Hi, starting again.

snudgie

Hi all,

This is me, starting for real, I have to – it's urgent.

Today I am celebrating my own Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras. I had some fishfingers for dinner, with a beer, two glasses of wine, and some chocolate Easter eggs for dessert.

Tomorrow is the first day. I have just received a set of scales through Amazon that can actually weigh me, a 44-year-old, 6 foot one, 400+ pound person. We shall find out tomorrow morning exactly how much I weigh, on day one.

I have made several attempts in the past to shed weight, but I am utterly without willpower, perseverance and energy. I suspect that my battle will be more of a mental struggle than a physical one, although that is not to say there isn't a certain amount of physical pain and sheer inertia to be overcome.

I really look forward to making a new start on this website, and making a few friends along the way. I sincerely hope that I can be helpful to others, as well as receive help and encouragement from others.

Sadly, I am also a type II diabetic — and I do feel this is self-inflicted due to my weight and my inactive, self-indulgent, lazy lifestyle. I have a very bad back and a lot of pain (chronic) in my legs as well. However it is not so bad that will prevent me from getting at least the minimum in exercise daily. Even starting at a minute a day of walking, I can see myself ramping this up to at least half an hour in the near future.

Whatever happened before, tomorrow morning is day one. I have scales so I can keep track daily (not weighing in regularly proved to be disastrous for me – forgetting about the scales made me forget to diet; I need the daily feedback, and despite the possible inaccuracies from day-to-day weighing I will still be able to make out the general trend once I tally up and put the numbers in a weekly graph). More important than scales, I've also bought some decent shoes, some hand weights, and the pedometer.

I am looking forward to your feedback and your advice – thank you very much!

Pascal

mam479

The best advice I could give is:

-Log everything you eat.
-Do NOT completely overhaul your diet at once. Chances are it will make you miserable. Change one thing at a time.
-Do not drink your calories. Stick to water or any other drink that has nutritional value
-When you exercise, start slow. It will help prevent injury. If you need low impact workouts, there are plenty free ones to be found on the internet

-This may seem hypocritical but: do your own research and don't hesitate to question people's advice. If someone says something that doesn't sound quite right to you, ask to see their sources so you can decide for yourself if it's something you agree with. You will get and see a LOT of conflicting advice in this community. Do what feels right for you. That may be eating a Paleo diet, it could mean IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros), it could mean something else.

Good luck, Pascal!

nicolescallion

I found it helpful to understand obesity. Obesity is a chronic health disease like asthma or diabetes. You have to self monitor and medicate. You self monitor using mfp and your medicine is activity:) feel free to add me:)

bridip

Hi. Me too. This is my first day back to this site, and probably my 4th try. I'm not too proud to say I haven't kept it together in the past but I really need to keep it going this time. My weight has yoyo-ed for years but generally creeps up and up. In the past, I've thought I've had a good routine to lose weight and keep moving, then I quit keeping track and it all falls apart.

It's a big undertaking, no matter how many pounds you have to shed. I wish I had gotten it more together years ago when I didn't have that much to take off. But I didn't, so here I am now.

I wish you more than luck. I wish you SUCCESS!

:flowerforyou:

nobel99

Welcome Pascal! It sounds like you've made the right decision to lose some weight....for health reasons alone. You're being honest with yourself and that's a big step in the right direction. You have to do this journey for yourself and want to do it. Logging everything you eat and being accountable to yourself is imperative for this program to be successful. It's absolutely astonishing how many calories we put in our mouths and don't even think twice. Since starting this program, I have been making small steps to healthier eating. It's really what it is...small steps. You WILL have days that suck but just write that down...guaranteed you'll get support from others here....we've all had terrible/bad eating/no energy days. As long as you know, there will BE a tomorrow to get back on the wagon and once you see the pounds start to fall off, you'll see it's no so bad after all. You'll start to feel better and have more energy and hopefully control your sugar, blood pressure and whatever else that might ail you. I just feel better fitting into a smaller size pair of pants....I seem to survive on smaller amounts of food, I find I eat more, smaller meals throughout the day and I rarely feel "starving". I have cravings....we all do. Sometimes I give in.... cuz if I deprive myself, I won't stick with it! Congrats for joining and please add lots of "friends" as they will support you every day/every way!

snudgie

Hi again!

I did not really expect all the kind replies so shortly after writing my intro! Thanks all for the kind words, and for the advice. I'm sending everyone a 'friend add', but don't feel obligated in any way. We're all relatively new here, going by post count, and some of us will have to have several goes until it sticks. I've been on here a year and have yet to get moving, so this is one of my many attempts, and my first real attempt to do it with help from you guys! Thanks again, and see you in the discussions below!!

Pascal

culo97

The best advice I could give is:

-Log everything you eat.
-Do NOT completely overhaul your diet at once. Chances are it will make you miserable. Change one thing at a time.
-Do not drink your calories. Stick to water or any other drink that has nutritional value
-When you exercise, start slow. It will help prevent injury. If you need low impact workouts, there are plenty free ones to be found on the internet

Good luck, Pascal!

Great advice mam479. I could use it myself.

I double the suggestion about finding low impact exercises on the web, specifically YouTube. There are plenty of free videos you can do at home. Some good key words: "low exercise" and "low workout" and "stretch". I skip the ones with poor lighting or audio. Why deal with that when there are so many well done ones?

I found a lot of ones I like on the Fitness Blender channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FitnessBlender