Iowa depression

Dear Tiajewel,

First off, you should be proud of yourself! Quitting smoking is no small thing, especially after 30 years. I'm terrified about my weight goal. I have 100 lbs to lose. Truly life changing! Hang in there!

Congrats on quitting smoking. I finally quit after 30yrs also, it was hard and took several tries. I know where you're coming from with the weight loss. I have 180 to lose and get so overwhelmed by it sometimes. What's helping is setting mini goals for myself and trying not to look at the WHOLE picture.
It takes time and effort, at ct1986 said, the weight didn't come on overnight and it's not coming off overnight either.
You can friend me for support.
Good luck and hang in there.

Does anyone have any great ideas of how to lose weight and be happy about what I do eat because either way this has to be a life changing ordeal for me!

I would highly recommend hitting up Barnes & Noble (or your bookseller of choice) and spending some time combing through the cookbook section. There are a lot of books out there for special low calorie, diabetic, and other diets. Most of the recipes, while they might look intimidatting, are actually quite easy and quick to toss together.

Learn to cook with whole foods instead of relying on pre-packaged and overprocessed frankenfood. Once you get to know your way around a chef's knife, most meals are a breeze to put together from scratch, taste so much better and end up with a fraction of the calories since you can control how much of what you put into it.

Learn to love your crock pot!! Easy whole food, low cal meals that you don't have to think about.

And remember .. it took time to put the weight on - it will take time to take the weight off. Don't get discouraged.

And good job on quitting smoking!! I know how difficult that is to make stick.

This ThanxGiving will be 8yrs tobacco free for me (quit cold turkey on Turkey day - how aprapo :happy: )
So with that said, I found this crazy way to lose weight: exercise and portion control.

OK, so maybe not so much crazy as incredibly hard work and a life-long challenge; but I made myself a promise last December, and I cannot, will not, dare not, break a promise to myself. No matter what happens, I promised I would measure out my food and eat "serving" sizes, be held accountable to log everything, including when I decide to double or triple a serving size, and if I go over on my calories, no big deal: this is what I can keep up 4-life, even if I stay the same size, as long as I don't get bigger

The other part of my promise was to exercise at least 5-6 days p/wk, for 45-50 mins each: I wake up early every work-day AM to workout, on my off-Fridays (every other Friday) I still workout so that guarantees me at least 5 workouts. If we're doing something or need to be somewhere on weekends, I wake up early to work out before I get ready. I bought a few different DVD's that I mix up so I don't get stuck in a rut (also have back/knee issues so need some low-key workouts for my "off" days ): I have T'ai Chi, Yoga, Ab, Cardio, strength training mixes and a T'ai Chi/Kickboxing mix, and I treated myself yesterday & got The Firm Cardio Sculpting Kit.
So with that said, the first 3-4 months I didn't see much of a difference: my clothes seemed to be fitting me better, not so tight & I was feeling better. I didn't give up, didn't stop just because I wasn't getting the results I used to get in half the time or the results I was seeing MFP's getting. I made a promise to myself. 6 months later, I realized I'd lost almost 8 lbs: I upped my training and added ankle weights: I lost a couple more lbs & in Sept added 1lbs wrist weights. I've dropped almost 3 pants sizes and only lost 17lbs. And it wasn't until just 1 month ago that my fiance said "your stomach is getting flatter!", and I realized, the worst part of my body was actually getting firmer, finally! After 11 months of sticking with a program & promise, the results are showing!

So, long story short: one of my personal quotes: persistence & consistence are the keys. Once you start, just because you don't see "immediate" results, please DO NOT give up. It takes time to retrain your body and rewrite your blueprint, and it will not happen overnight. I, too, lost weight rapidly in my younger years, when I was a smoker: even kept it off for several years after I quit: But getting older, it gets harder & I realized that I can't do this the same way I used to. I have to work harder, smarter and learn what my body wants and what I need to do to retrain it to do what I want. It's happening, slowly but surely & I am SO happy with my results. I know you can do this: just be positive and patient - it can happen, it WILL happen, you can MAKE it happen :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

Hello. I am not totally depressed, just feeling low about not lossing much weight. Around the 17th of September I got some scarry news and a week before that is when I started to make changes to myself. I started working out in the swimming pool and lifting weights also. I was a smoker for about 30 years and finally quite on the 17th last month. Anyway, long story short is that I used to be able to lose weight for the most part easily and now that I am older and have a family to cook for, it is a big struggle to leave the bad foods behind. I have found myself eating a small banana and a 90 calorie Fiber One bar every morning for breakfast......some times I will even eat a light lowfat Activia yogurt. I want to lost weight around my belly area and it is taking forever. Does anyone have any great ideas of how to lose weight and be happy about what I do eat because either way this has to be a life changing ordeal for me! LOL Thanks and looking forward to meeting some new friends!! :-)

Hi!

First of all, Congratulations on quitting the smoking lark, I was a very heavy smoker two years ago and quit because I have a bit of a scary incident. I figured I either stop smoking and get myself in order or continue smoking and take the consequences. I stopped smoking.

Secondly, after quitting the smoking, I found it incredibly difficult to lose weight, I was on and off and on and off diets for months on end. I would start, give up, start, stop, give up, start..... the continual efforts just went on and on and on!

However, eventually I came across MFP and started to log absolutely everything, I was shocked to discover that I was way over calorie allowances and even running four times per week, I was not using up the required amount of calories to get myself into a deficit and lose the pounds. It was at that point that I became really serious about it all and started afresh.

Nearly at my goal now and I will never return to what I used to do.

What I am saying is if I can do it, you definitely can, you are aware it has to be life-changing and not a diet just to lose the weight and that is one big milestone!

The secret is to eat stuff that makes you feel full, that way you won't snack or binge eat. Protein is what fills you up, protein will also curb the cravings.

Try eggs (omelette, scrambled or boiled) for brekkie, once you feel satisfied after breakfast, the rest of the day becomes easier and you feel motivated to keep it going.

" ---Quote----Rynatat

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" OK, so maybe not so much crazy as incredibly hard work and a life-long challenge; but I made myself a promise last December, and I cannot, will not, dare not, break a promise to myself. No matter what happens, I promised I would measure out my food and eat "serving" sizes, be held accountable to log everything, including when I decide to double or triple a serving size, and if I go over on my calories, no big deal: this is what I can keep up 4-life, even if I stay the same size, as long as I don't get bigger





Great post!!! Very inspirational!!! Congrats:happy: