Obese

You can lose weight if you commit to the process, and doing that will be easier and more achievable if you choose a non-extreme path.

How to do it? Set up your MFP profile, pick a moderate weight loss rate rather than crazy fast, start logging your food honestly and fully in your MFP food diary. Gradually work your way toward your calorie goal, making manageable changes to your portion sizes, frequency of eating high calorie foods, and that sort of thing.

In parallel with that, notice which foods or timing of eating helps you stay mostly full and happy more of the time, and eat in those ways more often. That will make it easier to stay the course. Keep reviewing your food log, gradually making positive changes. Stick with it. You'll succeed.

If you have an off day here or there, don't let that stress you. Learn from it. Why did it happen? Spend just a few minutes adjusting your plan going forward so it's less likely to happen again. It's like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups, a series of experiments. Not all experiments work out as we'd anticipated. The right thing to do is learn from that, adjust the plan, and go on.

If you make a plan, keep improving it, mostly stick with it, you'll gradually lose the weight. Also, and maybe more important, I'm pretty sure that it will help you realize that you can set goals in various areas of life, and patiently put in the work to accomplish them. That's powerful and empowering. You are stronger than you know, and if you put in effort, you will surprise yourself with what you can accomplish, and that will change your life. I'm not exaggerating.

I have to be real, though: I'm concerned about you. I can understand that you're overweight, even obese. I've been there. But you sound deeply self-critical. I'd encourage you to seek a way to value your current self, because that will help you invest the persistent effort it will take to make positive changes in your life.

Lots of things can improve as you lose weight, at least that's what lots of people here have found. Will you be prettier if you lose weight? I don't know.

What I do know is the we see people here somewhat often who do lose weight, but are still deeply self-critical. They simply find a new thing about themselves that they think makes them not enough, lets them devalue themselves. That self-criticism can really be a separate issue, one that both complicates weight management, and seriously hinders overall quality of life. Please give that some thought, and consider ways to make that more positive, too. If that includes consulting a professional that helps with difficult thought-patterns, there should be no more stigma about that than consulting a dietitian if we need help with nutrition. It's worth the effort.

Best wishes!