Being generally healthy is great news! You can do it! You're a working mom of 7, you're already a super hero!

You can work yourself up gradually with exercise, just don't forget to keep moving! It can be hard on your joints to just jump into it when you're sedentary most of the time. Do you have access to a treadmill or other exercise machine that you can set the speed on? That seemed to be the easiest way for me. I started walking at 2 m.p.h. and promised to stay on it for 25 minutes. When I could do that easily I set the speed to 2.1 m.p.h. and just kept graduating as it got easier to do and always reminding myself that it will only be 25 minutes. Eventually my body got so used to it that I got antsy if I was near the end of the day and hadn't exercised. It wanted to burn off that energy! My brain told it that it was nuts but did it anyway. lol

I had the same results with my doctor visit not long ago. He was trying to prove to me how unhealthy being so big was and failed miserably. lol He asked me to go on the hospital's new monitored weight loss program with nothing but $hakes 6 days a week and weekly check-ups. I don't have the time for that and it sounded like torture, so I refused and decided to try this on my own. I'm taking in between 1200 and 1400 calories a day.

Sunny had great tips! I do the pre-logging almost every day. I write it all down first thing in the morning and try to leave myself one snack's worth of wiggle room in case I get a little extra hungry.

I've also found that it really helps to have one day a week that I just don't pay attention to the calories. I have a few friends that noticed the same. I eat what sounds good, including the usual "no-no's" (McDonald's with a fully leaded coke ::ahem::) and just write it all down at the end of the day without shame. It keeps me from feeling deprived and seems to keep my weight loss going. I come to a stand-still more often without that one day a week.

Good luck!