It helped me think of just losing 10 lbs at a time. Then I moved it to 10%. I would reward myself for every 5 lbs.
I dont have any advise on the cheat your way thin. I just know do something that you can actually stick to. I eat food I love. I found ways to make food be less in calories, and I promised myself I would exercise as much as possible. you can do it!
Thanks- How do you "make food be less in calories", Daisy? I admire both of you, I've lost weight before but this time it's hard!! I'm in the middle of menopause, living in Mexico where beer, margaritas and tacos call my name, and I'm just having a hard time getting motivated. I am walking as much as possible, so that's a good thing, and swimming a lot in summer.
sounds like a carb cycling diet. I am doing something similar with Wendy Chant's Crack the Fat loss code - the idea being that alternating between low and high carb days keeps your metabolism from stalling and helps you continue to burn fat. So a planned "cheat" would be knowing that you can have pizza for dinner on Weds night and pasta on Sat night - two high carb meals a week, but you've still gotta be on track and exercise with the low carb days. For me, knowing that a "cheat" meal is planned into my week makes it a lot easier not to get frustrated. Again, I am not following that exact plan, so I'm just guessing - but based on the website it looks like a similar program to what I am on.
You don't have to pay for any diet that comes as book if you have access to a library
There are tons of people who have done Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and there are tons of good reviews of those programs. You can get unbiased reviews of those programs fairly easily. Of course calorie counting is perfectly free and is really the basis of all diets.