I’m baaaack 🤓

HezGriffin

So many of us know that one, am I right? YEARS of Premium membership payments that basically now I just see as reminders! 😆 Well, it’s my birthday this month Jan, and I had already committed after the holidays (oh my Turtles) but refined sugar & flour REALLY make me feel poorly. I am a cook 👩🏼‍🍳 and know so much about macros and nutrition yet, had to recently admit that sure my food is healthy & delicious but I would eat too damn much of it! Sometimes twice as much as my 6’3” husband, what void was I filling? So I started into healing, that’s a whole other thing and SO hard but so much wonderfulness has come from it LIKE being back here now, such a great tool AND Community! 👊 I would love friends, to cheer each other on for milestones, weight loss and for me fitness goals, cuz that’s the hardest to fit in for me…other than always walking everywhere, and many stairs at my Studio…a girl is tired, there’s a gym at my condo and I need encouragement to use it! K HI HI HI 👋 hope to see you ‘round - oh and I’ve crushed 12 lbs down since Christmas *it’s getting harder to reach my OWN back to pat it* 🥦 🎋🦦

AnnPT77

Hello, and welcome back . . . and happy birthday, besides!

I'm kind of a crummy MFP friend, but wanted to reply to your post to (re-?) greet you, and wish you success. What might you have learned from previous attempts, that doesn't work for you because it doesn't stick? For me, that was a key question. (I haven't been back to MFP yet, because I haven't left yet - it's worked pretty well for me so far. But, at age 67, I've made a lot of life mistakes and been forced to learn from them! ).

Have you checked out any of the groups/challenges in the Motivation and Support or Challenges parts of the MFP Community? They can be a great way to link into a supportive, encouraging milieu, and "meet" like minded-people who can be good matches as MFP friends. There are a wide range of different threads there, and you can read before committing to one (or more). When I was losing weight, I found the Community forums really helpful and informative. I still do, in maintenance. (One of the reasons I'm not a great MFP friend is that I'm more of a Community gal, I guess.)

Twelve pounds since Christmas is a really great jump start, and many of us do see a quick, encouraging drop on the scale at first (then it slows a bit) . . . but I guess I'd ask if what you're doing feels sustainable long term, relatively easy vs. restrictive and kind of white-knuckle-y. From reading here for several years now, it seems like one of the common pitfalls is going out really hard (shooting for fast weight loss), then burning out after the high willpower honeymoon period ends.

Maybe that's not what's going on for you, I don't know. For anyone (like me at the start) with a meaningful total amount of weight to lose, it's going to be a sustained effort of weeks and months . . . maybe even multiple years, if quite overweight. It's not a fast project with an end date, after which things "go back to normal". Then, at goal weight, most of us would like to stay there long term, right?

What seems to work for many of the long-term successful is finding new habits - eating and activity patterns - that feel natural and not too difficult, that can continue almost on autopilot once they're discovered and grooved in. That doesn't mean it's a walk in the park - it can definitely be psychologically difficult at times.

Wishing you much success, whatever course you choose!