This is true. When I first started my weight loss journey this year. I asked everyone on this forum what they ate each day. Seeing what you all ate helped me see that I could eat a little amount too

Who knows? If it were really so easy as "eat less move more," we'd all be at goal weight or close to it.

There are so many mantras and slogans floating around but they can all be "debunked" if you so please.

"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" - Maybe the day after a whoosh on the scale, but when you're plateauing or PMSing or stressed out or out to dinner with friends who aren't dieting, food is more appealing.

"Eat to live, do not live to eat" - Many people LOVE food and the culture of food. For all of human history, people have celebrated with feasts and alcohol. Every culture has some kind of dessert. It seems insincere or wrong to deny the importance of food; it's built into every culture and yet obesity is only a recent issue.

"Food is just fuel" - It is fuel, yes, but I would rather eat nothing at all than fuel myself with food that tastes mediocre or bad. What's so wrong about loving food? We should make peace with it rather than making it the enemy.

My take on the whole thing is that I can do this. I have gotten to a place, quite recently and with support from 3FC, where I feel that sustained weightloss (and eventually, maintenance) are possible. It didn't take blind, uninformed effort. But a big part of my exercise and eating mentality since January has been, "You understand what's working. You've seen it working in small ways. At this point there's nothing to stop you from continuing on this path and seeing where it takes you except yourself." That's not to say that the same path will work for everyone, that everyone will find their way just as I have or that with enough effort anything is possible. My experience is that, having found a seemingly suitable method, I just have to remind myself that effort and persistance are key ingredients I was missing before that I've got to add in now.

that was really beautiful and moving, thank you for posting.

That one's a pet peeve of mine. It's a crying shame to me that anyone with the full capacity to taste and smell food would voluntarily disavow two of their five senses that way. No matter what way a person's losing weight, it's possible to find tasty food to eat (unless he/she is doing some kind of crazy grapefruit diet, in which case that isn't healthy or sustainable anyway).

I love food so much I'm going to reacquaint myself with a tasty plate of it after this post. AND I will love my Skinny Cow cone for dessert. :D

As for the "Why can't you?" question, I found it helpful if I asked it of myself not in judgment, but in genuine curiosity. "Self, what have you done before that didn't work? Why did you stop doing stuff that was working in the past? What do you need to get closer to the energetic, comfortable, healthy person you used to be?" Reading here (especially Kaplods' posts) really helped me see that there are other paths--that an obstacle in one path didn't mean there weren't other ways.

I've never stuck with weight loss this long on my own. Aside from a five-month stint with Jenny Craig, I've never had this kind of success. I've never felt so little frustration or deprivation while losing weight; in fact, I feel as though I could keep doing this forever.

It was literally life-changing to me to realize that I wasn't just weak-willed. I've quit a three-pack-a-day smoking habit, rebuilt my life after a divorce, rebuilt it again after a disaster, yet I still considered myself a weakling for not being able to get back to my college weight. I'm actually pretty strong--I just tried to use my strength in the wrong ways.

It's been really helpful to take in so much discussion here even when folks approach weight loss from different angles--maybe even especially when they do.

wow, i almost started thinking 'oh my god i don't have a Mensa IQ i can't lose weight.' snapped myself out of that one quickly. i still think there was nothing wrong with the original post, a word of encouragement will never be a bad thing to me, and i don't remember seeing the word 'easily' in there either.

Same here! The obstacles I've overcome are different, but this sentiment is exactly how I feel. :carrot:

I agree. Balance is tough to find, and a balance that allows for weight loss is the extra challenge. We have different lifestyles now, and more calorie dense food, etc. Lots of personal issues for everyone, and different intensities of personal issues. I do enjoy eating, and have to eat every day. It's my goal to be healthy, to incorporate exercise in my life in that vein, and build on that amount of exercise, and work to get that eating and exercise in the balance I need.

It's a positive thing to get healthy, exercise, eat well and enjoy what you're eating. Losing the lbs can create a lot of negative head games, and I've gone through that again and again. Seeing it as a health journey makes a difference for me.

I agree.:)

What color is the sky? Most of us would say it's "blue". However, there are those who will counter that when viewed from space, our sky appears colorless. Others would discuss the wave lengths of light, reflection, and refraction. Neither of those conversations are wrong and are inherently more technical, but it really wasn't what the original discussion was about.