Today's mantra

I think your right in thinking about food being a fuel and wanting to improve the quality of what you eat but you must enjoy your food as well, you won't last long if you're only eating stuff you don't really like. Try and eat food that you find both tasty and nutritious and base your diet on that otherwise it will feel like you're punishing yourself for being overweight.

There are a few key things I really enjoy eating, like chicken, ham and mackerel so I base my diet around those. If something has higher calories like mackerel I'll try and team it up with something lower calorie that I don't mind like salad or boiled new potatoes and keep the cals down that way. I really like fried chicken but I have now found a recipe for it that is low cal but very tasty which has become one of my favourite meals. I really dislike cooked vegetables and I have over the years tried to force myself to eat them but it never lasts long, now I just eat the raw ones I do like and stick to fruit, that's much easier for me to maintain.

I am losing weight and really enjoying my food these days and don't stress too much about what I should be eating

Try to look at this as a learning process of finding a whole new menu of foods that will become your new favourites, even if it means tinkering with some old favourites (hairy dieters have some good recipes for that and some kind soul has put them on the mfp database)

Good luck with your fresh start, there is a whole new world of exciting food for you to discover.

I'm all mantra-ed out but what keeps me going is "Imagine yourself 6 months from now." Especially with swimsuit season coming soon, this is my motivation.