Hello from chilly upstate NY

I'm a 48-year-old married female who needs to lose about 35 lbs. Although I was a chubby child, I was a very athletic teenager and young adult (runner and triathlete) who has slowed down and gained weight in middle-age, not helped by a sedentary career behind a computer. I want to increase my favorite forms of exercise without getting injured, and also want to avoid general joint pain, and of course diabetes and heart disease.

Like many here that I've read about in lurking around on some forums, I'm a former, multi-year WW member, joined and rejoined multiple times, lost up to 50 lbs and regained some of it. I found after a certain stage at WW when the weight-loss stalled, I needed to better understand the math behind my food and exercise, especially the macros, so I used another online tool for awhile similar to this and it got me off my plateau, but the site was rather slow and clunky.

I found that WW in general is not a good fit for me personally for many reasons:
- expensive
- always selling you something at meetings,even though you've already shelled out a lot of money to be a member
- I find their pushing of processed foods especially annoying
- points sytem not accurate enough and too arbitrary
- meeting topics not usually relevant to me
- not much in common with other meeting goers

So, really, the only thing I got out of WW was the accountability of weighing in each week, that's it. Knowing I had to face the scale kept me on track during the rest of the week. I never bothered to actually track points most of the time, and it seems that every autumn I'd get complete WW fatique and quit for the winter.

So here I am, looking for an alternative after a cold, long winter of regaining some weight. My husband and I do a lot of walking and hiking together, he was looking for a pedometer, so I just ordered a Fitbit Zip for each of us to use with this site. Meanwhile, I've begun tracking daily and reading the forums. The tracking tools and databases here are great. This site's tools are fast and effiicient, making it much easier for me to see where I need to adjust my nutrients and exercise, and plan out my meals better.

Now the only piece missing is that accountability of checking in, so I hope I can find some groups here to keep me motivated!
:flowerforyou: Happy Spring!