Hi. I joined the group because I would love to lose 20 or so by mid July, although that might be somewhat aggressive for me. Like the board creator, I also had a baby last June.

I just started using MFP about 10 days ago and noticed that for my activity level and my goal of 30 pounds, that MFP assigned me 1200 calories (plus any I earn by exercise). I know that my maintenance calories would have me eating closer to 1650. So, I've been eating the 1200 calories, but I don't want to lower my metabolism because of the lower calories coming in. I believe that this is the double edged sword of weight loss - lower calories and lose weight, but lower metabolism over time so that any additional calories increase weight.

I've decided to keep my calorie intake at around 1200 for about 4-5 days of the week, then to eat closer to 1400 or 1500/day on the other days so my body does not get use to the lower 1200 standard. (Who knows if this will work.) I will be increasing the amount I exercise dramatically and adding strength training.. So far, this has worked well, the day after I ate 1450 calories, I got on the scale and saw results from the previous week of 5 lbs. I expect that some of this was my body letting go of water weight because of my increased water intake and lower sodium intake as I've been carefully preparing many of my meals with little salt.

Per my height/weight, I am medically overweight, although I have always (in fat and in thin) weighed more than I appeared (i.e., when I was very fit and healthy, I weighed 135 lbs. people thought I was around 115 lbs.). I had slowly been putting on the pounds, but when I hit age 37, I loaded on the pounds quite rapidly (about 10 pounds in about a week for no apparent reason). I am hoping to get down to around 145 as my initial attempt at weight loss.

What are your philosophies, practices, and thoughts about weight loss? How long have you been using MFP? How long have you been committed (not as a general idea, but as a practice) to losing weight?