Do I really want to lose weight

Unfortunately, it won't happen if you don't try. Start with tiny steps (tracking your food regardless of what you eat) or walking for 30 minutes every day. If you try to do everything at once it can be overwhelming. Good luck.

I recommend any hobby you enjoy that is to a degree physically demanding. For example, I personally enjoy playing basketball and I go outside to shoot around for fun. If you find some sort of activity that you truly enjoy, it won't feel like you're putting in work. However, if you do find something, understand that this advice is not 100% of the solution, but it could be a good starting point in becoming more physically active.

If you don't put in the work it's not going to happen- sorry but that's life.

However I will say it's not really all that hard- you just set your calorie limit, log everything you eat, and don't eat more than you're supposed to. It's pretty simple.

Maybe you have a skewed idea of what the work is? You don't have to go super-low calorie or work out hard for hours every day. Just eat a little less, and if you can, move a little more. It works!

pajessie wrote: »

I want to lose weight but don't want to put the work in. How is this supposed to happen???

I felt the same way. Not that I didn't want to put in work, since I never really thought of losing weight as work, but I didn't want to change my lifestyle. I really loved my lifestyle. The solution for me was to lose weight very slowly. I gained it slowly over about 9 years so I decided to only make small changes. It took me a little over a year to lose 30 lbs., but I did it. And I've kept it off for about a year now. And I didn't have to make any big changes. And I still love my lifestyle.

I think you are at the beginning of the weight-loss process: I want to lose weight but I don't want to put in the effort. I've been there, and it is a tipping point. Either you commit to losing weight or you will gain more. I didn't commit to losing weight and continued gaining until I weighed 328 pounds.

Don't do what I did.

Reality is that you don't have to lose enough weight to be 125 pounds. Or whatever your mind's ideal weight is. You only have to weigh less. What did you weigh January 1st of this year? 5 pounds less? 10 pounds? Start with that. If you combine exercise with dieting, you will see a lot of toning and you will look like you have lost more. I swim laps and lost LOTS of inches exactly where I needed it the most: hips, thighs, and tummy.

Decide what you want. And "all of it gone" is not one of your choices. Not at this point. Start with a small goal. Halloween is here, Thanksgiving is coming, and then Christmas. All three are dangerous times to gain 3 - 5 pounds, and somehow they never come off. Watching what you eat for the next three months should at least keep you from gaining weight. And you are cutting back on the amount of food you eat. You can still eat candy, pizza, soda, carbs, etc; You just can't eat all you want at every meal.

You are interested in changing your life. Now is a good time to do it. Good luck.

Why do you want to lose weight in the first place? Might want to start there. Seems to me the reason is not strong enough. Seems to me your health and well-being is not the priority here and you probably want to lose weight for more superficial reasons. Losing weight and being healthy is a life long commitment. If your head is not in the right place you won't be successful.

I didn't start out at MFP to lose weight... I was exploring the IDEA of losing weight, and I wanted to get an idea of how many calories I was eating. I needed some data - to see if I was going to have to do a Siberian Death Camp type of program to lose a few pounds. I really had NO idea of how many calories I was eating on a daily basis, and I was afraid it might be A LOT.

I plugged in my numbers - put in 1 lb a week as my "goal" and just started tracking what I was eating. I was brutally honest about what I was putting into my mouth... I wanted the data to be realistic and useful, so when in doubt, I assumed I was eating a larger portion, rather than a smaller one, and that whatever I was eating was the highest calorie version, rather than the lowest. I wanted the data to err on the side of showing TOO many calories in, rather than too few.

Even using that method, I was shocked to find out how little I was over the calories in goal on a daily basis... it didn't take that much, at least in the beginning, to be under what MFP said I should be. It was almost a compulsion for me to be under that goal, if all I had to do was use a little less butter, or skip that sugary latte.

The exercise was something I had been meaning to get back to, anyway - so... I started going to the gym a couple of times a week... I carved out an hour and used it for myself, to do what I knew I should be doing to make sure I didn't sink into my couch and disappear. Later, I started to weigh and measure foods, and use the recipe calculator - to get a more accurate number for Calories In...

I lost a pound here, a pound there... it was all pretty painless... and hey, that is what everybody wants, right? Weight loss that doesn't mean you have to starve yourself, or take every moment of your waking life?

So, you might try just putting in a really low loss number as your "goal" - half a pound a week? - and just start tracking your calories. Eat whatever you have been eating, and just keep track. You might find, like I did, that you aren't that far off the mark in your every day eating.... that drinking water, instead of cola, might let you hit the mark. Or even just using a thinner smear of butter, on your bread. Besides, if you add a little activity, you get to eat more... if you add that activity every day, you get to eat more, every day!

And so what if it's slow? Because, really, in a month - you can either weigh 2 lbs less, or you can stay the same, or even weigh more. IF you can weigh even a little bit less, without too much trauma, why would you NOT? 2 lbs a month is 24 pounds in a year... and you might find, like I did, that really small changes can add up to pretty decent results.

32 pounds in 7 months - about a pound a week - shockingly, the "goal" I set for myself when I was just trying to get an idea of how many calories I was actually eating.

And I had Tacos for dinner tonight. They were NOT lowfat, low sodium, or low carb. They were in no way diet food. You don't have to stop eating everything that you love - you just have to plan for it.

So... gather the data, find out what you are eating, and what it will take to lose. Then you can decide whether your good health and your future quality of life is worth giving up that daily Carmel Frappe.