Hi, starting in two days! o.O Excited but anxious...

Karababy51

Hi! *waves*

I just joined yesterday but haven't actually started yet. Why? Well I decided to start on my wedding anniversary because I want to reach my goal by NEXT year's anniversary. It'll be our 30th and the kids say they want to throw us a party. I told my husband yesterday what I had in mind and he decided to try to lose weight too. Yay! I'm glad because I don't have much confidence to try this on my own without any support offline. The funny thing is, we weighed ourselves and BOTH weigh 187 lbs.! What are the odds? hehe I have more to lose though since he's 5' 11" and I'm only 5' 4".

I've already started adding stuff to my food diary just as an experiment to see how many calories/fat I've been eating. I can already see I need to cut out my love of soda pop. I drink it all day long, beverage of choice. I hope I can find a good alternative other than diet, I can't stand the stuff. Yick!

I don't know what else to say that isn't in my profile other than that I smoke and eventually want to quit as I go along and that my exercise regimen is just about non-existent. Unless you count walking around the grocery store once a week for two hours? I'm also at the beginnings of Menopause and worry that's going to make it harder to keep off any weight I lose. I've read it can slow down your metabolism. Are there any other 50 something women here in a similar situation that want to be friends or have any advice? Maybe there's a group?

Anyway, I'll end this for now before it ends up being a novel.

Lesley2901

Hi, my first piece of advice would be don't wait just start today!
I'm 52 and my metabolism has definitely not slowed, in fact it has increased due to exercising. Therefore second piece of advice is start exercising.
You can add me if you want support.
Good luck to both you and your husband, you can do this!

tbetts23

Welcome! You've made a good start by just logging your food. Making small changes to start will show results. Oh! And Happy Anniversary!

morticia16

Hi! Well done for your decision. One piece of advice though: just start today!

Karababy51

Thank you for the welcome everyone! Good advice about starting NOW rather than later, my idea was to start yesterday. But Hubby and I were discussing the grocery list Friday before I shopped and he talked me into waiting until Monday. Besides our wedding anniversary, today is his birthday, so we had/have two celebrations to get through. He wanted a 'last hurrah' I guess and I agreed. I'm confident next year's menu will be VERY different than this years. We sat down and devised a plan together (made my first blog post about it) and I shopped accordingly, so we're good. Thanks Lesley for the encouraging words that menopause hasn't slowed down your metabolism, that really helps to ease my mind on the subject. Have a great Sunday! :happy:

ChrisM8971

If you have started logging to see what calories you are eating then you have started already. Knowledge is important and you have identified areas that need to change so great start.

Fantastic that your husband is coming along for the ride as it will make it easier and from my experience you can always find the support and advice you need from so many people on this site

Enjoy the journey by eating the things you love, just modify your day with exercise etc to ensure they fit into your calorie goal.

sinistras

heck start today! :-P

Nix143

Congrats on the 30 years, hope you have a fabulous double celebration . Good luck on your journey

MuseofSong

Hello Kara!

Well, here are my opinions:

Don't try to change EVERYTHING at once. Keep it simple and change over time.

Don't give up the foods you love. If you're not eating what you like, you won't stick to it. It's calories in and calories out.

And when you can exercise, just do it, even 10 minutes at a time. Anything is better than nothing.

But, really, my main focus is my food diary. I pre-plan and adjust later. I'll plan my day's calories out on weekends and then 'oh I did not eat that for lunch, I might have it later' and switch it to snack or dinner. Or at the end of the day see that I did not have an item, even though I made room for it,and delete it, etc. I rather over plan, but that's just how I do it.

On work days I have the same breakfast/lunch, with few adjustments, so that's easy, and I come home to whatever calories are left and plan from there before I eat dinner.

Diary before you eat = planning to succeed

However, if you eat extra, don't panic, note that down, so you can track your net calories and treat an off day like a 'zig' and 'zag' later (less calories for a few days) to balance it out.

And once you have your plan, eat what's in your plan, and you will hit your calorie goal. And trakc your water. ^_^

I also save common meals and recipes, so I can just copy them in for a meal - this saves a lot of time. I also organize my food list by name, because now that I have multiple pages of regularly chosen foods, it's easier to just find something alphabetically.

I love these tools. The more I learn the easier it gets. I'm glad you made the choice to come here.

If I had to start over, I would have started at TDEE - 20% or MFP with a 1 lbs a week target. I started at with the MFP 2 lbs a week target and I spent 3 weeks hungry. A 1000 calorie daily deficit, even with eating back most exercise calories, was too much for me. Sometimes I frankly do not have time to eat back exercise calories because I will exercise late at night after my S.O. goes to work (he works night shifts), so meh! TDEE - 20% OR MFP with a 1 lb weekly target and not worrying about consuming my light acitivity exercise calories back makes more sense for my lifestyle.

However, a lot of people do okay at that deficit though, so your mileage may vary. You'll find what works best for you and your schedule. There's no "one right way" as long as you're happy and don't feel sick.

There are fantastic people here with lots of experience and great success stories. So, welcome and I hope you find success.