Jackie, focus on living a healthier life. Like Mark (I hope I got your name right!) said, log your food and drink your water, get your exercise and your rest. It WILL happen.

I guess a pound is a pound but I've been trying to eat less than 1500 calories a day and have started walking 1.5 - 2.5 miles a day if I have time. I've also started a new job - and i haven't been eating the food - which has put me on my feet another 15 hours so far and I've had musical practice as well on top of that. No red meat and no fast food. Not sure what's going on and this is my 17th day and it's been one pound total from my weigh in Monday. Not sure what I'm doing wrong or if I need to do more. I determined to stick with it this time though.

OMG! I DID IT! I HAVE LOST 150 LBS! i am so happy! this last week i made sure to drink a protein shake every morning, tried eating a little more and exercised my butt off! i added dance lessons and went back to swimming laps and just tried to be more active during my day.

when that scale said 248 yesterday, i froze, i didn't know whether i was going to laugh or cry, lol. it still seems unbelievable that i am UNDER 250 lbs for the first time in at least 15-17 years. i am so HAPPY! thanks everyone for all the support and encouragement.

Holly, I am so sorry! Work sucks! I just went through this and it's maddening and upsetting and ... bleh!!! Maybe you'll find something better... that treats you with more respect. The place doesn't deserve you if it won't recognize what an important asset you are. :mad:

Dan and Jackie, I want you both to know how encouraged I, am by your accomplishments. People who have done the work and stayed the course like y'all, and like Paula and Mark, and all those who are so far ahead of me on the journey, you give me hope. I should say it more often because you deserve it...you've earned it. There are days when I think about needing to lose 115 pounds and I get terrified. It seems impossible. But then, I can say that I know people who have done it, are doing it. And not only that, but they are voluntarily helping others to do it, as well.
I need you. And I need to remember that you need that support, too. I am guilty of taking for granted that those who have lost so much weight have beat their problems and are invincible.
Thank you. And that goes for everyone who posts on this site. I need this connection, and I want to offer that same support to you.

Thanks for the advice Dan, and I promise to grit through it as well! It's spring and it's time to get serious! I'm gonna try to think of some new weekly challenges for the group, and maybe it will help to get some of us re-motivated :drinker: Again thanks for taking the time to help a friend in need!

As usual...Dan is right. * sigh *

We must not only be mindful of our needs and watchful over our wants and cravings, we must also be patient with the astoundingly complex and varied chemical processes that must occur to turn stored energy into fuel for daily life.

It took me years to get this way, it will take years to put me back to spec. I get that. Now. But first I had to wander most of the winter over a nigh endless plateau,

But the spring is here now and I am rocking a new exercise class, and upping my walkies game. ( I spend more time with my glutes and core activated and pluse the muscles when I march. It's like crunches...but without the fuss, or having to get on the floor.)

So yeah...while I did not lose much weight over the winter, I dropped a pant size and I can see a vague hint of ribs and other evidence of a human skeleton holding up flesh and blood, where once there was but waves of wobbles. Therefore I can say with confidence I have met my goal and got into shape. Because round is still a WAAAAAY better shape than amorphous blob.

But I am still working on rectangle! Watch me go!

I would not have had the strength to keep going without your help, my MFP friends and acquaintances.

Thank you to everyone who reads and posts and cheers!

I hope you too are working towards your happy geometry; whatever shape that may be.

Cheers!
Mark

I haven't been around much for about a month due to getting meds and other stuff straightened out. It's been a mess. Due to no longer working my finances are in shambles as I am lacking about $50 more a month than what I have now. This means my eating has gone to pot. I am trying to figure out how to get three meals and between 2 to 3 snacks in a day for around $5 for the entire day. Coupons I find are usually for TV dinners, french fries, and other similar foods. I find the occasional one for Yoplait! Greek yogurt, but it is good for one container, if I can even find it in the stores, which I can't, not even at Mama Jean's the local health food store. While I can afford strictly lettuce salads, which really aren't true salads, I can't exist on that. Protein is expensive as all get out locally, probably that way everywhere else too. Getting put on the lithium and the weight quickly came back on and then as I'm getting off of that I'm struggling to find a way to eat without starving and within a tight budget. Due to the lithium I had to hold off on a lot activity as it was causing the water levels to drop in my body too quickly resulting in a dramatic increase to the density of the med in my system making me sick. On that med not really supposed to spend much time in the sun, can't drink too much or flush it, yadda, yadda. So, I'm off of it, but now I have to get back into the groove with exercise along with other things. They're thinking of moving me to another city where I'd have to adjust to a lot more than just these few things. I need to get food back on track, somehow, just gotta get the math to work. Increasing activity level is at least one thing I don't have to wait to start on. I've accepted I'm going to end up at a food bank this month, but that means I'll be getting soups, pasta, rice, a loaf of white bread, and another jar of peanut butter. Oh, and I forgot. The single slice of American cheese. Just, urgh. Urgh, urgh, urgh and urgh some more. :explode:

A friend of mine has decided to help me out. She has given me $50 dollars to get what I need. It has to last for awhile, but it's a start. It means my cat gets his wet food as well and the better litter just in time for my quarterly inspection. I'll be spending most of it on non-food items, but it'll still help as I have $12 left of my food budget and it'll give me $14 left out of the fifty once I pay for the cat stuff and TP, meds, transportation, etc., which should be enough to get me through until I get my next allowance check on the 17th.

I am frustrated with myself for the lack of confidence I have in a friend of mine to actually follow through with her current plan for getting in shape and losing weight. I've just watched her for so long say she is going to do something, go at it for an hour or two for an eating pattern change and five minutes for starting a new exercise regime. It's not as if I have never supported her or tried to help her. I've sat with her and gone over exercised designed to hit the areas she wants to hit, figured up together a simple exercise plan. When she talked about watching calories I gave her one of my calorie counters and we talked about portion sizes and how that can trip a person up. I offered, when I had the money, to pay for her membership to the Y that would give her access to two locations in town she could go to. We've made plans to exercise together which when the day came resulted in getting a message as to why it was no longer an option that day. I hear from her as to how she was "bad" on her eating plan. (By the way, I've come to loathe that terminology? I don't like its implications and the way I see it used.) The being "bad" statements come at least once a day, if not more, and we go over again how she needs to not skip meals and that having a third of a fifty-cent bag of sunflower seeds is not a breakfast or lunch. I've seen all of this and more for too long. As I said, I want to have faith that this time will be it and not that in a month I'll be buying her workout DVD set from her as it was too (pick a negative adjective). I think it is more to do with I just don't have the energy to go through supporting her as she tells me all the reasons she can't. She actually got rid of exercise equipment saying it didn't work, but when pressed admitted to not using it. Okay, I'm rambling now. Hopefully, this time it'll help her achieve her goals without the excuses.