Hi everyone!

I'm Jen, and could really use guidance, suggestions, help, anything....hahaha

I know I need to lose weight. And I want to lose weight, but...... it's the doing it that I am having a problem with. Any suggestions on excerise routines/programs Or and deiting tips/suggestions that work? Or what does not work? I saw some of you have done such a great job on your weightloss goals ---congrats to you!!!

Here is a little about me:

I am soon to be 29 yr old, and a sahm to a 7 & 5 yr old.

I could not tell you the last time I did any sort of excerise at all. No gym, workouts, sports, or anything since before I had kids. The only type of movement I have is running around after the kids.

I am a HUGE procastator (sp?) with no willpower and really do not know how to cook, so we eat out alot (well everyday we have at least 1 meal in a restuarant or fast food place)--------THIS HAS TO CHANGE

Since I have this lifestyle, I have become very lazy. Which in turn, as caused in me to have little to no energy. I think I could sleep all day if given the chance. And I am turning very stiff, from not doing anything (I can feel it in my back, knees, feet, etc)

I need help because I know this is no life, and I don't want end up dying young, or have major medical problems--which I see happening if I dont change my ways.

My kids are thin and heathly, but I do not want to see how mom is and think that it is ok for them to be this way. And I know that eatting fast food and/or restuarant food everyday isn't healthly for them either. (at least hubby gets them to eat alot of fruits and veggies)

I am sooooo embrassed for writing this and feel like a loser for not knowing how to lose weight, but.....I know I need help and by telling my story maybe someone can relate and offer some suggestions.

I know that I need to take responsiblity for my life and I am determined to get back on track. I am thankful that I found this site, and I look forward to chatting with other members as we work our way to our goals.

My goals:

Short term - 10lbs incraments

holiday goal - 50lbs by new years

Would be happy with losing 75lbs

ideally would like to 100lbs

long term - would like to lose 125 lbs (i think) I dont remember ever beening that thin, and don't know how realist that would be, but if I am planning on losing 100 lbs (whats a little more)

Hi Jen! I'm Mel.

My first suggestion would be to talk to your doctor and a nutritionist. If you can't do that, I would suggest writing down EVERYTHING you eat for a week. EVERYTHING!! and totaling up the calories and fat you eat every day. Once you have an accurate model of EVERYTHING you eat on a normal week, reduce it if you find that you are eating wayyyyyyyyyy too much. However, you might find that you are not eating enough (below 1200 calories) and you might need to increase the amount you need to eat.

You can go on some websites and they can give you an estimate of how much you should eat. I cannot think of any sites right now, but maybe try searching for it on the net. You will learn to love fruit and veggies! Once you change how you eat, you will have more energy to keep up with those children you have.

Since you cannot remember the last time you worked out, I think you should start slow and build your way up. You might be discouraged if you began with a difficult routine. You might like Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds tape/dvd. If you like to be outside, go for a walk.

If if you don't take anything else from my little post, please don't try any of those fad diets. You might lose weight then regain it quickly plus a few more pounds. I do believe it is all about calorie reduction. You should watch other things too because they all equal better or worse health, but in the end a pound still equal 3,500 calories.

Hope I helped!

Hi, Jen! Nice to meet you!
I too am a mom of a 5 and 7 year old, also have a 2 year old. I found myself in a situation almost identical to yours not so long ago.

Since March 2005 I've been getting healthy in baby steps! Makes it so much easier in so many ways.

Baby Step 1:
I started getting some regular exercise. The key for me was finding something I was really interested in doing, like Tae Kwon Do. Also, I didn't worry about what I was eating at all! I just focused exercising 2 days a week.

Baby Step 2:
After about 1 month of exercising regularily I starting switching from whole milk to skim, replaced white bread with whole wheat, regular Miracle Whip with Light Miracle Whip. Generally just making small changes in what we were eating at home. My family didn't even notice the changes.
I stopped visiting fast food restaurants after work. Don't even drive past them if possible, I now take a completely different route to work and pack my snacks and lunch/dinner to take with me to work so I'm not starving after work and less able to resist stopping.
Almost forgot to mention water! I started buying bottled water by the case and drinking 4 or 5 twenty ounce bottles every day.

Baby Step 3:
Improved the quality of food I am eating. More fresh vegetables and more fruit. Mainly I eat 1 or 2 servings of fruit with breakfast, 1 or two servings of veggies with lunch and 2 or 3 servings of veggies with dinner. I eat as much veggies and fruit as I want too.

Baby Step 4:
Joined this message board.
Started eating breakfast everyday!

Baby Step 5:
Started eating breakfast and lunch everyday! No more skipping meals! Even if it means I eat a banana and graham crackers with peanut butter for lunch! I aim to eat every 3-4 hours.

Baby Step 6:
Add strength training to my exercise routine. I got started with Jorge Cruise's 8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra Easy Weight Loss.

Baby Step 7:
Kicked up my cardio exercise a notch by running 3 days a week. I also started keeping track of my calories on FitDay.com. I keep my daily calories between 1750-1950 so my average is about 1800 calories each day.

And that brings me up to date. From March 2005-June 2005 I lost approximately 15 lbs. Since joining this message board, adding strength training and increasing my cardio, I've lost 20 lbs in about 2 months! (June 4, 2005-August 2, 2005)
Total of 35 lbs (289lbs-254lbs)
I don't really have set amount of weight I want to lose each week. As long as the number is steadily going down and my clothes are fitting looser and looser, I'm going in the right direction.

I hope this helps.
I cannot stress enough how posting on this board has helped me! I do suggest posting alot, we're a very supportive and caring bunch, and definitely joining in on the challenges! You're just in time to start the August Points challenge! hint, hint!
Hope to see more of you online and look forward to chatting with you.

We've all been where you are and for me...it finally came down to just standing up and starting to move. With it being summer...I found it easy to take my love of the water and start there with doing laps in my pool. I started slow with 50 laps (32' long pool) and increased by 25 laps every week until I am now able to swim 200 laps which is over a mile!

Three days a week I put my bathing suit on and white socks and gym shoes..which trust me, is not a good look! but I do a Leslie Sansone Walk Away The Pounds dvd first...take off shoes and socks and jump in pool for laps.

It's just about making the decision that even though some days it's not what you think you want to be doing...but what you need to do to get where you want to be.

It does become easier...it all starts with the first step.

Good luck!

Hi Jen, very pleased to meet you!

Everyone has offered some excellent advise so far. Along with the quality of food and exercise, I wouldn't be able to do without my water. I drink 4.5 litres per day Monday to Friday (it's alot easier for me when I'm at work) and usually about 3 litres on each day of the weekend.

I don't love to exercise, so I try to do something different all the time. Some days I ride my bike, more I walk outside. If the weather is not great I have a treadmill and exercise videos at home. I swim most every other evening and have recently started lifting weights.

I make sure to always have fresh cut veggies in the fridge at home and make sure I take every moresel of food that I will eat at work with me. I plan my dinner in the morning so I won't be guessing about what I will eat when I get home. (It's alot easier to not eat out when you have perfectly good food ready to cook/eat at home. This was one of my biggest downfalls too)

I have set goals that I feel are attainable. I'm doing it ten pounds at a time. I've already done it twice and I'm on my way to number three now. It's amazing how good it feels to reach these mini goals. I can't wait until the big one comes!!!

Post often to this board!!!! Everyone here is wonderful, welcoming and supportive (I think I'm a little bit addicted to it)

Good luck - I know you can do it!

~Dee

Hi Jen, I'm Carol and welcome to the board! Everyone is so supportive here that I think you will find all the motivation and support that you will need. I myself only joined the board about a few weeks ago but have found everyone welcoming! I find the the things that work for me are as everyone has already said. Small attainable goals. I found if I think about the end result I can get too overwhelmed, so I do mini, medium and large goals. I reward myself after attaining my medium goals (25 lbs) and then I start over again. I think that the one thing that has helped me the most is to remove everything that I can not resist from my house. I am a binge/emotional eater so for me, making a concious decision not to have junk food in the house has helped me a lot. With not having my temptations in the house, I find I have to address my emotional issues head on. The most important thing I have found, is you need to find a weight loss plan that suits you. I (and I am sure many others) have done different programs. I have finally found the one that fits my personality and lifestyle. Please do not beat yourself up. After going through some of the posts you will notice that we all are going through the same thing and we all have our good and bad days. We are all going through the same journey together. Post often!

Hi and welcome. You've been given great advice, some of the same things I did, first starting out. I found the baby steps like Laura mentioned to be the best for me. I started walking for 10-15 minutes in the evenings with the kids. I told myself I could do that 3 days a week. Then I just worked up from there.

I also just monitored what I ate for a week, not worrying about cutting anything out. I used www.fitday.com to log it all. I found out I was consuming between 2500 and 4000 calories on any given day. I decided I would try to eat around 2000 calories. Once I got that under control, I would gradually lower my calories. I found that when I aimed for 1700 calories a day I did best (even though I stayed around 1500 most of the time.)

If you break it down into small steps it doesn't seem like as much you have to do.

I've been where you are, but much worse. VERY lazy lifestyle, eating and (not) moving purely by whim, no energy. I needed to lose HALF my body weight when I started 4 years ago. Here are my suggestions:

First, go to your library or bookstore or Amazon.com and get a copy of the book [/i]Thin for Life[/i]. This is THE BIBLE for successful, long-term weight loss. It does not advocate any particular diet or exercise program, but outlines 10 basic concepts for successful weight loss and management as described by people who have done it. There is a discussion board about this book in the Maintainer's Library section.

Second, go the the Maintainer's boards and read the "sticky" posts, especially the "posts worth re-reading" thread. You will learn an amazing amount about what it takes to lose weight and keep it off.

Third, see a theme here? If you change your goal from "losing weight" to "maintaing a healthy weight for life" your perspective shifts. This is about changing your habits in a permanent way -- learning to feed yourself without restaurants, learning to like healthy foods, learning to enjoy activity, learning that a healthy life requires thought and planning and awareness and mindfulness. The less you worry about "dieting" and "motivation" and "losing weight" and the more you think healthy overall lifestyle for its own sake the easier it is. Don't let yourself get caught up in the minutia of "How many ounces have I lost today" and all of that.

Towards that last point, I REALLY dislike time-related weightloss goals. Maybe you do everything perfectly and you don't meet your stated deadline. Then what? No matter how reasonable the goal and how much you lose, you still feel like a failure. Or heaven forbid you're not perfect and you don't meet your goal. My goals were BEHAVIORAL -- eating x servings of vegetables per day, getting in 3 20-minute walks this week, having only one diet Coke per day, spending time journaling every day, etc. If you do what you need to do, the weight will come off sooner or later. Let your body do what it needs to do, you concentrate on goals that you have control over. You have to have goals you know you can meet, that depend solely on YOU, not on the fact that your body decided it didn't like this weight-loss thing and wanted to hold on to a little fat this month.

You'll see that lots of people have different approaches. You'll have to find the approach that works for you. As a compulsive overeater I HAD to draw a line in the sand when it came to food. I started a commercial program and had a planned menu for every day of the week, each meal and snack planned in advance. I could not "baby step" food and be successful. I did, however, "baby step" activity. My first "workout" consisted of a 5-minute ride on a stationary bike. Week 2, I rode once for 10 minutes. I don't suggest going THAT slowly necessarily; the point is that you shouldn't feel you need to design a full-bore Olympic workout schedule from day one. Start small, do what is doable and not uncomfortable, and go from there. Challenge yourself a bit, but don't burden yourself to the point that you're more discouraged than invigorated.

One thing that really helps me is journalling and reading the boards. I have a hate/hate relationship with my body that I need to change. I have a lot of "negative scripts"' running in my head where my body and eating are concerned. I have a lot of control and comfort issues about food. Becoming aware of these is the first step. Overcoming them is harder, and much more long-term. Slowly, you can learn to rewrite the scripts in your head, and shout down thefatgirlinsideme. You can begin to trust your body to do as God designed it to do -- move gracefully and strongly, prefer healthy food, maintain a lower weight. You can learn to recognize a desire for mashed potatoes when you're sick or upset, and decide whether you CHOOSE to let the food comfort you this time, or whether something else would work as well. (for me, I consider food comfort no "evil" when I"m sick, but I turn to something else when I'm looking for food comfort when I'm bored or upset. That's a big step for me.) Journalling -- writing down these thoughts and examining them -- helps me to recognize and identify many of the triggers to my overeating. Then I can work to change my reactions to them. For instance, I was dumbfounded by how often I eat because I'm bored!

Another thing that works very well for me is mindful eating. I spread real butter on my toast. But less than I would use if I were using margarine or low-fat spread. I allow myself a small densly chocolate scoop of icecream, rather than an extra-large tasteless soft-serve waffle cone with junk on it. I try to eat more slowly, savoring my food, and am gradually learning that it's okay to put my fork down halfway through the meal and listen to my body when it tells me it's satisfied.

A third thing that is working for me this time, that I've never had good luck with before, is the concept of baby steps. Before, I would get all excited about a 2-3 pound loss in a week, and expect that I could lose that much each week. And when, inevitably, I would hit a plateau, I'd get all discouraged and give up.

Now, I am focusing more on solid changes. I am eating fewer calories. I am eating more healthily -- fruits, veggies, whole grains. I am choosing stairs over elevators and escalators, and walking more. I expect to see a one pound a week drop. But I repeat over and over to myself, even when I lose more than that, that "one pound a week is my goal. It is an average. One pound a week is over 50 pounds a year. The time will pass whether I choose healthy foods and lose weight or not. Slow and steady will win this race. " This really helps stave off my feelings of frustration when I fall off plan, or have a few days of bad eating choices, or am too busy to "be good" with exercise. I'm finding it much easier this time to pick myself up and get on with it.

Hi. I'm another "baby-stepper". In fact, in about 7 or 8 months after I first joined the gym I lost a grand total of 9lb. But I was focussing on fitness at the time rather than weight loss, and it gave me a great base to step up my loss - in the 5 months since I've lost 46lb! I could have given up with such slow loss (and in fact, part of the reason for the slowness is that I vaguely did after about 12lb and slipped back a bit), but I felt so much healthier even being that amount down (and physically fitter) that even maintaining at 250 felt like a better of option than gaining weight at 260.

Basically, do things you enjoy. If there's some exercise (even walking) that you like. If there's one piece of fruit you like, try to eat it more often (whether that's once a week instead of once a month or three times a week instead of once).

Exercise is my big thing. It varies from person to person, some people focus on diet, some on exercise (although you do need some of both, even if one has more emphasis than the other). I enjoy exercising because it gives me more leeway with my food - as long as I don't go mad I don't need to count calories, carbs, fats, points or anything. I use common sense, and I make sure I do enough exercise to cover for any blips (and I do my exercise first thing in the morning so I know I've already got that slippage room in the imaginary calorie bank!). If you do enjoy some form of exercise (or can get to enjoy it) it makes a lot of difference.

I always focussed on positive changes. I never thought "this is bad for me, I mustn't eat it". I thought "this is a really healthy choice. I'll eat it and get all those vitamins/nutrients from it, and if I'm still hungry I might allow myself that bar of chocolate I was going to have instead". Most of the time I wasn't hungry, but didn't need to go through the mental trauma of giving up chocolate. For me that made a huge difference. Now my main goal is to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg (more often 7 or 8). By the time I've done this (usually together with some chicken/turkey/beans for some protein) I've eaten most of what I need for the day, so the thought of "bad" food doesn't bother me.

Another thing that occurred to me after a while is that food isn't that great. I mean, you need it to stay alive, but does that chocolate (you can tell what my problem is, can't you ) really taste so much better than a piece of fruit that it will actually make you happier? Sometimes only chocolate (or insert your own vice) will do. But most of the time it won't give you that much satisfaction to eat it, or not compared to the sense of achievement you'll get when you drop your first dress size.

Thank you for all the good suggestions. I like the baby step idea and it nice to know that I am not the only one out there going through this. I will check out that book and walking program. I actually do not mind walking and with 3 dogs, they would probaly love it if I started taking them for walks.

What is the Joerge (sp?) excersie thing? I never heard of that.

I used to love swimming, but I can't seem to get the courage to go out in public in a bathing suit. Any suggestions on how to over come this? I tried once this summer and almost had an anxiety attack. I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, but I get so sensitive about it.

How exactly do you journal? I had heard this is a good thing to do, but I but understand what all I have to do. Do you need to weight the food before you eat it? Or just put what you ate? For example, today for my breakfast/lunch (I slept til noon) I had 2 pieces of toast with tuna fish. But i dont know how much tuna or how much mayo was in the tuna. The only good thing was I didn't have any Cheese (my downfal) or chips with it.

I did try going to my doctor and talking to her about my weight, but all she said was I should join Weight Watchers. You would think since my BMI is over 40 that she could have offered a little more info.

I did check into WW but, I can't afford to join it right now. (maybe after we sell our 2nd house I will be able too--the joys of buying a house before you sell your old one)

Yes, if you are really trying to control your intake, weighing and measuring food is crucial. Even if you're baby-stepping, you might decide to start measuring one category of food and go from there.

Journaling, however, can take many different forms. For example, you might track your intake on paper or somewhere like Fitday.com just to have the facts and figures. You might combine that on paper (or on computer in a word processing program or spreadsheet) with other information about your eating. What was the situation, what were you feeling, why did you choose to eat those specific things? Over time this information can reveal eating patterns and food relationships you may not have been fully aware of. A journal can also be more like a diary -- where you simply write thoughts, goals, ideas, strategies, etc.

No matter how you slice it or use it, a journal is a great path to self-knowledge and understanding, and can provide a daily focus that helps keep this project at the forefront of your mind.

Hi Jen!

Wow! You've had some great advice from everyone here - I bet you have a lot to think about!

I just thought I'd comment on your swimming costume fear - I've been there and done that! If it helps you - I finally braved it and got my butt into the pool at my heaviest weight of 267 lb. I cannot tell you it was easy - I was sooooooo self conscious, but I KNEW I HAD TO DO IT! So I just blocked out all those critical voices in my head and totally focused on nothing else other than getting myself into that pool! I went to a 'women only' session first and would recommend them if your pool does them. I actually found that once you are in the water, it is impossible to tell who is big and who is small - the lifeguards are used to seeing people of all shapes and sizes and are not there to judge you. I think if anything, people admire you for doing something about your weight. It's not easy Jen, but it will feel so good once you have faced that fear and not let your fear of what other people think of you stop you from reaching your goals. After that first session in the pool, I never looked back and I have gained confidence in many other areas of my life.

Another piece of advice - invest in a decent underwired swimsuit - I did and it really helped me to feel less self conscious knowing that my boobs were no longer around my waist!!

Please give it a go - don't let your fear stop you from doing something you enjoy!

Love Amanda x

On the swimsuit thing, it never bothered me in the slightest. Swimming was one of the first things I started doing when I joined the gym, and I always wore bikinis on holiday, even at my heaviest because of the comfort/ease of use factor.

But try not to think about what other people are thinking. Chances are it will be one of two things.

1. They'll be thinking about their own workout, job, worries, hassles or dreams and will hardly even notice you.
2. They'll be secretly cheering you on for getting out there and doing something to improve your life and health. They might not say anything, but are unlikely to have a downer on people who are actually exercising and making an effort. And if they do say anything, there's always the comeback if you ask them how exactly you're meant to have a good swimsuit-worthy body if you're not allowed to exercise to get it

And of course the advantage is that if people see you at your heaviest, they'll really be able to see and compliment you on your loss when you get that far!

Welcome. You have taken the FIRST HUGE step by coming here and admitting you need to do something about your weight. Your post is candid and raw and getting to those emotions is such a major part of weight loss. You are doing it!!!!