Getting Started - a Marine's Perspective...

First post here, but don't toss what I say aside lightly. I was a Sergeant of Marines, in charge of helping "overweight," Marines to reach the Marine Corps standard. (This was two years ago.) After I got out, I binge ate pizza, stopped physical fitness (good bye six pack) and boom! A year and 1 month later, I weigh 65 lbs more than I did. Talk about depressing, right? Not really... I chose to do this to myself, knowing what would most likely be the outcome. (But GOD I still love Pizza!) Bare with me!

The irony of that still humors me by the way! But I digress...

You aren't losing weight. You don't want to lose X pounds. Those (except for a very small few) are temporary things. People think, well, I won't drink soda and eat candy until I reach my target weight. Or they use food to celebrate milestones (don't do that!) Or they try diets, which almost always fail (except again for very disciplined and self-motivated people.) These are all wrong things to do, to try.

My best advice is to wrap your mind around two (three) words:

LONG-

-TERM

PERSPECTIVE,

or said another way:

LIFE-

-LONG

PERSPECTIVE

I don't mean one year, or two years. I mean a lifestyle change that will never end until you either decide you are okay with whatever happens, happens, or until you die.

Don't eliminate things from your diet forever. The biggest thing wrong with us Americans (sorry if there are out-of-country folk on here! Not quite educated on who all uses MFP.) is our portion sizes. A medium coke at McDonalds used to be a large 10 years ago. Learn to have half that slice of cake, and eat it slowly, really enjoying every second of it. On the road? Do you "have to," eat out? Get a small cheeseburger, small fries and water. For added benefit, don't eat the bread or get it wrapped in lettuce instead!

I saw several posts on here asking for motivation, and ticks and tips and I have a very blunt and cold truth. The only TRUE motivation you will ever find will come from YOU.

(Stealing a very good line [editing it slightly] from 'Till I Collaspe,')

Sometimes you will feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you want to just give up. Don't! You must search within yourself, find that inner strength, and just pull it out of you - and get that... motivation, to not give up. Not be a quitter, no matter how bad you just want to fall down flat on your face.

The truth is, you control your life. You control if you over-eat on those calories. No one puts a gun to your head and force feeds you. (I do realize some people have medical issues that DO cause this, this isn't directed at them!)

You are NOT losing weight. You are establishing a life-long series of healthy habits to improve your life in ways you see fit (energy, looks, happiness, whatever.)

The problem with motivation is it's temporary.

You need motivation to START on your journey.
You need habits to FINISH/MAINTAIN the end of your journey.


TL:DR, establish a HABIT of eating healthy and exercising. I recommend you incorporate weight training and cardio with a healthy diet to lose weight and build muscle. (Weight training can be nothing but body weight for those who want to tone: calisthenics etc..)

Focus on changing your lifestyle to healthier things. The weight will come off on it's own.

Semper Fi. Sorry if I offended anyone. Add me if you want to be friends/help keep one another accountable. I know a lot about nutrition etc...

EDIT: One final thing. You are beautiful no matter who you are, or what you look like. Don't critic yourself. Love yourself. It will lower your stress and make losing weight easier!