Im feeling a little bummed because I joined this forum on the 1st with a promise to myself that this year would be MY year. I want to lose 90lbs by December 2012 and I just already feel like its impossible :l Any help out here?

I know how you feel...I need to lose 100 pounds! This year I have decided that I am not on a "diet", but a lifestyle change. Portion control, eating healthier, (more veggies and fruits) and starting slowly with exercise (walking is good). I am taking baby steps because I have failed so many times before. I am going to get back on track the very next meal if I should "fall off the wagon". It seems like we have a lot to lose, but every pound lost is another step closer to goal. We can do it! Good luck!

A lifestyle change is hard. It can't be measured in day-to-day terms, but over a long-term trajectory.

It takes weeks, months, or longer to find a new way of eating that yields a healthier lifestyle. Long-term maintainers discuss the importance of reevaluating and tweaking their way of eating because dieting and maintaining is a constant process.

I say this because I don't want you to beat yourself up over the past 5 days since 2012 started. You are exploring what works for you and what doesn't, what are triggers, and what help get you through difficult times, what food you love, and what you need to stay on track.

So give it time. Every day, try something new, focus on a new change you've just made, or just observe how you feel about eating and what helps you eat on plan. It sounds like you're doing just that right now- taking stock of where you are, where you'd like to be, and how to get there. Isn't that a lot more than what you were doing a few weeks ago?

Progress, not perfection, is the aim. It's a slow process, but that's because it's a process that needs to be sustainable. Keep up the great work and wish you all the best

When I started my weight loss journey last January I had a bad case of unrealistic expectations. I had a lot of weight to lose, over 100 lbs. I made gradual changes. First, I made a commitment to myself to go to the gym 6 day/week. Next, I started keeping a food journal. Then I started calorie counting. That really opened my eyes to the amount of food I was eating and I modified my diet with a target of 1500 cals/day. So, over the course of a couple of months I really got on the exercise/diet bandwagon and was doing everything right.

The weight started coming off but I was constantly frustrated that it wasn't coming off faster. For some reason in my mind I felt like I was doing everything "right" and I should be able to lose like 20 lbs/month! I felt like I deserved to lose it fast because I was going to the gym and working my butt off every day.

Well, fast forward to a year later. I have lost 75 pounds, I still have a ways to go but I have come so far. What have I learned? Probably the most important thing I can tell you is to just stick with it. Don't give up. Take it one day at a time, one eating decision at a time. Be as consistent as possible in making good choices. Sure, you will have a day now and then when you go off plan, no one is perfect, life still happens. Be quick to forgive yourself and keep moving forward.

Set small mini goals. It can be overwhelming to think about losing 90 lbs, but it is easier to think "I can lose 10 lbs nine times". Start slow with making changes, you will find what works for you and chances are that your plan will evolve with time. You can ease into this, it is not all or nothing. It is about progress not perfection.

The goal is weight loss but the journey is much more than that. On this journey you will learn a lot about yourself. You will make a lot of changes. You will try new things. You will abandon unhealthy choices, not just food but also how you spend your time. What I have learned is that this isn't just a diet or just losing weight it is discovering a new and healthier way to live.

Now that I am a year into this I look back at my "old self" and chuckle at how I felt that I deserved a quick fix. I now know that it takes time to turn your life around, to learn new habits, to unlearn old ones. So be patient with yourself. You can do this and you will feel empowered with success.

Try to approach each day, each choice, each eating opportunity, as a new chance to make a healthy decision. Don't allow yourself to think of a slip-up as being "off-track" or even as trashing the whole day - much less the whole year!

Make your plan for the day or week and stick to it. And if you slip up - which nearly all of us do - just put it out of your mind and focus on getting right back on plan with the very next choice you make. There is no "well I ate 2 pieces of cheesecake so I may as well eat the rest of it and start my diet again next Monday." Instead, there is "well I ate two pieces of cheesecake but I'm back on plan now with my grilled fish and roasted string beans for dinner."

This process is hard and challenging and long. But, it's also extremely forgiving, especially early on when you have a lot of weight to lose. You can make mistakes and still see results! You just have to be patient, have realistic expectations, and not demand perfection-or-nothing on your plan. You do not have to eat flawlessly to lose weight. You just have to stick with your plan and keep coming back to it over and over again no matter what slip-ups you have.

STOP. Right there. That.

Of course it seems impossible! You're looking at the whole picture and you're giving yourself a deadline! Don't do that to yourself!

Leave your goal, realize it's there, but put it out of your mind for now. Focus on the immediate! Celebrate every pound you lose and focus on smaller goals (5lb lost, do something new at the gym, fit into a smaller size, etc.). You'll be so wrapped up and happy that you're meeting these smaller goals that all of those pounds will eventually add up and you'll be pretty darn close to your goal.

Remove the time limit too. Just do your thing and you'll get there when you get there. Weight loss isn't a race and you don't magically regain your weight if you don't make it to the finish line as fast as you wanted.

I can tell you that it is POSSIBLE without a doubt. You mentally have to want it. If you want it and stick to it, the 90 pounds will be off in a year. It took me years to mentally be ready to make that change. When my mind was with my heart, I dropped 60 pounds in 6 months. I was not unhealthy, I watched my calories and worked out 3 times a week. Each day is a new day, a fresh start, don't get upset about yesterday's failure make up for it TODAY

THIS!

Don't compound a bad meal with a bad day, compound a bad day into a bad weekend, compound a bad weekend into a bad week. Realize it's a process, an imperfect process at that, but you CAN do it. The first step is to choose to do it. Don't just want to do it. CHOOSE to do it.

This is all about you. Weight loss is mostly mental. It's January, you have a WHOLE YEAR to make progress. Focus on making progress. Like sontaikle says, set smaller intermediate milestones. 90 pounds in a year is a daunting task when you look at it that way, but 10 pounds isn't that daunting, or 5 pounds. You just have to keep at it. Don't set timelines on your progress until you understand what and how it works for you. Shooting for 90 pounds in December shouldn't be all or bust, you can't lose 90 pounds before you lose 10. Would you be happier than you are now if you only lost 70 pounds by December? Give yourself a chance to succeed. Change your mind, then change your body.

Good Luck! Keep us posted.

So, if you came outside and found a tire slashed on your car, would you slash the other 3 and just say, forget it, the car is useless?

So you weren't perfect for the first 5 days of 2012. Fix the tire, pick yourself up and keep going. January 1st isn't a magic date any more than January 5th is. Today can be your new start date. Or better still, keep the January 1st start date and realize you'll make lots of mistakes along the way and success will lie in getting over the mistakes rather than not making them.

It's totally possible to lose this weight! Look at my stats. I'm not any different than you, if I can do it, so can you.

Needing to lose that much weight is a journey — a process — and not an event. Additionally, it has to be a lifestyle change which means you need to change things up gradually and consistently and not all at once. If you try to do EVERYTHING you need to do to make this happen, you're going to be totally overwhelmed, become paralyzed in negative thought, and I'm here to tell you that will get you on the road to nowhere so fast it will make your head spin.

I remember when I finally made the decision to lose weight (92 pounds) and embark on a healthy lifes style of exercise and eating well, I took a whole lot of baby steps. First, I just started walking everyday at lunch and trying to make good food choices over the noon hour. I would eat, that was usually baked chicken and a side salad. Then I'd go the park near where I worked and walk for about 20-25 minutes before heading back to work. I did that pretty consistently throughout the fall. Paid better attention to my breakfasts and my dinners and managed to lose about 32 pounds.

Winter set in and I became totally inactive and my weight fluctuated up and down 10 lbs. My goal was just to keep it in that range til spring and get my workout on again then. Well that worked. As soon as it got warm, I got back to walking at the park. Then I started also walking after work when I got home. I lost that 10 pounds but beyond that my weight wouldn't budge. Like for nearly NINE months. So, I decided to get the help of a nutritionist (this past July) and also joined a gym.

The nutritionist helped me tweek my food choices, and I ramped up my exercise to lose another 22 pounds (give or take because 10 of that was weight gain) with her help. From there, I've ramped up my exercise even more and have lost another 12 pounds or so.

I said all that to say this. I have been working on losing 92 total pounds for about 15 months. I've had quite a few ups and downs but over all during this time, if I look at the bigger picture, my weight has TRENDED downward. And this has not at all been easy. In fact it's been excruciatingly hard to loose nearly 56-58 pounds to date. I'm premenopausal, 51 years old and diabetic taboot. So nothing about this journey/process has been a cake walk. My body has been extremely resistent to losing weight and that sucks.

So every day, no matter how well or how poorly I do, I just wake up and say today's a new day and start again. If I fall off the wagon, I just get back on it. For example, this past week, I've been binge eating. WTHeck? I can't even remember the last time I ever went on an eating binge. Although I know why, it's kinda scarey. I'm bored to tears in the evenings and so I gotta find something to do instead of eat.

Throughout your journey you have to be adaptable. When one thing doesn't work, be receptive to trying to find things that will. If you keep doing that, you'll eventually start seeing some success.

Forgive me for writing a book about my experiences, but I really hope this will help.

Good luck!

everything is possible, maybe 90pounds seems like a lot, so why dont you brake it down a bit? maybe 10pounds first then when you hit that do it 9 times?