Serious need of HELP and MOTIVATION

a friend of mine is a personal trainer and i asked her the same thing (about the weight training), her reply was that you need to do both to lose weight. most people focus on doing only cardio because the results are faster and you feel more accomplished, and because you sweat, so you KNOW you worked hard. stregthening and weight training builds muscle (which will make you gain weight - but the good kind!), muscle is NECESSARY to burn fat faster.

I am no expert by an means,
however I can tell you what worked for me.
I started of by first trying to lose some weight, then I started toning.
Add the strengthing training in gradually.
You can do this, just hang in there.
Feel free to add me as a friend. :flowerforyou:

Everyone wants to lose it fast. I suggest focusing on steady rather than fast. If it takes you twice as long to reach your goal as you want it to will you be still be happy when you get there? I think you will. You can do this one day at a time. If you have a bad day just start again the next. Before long the bad days will become fewer and the good days will multiply and you'll be there before you know it.

As far as exercise if you were just looking to lose I'd say cardio but you will not tone without hitting the weights so balance the two.

I agree, steady is way better than fast.

Everyone is different, so I don't know what motivates you and what does the opposite. For me, it was putting as little pressure on myself as possible. I gave myself permission to ease into it. The easiest part for me was logging in my food here. Somehow I came up with the strength to be completely honest with myself when I wrote it down, even if I went WAY over my daily goal. I thought of it as a lifestyle change and not as a diet. I figured, what can I maintain, what can I do over the long run. If that meant only 1/2 a pound a week, then so be it, especially if it meant int he long run I would be in better shape and healthier.

After a couple months, my work schedule settled down and I had even more strength somehow, so I began running a little; but it came and went in spurts. The off and on running lasted about 2 months, but now I'm running 4X a week and this week I lost 2 pounds. That's the most in a week that I've lost. At this point, also, I'm not nearly as hungry as I used to be. I used to be hungry ALL THE TIME, but now, I never feel that way. I guess I figured out what I could eat and how much of it, and what seemed to fill me up the best without eating too much.

I don't expect to lost that much each week, but that's okay. I figure it'll suck if I gain or stay the same, but I will deal with it when it comes. Life is full of ups and downs. I think it's how you deal with the crises, big and small, that counts. If I have a small failure like that, then it'll tell me to do something different.

The thing is, I'm so much more mindful about what I eat. I know exactly what's going in my body and how much. How strange to learn that I can actually filter out what I put in. I don't have to be like a vacuum cleaner sucking up dirt and **** and quarters as if they were all the same. WE ACTUALLY CAN CHOOSE!!!