HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!!

Did you do the set-up for this website and get a calorie goal?

If no, do that. I'll wait.

Now that you've done that, start logging your food in the food diary on this site. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Do that for a week.

Once you've done that, look back over your food diary. Where can you make small changes that you can sustain? Can you maybe switch one soda per day for water? Do that while you continue to log all your food/drink. Do that until it is normal. Look back over your log again. Where can you make another small, sustainable change? Incorporate that one. Rinse and repeat.

Plug your stats into MFP on your profile page (height, weight, activity level, how much per week you want to lose).

It will give you a calorie target. Stick to it. Even if you think it's a little high/low. Weight loss is a marathon not a sprint. It took you time to get to your current weight. It's going to take time for it to come off. Don't rush it. Running too aggressive a deficit (i.e. eating too little) often leads to going off the rails and binging.

The calorie target doesn't include your exercise. If you exercise, you are expected to eat back the calories burned. (Because MFP can overestimate calories burned, try eating back 50-75% to start with. If, after a month, you're not losing as much as you should be or think you're losing too fast, adjust).

Log what you eat. The first week, don't get hung up on calories, just track what you're putting into your mouth. Next week, look it over and see if there are small changes you feel able to make. (Maybe a bit less dressing on your salad. Salsa instead of butter on your baked potato. More veggies and less oil in your stir-fry.) Nothing too drastic. Just... small cuts you can make that don't make you feel deprived.

Invest in a good food scale. It's more accurate than measuring cups for solid foods. Cups are ok for liquids.

If there are foods that you know you can't be trusted around, don't keep more in the house than you're going to eat. I don't buy one-lb bags of jellybeans anymore. I might buy a 1-oz "fun-sized" pack. That being said, as long as you're in a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight. So if there are treats that you CAN moderate, or if you decide that, for example, you're not going to keep ice cream in your freezer, but you still want to go to the ice cream parlor once a week and get a single scoop in a cup? Enjoy! (A lot of people will recommend that you split your calories 80/20: 80% nutrient-dense "healthy" foods, 20% treats. I don't calculate so exactly, but I do eat a reasonably balanced diet.)

DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED!!!!!!!

Weight loss isn't linear. Some weeks you will do everything right and the scale won't show it. Some weeks you'll be sure you went completely off-track and you'll be down two pounds. And some weeks, the scale will behave as expected. We retain water at certain points in our monthly cycles. Or often when starting a new exercise program. Or during stressful times. It passes. Don't panic.

Feel free to friend me if you like.

You can do this.

(signed)

A 5'3" 149-lb woman who weighed 254lbs just over 18 months ago.

Just popping in here to lend you my love and support. All the advice here so far is exactly how you get started. Just don't stop trying.

mkculs wrote: »

You have lots of time to make this work.

Please don't overlook this sentence. It's easily as important as every bit of good advice from @estherdragonbat and @quiksylver296 Don't try to fence your health into the unrelenting and unforgiving calendar. You have the rest of your life to strike the right balance. The key is to do a little better, every day, forever. You can do this, I'm sending a friend request so I can watch you shrink

Well, by asking for help, you did the best thing to start. There are 100's of us on here that have lost substantial amounts of weight, personally I've lost 175lbs and I'm not even close to what some people have lost (a few have lost well over 300lbs), so you can do this.

Step 1. Get yourself a food scale. Start learning how to measure foods. Ask if you're unsure. There are little tricks people use that can be very helpful.

Step 2. Work on logging EVERYTHING!!! Do your best as we've all made logging errors, especially when first starting. After a while it gets easier. Use the first week or two as a baseline to work on your logging, look at your diary and see where you can make small tweeks. One less slice of cheese, chicken breast instead of thighs, lower calorie bread for a sandwich. This way you feel as if you're eating the same, yet are lowering calories overall.

Step 3. Set you goal to "maintenance". If you keep gaining weight, then stopping the gain, IS A SUCCESS!!! When you get comfortable eating at maintenance, start slowly reducing your calories. When you can eat just below maintenance every day and don't feel deprived, then set a weight loss goal. I would start at 1/2lb per week. Then every time you feel comfortable with what you're eating, increase the rate to lose weight. Repeat this until you find it too much, then just go back to where you're comfortable.

Changing your entire lifestyle all at once is extremely difficult and nearly impossible to sustain. Changing one thing is easy. Turning that one change into a habit, is what slowly changes your lifestyle. Every time you make a small change and it becomes your new normal, make another change. These small changes add up over time, a lot!!!!!

Don't worry about setbacks and bad days, we've all had them. Bad days just means that you are human, there are about 8 billion of us, so you're not alone. I've had more than I can count, but I never quit, and that's why I am having long term success.

Make goals. Make small doable goals, and a few big ones. What works for me is a poster board. I list 25 different goals, everything from "lose 5lbs" to "walk for 20 minutes" have been and are some of my goals. Every time you achieve one, cross it off. Having a visual of every success, no matter how small is a reminder of how good you really are doing.

Reward yourself. It doesn't have to be anything big. Everything from "socks (I have a thing for whimsical socks) to "two hours of me time" are my rewards.

Diets don't work. Now, if you need a specific diet to get you started, do that. But, unless you can keep a "diet" forever, when you get off that diet is when diets fail. Some people do vegan, some keto, some Adkins, some just follow CICO without and specific diet plan. Do what works for you, remember CICO really does work, but if you need something to help you stay under your caloric recommendations, do it.

It takes time. A lot of time. Read success stories of people that have lost a lot, then read how long it took them to lose the weight. I took 2 years to drop 170lbs. I took a year off to do a body recomp, I made so many small changes that became my habits that I didn't have to work at not gaining the weight back.

Unless you are legitimately allergic, have an intolerance to, or other medical issues regarding a food, there are no "bad" foods. Just eat the high calorie/low nutrition value stuff in moderation. Don't deny yourself, that's generally when cravings hit. I love candy, Snickers in particular. My trick: buy regular size bars, cut them in half, place them in baggies and freeze them. It takes a lot longer to gnaw through a frozen Snickers than a room temperature one. Because they are halved, I end up eating half the calories (~110 calories) while getting my sweet tooth satisfied.

Feel free to add me. And I hope this helps, you can do this!