getting married.... need to lose weight...

I hear ya. Staying motivated is my constant struggle. In the last 2 years, I've gained 30 lbs. Losing it before my wedding in Sept is my number one priority... I started using my Fitbit One and it's helping...
Add me, we'll help each other out. Renée

I would suggest checking out whole 30. It's a bit drastic, and I didn't want anything to do with it, but I lost 13lbs in 30 days. The funny thing is now it has "rebooted" my body, so I love it. If you have questions let me know.

If losing weight is a prerequisite for getting married, perhaps marriage isn't for you at this point in time.

charmedbrat wrote: »

i was to drastic... i didnt allow myself for a cheat day once a week... i restricted myself so heavily.......

When I started I had a goal of 125 lbs to lose, so I do understand. Now I didn't do cheat days, yes I have had days over my calorie goals, but cheating at least for me, says I'm doing something wrong, eating food isn't good or bad it's a part of life. Be reasonable with your deficit.

In the beginning work on logging your food accurately and honestly. For me, the only thing I tracked was my calories. A few months of logging consistently and making it part of my daily routine, I started to learn and track my macros (protein, fat, and carbs).

Don't fall into the old dieting habits that there are good or bad foods, you can eat foods you love just make them fit into your day. Now some foods will keep you fuller longer than others, but other foods help with mental health as well. In the 2 years I've been here, I've had dessert usually ice cream or cookies almost every night.

A digital food scale is a good investment they run about $15 and really do help with accuracy and learning portion size.

Biggest things are keep it simple, be consistent, be honest with yourself, and have lots of patience.

Good luck to you

Calories in v Calories out. Track it, be honest, and a little exercise is always good.

Motivation is up to you. No one can light the fire inside, they can only help stoke it.

Keep this in mind though - You can safely lose 1.5 -2.0 lbs per week. Doing this is a challenge, however. That big of a calorie deficit takes dedication and willpower. This is why people fall off.

Realisticly, shoot for 1lb a week of loss. That's a ~3500 cal a week deficit. That's 700 a day less. That's two cans of coke less (unless you're eating way above your maintenance level of calories)

This means that if you lose 52 lbs in a year you're doing a great job. People start their weight loss journey and get excited about the water weight and beginner loss from over estimating their initial weight or the large amount of water loss that you can get. Then they get into the grind, get discouraged, and end up heavier.

Don't let that happen. Be realistic.

I was the same way until I tried on my wedding dress three months before my wedding and it wouldn't zip up. I freaked out and put my head on straight. Just know it's something you HAVE to do. (I gained it all back after the wedding... but thats beside the point and explains why I'm back on here lol)

A low or lower carb diet (for the pre-diabetic condition) and couch to 5k program for cardio should get you on your way.

those are great reasons for wanting to lose some weight, as the others have said take it one day at a time if I am looking at something 6 months down the road I freak out! Especially at this time of year with Christmas next week! So I take it one day at a time, if I fall off the wagon which if you look at my diary you will see I do often, I pick myself up, dust myself off and start again. Perfectionism is the devil! As long as you are making a genuine effort you will see results.

sangster19 wrote:

You can safely lose 1.5 -2.0 lbs per week. Doing this is a challenge, however. That big of a calorie deficit takes dedication and willpower. This is why people fall off.
Realisticly, shoot for 1lb a week of loss. That's a ~3500 cal a week deficit. That's 700 a day less.

It's 500 calories per day to lose 1 lb per week.
And starting at such a high weight, it's probably possible to lose more than 2 lb / week safely, but she should check with her doctor.
To maintain that weight, she's probably eating 3200 cal/day (but do your diary entries for a couple weeks to be sure), so dropping to 2200 gives plenty of room for all the healthy nutrition needed.

My doctor told me to eat 10x my healthy goal weight. At first, I just ate 1000 cal/day less than what I needed to maintain my current weight, but as I hit plateaus I've dropped 50-100 cal at a time to nudge the weight loss to start again. Now I'm aiming for 1400, and my doctor suggested 1300. (I'm nearly 5'10".)
That's total, not net. Ignore net, ignore exercise calories. Most people underestimate what they eat, and most machines (including MFP) overestimate calories burned.

Here's a newbie help post I did with links to lots of useful info, including sexypants and some BMI charts, one of which will tell you how many servings of which food groups to eat to maintain a certain weight. Put in your healthy goal weight (based on BMI) or play with the numbers until it shows a BMI under 24.9.