Hi my name is Kathy,

Thanks for the invite - I love lunch, heck I love food!!! Guess that's why I'm here :bigsmile:

I've been a MFP member since Nov 2010, last Nov 2011 I started using MFP to it's full potential. I've lost 5 pounds and kept it off. Recently I had a physical and was surprised that my cholesterol was in check but creeping up! Eeekkk.......it's an eye opener and I really need to focus on eating the right kinds of foods, in the right portions.

I look forward to chit-chatting with you all and getting great ideas and support!

Hello and thank you for the invite to the group, it looks like fun. I am Tatianna and I live on Vancouver Island. I moved to the island from Arizona to be with my Boyfriend one year ago. I just turned 50 in August and am lucky enough to be retired. I have lost 15 pounds since May of this year and have 18 to first goal. I am setting mini goals and seeing how I look and feel at that weight before going further since I desire to be healthy and happy not a super model

I joined MFP to get into shape so I can keep up with my Boyfriend and to live to be 100 (at least) and being healthy so I enjoy my maturity not dread it. I quit smoking 2 years ago and feel so much better now. When I first got to the island I got winded just walking the beach at a slow pace, but now I have no trouble and have taken up hiking.

My hbbies are long walks on the beach, making decorative hangings from beach glass and other beach related items, cooking, gardening and internet games.

Currently I'm trying to convert all my unhealthy recipes into healthy ones.

Look forward to new friends and new ideas and fun.

Bleesed be:flowerforyou:

Hi everyone! I love the idea of this group and am so happy to have been invited to join! I'm Stephanie and I live on the North Shore of Massachusetts. I'm 43, divorced but now living with my boyfriend, and I have one daughter who is 8. When I went through my divorce, I lost about 15-20 pounds from stress. Not the healthiest way to do it, but I loved how my clothes fit and I felt great! Once I was comfortable and happy in a new and healthy relationship, the weight came back on again and refuses to budge. Part of me misses my old thinner self, but part of me thinks I'd rather be at a higher weight if it means I'm in a good place in life overall.

I'm a Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetic and a 5-year breast cancer survivor (YEAH!!!). I tested positive for a BRCA gene mutation, which also put me at higher risk for ovarian cancer, so I had my ovaries removed and have been in surgical menopause for 5 years. That has also made it difficult for me to get rid of these #@(^! pounds.

My motivation ebbs and flows because I love food and wine and refuse to deny myself of things in life I enjoy - life is too short! But I need to work on portion control and staying in a workout routine more consistently. I work full time, have primary custody of my daughter and my boyfriend travels quite a bit for work so my workout time is limited. I was getting up early to do the TurboFire workouts but now that it's staying dark longer I can't haul my sorry self out of bed, so I just got the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30 DVD and plan to start the program on my lunch breaks.

I look forward to getting to know all of you!

Thanks for the invite to the group.
My name is Connie. I'm 46 years old and having trouble loosing weight now that I've hit this "age".
I joined MFP quite a while ago and have every so slowly begun modifying my eating and exercise habits.
It's a long road. I've come to terms with the fact that I may never be "skinny".
My greatest NSV is that my cholesterol went from being threatened with medication to back to normal ranges in the past few months.
I find the greatest part of this journey is the therapy to change my thinking toward food from one of comfort to one of sustenance.

Thanks for the invite!! :flowerforyou:

My name is Sue, just turned 45 and I live in Illinois. I have two kids (17 yr old son, 14 yr old daughter). I have lost 45 pounds and want to lost 60-70 more pounds. I have become addicted to excercising and I love it. I use DVD's at home. I still do not like exercising in public places...might sound crazy. I wish I ate more veggies!! I have a sweet tooth that I keep in control most of the time.

I have been a soccer mom for about 10 years and when my kids are done, I will need to borrow someone else's because I will miss it terribly.

I spent more time outside this summer than I ever have.

My motivation is simple, once I seen how good I can feel, it only makes me want to continue.
- no more belt extenders, no medications, to climb stairs without holding on to the railing for support and dear life, starting to see my lap and clavicle bones, so much more!!!

Hi thanks for the invite!

My name is Kim I am 41.5 I live in Michigan.

I lost 35lbs when me and my ex of 21 yrs split up keep it off for a couple years.
Then I quit smoking entered my 40s and gained 25 of it back.
I now it is time to regain control of my weight and every thing else will fall in to place once I stop beating myself up for regaining this weight again!


Kim

Hello my new friends!

I'm Jackie and I'm a foodaholic, lol. Well, maybe that's not so funny. Truth is that I am a foodie. I love cooking good food, eating good food and wish that I could eat that good food without wearing it. I'm 60, soon to be 61 and am 5' 8" tall. I live in the Pittsburgh area, and have been here since 2007. Although I was born here, I lived most of my life elsewhere, most recently in the Atlanta area for 24 years prior to moving back here. I've been too short for my weight most of my life, but until recently have always been able to knock off extra pounds when I wanted to with some extra exercise. I did karate, jazzercise, bowling, coached soccer, walked a lot, swam in my pool, did all of my own housework, yardwork and gardening, All of that activity WAS enough to keep my weight in check.

However, since moving back to PA, getting in any exercise has been challenging due to various reasons. I "fixed" the first reason. I was a smoker. Although it didn't affect me when I lived in GA, here in PA I was finding myself getting winded when walking my dog in a local park, getting winded while mowing the yard, and getting so winded walking across the Roberto Clemente bridge to attend a Pirate game that I couldn't talk with my companions. I knew that the two reasons for being winded were that I was a smoker and that I now was carrying about 40 extra pounds gradually gained since the move here in '07. I had wanted to quit smoking, but always used the excuse that I would gain weight if I quit; therefore, my mindset was that would quit after I lost some weight. I finally came to realize that I should tackle one problem at a time. So I quit smoking.

I quit on Superbowl Sunday in 2011. Yay for me! It was really, really hard and I consoled myself by eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, figuring t'd get serious about shedding the excess once I reached the one-year point in smoking abstinence. I met that milestone in Feb 2012. Yay for me again! However, that year-long eating of whatever and whenever resulted in gaining additional weight so that I'm now nearly 80 lbs over what my doctor says I should weigh. And, although I can walk now without getting winded, an existing bunion on one foot became worse (probably from the excess weight) and caused me so much pain that I still couldn't exercise. Wah!

I procrastinated and procrastinated, then at the end of July, I finally got a physical and discovered that I now have high blood pressure (oops) which gave me another huge reason for losing weight. I got serious about it and started tracking my food via MFP in August, saw a podiatrist in September, scheduled bunion surgery for early October. I am now 3 weeks post op and am looking forward to walking again without pain. Also, I bought a stationary recumbent bike in late September, (I'm too embarrassed to join a gym and be around all of those fitness addicts aka cheerleader types) and was riding 45 minutes 5 days a week up until my surgery. In addition, I bought a food scale and a bathroom scale, and prior to surgery started walking my dog in the park (no shortness of breath now!) after taking massive doses of ibuprofen to alleviate foot pain.

I'm hoping to be cleared for using my recumbent bike after my podiatrist appt next week, hope to be able to drive again, and I hope to be able to get some dog walking time in at the park before the snow starts flying. I planned ahead for being non-ambulatory and made three varieties of soup, and a batch of chili which I divided into individual servings, then froze. In addition, I purchased some Healthwise products from my doctor and stocked up on protein drinks. The Healthwise protein bars are my favorite. They're around 150-170 calories each with 14-15 grams of protein. So, even though I've been really sedentary for the past three weeks, I've still managed to drop a few pounds. My latest find is the skiinnytaste.com web site. I am looking forward to making some dishes from that site when I can endure standing to cook again.

Hi and thank you for the invite! I have a lot of reading to catch up on in here .. I'll get through it in spurts...

My name is Kat - I'm 5'4 and 46 yrs old. I have been divorced for well over 14 years and spent all this time as a single parent. My son is 18 now -- college boy and now I'm ready to meet someone. No - I did not come here to meet the man of my dreams .. I'm making a point of constantly reminding myself .. it's truly finally time for me!! I've hardly dated anyone in years ... my last relationship ending 5 years ago.

I live in Oceanside, CA and grew up in Winchester, VA. My parents still live there, so I pack up my son and we visit them 4-5 times a year .. the holidays are coming up and as you can imagine .. the most dangerous time of year for weight gain.

I'm here because I quit smoking Aug 17, 2012. Yay .. one good thing done. Quit cold turkey. Anyhoo.. I go about my business and life as normal and one evening was kinda cool here, so I pulled out my favorite jeans I hadn't worn since the beginning of summer. Shocked - I couldn't hardly get them on! What?!?!?! That's never happened (well .. the last time was because I was pregnant.. LOL I don't think that counts)

I hopped on the scales and was stunned to see I gained 15 lbs! Yikes! I didn't look too bad .. but I'm on a budget - I simply don't have the funds to go out and start buying new clothes just so they'll fit me - especially for having outgrown them.

Don't know how I came across this site.. but September 20, 2012 - the day a made the grim discovery on my scale .. I found myself here. I've lost 6 of the 15 lbs pounds so far. If I only lose 4-5 more lbs .. I'll be very happy. (I'm not a big person, very petite frame.. so a little extra never hurt).

I look forward to getting to know you here .. I'll contribute as best as I can. I hope to introduce my father to this site when I go visit over Thanksgiving. Although he's 77 - he's an old 77. Multiple issues that have compounded over the years health wise. Some are just life long things he cannot change (arthritis in the spine and knees by his teenage years, to name one).

He lives fairly healthy -- but has difficulty keeping his weight down. Even if he doesn't interact on the boards with anyone .. I'd like for him to be more aware of his calorie intake in general to help him stay on track.

Hiya Peeps!

My name is Amy and I am 40 years old.

I am single and have 2 ridicuously wonderfuly daughters aged 20 and 19.

I joined MFP because a few of my friends we on it and I am now a fricking ADDICT. I have lost 97 pounds to date (92 pre MFP). If you would like to read about my journey to get me to this point, I wont bore you with it here. I wrote about it a couple of days ago on my blog: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/amydee714.

Looking forward to new friends.

Hi! I'm Janet and I am 44 and live in NH. I have a son in college and work as a nurse. I am a true foodie and love everything about it. I have lost 92 lbs in under a year and still have a ways to go. I am learning to have a normal relationship with food and creating healthier versions of my favorite foods that taste great.

hi ladies
My name is sheri I am 49 and have 7 children only 3 left at home. The younger 3 are adopted. We did fostercare for 7 yrs and adopted them from the fostercare system. I have been on MFP for 2 yrs now and have lost 106 lbs. I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and hypothyroid and the meds along with slowly quit exercising due to pain and fatigue and comfort eating I had gained alot of weight and decided I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was falling asleep in mid-sentence, falling down when walking, in pain constantly, i was in bed 2-4x a week and now I feel as though I have my life back. Looking forward to getting to know all of you

I make homemade pizza crusts and snacks and friend come over and play board games. It's not something I will give up, so I will have to burn more calories throughout the week, I guess.

I recently found the greatest web site ever. skinnytaste.com
Check it out and search for pizza. I saw two great sounding/looking pizza recipes. One is for a Lavash Flatbread Pizzas and another is for a Skinny Passover Matzo Pizza. Both are low calorie and look fabulous. The site not only has the recipes, but has plenty of mouth-watering photos. Pizza is something I can't give up entirely either.

Hi all, I'm Nicole, in Australia. I am 44 (eek) and have an 8.5 year old and four year old. I just lost 10 kgs and saw a number on the scale yesterday that I haven't seen since my eldest was born. Yippee.

And I have lost the weight while eating plenty of lunches (and drinking the occasional wine).

Still wanting to lose a couple more kgs/tone up. My motivation was seeing my mum struggle with her health - high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, arthritis etc etc (she turned 80 this year), and not wanting that to be my future.

Looking forward to getting to know you all

I'm Kathy from Oregon, I'm 49. I was really thin my whole life, was even picked on and called bones, string bean etc. I started putting on the weight in my early 40's and now for the first time ever I am overweight! I have tried various things but nothing worked. Lately I have tried to stick to a "real food" diet and so far it is working. I only eat real whole foods like meat, fish, veggies, fruit, nuts, beans, seeds...I am not perfect at it, but every day I try to do my best.

Thanks for the invite. I still have a good 25 lbs to go and I want to get there before I'm 50!!!

Howdy. I'm Barb and I live in Cody, Wyoming, just an hour from Yellowstone National Park, the Bighorn National Recreation Area, and the Pryor Mountin Wild Mustang Preserve. I am 51 years old and self-employed, so my dog Buster gets to have a stay at home mom. Married to the same man for almost 33 years with 2 adult children, a grandcat, 2 granddaughters and a 5 mo. old grandson.

I tole paint, sew, collect old junk, love to cook different things (no kidding, huh?) I quit smoking 4 years ago and that's when I got fat. I have lost 59 pounds since Feb. 20 2010, the first 50 the first 4 months, then maintained a while, then gained back 10, so I am starting over for the 10 I gained back and 30-40 more, plus/minus, depending on what happens when I get there. I just joined MFP about a month ago and really like the people and the databse etc. so far.

It is so much fun where we live. We get all kinds of weather and with so many sparsely populated aras close by, we get to hike, bicycle, just go for walks on dirt roads, hike some more at nearby BLM land with paths the range cattle have made while grazing, and go geocaching when we can find a cache on a more difficult trail in the mountains.

I am hoping to learn how to snowshoe this winter....I think.

Barb