I'm just starting as well, and I am making small adjustments. Getting rid of pepsi was the first. Replacing it with water, and/or veggies. I eat more small meals during the day. I work straight days, and have a 3 year old at home, so I work out before work. I did add more protein to my diet. I say if you don't know where to start, then start small. Replace one bad thing you like to eat or drink with one healthy thing, and get moving. Not necessarily the gym, but walk around the block for starters.
Be patient until others read this. You will get valuable knowledge from some of these people!

Here are a couple of threads about my journey that might be helpful since they pertain to being a Larger Loser:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10722305/my-new-normal/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10731694/after-a-year-over-150lbs-lost-learned-a-few-things/p1

Here is an example of one of the ways I customized a plan for myself:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10735146/the-six-day-calorie-deficit-aka-banking-calories/p1

Hi!

When I'm done, I will have hopefully lost 120 pounds. (That's my first goal, anyway, in the middle of my healthy bmi). With that said, it's a daunting number! How can anyone ever lose so much?! At least, those are the thoughts that swirled in my head after I realized that I needed to make a change.

Now, the first thing my husband and I did was go to the gym. All we needed to do was exercise, right? Well right around the time I was having this epiphany (after seeing a picture of me at Disneyland during the Christmas holidays), I noticed that one of my FB friends seemed a lot thinner. And I asked her if she was doing something different. We chatted about weight loss and how much she lost and how she did it. It was also at this time that another friend pointed me towards MFP which unlocked this idea that my food is a much bigger part of the equation than I thought.

All of these factors eventually lead me down a road towards weight loss. I started in 2012 and I'm still trying to get to my final goal in 2019, and might not really hit it until 2020.

My best advice is to find what works for you. Experiment. Enjoy the experiment. It's not going to come off quickly or easily, so get into that mindspace now so that you can set realistic expectations with yourself. I am much happier now than I was 7 years ago, though 7 years ago, this mountain seemed insurmountable. It wasn't and I found ways to be joyful along the journey. If you like the gym, go to the gym. If you like walks, go for walks. Find the foods you enjoy and experiment with eating less of them.

I'm a super picky eater and I would NEVER last on any prescribed diet (especially with all my additional food allergies) so I manage my food by eating less of it. I have found that I like bigger dinners than I do lunches, so I keep my lunches light and small (prevents food coma at work, plus!) and eat the bulk of my calories for dinner. I don't give up the things I love (except where I can't eat them anymore due to allergies), but I'm also not a food person. I consumed the bulk of my calories in liquid form (Starbucks, sodas, etc). So I don't have the same lure to food that some do. Coffee??? That's a whole different story. XD I have to limit that and the few foods I could mindlessly eat (peanut M&Ms, granola... XD). Growing up, I could have lived on a food pill, otherwise as I never LIKED eating, so my struggles here won't align with many others.

The most important piece of advice I can give anyone starting out is this: "There's no wrong answer once you find out what works for you." Caveat being of course that the answer needs to be mindfully driven and health-focused, not super low calorie diets, etc. YOU know yourself better than anyone else. What foods you like. What motivates you. What brings you joy.

* Do the things for your health that bring you joy. (I love hiking and walking and swimming and so I do them).
* Eat the things that bring you joy in moderate amounts based on a calorie goal. (I am constantly adjusting my calorie goal based on TDEE and my own observed experience. Ex: I eat way less on the weekdays so I can eat more on the weekends. I treat my calories like money and I go over and I go under. I pay the piper when I go over and suck it up and move onto the next day)
* Holidays and vacations are special! Don't fear them! Life is about living, so learning to live with ups and downs is important.
* Whatever else I can say in this, the most salient point is this: Find what works for you. Listen to others, explore your options, and when you find what works for you... do it.


I like to gamify my experience. So for me, I mark milestones in "bosses" or "dragons" to defeat. I've conquered my dragonpants (the smallest pants I'd worn before I'd regained the 20lbs). I've conquered mental dragons and dress dragons and other "bosses", gaining more experience along the way. This makes it "fun" for me.

Oh oh oh! I also take a bunch of pictures of myself. Change is VERY slow to see, so I keep a folder of weight loss pictures by year. I take one progress picture at least once a week. I also have a spreadsheet I use to track my measurements. Often the place we want to see change the most is the one that doesn't change. So I track measurements all over my body so I can see okay, I've changed half an inch here. I use my progress pictures to see change when I can't see it in the mirror. Every day I try to find one positive thing to tell myself, even if it only, "I am farther than where I was 2 years ago."

You can't fail if you keep putting one foot in front of the other and pushing forward.

Okay so this got way way way longer than I intended... sorry for the MASSIVE wall of text, but maybe something I've said will help you and/or spark ideas. Good luck! Perseverance, habit, and a positive attitude even in the face of overwhelming odds are key to success!

@NovusDies Thank you!! I am really glad I took the plunge to join!

I am more than happy to share any and all experience I've had if it might help even one person. Even the points that aren't so awesome!

One more thing I wanted to add: Losing weight does nothing on mental clarity. I am STILL struggling to see me as me and not me as 40 pounds ago. At least I no longer see the 100+lb of me, but this is why pictures can be so important. You can put your thumb over your head to abstract "yourself" from your brain and see a little bit clearer picture. OR, that might just be me. XD But if I don't think I'm me, I'm astounded by what I see!

My beginning was similar to the others here. I am a picky eater... I joke that I eat like a typical 10 year old (kids menu type items... just more of them). So, any diet I ever tried that limited what I could eat always always failed & the more limited, the quicker it failed. So, this time I decided I needed something that would let me eat whatever I wanted. I bought a food scale, signed up with MFP and decided to give it a try. I also decided to start walking my dog (until it got stupid hot!). I'm only 45 days in, but I don't have the mental fatigue I had on previous attempts. The only thing I'm having to consciously fight is my perfectionism tendencies. I obsess about finding the right things to log, especially when I'm eating out somewhere that doesn't provide nutrition info & when I bank calories, I log those foods on the days I left the bank so all the days show up as at or under my goal. This is something I know I need to work on, but... baby steps!

I have found that I am now much more aware of the choices I make and I will more often order the grilled nuggets instead of fried or the blackened tenders instead of the spicy crispy ones (and have found that I actually like the blackened ones better!). I still eat whatever I want as long as it fits in my calories for the day/week.

I really like that I feel like I haven't changed much at all. 45 days logging.. 15 lbs down, 150ish? to go.

@jafinnearty Do it! Use it! Whatever makes it fun, and engaging, is what will make it stick! Because if you find ways to enjoy something, you find ways and excuses to DO that thing you enjoy.

Go be bold! Be excited! We only get this one life, might as well feel epic living it!

Good luck and you're welcome! Get out there and tame more of them dragons!