How did you prepare/begin your new lifestlye?

Saucy_lil_Minx

I read a lot of books, and started experimenting with foods, and exercise. Then I got rid of a lot of junk in the house like whit flour, white sugar, white bread, prepackaged sides (this took me the longest to figure out how to creat sides not from a box), prepackaged meals (I wanted to control the sodium, sugar, ect.) I boxed it up and took it to the food pantry. I took me almost a year of playing around before I figured out what worked for me, and I started really going after it in September 2012. Today I am down 33 lbs. I will never see again because this is how I will live the rest of my life. I still enjoy food, I am a lot better educated on how to comsume it, and how to manage my life.

LaurenEileen74

I was always athletic, and when I turned 36, I decided I wanted to run a 5K. I've completed several since then, and love to log my calories / exercise...keeps me looking/feeling the way I like to look/feel

BigBrunette

I didn't plan at all. One day, I got fed up with being fat. So I logged into MFP after a two-year absence and started tracking my food. I haven't looked back.

In the past, I have planned to start diets and workouts and got hung up trying to create the perfect environment for success...instead of just doing it.

singlefemalelawyer

If you can, go gradually and start with a few small changes and build up to it. I am the type of person who went "all in" right away and I didn't feel good the first couple weeks (light headed, tired, etc.). I hung in there though and now it's just becoming habit and I don't even want the junk because it makes me sick to my stomach. It's different for everyone though. The important thing is to log EVERYTHING that goes into your mouth. That's when you realize how much you eat and what a healthy diet/lifestyle looks like.

Lizzy622

Due to health, I just started making small changes. I have been making these changes over 10 years now and am still going. About 3 years ago I found this site and began logging. It made a big difference seeing everything in print and realizing my portion sizes weren't what I thought.

ThinLizzie0802

My first step was to sign up with a personal trainer. I knew I needed to do one on one with someone, and all these articles I had been reading said women spend to much time doing cardio and not enough doing weights. I don't know anything about weights so I needed someone who did. My next step was to make a list of the really bad habits I had that I knew were going to be cut. soda, cheeseburgers, being sedentary. I did a biometric screening for work which really gave me a good idea of where I was at health wise and I was able to see obesity/BMI was my issue and my glucose was at the top end of normal. Thankfully for as overweight as I am I do not have high cholesterol or blood pressure. I signed up for MFP and got my BMR and daily calorie limit. Before beginning a diet I played around with the food logger to see what sort of meals and snacks would keep me within my limit while being healthy and filling. Track everything. Keep your goals in mind, but don't focus on your big goal. Make small goals, like ten lbs, or just a goal to track every food and exercise for a week. I don't plan on weighing myself again for another 3 weeks because I know my focus now is sticking to diet change and building muscle. Once I have given myself a month and a half of solid commitment to diet and exercise, I will start to worry about tracking actual weight loss. I know I need to change the way my body operates before it is able to change the way it holds on to weight.

lilawolf

I kinda snuck up on myself if that makes sense. I didn't let myself think about how much I needed to lose or what, if anything I was going to give up. This was great except I wish I had taken pics and measurements, but that would have been too "real". I started logging, and only cut a couple hundred calories. 1750 + exercise if I remember right for that first week. Wow that was easy! And I lost weight! The next week I went to 1550 + exercise and just kept going, and before I knew it I was losing just over a pound every week, and had been 'dieting'...

Then I went to China, stopped logging, and lost more weight (though slower)

Then I came back. I was at my goal, but still wasn't happy. What to do? I looked into weightlifting, and found stronglifts. Yes! I laid out a plan for when I would go to the gym, how my hubby would meet me, got protein powder to take the edge off the hunger (working out at my old dinner time), thought about crock pot dinners that could be ready when we got home, got lifting gloves and clothing, and said: We are going on Monday. Period. And we did. Both of us.

First round, I really needed the LACK of planning to just ease my way into it and get some momentum before I shed my excuses and faced reality. The second time, I really needed the planning to fit in 4 hours of workouts every week, and make sure that my husband and I continued to eat well.

bonitacash08

When I first started MFP, I began logging on a Thursday. I'd had the app downloaded (but not set up) for about 2 months before I started using it. I'd gotten so low and the scale had gotten so high that I just had a "dammit this is it" moment. I don't think I really changed anything about my diet per se, just logged what I'd eaten that day.

I'm the first to admit, the first 2 months using MFP I was REALLY stupid. I wasn't eating enough and I was overexercising. It wasn't until I got more active in the forums and realized what I should have been doing that I increased my calories and began lifting heavy. Well, I got more active in the forums and got HUNGRY lol.

I just had to commit to myself. I realized I gave everything and everyone else in my life more chances than I gave myself. I had to realize that it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be imperfect.

Legs_McGee

No prep work; I just did it. I had already been a runner for several years and doing boot camp and other classes for a couple years. Then we had a Biggest Loser contest at work and I think I lost maybe a pound over the course of six weeks. On the last day of that contest a friend of mine told me about MFP and I started logging my calories, realized how much I ate, and lost 18 pounds in the next two months.

herblackwings39

I signed up on MFP mostly for the database since I was tracking with WW, but once the meeting closed in my area I switched over exclusively to MFP. The tracking has been, probably, the most important aspect of this whole thing for me. It's hard to decide what changes to make if you've no idea where you are to begin with so I'd suggest that you not wait. Just start tracking now so you have a baseline and can look back and see exactly where you were and what you can tweak to get you to where you want to be.

Raddichio

Each of us found our way here in different ways. And we each find what works for us in terms of weight loss, sometimes through trial-and-error. I found MFP while loosely following Weight Watchers and searching for nutritional information on certain foods. I signed up so that I could get that information and was astounded by all the tools here for weight loss. I began tracking my food intake in the Food Diary immediately, and within a week decided there was no reason to go through WW ever-changing formulas for converting caloriess into points. I had lost weight with WW (I just read about their program---never joined or attended a meeting, etc.), but MFP simplified things so much for me that I chose to continue here.

Be sure to look at all the things you can do with your Food Diary. You can click on "Recipes" and enter your own recipes so that whenever you eat that particular food you can just add it to your diary from the "Recipes" list---quick and easy. Another favorite of mine is "My Meals" in the Food Diary. If, for example, you have a favorite combination of foods (i.e., tonight I'm having tilapia, mango salsa, brown rice, and steamed zucchini and carrots). You can enter each of the items that make up that meal to your diary, then click on "Tools" and choose "Remember meal." Then you just name the meal (i.e., in my case, Tilapia and Rice), and every time you have that meal you just have to click on "My Meals" (at the top of the Food Diary page) and choose the name of that meal. All components of that meal will be entered automatically, so that you don't have to search and enter every food item each time. Using my example, if you have broccoli instead of the zucchini and carrots, you simply delete the zucchini and carrots from the diary and add broccoli---still very simple.

Take time to play around with the many features here because, in the end, it will save you lots of time. They are all pretty intuitive and easy to use. If you use all the tools, logging daily food is not cumbersome. One other thing---you can enter the food before you eat it. I sometimes enter the entire day ahead of time, and I usuallly enter my main meal (dinner) a week ahead, when I'm planning meals for my family and my shopping list. When I have all the dinners filled in for the week, it helps me plan a balanced diet for the rest of the day that won't exceed or go to far below my target calories and macros.

momzeeee

I'm picking a day to begin (to work myself up to it and to give me a chance to get rid of the
unhealthy stuff from the cupboards )
I'm also going to keep a food log and I've written my 'plan' in it ready for when i begin.

How did you prepare? what did you do first? did you just go for it?

thanks

I first spent hours and hours researching different plans. I read books, websites, watched lectures online etc. That led me to choosing the plan I followed (alternate day IF). I also found an online support group that really helped me (they were doing the same plan as I was and it was much more focused than mfp).

Did the same for maintenance, though this was much more challenging since there's not a lot of resources out there about maintenance :grumble:

ajominy

I knew I needed to make a change, finally told the personal trainer at my office that I was going to see her the next day. I started slowly, she had me doing a little cardio and weight circuit. She said keep modify what I had been eating but not drastically and to log it into MFP. After the initial 2 weeks she evaluated what i was eating and made a few suggestions. I did some research and continued to make changes. It was gradual though. There wasn't much planning for me as I had decided the day before that I was going to work out and had no idea of MFP. Close to a year later and 124 lbs, it was the best decision I have ever made!!!

elisa123gal

I'm in my second week of my mfp attempt.... I'm just logging my calories and drinking my water and working out. I can tell by logging that i need more calories to be happy so exercise is a simple must. I'm also learning to be more honest with myself and log EVERYTHING (which it is so easy to fudge). The first week was hard...but it is getting easier..and my shorts that pinched last week fit.


I'm sure in a few weeks I'll concentrate more on my nutrition...but right now... I just want to get into the groove.

jbpretty

I just simply pick one bad habit and reduce it or eliminate it from my daily rountine. I first started out with reducing my intake of soda to once a day then once a week, and lastly none...

I have learned in a health class that starting with small steps will last a life time. So far it is proven me right.

Yup, this is exactly what I did! With the things I was going to keep in my diet, I changed my portion sizes.

Goddessmaker1

When I started 2 years ago I just sorta did things and added things as I went. Like when I first started I bought alot of those supposedly healthy tv dinners. I would workout 4 times a week and ate very little. I stuck it out as it gave me something to do in the evenings and lost up to 70lbs. I added double workouts, ditched the tv dinners and added more protein. Then life came and hit me. Now 30lbs gained I am now just going all in but gleaming from my past. Throw away a lot of things, researched my butt of to get a good meal plan and ditched the gym. I also made sure to surround myself with positive things as well. I know for me if it's not convenient then it won't be for me. So cooking once a week is a good start and you will build off of it.

soontobemomma

bump

andiebaco

I officially joined MFP in February this year but I basically ignored it. I got back here in May and I barely used it correctly. However, at the end of June reality hit me and I saw that I wasn't losing a lot (or at all!) with my "plan" and that I was being lazy. I became triggered with my colleages who were working out and trying to be better for our next rotation so the fact that I needed to become serious about this hit me.

That was a Friday. On Saturday I decided to do the detox I wanted to do since long ago but I never really tried it. I bought it, had my last meal on Sunday and started on Monday. It was very hard, and probably it'll be t he last time that I do it but it worked. After that, I decided to follow the IF and the 5:2 diet and I got a membership for the gym (for my last two months in this rotation). The weight has been melting away and I feel great.

I just jumped in. I kept swaying away the losing weight part until I had enough of it. So I guess I needed to know that I could be better and stop making excuses for myself..

melfitnesspal13

Yes on all the comments above: logging every single bite/taste, eliminating just desserts (already ate healthy), increased existing exercise from 2-3 days a week to 5-6 days a week, joined a fabulous fit group that I found free through meetup.com, finally and most important turned over this entire journey to prayer. Never thought of prayer and God for weightloss but well, it has been working. I have experienced as steady loss since Feb 2013. You have to be in charge of your life, end of story.....much success to you.....

Phrick

I just did it. I looked at the scale one morning and didn't like what I saw; logged in to MFP and logged everything I ate that day and every day since.