New to My Fitness Pal

Hello everyone,

I'm 26 and hoping that this program can help keep me motivated and on track this time.
I've had some slight success with weight loss before, but have never been able to reach a goal weight or maintain weight lost with any success.

I got married a few years ago and went from 230 pounds down to 210 before the wedding. Indulging on the honeymoon and then on another vacation a few weeks after that basically got me completely off track. I hit 230 again in seemingly no time and flew past it.

I was at my heaviest last month when I was right at 262 pounds. I had a pretty scary weekend right at a month ago where I was having chest pains that were radiating to my jaw and arm and I was becoming really short of breath. I have a history of heart disease in my family, and in everyone who shows signs they're also overweight like me. I went to the ER that night when I started feeling crushing sensations in my chest. Thankfully, according to the doctors it was anxiety related, and my heart appears to be healthy.

Nonetheless, it was still quite a wakeup call. Just one incident like that and so far I've taken a completely new approach to food and life. I think I've eaten more vegetables in the past month than I did in the past 10 years.

It will be four weeks ago tomorrow that I went to the ER and so far I've gone from 262 to 239.8. I wasn't expecting the weight to fall off nearly as fast as it has and I'm fully expecting it to taper off and slow down quite a bit.

I've basically just been making healthier choices in my diet and exercising in the mornings and when I get off from work in the afternoon. When I started a month ago I could barely walk a mile in 18 minutes. As of yesterday I was able to hit 11:30. The exercise goal for my wife and I is to be able to participate in a 5k early next year.

I'm hoping that using my fitness pal to log everything daily will give me a better idea of the food I'm taking in and help to keep me on track this time.


I look forward to reading about everyone else's progress and successes!