New Dad, Thinking about the Future

Good Morning, Everyone. To begin, I am not really new to MFP. I have had the app on my phone for over a year now, and I am pretty comfortable with using it. Unfortunately, it only works when I choose to use it, which is why I'm now taking the added step of drawing on these forums for help and support.

My life has been a series of victories and setbacks with food, though I have been stuck at the same high plateau now for nearly four years. To be specific: I estimate that I have 60 pounds to lose. I have made many attempts since 2009 to challenge myself to climb back down from up here through diet tracking and exercise, but none has lasted longer than a month or so.

Why can't I seem to get my numbers down? It comes down to one single factor that manifests itself in dozens of ways: bad food habits. Staying up too late and feasting in the kitchen, robotically going through cupboards after getting home from work, time and time again assuring myself that "this time" I can handle purchasing whatever trigger food ends up in my cart at the supermarket. In addition, the grim knowledge that my goal is going to take a really long time to achieve always seems to undermine whatever minor progress I make, even though that makes little to no sense.

What's really made me resolve to find motivating strategies that work is the birth of my son nearly six months ago. I want to be able to keep up with him as he starts crawling/walking/running and, more importantly, I don't want him to go through his childhood influenced by an unhealthy father who has a dysfunctional food relationship. I look at the death of a guy like James Gandolfini, stricken by a heart attack at 51 while on vacation with his family, and I realize that 51 is not all that far away (for context, I just turned 34).

I hope I can draw on the collected experiences of other contributors here, and I can offer in turn my own perspectives gathered from nearly 20 years of experience in trying to control my weight. While that path has ultimately led me to where I am, I am confident that I still have what it takes to motivate myself, and I think I can still offer some useful advice. Thanks for reading!