I just want to give up.

Hello, I have been on and off MFP for over a year now. I have logged in everyday for almost 70 days. I . But I just can't do this. I don't know how people are losing weight. I don't know how to motivate myself to eat healthy or exercise. I use to be 114lbs and was able to eat what ever I wanted to 2 1/2 years ago. Now I am climbing to 160. I have a Mexico trip coming up in 64 days and I turn 40 in 4 months. I want to get skinny again. I need some help. I love reading things from all my friends on here so more friends the better. But any suggesstions to help me get out of this funk?

one thing I notice about what you said is that though you have logged in every day for almost 70 days you "have for the most part tracked my foods for the last 2 weeks". For most people, to do this right, food has to be tracked strictly, not "for the most part", and consistently, for an extended period of time.

Maybe others have already said this and i missed their comments but, in your food tracking, are you weighing & measuring? or approximating? that can make a huge difference, too.

I see that your diary isn't open to the public, if you open it up, people may be able to give you advice on your choices.

you can do this! it just takes dedication and patience.

NEVER GIVE UP!

The most important thing to remember you are what you eat. It doesn't matter how much you exercise if you throw all the wrong foods down your throat you wont lose an oz. Try saying to yourself if I can't kill it or grow it, don't eat it. Keep away from the processed stuff it generally has no nutritional value. Once you start eating correctly your energy levels will increase and you will begin to want to exercise. I wish you all the best!

Hello, I have been on and off MFP for over a year now. I have logged in everyday for almost 70 days. I have for the most part tracked my foods for the last 2 weeks. But I just can't do this. I don't know how people are losing weight. I don't know how to motivate myself to eat healthy or exercise. I use to be 114lbs and was able to eat what ever I wanted to 2 1/2 years ago. Now I am climbing to 160. I have a Mexico trip coming up in 64 days and I turn 40 in 4 months. I want to get skinny again. I need some help. I love reading things from all my friends on here so more friends the better. But any suggesstions to help me get out of this funk?

I've been using MFP for almost 7 months. I first started with friends as a way to track each other while doing a 6 week fitness competition. I was doing boot camps, strength training and eating clean. I read a lot of different stuff and one of the boot camp coaches suggested a book which turns out really helped and made a lot of sense. It's "Female Body Breakthrough" by Rachel Cosgrove. Rachel is a former aerobics instructor and body builder. I found out later, that she's one of my main trainer's mentors. It has an eating program and a workout program that doesn't include running. Basically, I squatted, lifted, rowed, jumped my way through 25.5 lbs the first 6 weeks. After the competition, I couldn't keep up my double workouts but I kept working out 3-5 times a week and I've lost up to 52 lbs.

Unfortunately, I suddenly and unexpectedly lost my 41 year old sister and best friend in May . Thank heavens I'd started this journey. She was one of my biggest cheerleaders and was so proud of the success I was having, so I knew I needed to stick with it to make her proud of me. I knew it would be so easy to drown my sorrows in food and I had every excuse to stop working out. I did well until mid-July, but I've been stuck and need to get back to this.

I'm training for a half marathon, which I know from my trainer is completely not helping my weight loss. The Half Marathon was the goal I that started me on this journey three years ago. I was ready, got sick and then just couldn't seem to get back to it. Earlier this year, I started again and lost some weight, so I have to finish my half marathon goal and then get back to the weight loss and fitness. I wasn't expecting to lose my sister and get derailed this summer so I hit stall, but I have started back and hope to lose some more before the half marathon.

Food is a huge key! I realized I was eating not enough fat and the wrong kind of fats and way to much sugar. I was shocked at how much sugar was in "diet" foods. I had to learn all over what to eat. I have a friend who started MFP just from seeing me after 4 months and she lost 7 lbs in a month only by changing her eating and logging everything. Yes it's a pain, but it's worth it to get results. I know that others have said it's easier to do it now while you're younger. I have a couple friends going through menopause and they said do whatever you can to lose weight now because you'll gain at least 10 lbs and it shifts and it more stubborn to get rid of.

DON'T GIVE UP! Hang in there or you'll be having this same conversation in the future.

You can add me as a friend! You can do this and you will be so much happier!

Some great advice there and some awful advice too!
Whoever tells you to "avoid eating sweets, eat a banana instead and cover it in peanut butter" is mental! Why ruin a banana with peanut butter???

Anyway... you have to con yourself into it. What I mean by that is that once you've convinced yourself that it's easy because really, all that sweet, sugary and fatty food tastes bloody awful, and that oats are a lot nicer, it does indeed become easy.
I compare that to giving up smoking because once you've decided quitting smoking is a walk in the park, that really, when thinking about it you don't actually enjoy smoking, dropping the habit becomes really easy (see Allen Carr's "The easy way to stop smoking")

It's the same with food. But watching your diet alone isn't going to be enough. You need to watch what you eat and you're going to have to exercise too.
The good thing about exercise is that when you DO want to eat something that isn't as healthy as your daily diet of carrots and raw beans, you can budget for it by doing a gut wrenching hour of full-on cardio (and this is where real will power kicks in, you need to feel the pain - no pain no gain) and then you can have that half a bite of that snickers bar without feeling guilty about it.

That's when it all starts to really kick in - you realize that just to "earn" that half bite of that snack you've had to work out like never before, you'll start thinking twice about it... is it REALLY worth the hassle? Then you start losing an appetite for that kind of thing... it starts becoming easier to turn away from sweets and other unhealthy treats and snacks because you know the price you're going to have to pay for it later...

Move, just keep moving, avoid everything that moves for you. Don't take the car unless you REALLY have to.
I've found riding a bike everywhere really helps, exercising at home with PS3 (wii of xbox) exercising games (EA sports active) is a lot easier than joining a gym - there's nobody there to see all your flabby bits wobble as you first start out exercising again, you can sweat it out without having to be embarrassed about the litres of sweat you're excreting, it's never closed so you can come home from work at 1:00 am and still do that 45 minutes of cardio every day... no more excuses...
Also, I highly recommend the 100 pushups and 100 situps programs - they really help speed things up.
http://hundredpushups.com/

And also, no point in being too aggressive about reducing your calorie intake or you'll be going into starvation mode. Do more exercise instead. You'll feel better for it.
There's nothing better than collapsing at home on your yoga mat from sheer exhaustion - it's better than sex (well... almost).

The thing also with losing weight is ironically you end up spending more time in the kitchen. Start cooking proper food, made of real raw ingredients - stay away from all the pre-processed and ready made crap that is full of stuff that even chemists couldn't identify. Grow your own stuff (even in a cramped appartment in London we were growing salads, herbs, mung beans in the cupboards etc), learn about food again, simple, nutritious and healthy food. It's fun and it's yummy.
And if your husband is helping you out with this he'll get to enjoy it too.

Finally, whatever you do eat, take your time eating it. Your digestive system will thank you for it, you'll feel fuller without over-eating and you'll be less stressed. Fast food does nothing for you, and don't kid yourself, there is no such thing as "healthy" fast food. Research shows that to be true as well as it does nothing for your work (i.e the quick lunch at your desk) for an efficiency and results P.O.V. so take the time to enjoy your healthy lunch, it will help you get a better perspective on things and you'll feel better for it.

Oh, weight fluctuation is normal, especially at the beginning as you're turning that fat back into muscle. Don't just look at weight, look at your waistline and your body tone too.

Don't give up! It works. It took time to gain and it will take time to get it off. Stick it out!

i love your pic...new body under construction....so true, thanks!!

i'll be honest.. you have to want it bad enough, you have to desire it enough to eat healthy and cut out all bad foods and exercise and stick with it and you need to be motivated to do it otherwise your not going to succeed ... you can give all the excuses oh i'll start tomorrow stop making excuses and just do it! it's not easy but if you really really want it you will do it by saying I just want to give up you've already failed before you've even started and your attitude stinks !

Don't give up what has worked for me in the past and continues to work is make a competition out of it with friends and family.

Yes, its not a diet, its a lifestyle.

If you want to change, to get skinny again, you have to change the way you live. It THEN becomes routine and only then will you workout all the time without even thinking about it.

Your nutrition must also develop into a new era. Im talking no unhealthy snacks to no proccessed foods. Take it as far as you want its your choice.

Remember though, if you really want it, you will change. Change the way you eat, live, workout. Im not saying you will be bothered working out every time, but it becomes routine and 9 times out of 10 if you just do a little bit you end up pushing and doing the full thing.

I always tell myself, that cake/snack/burger whatever is not as good as the feeling I get when I go home and look in the mirror knowing that the change is happening because i stuck to my plan.

^^100% right on! I have loosing since January on and off and only in the past few months when I really decided to step up my game of counting calories and developing an exercise routine is when the weight starting coming off more easily.
Also, as he said, eventually you will never thinking about how you don't want to go to the gym, there will be a point where you must make time for it everyday and if you miss a day you will feel so mad at yourself. I know I do now, and it feels great knowing that this in now ingrained in me FOREVER!

You know what they say - "Old age ain't for sissys!"

Today is my birthday. I am now 42. It's just a damn sad fact of life that our bodies don't work at 40 the same way they did at 20.

If you want the body of a 20-year-old at 40 you have to work a lot harder at it.

You know what? It won't really be quitting if you quit now, because you can't quit something you never really started in the first place. So go ahead, what's there to lose? Wait, you weren't asking for our approval of you quitting? Then:

YOU have to make the decision to do this FULL ON, 100%, from here on out, no "if's" "and's" or "but's" about it. YOU DECIDE.

It is a lifestyle change, not just a diet. Has to be this way forever. Takes work and time. You have to want it and work for it.

It's amazing how so much of this is mental isn't it? I went years and years unable to motivate myself to do anything and then last November, it was like I flipped a switch in my brain. Listen to the people who tell you this takes time. Trying to make it go faster actually makes things go slower.

This is so true! I ask people my size to run with me and they tell me they are too big. I try and explain that if you let your brain tell you to stop pushing you will. When i began running for the last half of my run I kept having to tell myself ok just one foot in front of the other and I got this. Food is the same way. There are some really enjoyable recipes that are healthy.

Also stop looking at the scale there are a ton of other factors that you can look such as inches, your cholesterol levels, how you generally feel, etc. The scale is a easy way to lose motivation. Remember you are doing this for your health not the number on the scale!!

I am 45 years old. I am 5'5" and I went from weighing 160-ish last November to my current 125. You CAN do it! You just have to want it badly enough. Yes, it's hard, but anything worth having is worth working for. Saying that you CAN'T is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Change your mindset. Believe in yourself. Be willing to make small changes. Over time, these things DO make a difference. Feel free to add me as a friend if you believe I have anything to offer you.

Read Dr Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live book. Its life changing. You will likely learn what you've been doing wrong.