Anyone already lost a significant amount of weight? Help

I have lost a significant amount of weight. And still have a significant amount to lose!

My advice would be, stick to your calorie goal (get as close to it as possible), drink plenty of water, and allow yourself some treats amongst healthy eating most of the time! This is a lifestyle choice, not a diet, so try not to deny yourself everything you enjoy!!

I don't know how much you can exercise with your health issues, but I lost the first 40 pounds sitting in a wheelchair, not being able to walk at all so you don't need to. However, exercise is good for the mind and body so any little you can do is great!

You can do this too! :flowerforyou:

I highly rec spending time each morning and throughout the day feeding your brain success stories and before/after pictures on these boards. It helps keep it in the forefront of your mind that THIS WORKS! You'll see how many people are succeeding and accomplishing amazing changes. You will realize you can do it too.

Weigh and measure all your intake in the beginnng. It took me awhile realize a 1/2 cup of something did not fill my plate. Log into MFP and be honest with yourself.

Best to you and your journey,
Shirley in Oregon

I lost five and a half stone last year if that counts as significant lol

My best tool was my phone, I kept an eye out for really good apps to keep me motivated in healthy eating and weight loss. Some of my favourites are Zombies! Run!, BeFoodSmart, Daily Cardio workout and (of course!) MyFitnessPal. I try to vary the exercise regularly to keep the calorie burn up so I didn't plateau but I do tend to return to 'pop pilates' from Blogilates (you can find her videos on youtube) because you get results so quickly from her workouts.

I also recommend keeping on track but allow yourself little treats every now and then - if you don't you won't stick to it. Also, in my head I never once called it a diet because diets fail - especially when you finish them and go back to your previous habits! I made lifestyle changes and stuck to them so I wouldn't gain back.

If the appetite is being a real problem, I recommend Amanda Stanhope's 'I can make you slim' hypnosis cd/ app - I found ti useful for curbing the excesses in the first few months

Congratulations! You should be proud of yourself for starting. When I was 18 I weighed in the 270s. My best advice is now to never give up! Even when you have set backs, just acknowledge it, put it behind you, and move on. Also, I found keeping a journal was really helpful.

I've lost 62 lbs so far, 48 on my own and 14 since being on MFP (4 weeks).
I work out 6 days per week and I try to eat at the caloric goal set up on MFP. I log EVERYTHING. I log it as I'm eating it, and in your case, that's probably the best thing you can do. I do pretty strenuous workouts (Insanity, P90X, Turbofire, lots of kickboxing cardio etc) so I don't recommend you do that because of your health issues... so my best advice is to log everything you eat and make sure you are eating at a caloric deficit. It's something to get used to, but I promise that it becomes second nature. Try yo stay positive and don't give up!

Hopefully, me chiming in can also help inspire you. i was in the same boat for years and years. I've lost 119 since December 6th 2012 and continue to strive for that last 30-40 pounds. You're younger than I am, by about 6 years, so take it from me; the best time to start is now [before some serious health risks become a factor that you'll regret not avoiding].

I have lost 120 lbs. I lost the first bit down about 30 lbs and stayed there for about 2 years, then I had a really stressful period and suddenly changed from a stress eater to not feeling at all like eating and got down to a size 8-10 (175) last year. I weigh about 122 today and am a size 0-2. I eat very low fat, no dairy, calorie count and jog every single day and its taking me that much just to maintain so it's still a lot of work. I was overweight very overweight, about 200 lbs for almost all of my 30's and I can tell you that it changed me in ways I didn't realize how much my weight affected my mindset and I thought of myself as pretty confident in spite of it, I know now that I wasn't. Good luck and keep at it, it really is worth it.

All the information you need to be successful: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/974888-in-place-of-a-road-map-2k13

Read up!

I think some of the best tips include:

Take a before picture (no matter how much you don't want to, it will show you where you started and how far you've come!). Also, take progress pictures, say once a month, once every couple, etc.
Make short term and long term goals, and then set rewards for those.
Remember there is no miracle drug, exercise program, etc. that makes weight loss any easier. It's a long term change and is slow, but the results are worth the effort.
Find a support system, whether on MFP, in real life, WW, etc. Only surround yourself with positive supporters too.
Remember why you started, make a list of why this is important to you.
Everyone has set backs, bad meals, days, weeks. It's all about how you bounce back.

...and one of the biggest for me (besides all the ones I already listed): DON'T deprive yourself. If you want a milkshake, get one, just get a small one. If you want _____ (fill in the blank) get the smallest one you can, enjoy it and move on. Not eating it will only make you want it more, at least for me

Keep your head up, weight loss is hard, maintaining is hard, but it's worth it in the end! You'll do amazing!

Definitely read the info just posted, you do NOT have to starve to lose weight. I lost mine eating an average of 1600-1800 calories.

Make a list of all the reasons you want to lose weight. Read that list several times a day.

Plan your day of eating in advance, and try as best you can to stick to the plan. With a plan though it is easy to make changes based on how your day actually goes. Eat the foods you love, nothing is off limits. That said, you can't have everything you want, in the quantity you want, every day. Sometimes you just have to wait and plan for it another day. You can't always eat what you want and weight what you want. That said, I eat chocolate EVERY day. Life is too short to live without it, for me.

Track EVERYTHING you eat. After all, your body keeps perfect track so the only one you fool is you. Accurate tracking keeps you honest and gives you something to look back on as you make changes.

Measure yourself as well. Sometimes you do everything right and the scale doesn't cooperate. The number is not a definition of you, it is just a number. And one week is not a trend. My weight loss graph looks like a roller coaster, headed downhill, but not every week.

You can do it if you believe you can. That, in fact, is the most important part.

I've shared this a couple of times today, and I know it risks being TL;DR but this is my advice. And OP, I'm also an asthmatic and I run. It took a while to learn simply how to pace my breathing but I learned.

1. Commit. You have to want to lose weight and be willing to change your current behavior to accomplish that. The world is full of quick weight loss gimmicks because many people do not want to commit. They want the success but aren't willing to put in the work.

2. Spend time calculating your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and working out a reasonable deficit to achieve a steady weight loss. This needs to be a an amount that you can actually achieve day in and day out for a long time. There is no sense in setting it low only to find yourself suffering through it for a few days and then binging next week.

3. Buy a digital kitchen scale and a good variety of measuring cups and spoons. Weigh all solids and measure any liquids that have any calories and that go into your body. And record it all.

4. Find an exercise program that you can stick with consistently over time. If it's only walking right now, then okay. But make sure you do it every day then but do not think that it every needs to be more than 1 hour a day. I sometimes hit 2 hours (split between weights and cardio) but I'm well into this and am not risking burn out by doing so. As you increase your physical capacity then increase your exercise until you are strength training at least 3 times a week and doing some sort of cardio 2 or 3 times a week (again, walking is fine). Cardio is not strictly necessary to lose weight but it will improve your cardiovascular health and it will help you by allowing you to eat a bit more. Strength training also is not strictly necessary to lose weight but it will help you retain what muscle mass you have. You won't notice the difference immediately but as you get close to your goal weight you will be very happy you did it.

5. And speaking of goal weight, don't worry about this so much. It will change as the weight comes off anyway. If it motivates you though, then have one but definitely be open to moving it down, reasonably, as the weight comes off and your view of things change.

6. BE CONSISTENT. No plan is worth a damn thing if you don't stick with it.

7. Be Patient. Weight loss isn't linear and you will have weeks where you do everything right and nothing happens. You're not alone here. It's happened to all of us.

8. Be willing to reevaluate if you do hit a plateau for a couple of months. The problem could be any one of the above issues. If it's not then talk to your M.D.

9. Have fun. Find ways to get your exercise in that you really enjoy. If you hate getting out of bed in the morning then that morning run is going to suck. Don't do this to yourself.

10. Dont' be unreasonable with your diet. Allow yourself to eat some of the foods that you always have, just in true 1 serving size portions. Some people are better than others with this. If you do have a true "trigger food" then you need to avoid it, at least for a while, but if you constantly deny your cravings, by eating yogurt rather than ice cream for example, you're going to eventually binge. At least most people will. The idea here isn't to punish yourself but to teach yourself how to eat proper portions and balance your diet. Many of us find success while still eating pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, beer, french fries, donuts and pop tarts. We just don't eat them all the time and when we do we have a portion. Not a box or a carton.

11. Forgive yourself for bad days. You will have them. We all do. Just make sure that you get right back on track rather than beating yourself up for a week and then releasing your stress about it in a box of donuts.

I've shared this a couple of times today, and I know it risks being TL;DR but this is my advice. And OP, I'm also an asthmatic and I run. It took a while to learn simply how to pace my breathing but I learned.

1. Commit. You have to want to lose weight and be willing to change your current behavior to accomplish that. The world is full of quick weight loss gimmicks because many people do not want to commit. They want the success but aren't willing to put in the work.

2. Spend time calculating your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and working out a reasonable deficit to achieve a steady weight loss. This needs to be a an amount that you can actually achieve day in and day out for a long time. There is no sense in setting it low only to find yourself suffering through it for a few days and then binging next week.

3. Buy a digital kitchen scale and a good variety of measuring cups and spoons. Weigh all solids and measure any liquids that have any calories and that go into your body. And record it all.

4. Find an exercise program that you can stick with consistently over time. If it's only walking right now, then okay. But make sure you do it every day then but do not think that it every needs to be more than 1 hour a day. I sometimes hit 2 hours (split between weights and cardio) but I'm well into this and am not risking burn out by doing so. As you increase your physical capacity then increase your exercise until you are strength training at least 3 times a week and doing some sort of cardio 2 or 3 times a week (again, walking is fine). Cardio is not strictly necessary to lose weight but it will improve your cardiovascular health and it will help you by allowing you to eat a bit more. Strength training also is not strictly necessary to lose weight but it will help you retain what muscle mass you have. You won't notice the difference immediately but as you get close to your goal weight you will be very happy you did it.

5. And speaking of goal weight, don't worry about this so much. It will change as the weight comes off anyway. If it motivates you though, then have one but definitely be open to moving it down, reasonably, as the weight comes off and your view of things change.

6. BE CONSISTENT. No plan is worth a damn thing if you don't stick with it.

7. Be Patient. Weight loss isn't linear and you will have weeks where you do everything right and nothing happens. You're not alone here. It's happened to all of us.

8. Be willing to reevaluate if you do hit a plateau for a couple of months. The problem could be any one of the above issues. If it's not then talk to your M.D.

9. Have fun. Find ways to get your exercise in that you really enjoy. If you hate getting out of bed in the morning then that morning run is going to suck. Don't do this to yourself.

10. Dont' be unreasonable with your diet. Allow yourself to eat some of the foods that you always have, just in true 1 serving size portions. Some people are better than others with this. If you do have a true "trigger food" then you need to avoid it, at least for a while, but if you constantly deny your cravings, by eating yogurt rather than ice cream for example, you're going to eventually binge. At least most people will. The idea here isn't to punish yourself but to teach yourself how to eat proper portions and balance your diet. Many of us find success while still eating pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, beer, french fries, donuts and pop tarts. We just don't eat them all the time and when we do we have a portion. Not a box or a carton.

11. Forgive yourself for bad days. You will have them. We all do. Just make sure that you get right back on track rather than beating yourself up for a week and then releasing your stress about it in a box of donuts.

All so very very true. especially #10. moderation is key.