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Well I think joining this group is an excellent start!! Believe me, I know exactly how you are feeling, I was angry at myself for letting my weight get this high but still didn't have the motivation to do anything about it. In my case, it took some health scares to smack me in the face to realize that I needed to do something and it had to be now! Once I got all my medical tests back and got the ok from my doctor to begin exercising, I felt like I was ready to do it. I began with making small diet changes so I didn't feel overwhelmed. I joined the gym and began with just cardio for about 2 weeks before I decided that I wanted to do more. Now I am following a regular exercise program involving strength training and cardio 4-5 days a week. I will admit it is hard and not fun most of the time but I already feel a lot better and more energic. Once you are ready to lose weight, you will know and you will succeed!

Well, like you said, you are here obviously because you want to do something about the weight. You know it's a problem for you, just like it is the rest of us. I think your post here is a great start in trying to lose that extra 70 lbs!

I'd say that you're well on your way to making some kind of a plan. And by plan, I don't mean you have to sit down and figure out exactly what you're going to do. Take baby steps.

As an example: make an effort to cut something out of your diet, maybe pop. Or ice cream. Or whatever your vice is. Once you conquer that, move on to something else. Maybe make an effort to start walking twice a week and work your way up. You will be surprised at how those little things add up!

Another idea is to try not to think about how much weight you have to lose. Set smaller, more attainable goals for yourself. I've found it much easier to say, okay, I want to lose 10 lbs. When I look at the fact that I have over 100 lbs to lose, I get discouraged easily.

But what I can say from experience is, once the weight starts coming off, you will feel great and you will wonder why it took you so long to get started!

Good luck to you!!!

Healing your body begins with awareness. Don't be ashamed; use this opportunity to turn things around for the better. Realize that attempting to bury your emotions with food will only cause more problems, and I'm not even talking about an increasing waistline.

And be glad it hit you before it hit me . . . when my stretch pants grew with me, I suddenly realized I was somewhere over a 30 and could no longer even fit in any jeans off the rack!

You can take control of this. Take this one step at a time and be kind to yourself. This site is full of friends. Look up healthy recipes that you might find appealing, read around different areas of this forum, find inspiration through success stories, vent whenever you need to, and know that we're all in the same boat and have struggled with many of the same issues that you have.

Your first step begins now. And if you stumble, it's ok . . . just get back up and try again. Sometimes that's all we can do.

Welcome! This is definitely the place for encouragement and support when you have more than "a few" pounds to lose. We've been there, done that, and ate most of the cookies!

I know how frustrating and overwhelming it can seem at first.And you're right; you may not be ready to make any actual changes yet. But "contemplation" or "pre-action" is one of the steps we all go through when considering making huge changes. It's perfectly normal.

We'll be with you every step.

Welcome. Your new life started today when you posted the first time. You can do this and we're all here to help. Good job on passing up the fast food. You did it once - you can do it again.

I found it helped me a lot to look at each day as a separate day. I'll try to explain. What happened yesterday was over and didn't factor in any more. That way I never could say things like, "You've been good for so many days you deserve a day off." Each day was it's own separate day and it was the only day that counted. Staying on plan for 1 day is a snap. You just have to figure out how to link all those single days into weeks and months of eating sensibly. An off day? Oh, well. It's done and over. today is the one that counts. Do TODAY correctly. Just do it every day.

The other thing that helped me was to sometimes break it down into even smaller segments. Each meal - even each choice - was all that mattered. THIS choice - the one I was making NOW. You can do anything once. Just keep telling yourself that, and then do it once again.

You made a great start by passing up the fast food. Now take it a step farther and plan what to do tomorrow instead of fast food. Have a lunch in hand so there is no need to even think about what you'll be having. It will get easier as time goes on and the new choices replace the old ones. You can do this.

Lin