Seriously...HOW???

If you want it bad enough you make it happen, I get up at 1:30 am to do HIIT and eat breakfast before going to the gym at 4 am every day, not because I want to be up when everyone else is leaving the bar, because it is my lifestyle at this point.

1:30 in the morning?!
Mad respect to you my friend. That is TRUE dedication & passion right there
:drinker: :flowerforyou:

Yes that's awesome for you.

However I'm not sure it is that helpful for newbies who are struggling to get past stage 1 - it just makes it all seem overwhelming and unachievable.

OP you do not have to go to such lengths to lose weight - you just have to eat less than you burn.

Start with small steps - eg. if you are doing no exercise at all now, set a goal to walk 10 minutes round the block twice a day.
Find your correct calorie goal and aim to hit about that most days. Perhaps identify your biggest calorie hurdles and aim to reduce them eg limit desert to twice a week instead of every day, make coke be a treat instead of all the time etc.

Yea. You could get up at 8:00 shower, go to work, drink 3 or 6 cups of coffee. Then go to the gym at lunch or after work. Drink a beer. And still lose weight. Or, you could get up at 1:30 in the frigg'n morning while I'm drinking my evening drink and watching TV.

I just want to add that the sense of pride and accomplishment I feel every time I get closer to reaching my goal, getting my protein macros closer ( yay ) and/or hitting my cals on the mark. It's like a personal challenge everyday. The posts are educational and funny. Watching my friends list glow and jump for joy with every pound lost is worth the time I spend logging in :happy:

Thoughts become things. The way you feel and think will manifest in your life.

Here's my how: I am 44 years old, two boys ages 13 and 15. I am 5'8" tall and never had a weight problem in my life until two years ago. Until two years ago I was around 140 and wore a size 6. Then two years ago my husband had a MAJOR health crisis that was three weeks in the hospital followed by 6 months not living in our home. I was a complete wreck and went down to 132 pounds but it was from not eating and throwing up--not on purpose, from fear and stress. Then he came home and I went up to 160. BOOM inside of 8 months. Why? Stress eating--two donuts on the way to work, chocolate during the day at school, cookies and tea at night. And with that came achy everything. Headaches. Twitchy tummy. Lazy. Flabby. Now, I am clear that 160 pounds on a 5'8" woman is far from obese, but I felt flabby and crappy and tired. So on June 30 I logged in here and just did it. No gigantic A-HA moment, more like the realization that what I WAS doing wasn't working so I should try something new. There is no magic anything--there is self control. Other posters are correct--eat whatever you want, within reason, and realize that 150 calories of non fat greek yogurt and fruit are a heck of a lot better for your body than 150 calories of a Snickers bar.

It is kind of a pain to log the food, but once you've done it for a while all your regular food choices are in your data base so it's not as hard to log them. Other posters mentioned that you make time to brush your teeth, shower, make meals--it's the same thing. If you were diagnosed with some illness that required something on a daily basis, I bet you would find the time to do it. One hour less of pretty much anything so you can find the time to exercise is possible. I almost don't care about the number on the scale as much as I care that I don't feel creaky and old when I get up in the mornings. I don't have headaches nearly as much. I put on a pair of shorts last week that I haven't been able to zip since two summers ago.

Everybody's ENOUGH is different--some people never get there, some people go at it pretty half-*kitten*, some are sacred into it by a medical crisis or diagnosis, it depends on how badly you want to be a different sort of person. Do you want to be the kind of person who always misses the mark, who only halfway tries and then "wonders" why the weight is not magically coming off? Do you want to be the kind of person who truly believes that they are the one exception to the "eat less move more" weight loss plan? (I promise you, you're not). Do you want to spend the next however long griping and whining that "nothing works, I have no self control"? Of course you have self control-everyone does. No one is forcing you to make the choices you are making. No one is forcing you to eat too much or choose to sit on the couch rather than exercise. Every single thing you do in under your control. You can make any choice you want, just be clear what the consequence will be: eat too much and poorly = gain weight (or at the very least, not lose any). Eat better and less, exercise = feel better and lose weight. It's actually very simple. Not easy, but simple.

You just do it. If you want it bad enough you make it happen.

^^^^this.

Good luck

It's new routines, new habits and for me it was "What do I want more?" I'm just starting out too (again) and the how drives me nuts but so doesn't calorie counting and looking in the mirror. I am a giant control freak so you would think counting calories would be high on the agenda, but it isn't. What I want more than to eat like I always do is to get smaller. So I guess you need to figure out what you want more. Then work on your own "how". Keep trying to figure out what works for you. Everyone is different.

I too have the same problem.....get fed up, start a new diet/program, stick to it for a week or 2 and then just "forget" about tracking, planning etc and fall back in to my old ways. I've never stuck with anything long enough to change my habits or lose any more than water weight.....until recently. What worked for me was to surround myself with quotes, sayings, pictures and plans. I have them on my desktop on my computer....on post it notes on my computer and cubicle walls, on my phone and on my fridge. Anywhere that I may need a reminder so that eventually it became a habit. I also surrounded myself with people who are in the same boat as I....I don't post on MFP usually however, I read posts and blogs religiously. I have MFP up on my computer all day long so tracking my food is right in front of me (or on my phone if I'm not at work).

I haven't reached my goals but I've noticed that "shift" in my thinking so exercise and eating healthy always seems to be on my radar.

Find what works for you to change your habits and then stick with it!!

Maybe I need a psychiatrist or something.

I think you were joking, but I started seeing a psychiatrist/psychologist last year for anxiety-related issues, and he really helped push me into dieting and a healthy lifestyle. I lost 30 pounds while seeing him, and the dieting/exercise really helped with my anxiety issues.

Then I stopped seeing him because I felt like I had more control of my problems, and subsequently gained 15 pounds. So yeah, maybe there's something to it, hah.

For me it's a routine now.

For exercise, I wake up an hour earlier in the morning, so it doesn't interfere with the rest of my day or family time.

For logging the food I eat, I log it same time as I eat it, takes nearly 2 seconds, especially if it's a frequent meal such as breakfast. Multitasking!

In beginning it might be hard until you figure out how you can fit cooking healthy food into your schedule (wasn't for me, but just sayin'), and what to cook, what to have for breakfast, what is healthy food and bad food, but once I figured out what I want and what my body needs to do the job, and saw the difference between one chocolate chip cookie and 5 apricots, it's all routine now.

Breakfast is as easy as waking up, lunch is always vegetables first as they will go bad in few days, legumes next 1-2 times a week, then lean meat once a week, and fish once a week. Found and learned the recipes that make even the most yucky vegetable delicious, included lots of fruits in my diet, don't say no to fast food and deserts once in a while as long as it's in moderation.

Grocery shopping is done online now, and they come home, I don't go the stores and don't even click on the snack categories on their website so I don't see all the junk, just buy whatever I need for the week. Costs less, and it's healthier.

Been doing this for 2 years, which have lost steadily 30 kg overall, and I'm 2 kg away from my goal. And will keep on doing this for maintenance, as it has become part of my life and doesn't take up much of my time. And I eat practically anything I want without starving myself or overeating either.

I've just barely skimmed through these posts because there's so many, but I was wondering if anyone has addressed obsessiveness/disordered eating here?

Of course everyone's different, but I read an article somewhere else that really hit home for me about counting calories...it can become your life and it SUCKS.

What am I going to eat for breakfast? Do I want to eat a lot and less later on? Hm, If I eat x amount of calories now, I can eat x amount for lunch and then x amount for dinner...but what if I want such and such for dinner...I better not eat that much for breakfast then...I can only eat 10 peanuts, damn...better not eat those nuts, too many calories...let me just look up how many grapes I can eat for x amount of calories...no, for the last time, I can't go to any local restaurants because they don't post their calories...tell your mom I can't eat her food unless she gives me a recipe so I can break it down and figure out the calorie count...I'm not sure, I wish I had my food scale with me...I'm hungry, but I can't take in any more calories...well, if I jog for x amount of time, then I can eat more...how many calories have I burned so far...it's almost midnight, I need to get that extra burn in quick if I want to eat anything else today...this is the millionth time I've calculated my TDEE, am I doing this right...I'm not hungry but I need to eat more in order to reach my calorie goal...

And then you say screw it and quit for the umpteenth time just so you can focus on something that's not a number.

I can definitely relate to everything you've said here. It definitely can become an obsession, and that is super difficult to maintain.

How do you do this every day?

Does it become the most important thing in your life? Do you put tracking your calories and finding healthy food and making time to exercise above everything else in your life?

I cringe every time I look in the mirror. I say negative things to myself every time I try to put on a pair of jeans and find out they are too tight. I feel guilty when I eat anything I shouldn't. But no matter how bad I feel I can't make myself stay on track with this.

Do I have some kind of hormone problem that makes me incapable of dealing with stress? I don't think so, in fact I think I'm pretty normal. So how the heck do I make myself keep going when I'm having a bad day or I'm on my period or I just don't feel like it?
I'm fairly intelligent. I understand the mechanics of losing weight. Am I just lazy?

HOW????

How can I stay on track for more than a week at a time? How can I fit it into my life so I don't feel like I am taking away from my family?

I can see the responses now telling me "you're not a special snowflake, just do it"

Yeah, "just do it" lol. I think it's a process. If you hang around you get to the point where it's the most important thing in your life, but you don't think about that all the time, you focus more on living a healthy life with this in the background.

I was a yo yo dieter for my whole life until I finally settled down and began to make changes I could live with on an ongoing way. Now I don't even need to log all the time and instead of watching what I eat, I watch what I eat. ;-) That is, now I can see the choices I make and they make me feel happy.

As others have said, it starts with logging daily and being honest.

I was/am in a similar situation.

For me, the easiest way to do it was to make little changes. I used to drink fizzy pop all day every day and no water. So I switched to fizzy flavoured water, then in a few weeks to still flavoured water, next week I'm going to swap to just water.

I used to eat loads of chocolate, so I stopped myself eating it in a morning, then stopped myself eating it at work, soon I'm just going to limit it to a weekend.

I also let myself have a weekend "off" - where I still make healthy choices but I can eat cake or have wine or whatever.

I think it's just lifestyle changes - now I always carry nuts in my bag so I can nibble on them rather than on chocolate - and make sure you're going for healthy stuff you enjoy rather than forcing yourself to eat something you don't like,.

'Rome wasn't built in a day' as the saying goes. Try making gradual changes. If you make mini goals you will gradually make them habits.
I set myself a mini goal of eating no more than 300 cal at breakfast. I could go for a single muffin, or a bowl of oats topped with a large banana, skim milk, and yoghurt to finish off. It hasn't taken me long to want option 2, its more satisfying and I get the same score!
I found that I now look for more satisfying options at all meals and snacks - and those options are naturally better for me.

Take it easy on yourself, one step at a time and you will get there. A lifetime is a long time to think about keeping up a 'diet', so get through making better choices for today and then worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

5'4", 230 lbs -> 121.5 lbs.

I don't even try. This is my normal now. I looooove working out, running, swimming, biking, Spin, Zumba, TurboKick, BodyCombat, BodyPump, it's FUN, I can't WAIT to get to the gym or to a run group, etc.

And I love lean meats, vegetables, nuts, fruit, oatmeal, eggs, etc.