Hi Everyone!! I am a 52 year old wife and mom. Thanks to a wake up call, being dx with type 2 diabetes May 2013, I have now lost 53 lbs! AND am no longer on diabetes meds OR cholesterol meds!! I have been on a MAJOR plateau for the past 3 months and really need all the support I can get to get me back to the losing track. My dedication and motivation have not wavered. Yes, I feel defeated every time I weigh myself but console myself with 'well at least you didn't gain'. With the new school year (I am reading teacher) and the holidays approaching, it is time to start losing again....twenty pounds will be a great start! I am looking forward to learning from all of you.

Hi

I'm L.A...I'm the mother of two young adults. I've been on MFP for some time off and on, the support on this site is amazing. I am hoping to lose some weight, the healthy way. I have a few issues within myself which I am trying my best to deal with,at times makes it difficult. I am looking forward to this challenge, I think it would help me to stay motivated, get support and give it support.

Good luck everyone!!:flowerforyou:

Hi!
I am 54, married for 22 years and have struggled with my weight for way to many years to remember, I am currently around 50-60lbs overweight for my 5ft 4in body.
I am into traditional archery and also like to throw a big double headed axe for fun.
I need to get a grip on the weight and while I have been a member here for a pretty long time, I have not made much progress.
I have been trying to follow low carb way but it is so hard and I am all about keeping things simple so I am now just going to do the calorie counting, sensible, minimal processed food thing.
I would be very happy if I could lose 20lbs by Christmas.
Looking forward to getting to know you all while we whittle away the pounds!

Hi everyone I know that I'm joining into this late but I love the motivation that a good active group can bring. And it's perfect fit because I definitely need to lose 20 lbs by Christmas. Even more but let's start with 20. I'm a 36 yr old with a wonderful hubby and 2 very active sons 4 yrs and 1 1/2 yr old. I work hard at trying to lose weight but I know there is so much more I could do. Just need to start. Like not eating the 1000 cal dinner I had out with my family this evening but I keep trying. It's changing my life for me not a diet.

Hi! I'm 53 years old. I have a great professional job. My wife and I have been married for 20 years. We did not have children. I'm currently working on an AA in Art at a local college. I already have a BA and a MS, so I'm kind of doing this backwards.

I started my current weight loss journey in May by making a bet with my college professor. He was an active duty Marine at one point, but went on to get an MFA. I was a Soldier once and I'm totally kicking his butt in the weight loss contest. I'm down 22 pounds since May. I have an intermediate target of 1 Sept to be down in weight by 10% (25 pounds). With a couple weeks to go I have 3 pounds to lose. I signed up for this group because 20 pounds by Xmas will actually get me to my goal weight.

I'm looking forward to spending the next part of my journey to fitness with this group.

Hello Everyone!!

My name is Crystal, I am 32, my husband and I have been together for 14 years, married for 7. We have three beautiful children, 11yr old son,7 yr old daughter, and 5 yr old daughter. We have an awesome dog and two cats. I have been a member of MFP since 2012 but only recently really started using it seriously. I have been "thinking" I need to lose weight for 9 years but havent really ever put any long term effort into it. Didnt even pay attention to my weight or what it really was until recently. I reached my highest weight of 326 as of May 2014. I am down 16lbs so far- woo woo!! I have set small 10 lb goals for myself with rewards with each 10 lbs goal reached!! I have already made it to my first goal of 10 lbs and got my first reward of a fitbit flex. I am 4 lbs til my next goal and reward of a new outfit and with this 20lbs by christmas will get me to my 3rd reward of a massage!! Yay!! I look forward to being encouraged as well as encouraging others through this mini challenge (or atleast it is a mini challenge for me)!!!

Hi All! So glad to have this space to cheer on others and keep myself accountable.

I'm 30 and (like so many here) have always struggled with my weight. I lost 24 pounds between March 2013 and November 2013, reaching my all-time low weight of 130 pounds. I felt great and only had 10 more pounds to go to reach my ultimate goal weight of 120 pounds.

Then the holidays happened. Then we took a took a two-week trip for a friend's wedding in India where I ate too much rich food. Then I celebrated my birthday... for a month. Then we ended up moving from Seattle to New York for work and had a really stressful transition. Long story short, I've gained back 11.5 pounds of the 24 pounds previously lost and am feeling pretty crummy about it. I'm looking to lose 21 pounds by Christmas, which will put me at my ultimate goal weight of 120 pounds.

Thanks in advance for the support. We can do this.

Hi I am Miranda and I just joined the group today!

I am 33, married and have a son who just started kindergarten. I am the controller for 2 aerospace companies. Best.job.EVER!

I used MFP about 3.5 years ago and lost 30 pounds. Happy mama! I allowed life and the worst.job.ever to get in the way and I gained back 20. I've been trying to lose it for about 2 years now with no avail. I'm tired of not seeing results and I'm the only one that can change. I am going back to my simplistic approach I used the first time around and not obsessive over macros, etc, I'm just concentrating on calories in/ calories out at this point. It worked the first time so once I start actually getting somewhere, I will be gin to hone in more on macros again.

Glad to be here!

I'm 30, mom of an 8 year old boy and wife to a soldier. I work full time, at home, sitting at a desk. I've worked a desk job for the past 7 years and it has KILLED my metabolism. I never worried about weight, even after my son was born, until we were stationed in Alaska. Combined with your bodies natural desire to store fat to keep warmth (yes you turn into a polar bear if you are there long enough), crappy winters (who wants to go outside when its -30...NOT ME!!!), rainy summers (hello 35 days straight of rain one year!), bad eating habits, sitting on my *kitten* at work, and an IUD that made me gain over 10 lbs in a couple months time that wouldn't go away for anything until I had it removed, I gained over 20 lbs and weighed more than I did 9 months pregnant. For someone who could eat fast food everyday and not gain an ounce this was a BIG deal for me. I felt like a blob and had zero motivation to change it. Not only was my weight an issue but I was depressed and miserable. I hated everything and everybody around me. Then a year ago we got stationed in Hawaii...AWESOME!!! Until you put on a bathing suit and all you see in your head is the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. A couple months after being here I got down to 135 thanks to the availability of fresh produce, that was actually affordable, and being active on the weekends. Once the new wore off and it was back to work for my husband and myself, school for our son, the activity and always healthy eating slowly dwindled and my weight went up, again. This year is my 10th Anniversary and I would LOVE to be close to the weight I was when I got married! I know that will probably never happen again, and not sure that I would look very healthy at 115 lbs now. My goal is somewhere between 120-125. I guess it will just depend on how I feel about myself once I get to 125 if I keep going. I know that my husband would love to see me skinny and happy about myself again. I need people that are positive motivators and want to keep each other accountable!

Hey all, names Ed.. from PA. Looking to lose about 25 pounds overall. Will settle for 20 though (bc I am planning to workout, so accounting for some muscle weight here).

Hi! I'm Jim turning 40 this October. I've been on a mission past few months to lose weight, down 15lbs so far. I figured with some friends and support on here would help out even more. Looking to lose more than 20lbs but every pound counts so here I am.

Hi, I'm Maddy. I'm 46 and the mother of three furbabies. I was always skinny fat up until I hit 30 then I started gaining weight and could not keep it off. When I look in the mirror, I see a heavy person and I'm not sure where she came from. I finally got my eating under control thanks to this website and have started working out. I'm doing the C25k program as well as weight lifting. I have found some great advice here and am looking to find a group where we can support and motivate each other. Reading through al of these intros, it looks that I may have found it!

Hey hey! I'm 25 and from MO, but currently living in Zambia as a Peace Corps volunteer. My first two years here, my weight went up and down (down in training when I was biking at least 16km a day, up when I started teaching and ate 2 kg of peanut butter in 2.5 months). I eventually evened out to a place where I was at least comfortable, if not happy (I weighed 82kg (180 lbs) in February).

Now, I'm in my 3rd year as a volunteer and I've moved to town. I live in the place where all the other volunteers come to drink and make their comfort food that they miss from home and things that require electricity (anything baked, anything using foods that must be refrigerated like meat and cheese). It's always delicious and they always want someone to share their homecooked creation. So, I end up eating lots of mexican, pizza, lasagna, burgers, mac & cheese, bread, and cakes/cookies/brownies. Also, there's very little diet anything here - all the milk is whole, the bread white, the sugar real. All the food and booze plus a decrease in activity, since I don't have to bike everywhere anymore because I literally live in my office, has led to me hitting my heaviest weight - 92kg (202 lbs). I was doing well for a while, and lost 8 lbs using MFP and C25K, but then I went to home to America for a month and that went out the window. I'm right back up at 90kg (198 lbs).

Ideally, I'd like to get my weight down to around 160 lbs so my BMI is well within the norm for my height. That's kind of a daunting goal for me though, since I've never really been one for dieting/tracking/anything. I usually just let what happens happen. But I want to be healthier and look better in my clothes, so I'm trying this again. Running every other day, walking as much as I can, trying to keep (honest) track of what I'm putting in my mouth, and figuring out what a portion size should actually be. It's tough, but I'm hoping that this smaller, short-term goal can help me out!

Hello to all-
I'm 47 and have been married 26 years and have two grown children- one still in college and one, well, she should be in college but she's not right now so we'll see where she ends up. Anyway, I was naturally thin growing up (yet in high school I was always trying to lose weight- and I only weighed 117!). Anyway after two pregnancies I was back down to 125-130 and kept it there for a while, but about 16 years ago my thyroid started acting weird and they had to put me on synthroid. So just age and adjusting my thyroid medication, plus just the business of life and eating too much fast food I put on weight a little at a time until I realized I was around 160. That was 8 years ago- I lost over 20 pounds one summer doing mainly the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet, which is very very low calorie but it worked and I did keep most of it off for a few years, and then slowly but surely it crept back on again along with more pounds.

I have tried MFP a few times in the past but have never been able to make it stick for very long because I just get tired of logging every single thing. I would almost rather someone just give me a menu and be done, but I know that's not realistic in the long run. So it will say on my ticker that I haven't lost any weight, but I think that's because I'm still on my old account that I started two years ago. This past July I finally stepped on the scale and when it said 180 I knew it was time to get serious again. My goal is to lose 20 by the holidays, maintain through the holidays because you know there will be food everywhere, and then 20 more pounds starting in January. That would be down to 140 but if I get ambitious I would like to say 130. I don't want to get too hung up on scale numbers, but more about how I feel and how my clothes fit (another motivator). Two other things that motivate me are my parents - my mother is very heavy (yet grew up very thin like me) and now she has very bad arthritis in her knees and is always in a lot of pain, and my dad just had open heart surgery about two years ago.

My daughter is really into the body positive movement, which the theme is to love yourself no matter what your size and to just accept yourself so I'm working on that too, but again it's not about the sizes we wear or the numbers on the scale, it's how we feel when we eat healthy and exercise. Oh and I'm trying to exercise more- my husband and I now have recumbents- he has a bike and I have a trike and we hope to go on some tours before the weather gets bad. After the weather turns I like to do yoga and even some zumba, but I need to make the commitment to go. My husband was an athlete in college and he could use this program, which I've tried to get him to do, but he has absolutely no patience for the tiny details that comes with logging all of your food, so maybe just with me making low calorie meals and buying low calorie foods that will help him, because he has said he wants to lose some weight.

Good luck to everyone and here's to a happy and healthy lifestyle and a very positive body image- no matter where you are in your journey!!