Anyone else focusing on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques? Friend me!

Hey there. So I've been off and on for the past few years and have struggled to lose the weight and keep it off. This past month I had a health scare. My fasting blood sugar, which was 83 in May of this year, suddenly shot up to 107 this November. The day after that, it was 100, and the day after that, it was 111.

Not such scary numbers for someone who is older, but I'm only 34. Plus, diabetes runs in my family and I've seen firsthand how terrible it is. I have an aunt who is a lot like me - very heavy/obese, and also very active and hardworking and focused on her career, with a big appetite for heaping servings of reasonably healthy food, and for her the disease progressed rapidly. The doctors said it was rare for diabetes to show up and progress as rapidly as it did for her. Now she's in her early 60's and has lost use of her legs.

I've been lucky so far to be an obese person who's been suffering no real secondary health issues, but now that this is finally catching up to me at an alarming speed and I'm prediabetic, I'm recommitting myself to losing this weight in a healthy way.

I know I have the knowledge and understanding and means to lose the weight, but have given in to the mental/emotional/psychological barriers that have made it hard for me to lose the weight. In the past I've done lots of things to address that, like mindfulness and meditation, and it's helped a little, but not enough.

I just picked up a book called The Beck Diet, which isn't a diet in itself, but a set of cognitive behavioral techniques to instill a positive association with all the healthy habits I'm trying to have so that they stay and become autoamted.

For example, periodically celebrating myself for small healthy choices each day is something I've refused to do in the past because it makes me feel to foolishly self congratulatory. But now I'm trying to do that, and will do it on my MFP feed as well.

Anyway, I'd love to have some more MFP friends. Let's support each other!