How did you start?

acogg

I am curious as to how everyone started on this new lifestyle change. I see on some posts people who set a start date. Like it's black and white, night and day type of change. I don't have any proof, but I see that as less likely to succeed in the long term. Has anyone here started on a particular calendar date?

I started gradually. I don't remember the date, but it was mid-July. I made small changes in a lot of things and studied about weight loss on the internet. That's how I stumbled on to this site. I gradually incorporated new habits as I learned. If you had told me last August that not only would I be eating healthier but also doing the 30 Day Shred, I would have snickered. Yet here I am, still learning, still interested and still improving. I view this as a slow recovery of general health.

katejkelley

I have always been on some sort of diet or another. I lose, then gain back - very frustrating! I had most recently been on the 17-Day Diet and rid my system of sugar. I continued to stay off sugar, but struggled with other foods. I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in awhile, and she looked amazing! She told me she lost 75 pounds by using MFP and exercising. I logged into MFP for the first time about April, I think, and have been on it since. I've lost 23 pounds and completely changed how I eat. I'm mostly vegan now and feel so much better! I think MFP is my lifestyle now. I need to see those calorie numbers - I evidently don't manage well on my own.

katevarner

I guess I think of it as starting all at once, but I really eased into it. I reached my top weight (excluding pregnancy) on 12/25/10, or at least that's the day I weighed and discovered it. I had not weighed for a couple of years prior to that, tho, so don't really know when I got there or whether it had been higher. My son and I were getting on a plane the next day for a group trip to London, tho, so I did not start that day. We returned on 1/3/11. The next day, I quit drinking Coke, or at least switched to Diet Coke or Coke Zero. And that was all I did for a while. In June, we bought a dog, and even tho it was supposed to be my son's dog, I'm the one who started walking him (we don't have a yard, so he has to be taken out a few times a day). We didn't walk far at first, usually half a mile or less 3-5 times a day.

1/1/12, I weighed again (yeah, I didn't want to see the scale that first year, because I knew I wasn't doing enough). I had lost 16 lbs. during 2011. I was happy about it, but I also knew that wasn't enough. Still, I didn't get serious about having a plan until February. On 2/7/12, I got 2 new toys--a BodyMedia Fit Link armband and an iPhone. I spent that night setting the two up and looking for weight loss apps. The morning of 2/8, I weighed in officially for both BodyMedia (BMF) and Myfitnesspal (MFP). I was at 133.5. At first, I didn't pay attention to the friends part of MFP, so I became bored with it and just logged food at BMF because it was recording my calories burned. In March, I joined a gym. I intended at first to go several times a week, but I found going after work to be almost impossible and I let the fact that I needed to be home to get my son ready for school keep me home in the mornings, so for the first few months, I mostly went to the gym on the weekends and still just walked the dog during the week, altho I started adding longer dog walks.

By Memorial Day (5/28/12), I had lost another 13 lbs. Since school was out, and I no longer had the excuse that I had to get my son up, I started going to the gym on weekday mornings, Monday thru Thursday. At that point, I also upped my calories because I was going to be burning so many more. I did have two vacation weeks during the summer, but I otherwise stuck to the 6 workout day plan for the summer. By the end of July, I had reached my goal. Upped my calories again, but kept losing. Took me the next two months to finally get the hang of maintenance, but I've been essentially maintaining since 10/1/12. In maintenance, I have started adding back in some foods that I gave up to lose, but for the most part, I have decided that high carb doesn't work for me, so I am essentially resigned to sticking with medium to low carb for the foreseeable future. I still eat desserts and some sugar, so I'm not deprived, just try to stay away from pasta, white bread and white rice, or at least to plan around them on days when they really can't be avoided.

Sorry, didn't mean to write a book, but like you, I'm still learning how to do this, so wanted to make that point.

ETA, I have just this fall become addicted to the community aspect of MFP, and I have learned a lot from others here.

acogg

It sounds like you keep a daily diary. So do I. I record any changes, including meals out. It helps me to not get discouraged if I gain a little. Today I am going to buy a heart rate monitor and a food scale. I will record those changes, too. I record everything that could impact my health, no matter how mundane.