Here I go again

Looks like I have written this. Need to lose the same and unfortunately love the red wine too much. Think most of the weight gain is due to this. :ohwell: Love this site and find it so easy. So I am off again. Good luck :happy:

Hi there!
I'll add you! I would love to have the support and possibly offer you some advice. I finally managed to lose the 24 post-2-babies pounds this past August through December and I'm going to keep it off this time! I love my red wine too. I prefer sweet to dry. I'm cheap though and find the $7 bottles of Barefoot plenty delicious for me lol. :-)

I'm back again as well - I've learned that tracking my food and counting calories and getting some exercise is the best way for me to lose it keep it off. One thing I've also done is cut back on the number of days that I eat lunch out - that's a biggie for me! I've seen a difference in the calories and the money spent on eating lunch out every day.

I'm 45 years old, 5'6", live in the South and love my wine on weeknights and beer on weekends! I've cut the drinking back to a couple nights a week - and one night on the weekend! I work full time, have two teenagers, and love to entertain with friends and family.

I need to lose AT LEAST 20 lbs - would love to lose 30! Help me and I'll help you!

The good news is you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be better.

1) tracking for a couple of weeks before I worried about losing.
(although seeing what I was eating I couldn't help but rein back a bit)

2) seeing where I could make small changes on things that weren't that important to me.
(Don't even think of taking chocolate out of my diet!!!)
--Reducing quantities where I won't notice it so much
--Swapping out things instead of eliminating them.

3) Look at my diary and started adding foods that had positive healthy effects specifically for the health issue in my family.
I found most of the things I "should" add were really yummy too! salmon, avocado, oatmeal, mango, red grapes....
(Sort of think of food as medicine to deal with family history of various health issue oatmeal is good for heart health, mango and red grapes lower cholesterol, tumeric and cinnamon good for arthritis)

4) every couple of weeks I see where I can make another couple of small changes.
If you completely revamp your diet, it's way easy to revert to old ways in times of stress. (and who doesn't have stress?)
If you make a series of small changes, food still offers you some sense of comfort.
sort of a comfort continuum, and after a while the first small changes will seem comforting in themselves.
You don't have to be perfect you just have to do better.

5) also rather than being uberstrict with the target MFP set for me. (I swear this saved my life.) I was happier once I gave myself a range:

ROCK BOTTOM: 1200 cal
TARGET: MFP Calories for lose 1 lb a week (when that hit 1200 I changed to lose 1/2 lb per week)
TOP OF RANGE: Maintain Calories for my GOAL Weight.

---

(SAFETY VALVE: Maintain Calories for CURRENT Weight - remember to keep updating this number as you lose)

---

I naturally tended to do 2-4 days between 1200-1300 cal then a day at about 1500-1600 cal then back to the 1200-1300 cal. (No hard science here, but I credit the zig-zagging calories with preventing plateaus.)

--As long as I stayed under the top of my range I should continue to lose, even if it is at a slower rate.
--As long as I don't go past my safety valve I shouldn't gain.

6) I only worry about it 1 lb at a time.
Forget I *NEED* to lose 20, 30, 50, 100 lbs. I'm only worried about 1 lb the next one. I'll worry about the others later.
Once I found ways to lessen the stress, I found it way easier to focus on the process and let the results follow. (It's what worked for me some people need the stress to get them motivated. Me I get scared and overwhelmed and don't see the big goal as achievable. )

7)
The closer I got to my goal the smaller I made my deficit. Yes, this took longer to get to my goal, but I was focusing on (am STILL tweaking) strategies for maintenance. What I found difficult (and haven't yet conquered) it establishing a guideline for a range for maintenance, being that I'm not really good at hitting the same number everyday.


Food is not the enemy.

Oddly enough on my journey here I've reduced guilt over food.
I have the occasional treat and I fully enjoy it with no guilt involved.
The thing is since I'm not eating crap all the time, now the occasional treat is just that a TREAT it's special and I enjoy it so much more than when I was unconsciously shovel junk food into my face.

I figure if I've got a good plan that I can actually maintain I can keep this off for a long time to come, without feeling deprived.

Good Luck

I have gained weight again and really need motivation to keep going. I generally eat healthy its my portion and i just allow myself to go out of control with the sizes of my meals. Albeit, its healthy...portion size is sooooo important....tht is why this is such a great program. And i need people to help me be accountable. PLEASE HELP ME STAY MOTIVATED..AND I WILL DO THE SAME FOR YOU...