So many of you can stick with a diet and loose all the weight you need. So, I'm left wondering how you do it? How do you have the self controle?

Do you start with small steps, or did you just decided to full-out diet one day?

You are all my heros, having the abilty to stick with something as difficult as loosing weight.

I set a date, for me it wa January 1 2005, then started changing my lifestyle. I started eating breakfast, cut out snacks, and avoided take out meals. My basic eating was already healthy, but it was the rubbish I ate between meals and my occasional (like three times a week ) takeout habit that was causing the problem.

Then once I had the eating controlled somewhat, I added exercise. My exercise regime has really grown since I have lost weight. I started by walking, then swimming, then doing gym, now I do all sorts of stuff.

You have to make weight loss and healthy living the first priority in your life, for it to work. You have to plan, be prepared to make sacrifices, but also still have fun.

If you have unresolved issues in your life, you sometimes need to take hold of those as well. For me, I am a stress eater, always have been. Now I do yoga and pilates to help manage my stress, and I do cardio when I am in acute stages of stress instead of eating.

It's a long hard road if you have a lot of weight to loose, and it's not easy, but perhaps with commitment, it's not as hard as you think it will be.

I agree with Kayleystar. A plan really gives you a sense a structure. But you really have to research and find something that is HEALTHY, works for you, and allows for the occasional treat. For me that was calorie counting because I can indulge in my occasional take out and desserts because I can make up for it the other 90% of the time. If you get into the mindset where it's all or nothing, you're just setting yourself up for failure. If you have an off week or go out and eat a whole pizza, just move on, it's not the end of the world. Like personally I ate like crap for about a month, had a couple binges, etc. But I just kept going, I got back on plan without beating myself up.

Good luck!

There's a poll somewhere about how many of us were (not) successful the first time. If I find it, I'll post a link.


http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72763

Determination and the desire to like myself instead of hating myself for being fat and having no control.

Yep, the thing about dieting for most of us is not that it's just physical work, it's often emotional work too. You have to know why you're eating the way you do and make some rational choices about what you do to your body instead of returning to the old habits that got you here in the first place. I have learned that I'm an emotional eater... I graze when I'm bored, I stuff sweets when I'm blue, and I eat mountains when I'm angry. Now when I feel these things I have plans for something else to do so that I don't pig out instead. Sometimes I go out, no money, no credit cards, just ID... head to the park or library where there's no food to be found until I get past it.

I started slow. Years ago we had already started making better choices... cooking with less fat, less red meat, more veggies. That helped a little, but you can still eat too much of good stuff and gain weight. This year I started simply with portion control and lots of water - I am up to about a gallon a day now. In late January I started some simple exercise, just walking a little every other day. In February I started using an elliptical machine - I started with as much as I could stand, about 10-15 minutes, 3 days a week. I limited desserts to one day a week (mostly - this was hard). Now I'm up to 30-35 minutes on the elliptical, and have added some stretching, and only have real dessert about once or twice a month - we substitute FF/SF pudding, 100 calorie snacks, and SF popsicles instead. In March I added some weight training a couple of days a week and have really upped the walking.

So, you don't have to do what I do, or what anyone else has done. I call my plan The Lala Diet! I started with small steps and added (or subtracted) as the first steps became a habit. If I had done everything right off the bat I would have gotten overwhelmed and just threw in the towel long ago. I know, 'cos I've done that a hundred times already!

Good luck, and do keep coming here to the boards... I find these people to be a great source of inspiration and accountability and support.

-Lala

Mine wasn't entirely an overnight thing, it was something I knew I had to take control of and after seeing some very unflattering photo's of myself, I decided to change my life. I set a date and off I went.

I didn't say I was dieting either, a diet to me is a temporary thing. I said I was changing my lifestyle, to indicate a permanent change that will stay with me for the rest of my life (hopefully).

For me I am tired of people asking if I am pregnant, am tired of feeling without energy. My daughter came home and said kids in her class say I am fat and it hurts her feelings, that really hurt me.Also I had really bad swollen feet, and wanted to be able to walk again ( now I can), and I was going out of a size 24 , that scared the heck out of me. So those are some of my reasons, there are others, better sex , better clothes, in all just feeling better about myself. There are days that I don't want to eat better, but I do most times and if I fall off the wagon I just get back on.

You really have to be ready for it - imo. I have tried to "diet" before and never stuck to it. This time I want to lose the weight more then anything - I can't say any one thing set me off. But I want it - I will do it!

My journey started when some guy shouted out his car window, "If you lost 20 lbs you would be fine" while I was standing in line to get in a club with all my skinny friends. It was a goal, I thought, "I can lose 20 and I will show him". Just a nameless face really but it gave me a goal. So I did the South Beach and I DID lose 20. But once I hit that goal I just sorta stopped. I now have gained back 5 lbs and so I started a NEW goal, and I am back here

Mostly I calorie count these days, it is simple math, you MUST burn more than you take in. That is what equals weight loss. I know for me my weakness is carbs, there is a TON of calories in simple carbs and once I eat them I eat more and more and more. So I stay away from them, and try to eat more veggies.

Like everyone said, read here, find something that appeals to you and that you can maintain for over 30 days - because then it becomes habit KEEP POSTING here, this place is a great support system!

I had a few light bulb moments before I got up and changed my lifestyle.
First having a baby changed my entire life and I knew that I had to change but I didn't. Second, getting out of breath when try to play with my son as he got older. Third, people telling me that I have such a cute face and smile, but of course the rest of me was not appealing. Fourth, my son playing with my fat roll as if it was a toy. And finally, I went to the ER with chest pains on 11/8, 3 days before my son's 1st birthday. I was only pain from broncohtis (sp?) and fluid, but I knew at that moment that I did not want to die from a heart attach at 29 if I could do something about it.

So I did, but it is still a daily struggle and I continuously fall off the wagon but I get right back on. And the key for me is not to beat myself up about my food choices.

You know, it's funny someone brings this up because my son just started Kindergarten this year and about a year before he was to start, I promised myself I wasn't going to be a fat mom because I know how cruel kids can be and I didn't want Shane putting up with stuff like, "Shane's mom is fat! Shane's mom is fat!"

So by the time he started school, I had dropped most of my weight. That wasn't my ONLY reason for losing weight, of course, but it happened to be one of the many factors. One of *MY* reasons.

And about the asking if you're pregnant thing, I sort of went through something like that. I had actually gained most of my weight when I was pregnant. But about 2 or 3 weeks after I had given birth, I went into a local convenience store where I worked for a little while before I had the baby just to pull in a few extra bucks. So I go in there and get what I wanted, then went up to the counter. One of the girls I used to work with was cashier for the day and she looks at me and goes, "You still haven't had that baby yet?!"

I wanted to die, lol.

for me the big change came after i was diagnosed with cervical cancer. it was really embaressing to be so big that some people didnt think i could possibly have cancer. well so far i have cancer beat so idecided to beat this weight thing i got too. so far so good. i just take baby steps.. like change my eating habits and put some exercise in my life and it is starting to pay off!

I didn't set a date, I just woke up one morning and did it. Well, two mornings, there was a false start and a second attempt, but it was the same principle both times.

It was very much baby steps. I knew that I needed to eat better and exercise more, at first I ate a little better and moved a little more. Then I looked for ways I could improve what I did. And again and again and again. This is where not having a plan really helped me, because I could switch things round as I felt like it - either moving to complex carbs instead of refined carbs, switching to more home prepared food, switching to predominanty vegetarian food and upping my exercise on my schedule rather than anyone else's.

If you'd have told me when I started this that to get to this stage I'd end up becoming almost vegetarian and training for a marathon I think I'd have been scared off. But by doing it one stage at a time it didn't seem so daunting. I'm still looking for ways to make my lifestyle more healthy, even though I don't need to lose weight now I have a healthy BMI. But I do want my body to work as well as it can, so I'm constantly playing around with how I live my life.