Not sure where to start!

Hello~

I am a wife and mother of 2. I understand where you are coming from. I have tried tons of diets.. This is the only one that I have been able to stick to for this long. I think the secret is that I eat whatever I want. I just portion it out. I eat whatever I make my family for dinner. Once you get a hang of things you'll learn how to cut corners. I try to log every day and I am always looking for new friends. I have an open diary so my friends can get ideas from my day. Feel free to add me.

Monica

So much to say.. so few words to say it... here are a few initial thoughts:

first - congratulations! great that you have taken this step - and taking it together is very cool...

My first suggestion: Since you have found your way here - *each* of you get an account on MFP and use it to log your food intake and cardiovascular exercise.

Find a FEW friends who will encourage you and help you out along the way (too many and this becomes a social engine and less of a small group of people to be there to ask questions of and say "way to go"...)

Recognize there is a LOT of bad advice floating around - you will need to take a bit of time to discern who actually knows what they are saying and who is simply repeating the "worked for me" advice (in some cases which may have been unnecessary or counterproductive)

This is just my opinion/advice - since you asked: This isn't a race - strive to make this a manageable and sustainable change - as opposed to just a goal to reach - and I do suggest that you recognize early that you and your husband are likely going to see different results - that doesn't make one a winner and another the loser - both of you are winning and one-upmanship isn't necessary. As a very very broad generalization men typically carry more muscle on their frames, and (despite my personal height ) typically have larger frames as well... thus they have more metabolically active tissue and typically burn more calories in a day than women... so yes, in a generalization - it is "easier for guys" to eat at a deficit. .now I know nothing of your situation - you may be much taller than your husband, younger, more active, etc etc etc... whatever... this is just to make a point that you are different and so expect different results, and encourage each other without competing exactly... just my opinion

My kids tended to like basic foods - Chicken, potatoes, vegetables (of course not all of them) so you may find that cooking "clean" meals really does work for the whole family, but YMMV.

If you want more of the basics of what the heck BMR and TDEE mean and how to use MFP and if you should eat back your exercise calories, etc.etc.etc... feel free to send me a message and I'll happily send you a few basics... but suffice to say that if you use MFP as it is designed (and it works well as in my opinion - despite different schools of thought on here on how best to design your plan) then I suggest you put in your details and say that you want to lose 1Lb a week (that is the 500 calorie a day deficit referenced above - when burned by the body, on pound of fat yields 3500 calories - so a deficit of 500 a day = 1Lb a week burned) and when you do cardio exercise be careful about over estimating your calories burned, but do eat the calories back so you maintain the 500 deficit and don't create too large a deficit. (I do recommend a strap-type heart rate monitor if you want to use something to model how much you are burning when you work out - but you don't "need" this )

Enjoy the journey

Just copied this for another thread, might as well leave it here, too.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants