gained

so stop doing these diets and start focusing on making meaningful changes to your lifestyle and start developing healthful habits. maintaining a healthy weight is simply a bi product of good livin'.

Start with small changes. Log the food you currently eat here then see where you can improve. Just start eating a little less of what you're eating now. Every small change you make will give you the momentum and confidence to set and reach a new goal. Too many big changes at once is overwhelming and not sustainable, generally.

What "diets" have you tried? Were there things you did like about them? Things you did not? It's all very individualized and requires trial and error.

Then quit "dieting" and learn how to eat in order to lose weight and keep it off. Seriously. The dieting mentality is the problem. Whatever you do to lose weight is what you need to do for the rest of your life. If you are doing something only to lose weight thinking that you only have to do that until you get to goal, you will continue to gain back whatever you lose. I know that sounds harsh, but I speak from experience. I dieted over and over again, only to gain back anything I had lost, plus more.

I finally figured out that I needed to eat in such a way that I was satisfied, happy and could continue the practice forever. I now treat my calories like money. I have so many I can "spend" and I budget them accordingly, making sure to fit in the foods that I enjoy. I eat mostly a diet high in veggies, fruit, lean proteins and whole grains, but I make room for pizza, burgers, chocolate and French fries. It's all just a balancing act, but it becomes easier and easier over time. The biggest changes I made were logging *everything* I eat and using a food scale to measure all of my portions. I still eat all the same things though. I also sometimes exercise and sometimes don't. Losing weight is all about food, not exercise. Exercise for a million other fantastic reasons, just don't do it for weight loss.

For me, it will be 4 years in March since I started and I've lost 103 pounds. This is the first time I feel like I've been successful and can continue and maintain my loss.