Well, here I go again and this time will be the last time I start a new healthy eating regiment because this time I'm sticking to it But as they say 3rd time is the charm.

All my life I've been a "big" girl but not necessarily in the traditional sense. I was 6' by the time I was 13 and ended up at about 6'2 by high school. I grew pretty fast up until the time I hit that and always ate like a horse. Unfortunately it was never healthy eating, my parents were a big fan of pasta, casseroles and the ever favorite mac n chesse (they were overweight themselves). I was always relatively skinny though as I played soccer regularly, and then of course basketball By my senior year, I had too much on my plate academic wise and I quit basketball and soccer to focus on school and college and ended up gaining about 50 pounds It wasn't too noticeable though as I'd always had wider hips and skinny waist kind of thing, so it just filled in that skinny waist, lost muscle in my arms and legs got a little more flabby. Went away to college and got back into soccer, horseback riding, and the big one rugby (there's a calorie burner if ever there is one) I also was walking 20-30 minutes a day lugging books to get to class, library etc. I lost 80 lbs and that's probably the skinniest I've ever been. At the same time, I never changed my eating habits. I was eating cheeseburgers, cheese sticks, Ben and Jerrys, candy while studying all sorts of icky food. So, when I left college and got a desk job I ballooned like crazy going from my happy 165 at 6'2" to over 300 lbs in just a couple years. I tried weight watchers when I was planning for my wedding and lost 30lbs, but after the wedding I had a hard time keeping motivated and had blown everything diet wise on the honeymoon anyways so I went back to my old eating habits.

But, here I am again and I did much more research and prep this time and I am determined to get back to my college weight. I'm eating more of a South Beach plan mostly because I have a hard time counting everything and my husband is diabetic. I started on the 3rd of January and I'm down 6 lbs (water weight I know) and am working on adding more vegetables to my diet and more excercise. I think with me, excercise is key, its just so hard to make time for it especially since I just started back to school this quarter for the first time in YEARS lol. But that's my story, and I look forward to getting to know you all better

Erin2tall to our forum!
Glad you find us!Keep posting so we can get to know you better!
i started on january 3rd too, of '08...and at the and of it i was 70 lbs lighter !

Congratulations on doing your research and deciding to change your lifestyle! This forum is an amazing place to get support, ideas and just plain ol' motivation. Hope you like it here!

Hey Erin -

We have a wonderful South Beach forum here...head over and look there for recipes and ideas.

We also have forums by age range, amount to lose, etc, so look around. I love our miscellaneous support groups and challenges, too! There's a lot to look at!

Stick around, keep posting, and keep going. Can't wait to get to know you better!

Hi Erin! Welcome to 3fc! Sounds like you have a great plan! What kind of exercise do you like?

Thanks for the warm welcome Mostly I'm trying to get up early and walk my dogs, but they're both young and walking my labrador can be a challenge. She weighs almost 80 lbs (not overweight mind you) and thinks leash walking = sled dog race. I don't have the physical strength to restrain her if she decides to take off, so still working on training her to walk better. My husband can walk her fine and my other one just is happy to walk after mom but getting my husband out of bed early is a challenge to say the least lol. I got Dance Dance Revolution for my Xbox 360 and I've been trying to do that a little bit every day, working up to faster workouts. Right now my goal is to not fall on my face lol.

I have 2 labs and one I take for walks and the other one takes me for walks.

Walking is a fantastic way to start exercising! I had a 125 pound Shepherd who had a chronic case of "tow-truck-itis" a halter slowed him down quite a bit and made him easier to train for me. I know it's scary when you feel like you don't have control.
Like this one...


I think it annoyed him long enough where I was more able to keep his attention.

We tried the halter, and it didnt' phase her one bit at all lol. Even took her to professional training to try and get it to fit right, but she always managed to slip out of it, or just pulled through it. It didn't hit the right points I think. As much as I hate it we're using a pronged collar right now and that seems to be working better. Biggest problem with her is she's a typical lab, super friendly, super hyper, NO attention span BUT she has no motivation for food, none at all. Wish I had that problem lol.