Im not there yet either. Its easier than it was but still not easy.

I didn't mean to sound egotistical at all...This is still hard for me alot..Like tonight when I drank a TON of alchohol LOL. But some mornings I just wake up and I feel like "Wow...This isn't THAT hard" looking back on what I have accomplished thus far.
I am glad to hear alot of you understand where I am coming from!

I don't think you came off as egotistical in the slightest.

I know what you mean Sockmonkey! I have only lost 19lbs so far and I "get" it. Like others have said, it's a pretty simple concept, the problem is that we have a battle of wills. One part of us does the naughtiness and the other part does the scolding and wondering why in the heck the other part can't behave. Every day I lose a pound, my goal feels somewhat more obtainable... I still can't imagine myself under 200lbs yet, but I'm just trying to take this one step at a time, I am trying not to overwhelm myself.

I will say it is nice to have so many kindered spirits out there. I don't see a lot of people as big as me, and usually I feel like I'm the biggest one around, but it's nice to know that I am not the only one out there who is struggling with this! That's what's so great about 3FC! I am not even that ashamed to display my weight anymore. TO **** WITH IT! I just love how everyone can be real and honest here.

No, I haven't found easy yet. I struggle and fight for every single pound. I think a lot of it is age. When I was younger, I could lose easily and quickly. Those days are definitely gone.

Have to agree -- the concept IS easy -- however, the actuality is far from easy.

As the 'old saw' says . . . 'brain cells come and brain cells go; but fat cells live forever" . . . and no matter how empty mine get, they are always screaming out to be refilled.

For me, it's an ongoing battle.

Keep fighting the good fight, Chickies.

Its getting easier.... but not really easy yet for me. I started this on 1/11/07 fell off the wagon for about 2 months due to stress and gained about 6lbs back in that time (not as bad as I thought it was going to be) I'm back on track since mid July. All total in 9months I've only lost 33 lbs. I know it should be more but I dont let it bother me. In the 9 months I've learned a lot and know that I'll do what I need to do!

I find the eating to be pretty easy - as long as I'm in my routine, I just follow my plan without much thought. It's finding time for exercise that I'm struggling with right now. School is a LOT more work this time through and I feel like every spare moment should be spent with a book. Going to try to find a few hours this week for movement. I've had a test in each class now and I feel like I kind of know what's expected. The first couple of weeks were pretty scary, but I stayed on plan with food, so it's nice to know I don't spook my way right back to McD's!

I still have about 30 pounds to go, and I know what you're talking about. I have told several people that it really is embarassing when I think about it- it has not been much of a struggle for me to loose this weight, if I had known how easy it was, I would have done it years ago......BUT then I think, maybe it is easy for me to be where I am now, BECAUSE I have the right mind set. It may not have been so easy for me to do back then becasue I didn't have my head where it needed to be. I dunno. I am very thankful that it is not a struggle for me (at least not YET)

People ask me all the time "Aren't you proud of all of your hard work?". I look at them blankly because I don't think of this as work. I think of it as getting off my a$$ and doing what I should have been doing all along. It is easy if you do it. It's doing it everyday that is hard, but I still don't see it as work, I see it more as I am "fixing" my overeating weakness. I see my overeating as a fault that I am fixing, not work to be done. Does that even make sense? It just kind of all hit me when I read this thread.

Sockmonkey: I am politely sending you a cyber smack! Smack, smack! This has been anything but easy lately and just felt the need to cyber smack. By the way I like your pink highlights!!

This has actually been pretty easy. But I think that's because I was really ready to achieve this. There have been times in the past that it was a constant battle trying to lose and when I look back at it, I can see that I was just wasting my time. I wasn't really ready to give up things and to commit to the exercise. Now I am and it seems fairly simple and straightforward.

Hopefully, a year from now I'll be answering this same type of post, in the same way, in the maintenance section.

This time, I refuse to give up. I don't care how many times I have to "start over," I'll keep doing this until I get it right. Yep, this time I'm committed. I'm like the turtle....slow and steady...but, even the turtle gets to cross the finish line one day!

Diddo!

Rhonda: This quote should be on someones signature. I really liked it! I need to adapt that mindset!!