Please remind me that slow and steady wins the race....

Actually, the statistics show that, no matter how, fast/slow, or the diet you use, to lose the weight, within 5 years, the vast majority of people gain the weight back. Some gain even more back. It takes persistent effort, to keep weight off, longterm.

As someone who also started well over 300 lbs., think about what your pace of weight loss is for a year. You would lose about 95 lbs., which even for a bigger person, is quite a large amount.

I have been in your situation.. 200 lbs.. that will take FOREVER to lose. That's a whole person. I was 361, and I kept giving up after 30 lbs., and gaining back weight, so it has taken me years. Finally, I just asked what works, that i could follow long term, and I am just focused on progress. One of my favorite quotes is " If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress. "

Now, I'm 256 lbs., and still making progress, but you have a choice.. worry about not losing FAST enough, and then get off the " right path ".. which has you losing almost 2 lbs. a week, or just stick to it, and be stunned in a year by how much you lose.

Whatever you are doing right now, is working, so just repeat.. stay on the right path, and the success will add up.. 44 lbs, in 24 weeks, 66 lbs. in 36 weeks.. sure you will slow down eventually, so it might not be the same every 12 weeks, but just keep making progress, walking down the path, and eventually you will get to you destination.

In the end, option 2 is rarely better. We quit what we perceive to be a mediocre plan, and end up on a plan where we stop losing, then regain. If you think.. this isn't good enough, ask yourself, what is option 2? What do you switch TO, and are you sure it is better? If not, then you are choosing to not have as much success.

So stop and think. You know it's working.. you just want the end to get here, and are aware it could take a year and a half.

The good news, and what you should focus on, is every 10-20 lbs. you lose, will make you feel a whole lot better. This isn't a 2 year, 200 lb. battle.. it's a month at a time, with rewards due to the 5-8 lbs. you lose each month. Better breathing, better mobility, better health, and the ability to do things you couldn't a month or 2 before.

Think of small goals, and hit them, and create successes that you can think about, while you are working through this. I tend to use physical goals, since I have congestive heart failure.. sure weight loss is important, but you are losing weight, to DO something, to be healthier.. one goal may be to look great at goal, but along the way, no one says.. Wow. I'm 280, look at me!! You will feel good for the loss, and will see change, but the successes I set, were things like walking to the mailbox, getting off oxygen, walking a mile, being able to play basketball with my friends. I lost 105 lbs., but my success is from what that has allowed me to do, not by the number on the scale. These goals can be tiny, and SHOULD be. You want to feel success a LOT, so you don't think as much about the big picture, until a couple of months from now, and at that point, the results should look pretty good, if you allow them to accumulate.

In the end, you feel like a huge success, with victories every few days, and you focus on that, until one day you stop, and realize while you were doing all this, and enjoying life, you lost 100 lbs.

If you think about weight loss every day, you will burn out.. especially if you might need 2 years to reach goal. That's 730 days, thinking about one thing. No one can do that. Even on a job, you get weekends and vacations.

When your plan becomes more of a chore than a job, we tend to quit. It's a relief just not to have to think about it for a few days, right? Then 2-3 weeks later, up 1 lbs., you plan a re-start, for the 100th time.

Why not just make the focus on other things, and just keep doing the plan, but focus on the things your weight loss allows you to do, so you aren't doing math calculations in you head every morning, or happy/sad, based on what the scale says. It's easy to think about it constantly, if you lose a lb. a day, but there are going to be days with no loss or gains, and if the process is not fun, when that happens, your brain will tell you to just stop doing this to yourself.

Keep doing the plan, remember to enjoy life, and just don't think about numbers for a while. They add up just fine, if you aren't thinking of them.. I have never gained weight because I wasn't focused on it. You KNOW when you are going to gain any significant weight, because you most likely made a poor choice. It isn't going to sneak up on you.

You won't gain a bunch, or lose a bunch over the course of a few days, but also, if you aren't thinking of it all the time, you won't quit, because it is tiresome.

22 lbs. in 12 weeks is awesome. Congrats. Just keep doing what you are doing.

I've mentioned this on another post, but I'm losing at .5 lbs per week. I'm ok with this because I've never been able to maintain a loss and I'm learning how to eat sustainably now for the future.

Yesterday, I cleaned out all my too-big clothes and moved the next size smaller out of storage. For me, that is a milestone to celebrate, not so much what the scale shows.