How did you prepare/begin your new lifestlye?

I just started logging. Actually, I think logging without changing anything gives you a good baseline to compare yourself to. It also gives you a sense of where your calories are coming from so you can make better choices.

I agree completely with this statement because all or nothing can easily lead to binge eating after a week or so...not always, but can. Just take a REAL look at how you eat and log every single thing(every thing) and then eliminate things one by one over a few weeks while adding in some activity. For instance, soda one week then fried food the next. The real grey area for me was whether or not to keep the occasional treat on hand and I went with NO for a long while until I knew for sure that I would not eat too much of it. I still go out and have Mexican once a week or have a good dessert once in a while, but I stick to healthy eating 95% of the time and that has worked very well for me. Best of luck to you and if you need any support you can add me.

I started logging without any changes whatsoever...from there, I could easily see where I needed improvement and where I could make better, healthier choices. I could also see where I could easily cut to reduce my calories for my deficit. Also, for me it was more about health and nutrition than actually losing weight...weight loss was just kinda gravy. I was trying to reverse a lot of bad blood work with diet and get off my meds (accomplished BTW)...everything else has just been gravy.

I just jumped right in and started logging. Then I started buying healthier food while still (sparingly) eating the "junk" that's still in the house.

I started wearing a pedometer for about a month before I did anything with my eating. wanted to know how many steps I normally took and if there was a way to get more than that. Found out to get to 10,000 steps (the recommending amount) I don't think I will ever get there with my job. (I have a desk job and I ranged from 3000-5000 steps a day) So after that I decided it needed to be food and me working out more. I have JUST started deciding that I need to work out not only after work, but before as well.

Starting to believe I'm going to jog in the morning and do strength training after work.

My planning? Hmmm, I think I'll start running. Followed a few weeks later by "myfitnesspal pal"? Wonder what that is? It's free-why not? If I worried about planning, I'd spend months "planning" and never get around to the "doing". But that's me.

I also just started logging. I committed to putting it all in my MFP, no matter what I was eating, and there were a few days there about a week in that were not pretty (that is where in the past I would have quit because I "failed"). Grand gestures like pantry sweeps don't work for me because it freaks me out.

Once I got the logging down, I started tweaking my calories/macros. I was on MFP forums a lot and looked around on fitness sites and played with calculators (TDEE, body fat, BMI).

Right now I am working on figuring out how to get exercise incorporated into my life. If I hate it, I won't stay with it, so this is the challenge and it is going very slowly. But that's OK, I'm in this for the long haul.

Like how I start many things, I just dived right in. Seemed to work!

I did the extreme.. cleaned out the cupboards and donated what I could to a shelter.
Stocked up on healthy foods and just went balls to the wall in.
I actually didn't work out that first month, added exercise after that.

That was 170 days ago today :-)

I got thrown in at the deep end and doggy-paddled.

My husband signed me up to a 6 week challenge with a colleague of his and I felt awful if I said no as he made it out like she was relying on me to help her win something. So I reluctantly went to the classes...and never looked back. I still work out with the same trainer and, in fact, I actually work for her now (networking and the like) and I'm hoping to get a training certification in the future!

Started logging everything, realized where I had my biggest issues and began making small changes that I could continue forever, set realistic goals from myself when I reached those I set new ones.

If I had waited until tomorrow or another day I would never have started.

I was always athletic, and when I turned 36, I decided I wanted to run a 5K. I've completed several since then, and love to log my calories / exercise...keeps me looking/feeling the way I like to look/feel

If you can, go gradually and start with a few small changes and build up to it. I am the type of person who went "all in" right away and I didn't feel good the first couple weeks (light headed, tired, etc.). I hung in there though and now it's just becoming habit and I don't even want the junk because it makes me sick to my stomach. It's different for everyone though. The important thing is to log EVERYTHING that goes into your mouth. That's when you realize how much you eat and what a healthy diet/lifestyle looks like.

My first step was to sign up with a personal trainer. I knew I needed to do one on one with someone, and all these articles I had been reading said women spend to much time doing cardio and not enough doing weights. I don't know anything about weights so I needed someone who did. My next step was to make a list of the really bad habits I had that I knew were going to be cut. soda, cheeseburgers, being sedentary. I did a biometric screening for work which really gave me a good idea of where I was at health wise and I was able to see obesity/BMI was my issue and my glucose was at the top end of normal. Thankfully for as overweight as I am I do not have high cholesterol or blood pressure. I signed up for MFP and got my BMR and daily calorie limit. Before beginning a diet I played around with the food logger to see what sort of meals and snacks would keep me within my limit while being healthy and filling. Track everything. Keep your goals in mind, but don't focus on your big goal. Make small goals, like ten lbs, or just a goal to track every food and exercise for a week. I don't plan on weighing myself again for another 3 weeks because I know my focus now is sticking to diet change and building muscle. Once I have given myself a month and a half of solid commitment to diet and exercise, I will start to worry about tracking actual weight loss. I know I need to change the way my body operates before it is able to change the way it holds on to weight.

When I first started MFP, I began logging on a Thursday. I'd had the app downloaded (but not set up) for about 2 months before I started using it. I'd gotten so low and the scale had gotten so high that I just had a "dammit this is it" moment. I don't think I really changed anything about my diet per se, just logged what I'd eaten that day.

I'm the first to admit, the first 2 months using MFP I was REALLY stupid. I wasn't eating enough and I was overexercising. It wasn't until I got more active in the forums and realized what I should have been doing that I increased my calories and began lifting heavy. Well, I got more active in the forums and got HUNGRY lol.

I just had to commit to myself. I realized I gave everything and everyone else in my life more chances than I gave myself. I had to realize that it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be imperfect.

I signed up on MFP mostly for the database since I was tracking with WW, but once the meeting closed in my area I switched over exclusively to MFP. The tracking has been, probably, the most important aspect of this whole thing for me. It's hard to decide what changes to make if you've no idea where you are to begin with so I'd suggest that you not wait. Just start tracking now so you have a baseline and can look back and see exactly where you were and what you can tweak to get you to where you want to be.