Day one...Hope and Fear

Hi Renee and welcome!

I know where you are coming from as i was just the same. My best buddy told me she had started counting cals and so i wanted to support her in her journey and see how i got on too. I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago and decided it is time for a new me.
From past issues i have always turned to comfort food for whatever reason,whether happy or sad and hidden behind my fat. I lost 6 stones a few years ago and then plowed most of the weight back on again.
This time its different,i think if you have the motivation,support from friends then you will go along way. Like the other member said it is definetely a learning curb to eating healthier as i am finding myself keeping within my calories as well as my carbs,fat,sat fat,cholestral and sodium.
I have now lost a stone in 3 weeks and havent found it difficult at all,if anything i have enjoyed fiddling around with my food diary until i get it just right.
I am gonna apply to be friends with you,as i would like as to be friends to support each other. It would be great if you accept. In your settings you can set it to allow friends only to view your diary which i find helps tonnes knowing i have to write it all down and that my friends see if i am being piggy.
Good luck in your journey hun.
Helen xx

HOpeful that maybe this time, I can get healthy. Fear that I will find yet another excuse to stuff my face and distort my body. That I will elect to stay wraped and protected in this fat. But it is not protecting me. It is killing me. There is never a perfect time to lose weight. To get healthy. I am 53 years old and have yo yo dieted all my life. I want one part of my life to be spent not morbidly obese, and to experience what is is like to fit in this world. To stop feeling like I am taking up too much space.

Hi Renee, and welcome to THE best site on the web! :flowerforyou:
Between the easy to use food counter (which by the way is SUCH an eye opener!) and all the wonderfully supportive members, you WILL be able to lose the weight that you want to, AND, it'll "almost" be easy doing it!
I recommend logging ALL your foods BEFORE you have them, rather than later, as it tends to lead to better food choices. (not to mention you'll know if you've got enough numbers left to have a night time snack, like I ALWAYS try to do!) Some people also like to weigh and measure some things, such as meats, rather than just estimating and possibly being WAY off! :noway:
Don't go making the mistake that if you have LOTS of numbers left at the end of the day that you'll lose even faster, because that DOESN'T happen. Feel free to read any info about the site in the "help" section at the top of the home page. And also under "Community", then "Weight Loss and Healthy Living", then "general diet and weight loss help", and then check out the first few threads. They'll REALLY help you understand how MFP works.
Before coming here, I had tried just about EVERYTHING out there, including hypnosis, TWICE, and nothing really worked until MFP!
Just the word "diet" would make me cringe and set me up for failure. :grumble: It meant depriving myself of all the "good stuff" out there, and as a result, I'd only last just so long, (maybe a few weeks if I was lucky!) and then I'd "cave" and go right back to eating all those "goodies" again! :embarrassed: But, MFP ISN'T a "diet". :noway: It's a "lifestyle change". (When I first read that, I said "Ya, SURE it is!", thinking that it WAS just another diet. :grumble: But, it wasn't! :noway:)
The main reason that I've managed to lose the weight that I wanted to is because I HAVE been able to eat "real/good" foods. :bigsmile: (Not Slim Fast or any other easy, quick, fad "wacko" diets!:noway: ) Through MFP I learned that I just needed to "work for it", through exercise, and watching my numbers (MOST of the time! ) As long as I do that, I CAN occasionally have stuff like Chinese food, a double cheeseburger, pizza, and even homemade ice-cream!
As far as exercise goes, it doesn't always have to be awful. :noway: For my exercise, I walk almost every day, (weather permitting! ) I also dance to a fast oldies CD that my husband made up of all my favorite old songs. (Like "Love Shack", Wild, Wild West", "Mony, Mony", "Footloose", and "Gloria") :happy:
It's free, (unlike a gym!:grumble: ) fun, and I can even watch tv at the same time, so I never get bored! :happy:
I also have Wii Fit, and jog to that, which is a lot of fun, and easy too!
So, to make a LONG story short, make good food choices, eat in moderation, get some exercise, and you WILL lose the weight that you want to!
MFP REALLY, REALLY, DOES work! :happy: Give it a chance, and it WILL work for you too!

Hi myfitnesspals! I too diet every January and always lose at least half a stone but then go back to my old ways and put it back on again plus a few more pounds at Christmas!

I've always hated calorie counting but if it works then that's what I'm going to do - especially as the food diary is there to help and show you how many calories you've eaten and how many you've got left for the day. it means I can choose to have soup in the evening if things haven't gone according to plan! I also like the fact that you can include calories burned through exercise and this time I'm even going to include calories from alcohol which I never have before (I didn't even know how many calories are in a glass of wine!).

Helen - you look fantastic - a stone in three weeks is an amazing result - how did you manage it?!