feel up to doing whatever the next day. It's always good to have a backup, the way I look at it. And I've been going at this for a month now, so I'm dreading the blahs are going to start settling in.

Sooo~ *cheer cheer* goodluck! Nice to meet you!

Thanks Dana! It's so good to be on day 1 and meeting so many nice people in a similar situation. My meal plan changes by the hour hahaha! I am really just trying to get used to counting calories and it's certainly a challenge, but hey, what doesn't challenge you doesn't change you right?

You're definitely right about that one there!