120 lbs to lose and feeling overwhelmed

Patience and Perseverance will be your best friend. ( plus all the wonderful support on this site)

Stick to what you can stick to....for the long run :flowerforyou:

Giving yourself mini weight goals is awesome, but I'd also suggest finding other things to focus on! Please please please take measurements other than the scale! It helps so much to be able to see all the inches fall off even if the scale isn't moving.

Maybe try setting fitness goals too! Like, "I want to work out X days a week." or "I want to try X many new exercises a month" or "I want to eat this many servings of fruits and veggies a day" or "I want to try out this many new recipes this month" and then reward yourself for reaching those goals!

Oh! And finding an exercise that doesn't feel like exercise (for me, that's hoop dance) helps SO much. When fitness is fun it doesn't feel like a chore.

If you don't focus so much on the weight aspect, maybe it won't seem so daunting.

And of course, add plenty of friends on MFP (and in real life!) to help you stay motivated! (You can definitely add me, if you like!)

don't say "I can't" or any other excuse...I can't cook properly, I can't exercise, my family refuses to eat what I cook, etc. Once the negative thoughts come into your head, it's tough to get rid of them. It might be hard to grocery shop properly, but there's always a way.

I stay completely away from setting weight related goals, no matter how small they are.
I do this , because weight loss is not something I can control, because so many different factors play into it.
I set other goals.
I am fairly new here and my first goal was to log in with honesty for 30 days without missing a day and staying within my calories. I was successful.Now I aim to do the same for hundred days. In a few days I will reach " 50 days posted " and that is when I will implement a new exercise goal and add to my daily walks with my dog also 30 minutes of " brisk walking ". I will also add to eat a salad each day, even though nutritionally I think I am doing well.
I figure by not concentrating on actual weight loss, but on the activities that bring weight loss about, I have a good chance to stay positive throughout the long haul.
I weigh myself every two weeks to avoid " scale fever " and that also seems to work ok.....:o).

You set small goals that aren't necessarily scale-related and just keep going one day at a time. Focus on your good habits and the scale will follow. Celebrate any and all victories, including logging all your food no matter how good or bad the day was, any exercise, and any loss - whether it be weight OR inches. Take. your. measurements! When weight loss seems like it is slowing, your measurements might be changing and if you don't take your measurements, you won't realize that.

Be kind and patient to yourself. If you fall off the wagon one day, dust yourself off and get right back on. You didn't gain the weight in one day and you won't lose it in one day either. To that extent, one mess up isn't going to make you gain everything back either so focus on the big picture.

Your weight loss will not be linear so don't freak out about a weigh in with no loss or even *gasp* a gain. Look at your trend over time. My weight loss graph looks like a roller coaster, but overall it goes down and in a year, I've lost over 60 pounds. That's pretty good progress, even with all the times I saw a maintain or gain!

Good luck. You can do it if you just keep moving, one step in front of the other, day after day!

Honestly, I try not to think about how much I actually have to lose. I set smaller mini-goals for myself and focus on those. I know that if I keep meeting the smaller goals, I will eventually get to where I want to be for my ultimate goal, so I don't need to freak out about the big goal.

Like my first goal is to lose 15 pounds, though I'm not sure what my reward will be. It is important to not reward yourself with food though, it's counter-productive .

So I would suggest setting mini-goals for yourself and focus on meeting those, it helps me to not freak out about the big goal

I wish you the best of luck, and if you'd like a supportive friend, I have a lot of weight to lose (my first big goal is to lose 100 pounds, then probably another 75-90 pounds after that.) It depends on how I feel once I get down towards that weight level. I'm 6 feet tall so 180 might make me look anorexic, I have no idea (I've never been below 300 pounds in my adult life). My goal is to be healthy, looks are just a perk . Anyway, feel free to add me as a friend if you'd like support on your journey!

I am interested to learn new ways to change my thinking and adopting different habits.

(emphasis added)

That's the key, right there. Change your thinking and adopt new habits.

The first bit of thinking to change is to NOT concentrate on how much weight you have to lose. Instead, focus on what you will do today, right now, to have a healthier life. And then focus on one choice at a time.

When I first started - and still even now - I can't tackle an entire day at one time. 24 hours is a long time! So I focus on one choice at a time.

And then adopt different habits. Take your lunch to work. Walk every day. Switch to just water to drink. Whatever it is, decide that YOU ARE WORTH these healthier habits. Not because you want to lose weight, but because YOU ARE WORTH IT.

If you put an expiration date on your choices ("I will eat right and exercise until I lose 120 pounds, and then I can go back to my old ways") then it's too easy to slip back into old habits long before you ever reach your "goal" weight. Instead, make the LIFESTYLE your goal, and the weight loss is then a happy side effect of your more important goal, which is having a healthy lifestyle.

That's just my $0.02... from someone who has a LOT of experience doing it the wrong way.

I am 48 and have lost 62 pounds so far and have at least another 40 to go. It has taken me almost 2 years. I am losing it slowly but I am losing. There have been days that I gets discourage and want to give up however, I keep on keeping on;-) I have dropped from a tight 24 to size misses 18 and almost into a 16.

I made small attainable goals for myself, after reached those I set another small attainable goal. When I started exercising I thought I was going to die. It was hard for me but now exercise is part of my life and actually miss it when I am not able to exercise.

I am looking better and feeling better now and love that feeling and determined to lose the rest of the weight.

You can lose this weight, there is no easy way to lose weight. Eat less exercise more and be completely honest when counting those calories, yes that lick of icing does count. You can add me as a friend if you want.

As I am learning there is a lot of great, knowledgeable and supportive people on myfitness.

Have a great Day!!!

Main thing to keep in mind is you did not put this weight on over night. Therefore its NOT going to come off over night. Lose it slowly but steadily and the healthy way. Try not to discouraged even though its so hard to do and we ALL do it at some point.

I ended up losing 110 lbs. As everyone said, set small goal. I focused on losing 10lbs a month but I also focused on fitness goals. As lilRicki said, forget about using "I can't" as an excuse. You can do it, it won't be easy but when you hit a roadblock, like exercising or eating well, you need to find a solution for "I can't".

When I started exercising I thought, this is too hard, I can't do this. The truth is it was hard but I could do it. I just had to make myself do it. It was uncomfortable and I thought about quitting quite a bit but quitting was my past behavior and how could I expect to change when I repeated what I had done in the past.

You'll have days where you want to quit and give up but keeping at it on those types of days is huge. Before you know it, exercising and eating well become a habit.