Failure.

You certainly have A LOT to deal with right now.

For me, when I finally decided to lose the weight, I HAD to get pissed off. I had to get to a point where I was angry about all of the things that I was missing in my life. I had to see the raw reality that I was wasting my life cuddling with cookies on a couch.

I was 29,, maybe 210ish, watching the Biggest Loser with a box of Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies in my hand. It was the episode where the contestants had to run a marathon. It ticked me off - I realized at that moment that I had yo-yo dieted from 250 pounds to 210 pounds for YEARS and that I was turning 30 and still fat. At that moment it pissed me off that these contestants were bigger than me and running 26 miles and I couldn't run down the block. I decided right then that I was not going to turn 30 fat.

From there I invested in it -- I made sure to get an apartment with a gym in the basement. I started working at a place with a gym on site. Instead of getting cable tv, I took that money in my budget and applied it to a gym and martial arts school. I made sure that I didn't have any excuses.

I made tangible goals that I WANTED...Instead of focusing on things like "I want to be skinny", I focused on "I am going to run a marathon."..."I am going to win a TKD match."..."I am going to learn how to rock climb." I came up with the list of things that I wanted to accomplish in life.

When I worked out, I really thought about how hard I had to work to eliminate a piece of cheesecake. It's nuts! Something like an hour on the treadmill. When you equate food you're tempted by with things you hate like the treadmill, they become less tempting.

When I started to falter, I would ask myself if throwing all my progress and effort away was worth a cookie or a piece of cake.

In short, I was ticked off and I wanted it.

You have a lot going on. Maybe you just don't have the bandwidth to take this on the way you want to? Have you talked to your doctor about this?

I'm also 5'8 started at 230 pounds down 165 pounds and it's been a struggle...I totally know how you feel, but let me tell you that you can do it! Take it day by day and don't do any diet, instead make healthier options! It's a lifestyle change, add in exercise at least 5 times a week, lots of water and the weight will drop. I myself need to lose 20 more pounds...lets do it together..we can do it!!!! You are worth too much to give up now,....nothing is impossible, and I know that you are strong enough to do it.

I've gone through that whole cycle as well. Part of the reason I failed so much was because I tried to do too much all at once and then when I failed in one part, I just gave up on all of it because I felt so overwhelmed. If that's you, maybe trying what I did will help instead. I just followed these three rules:

- Follow the calorie limit MFP has given you and don't go over. (Eat whatever you want, but don't go over your limit.)

- If you do want to eat something that will push you over the limit, you first have to earn the extra calories by exercising. (One candy bar at 220 calories = walking approximately 2.5 miles.)

- You can have one cheat day a week where you can go over your limit.

Just keeping track of calories will go a long way in helping you learn what a proper serving size is and how many calories really are in the foods you eat. And when I wanted to go over, sometimes I'd be too tired to do the exercise and learned instead to settle for a lower calorie alternative instead to stay within my limit.

I still have weight to lose to hit my goal (somewhere between 20 and 30 pounds I'll be better able to determine when I get there) but I have lost and successfully kept off a good chunk of weight over the past year (even through periods of time I felt were too stressful to actually diet). One of the biggest things that really helped me was logging my calories everyday but looking at it as calories per week. Yeah, my goal is to stay under my desired calories each day but if one day I go over (even if it's by a thousand) I can make it up throughout the rest of the week. So instead of being really mad at myself and of feeling like a failure and giving up, I just make sure that over the course of the rest of the week I stick to the plan and make up for what I did. Also, I can plan for something like a decadent dinner by cutting a few calories a day in the week leading up to it and then eat a guilt free dinner of whatever. I also like intermittent fasting (you can google it there are a ton of resources or check out a book like Eat Stop Eat). Even if I only decide to fast for 16 hours (basically from dinner the night before at 7pm to 11am the following day) I feel like I've hit a goal (it's a small, easy to hit goal). I especially like to throw in a good fast if after I've overdone it the day before it helps me feel like I'm back on track.