Hi all,

I'm starting over on this attempt to lose excess weight. I'm currently 33 years old, height 5' 3" , weight 204lbs and climbing slowly. My highest was around 245, and my lowest adult weight (around 10 years ago) was around 180 -- I've always been heavy, but I really want to get rid of the excess before I get any older and any fatter.

To that end, I'm going to be counting calories (trying to stay around 1300-1600) while trying to keep an eye towards eating healthier in general. I've borrowed a friend's BeachBody "Power 90" CD1 until my set gets here sometime next week (it shipped out on the 24th and supposedly takes 5-7 business days). I just finished the first Cardio workout from it and am surprised -- it looks easy, but it actually kicked my butt! But I made it through without stopping too much (except for those last 6 full body crunches...by that time my body said, "Are you freaking crazy??? Stop that!")

Anyway, here's to a lot of hard work and determination in my future. I've seen a lot of people here doing it, and hope one day to be one of the people that inspire as well.

Any suggestions, tips, etc. are always appreciated.

Yay Good luck, you can do it!

sounds like you have a great plan christine! good luck you can do it!!!

I think with your attitude and all the support offered here, you'll be a sucess before you know it!

I was someone who had lost weight on previous attempts fairly easily but could never keep the weight off. Two things always happened:

1. I would overly restrict calories and I would eventually binge. I would feel like a loser, a failure and give up.
2. I would reach a goal weight and immediately return to the unhealthy eating habits that made me heavy in the first place.

In July 2004, I decided to stop the yoyo-dieting, restriction/binge madness forever. I planned how I would maintain my weight loss before I even lost 1 lb.

My biggest suggestion would be not to have a goal to "lose weight" but a goal to KEEP THE WEIGHT OFF.

To do this, I looked at the foods that I liked to eat (pasta, stir fry with rice, quesadillas) and make changes that would allow me to keep eating the foods I liked forever. I started:

• Cooking with less butter, oil and cheese.
• Added more fruits and vegetables (wilted spinach in pasta sauce, added broccoli to stir fry).
• Switched from white rice to brown rice, pasta to whole grain pasta, tortillas to whole wheat tortillas.
• Planned to eat 6 meals a day so I wouldn't get desperately hungry (a hungry me is a dangerous, making bad food choices me)
• Decided to menu plan every Sunday and know what I would be eating for most breakfast, lunches, dinners, snacks. I also reserved time on Sunday to grocery shop and pack lunches and snacks for the week
• Keeping a food journal
• Counting calories
• Avoiding useless calories - booze, fried food, fast food, sugary soda, packaged baked goods
• Eating nutritionally powerful foods - fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, lean protein (salmon, chicken, turkey, eggs, low fat dairy, soy), healthy fat (natural nut butters, nuts, trail mix, olive/canola oil, avocado), whole grains (quinoa, oats, whole wheat, brown rice)
• Weighing once a week (scale fluctutations tended to make me ride an emotional roller coaster, I was so frustrated if the scale went up I wanted to quit)
• Eating ENOUGH calories every day. Dieting made me fat. I started dieting at age 16 when I weighed 140 lbs. I ended up 200 lbs at age 35. After a little experimentation in the beginning, I kept my daily caloric intake above 1600 everyday.

Now that I've lost weight and reached my goal, I still do all those things and I expect I will do them forever. It's not a huge hardship, it's just habit now. I love being slender, healthy and wearing pretty clothes so much it is totally worth it. I just wish I had done this years ago!

Something I find that motivates me, is remembering that I'm doing this for ME. For the very first time in my life, I'm really taking care of ME.

One of my favorite chants is:

You have to be good to you first or you won't be any good to anyone else.

Here's a very private profound moment that was one of many motivating turning points for me on my journey to date. Hopefully you or someone else may have the "light bulb moment" that I got from it.

I am trying to stop and think of how lucky I am (this is extremely hard to do with depression, but I am working on it) I imagine myself getting into a horrible car accident and becoming a quadripalegic, unable to willfully use my body. I really try to take myself to a moment like that. Then I must think of how truly blessed I am and how much I need to love myself and what God has given me. I think if I was in that situation, what would I think, how would I feel. I bet I would cry, scream, and pray to God constantly that if he would give me another chance I wouldn’t take my body for granted. I would love, nuture and take great care and pride in the body I have. It would matter to me how I treated the one and only body I have. I would probably promise to eat healthy and exercise and take care of my skin so much more. I would promise to be ever so grateful for the body I have and take such pride in myself. I would promise to love myself every moment of every day, beacause now I knew it could all be taken away in the blink of an eye. Then if God performed the miracle I needed to have my body back I bet I would look at things in a much different way. To eat something as simple as a piece of choclate cake would seem cruel to my body. The one and only body I have. It would seem almost poisonous. It would seem shocking to me that I could even remotely consider putting something so horrible into this one great thing I have. It would seem abusive and wrong. I would take such pleasure and pride in exercise that it would be comparable to grooming the best show horse in the land. With every minute of sweat I put forth in exercise would come a great and deep inner pride knowing that I am showing my body love and caring that it has never felt before. A sense of self worth would be so great and powerful I would walk with my head held high and a dance in my step that I didn’t even realize was happening. After all the love and care I put into my body I would unknowingly emmulate a self confidence I have only dreamed about.

I shouldn’t have to have something like that happen to me to wake me up and appreciate the gift I have been given. The time is now and it’s like no other, there’s no looking back and no more excuses. I will learn to love myself, really, really, love myself.
Lisa

Sorry if it was too over the top, it just really hit home for me. Every once in awhile I go back and remind myself how truly good life is. This was one of those nights for me.

Glory -- What I like about what you did is that you can see COMMITMENT written all over your plan! No wonder you were successful! I hope that's me someday!

Successful so far, it's work every moment of every day.