Hello! My story. This time is different (hopefully) :)

[Long post, but I just had the urge to write it all out]

I'm 32 years old. Have been in the 180-185lb range most of the past 14 years.

In April I moved to NYC and I've gone up to 205lb -- a little perplexing because I feel like I've been eating a bit healthier (not healthy, just healthier) and working out a bit more than I used to. So either I'm wrong and I've been eating worse, or maybe my metabolism has slowed. I also don't think I look bigger than when I was 185 -- so not sure if I just gained more muscle but didn't lose the fat -- or if its just a combination of those three things.

I've been self conscious of my weight for the past 8 years and have been trying to lose it -- got down to 160 once 6 years ago when I went crazy with the cardio for a month but then regained it once the crazy cardio stopped as my eating habits hadn't changed, and I've hit 170-175 a few times but then always reverted instantly.

2 months ago I joined MyFitnessPal, started logging food / exercise -- mildly changed my eating habits, and 10 days later I stopped logging and went back to my old ways.

2 weeks ago I attended a mindful eating lecture at my gym (they have 3-4 nutrition lectures every year), and one of the things they provided is their suggested food/fitness log -- which includes logging the time of the meal, rating your hunger level before/after meals and also space for comments/feelings with each meal.

So I got re-energized, and have been logging my food & fitness for the past 12 days in Microsoft OneNote. I chose it just cause I can make a daily log template with exactly what I wanted -- including the 3 things above. It adds some overhead cause I need to manually calculate calories, exercise time, weekly totals, etc -- ie don't have the nice generated reports.

And I've been using MyFitnessPal to lookup food calories, and read forums

So the past 12 days I've gone from 205 to 196lb -- a motivating start -- and I feel like this time around I might just have a greater chance of success of making it a permanent change.

What's different?

1. Logging has been keeping me accountable. 12-8 days ago I had a fair amount of cheating and eating bad snacks like doritos, but that’s steadily reduced. Logging failed 2 months ago, so on its own it wasn't the answer...

2. Weekly calories / fitness goals:

a. I averaged 2177 calories/day last week without any goal but to try to eat healthy, and had 3.8 hours of walking and 6 hours of weight/cardio exercise.

b. I made this week's goal to try to get to 1800 calories/day and to beat the amount of exercise from the prior week. So far -- 5 full days into the week, I'm averaging 1652 calories / day. I'm behind last week on the exercise though. I'm realizing what types of foods fill me up and that I should eat more of -- a 4 egg omelete fills me up -- high in fat, but only 280 calories. As does Pinto beans and salsa for 400 calories.

c. I've also made a goal to stick with this until Thanksgiving. And if I reach that goal, I might end up cheating thanksgiving weekend, but then I'll make another one to stay with it thru christmas. And so on -- daily/weekly/monthly goals. With the end game being to get to 160lb. And if I do that, then rethink what I want to do at that point.

3. I've been more mindful (as a result of the lecture suggestions) of portion sizes and waiting for my hunger/fullness signals to catch up. I've been eating portions -- like half a sandwich, then waiting 30 minutes to see if I'm still hungry and eating more if I am, otherwise eating more 2-5 hours later.

4. I started P90x -- I just can't self motivate myself to do cardio cause I find it boring -- ie running. But I do play hockey and have been going to a weekly bootcamp class. I figure as long as I follow P90x, I don't need motivation -- I just need something to keep me accountable.

5. Misc things: I bought a heart rate monitor but haven't started using it yet as it just arrived today. I bought a food scale and its helped me accurately estimate calories, as well as control portion sizes

6. Sticking to a diet for 12 days is the longest I have yet in my life, so there's hope it's not just a temporary thing.

Really in summary, it seems like I just need structure that forces myself to stay with it.

Concerns:

1. I'm pretty sure I can keep up the exercise level, so not too concerned about that -- other than I have some injury prone body parts so I just need to make sure I don’t over exert those and end up being sidelined.

2. I've got urges to eat till I'm stuffed -- its how I've been doing it for the past 30 years. I've been consciously following the mindful eating and forcing myself to take breaks, drinking water when I feel hungry, etc. Telling myself I'll feel guilty if I have a late night snack and then eating a banana or drinking water.
Its definitely not easy. I'm hoping it becomes a habit

3. Biggest concern is falling off the wagon. First 9 days I went without eating out at all. Past 3 days I've ate out mindfully -- a subway chicken sub, a healthy wrap, a bought salad today. Definitely crave having a burger or french fries or fried chicken -- but also a huge concern that if I might not turn back. So far I've just been telling myself its better to feel happy making a healthy choice than guilty making a bad one. Hopefully it keeps working

Anyways, if you've read this far I definitely appreciate it and if you have any tips will certainly welcome them
And I'll probably be using this thread as a periodic journal to write down thoughts/successes/failures/etc.