Starting over Attempt 143

Hello and welcome!

Besides Sollyn's good suggestion to join one of the challenges in that area, there are also some good groups/threads in the Motivation and Support section you could consider. (There are a few others spread around elsewhere, but they're the most common in those two sections.)

Some of the Challenges area ones are biking or steps (walk/run/jog) so could be just the thing for you to connect with some like-minded people.

Just out of curiosity, since you mention this being attempt number 143 (which I'm not taking exactly literally ): What method(s) did you use before, and what did you learn from that that will influence your new plan this time (in part since the previous rounds don't seem to have gotten you to the full success of a permanent stay at your desired weight)?

People vary, but we do see some here who seem to believe that extremely restrictive eating rules and very intense daily exercise are the only road to meaningful weight loss, but I don't think that's true for most of us. Slower loss with a focus on finding relatively-easy new habits (both eating and activity) seem like the more common pattern among people here who've lost quite a bit of weight, then stayed at a healthy weight for a good span of time afterwards.

Personally, I was overweight to obese for around 30 years, the last dozen years of which I was also routinely athletically active (for fun, not in pursuit of weight loss). When I finally got serious about finding new eating habits, it took me just under a year to lose to a healthy weight from 5'5" and 183 pounds (BMI 30.4, a bit above your BMI 28.3, just as a rough relative comparison). I've been at a healthy weight for 8 years since, same jeans size, 131.8 pounds (BMI 21.9) this morning.

I figure that if a hedonistic aging hippie flake like me can do it, most any sensible adult is going to be able to do it, too, if they commit to it. For sure, the quality of life improvement is worth the effort, IME.

I'm cheering for you to succeed!