Weight loss

My experience using the app has been ultra-positive. I was overweight/obese for around 30 years, most of my adult life, started using MFP a bit over 10 years ago, lost around 50 pounds in just under a year, have been at a healthy weight and in the same jeans size for 9+ years since. The quality of life benefits, for me, have been huge.

When it comes to motivation, my best advice is to make the easiest-to-follow possible plan that gradually leads to weight loss, learning and practicing new permanent habits along the way.

"Lose weight fast" is a trap. It requires more motivation, and it's harder to stick with long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight. On top of that, it doesn't give as much opportunity to learn those permanent, positive habits that will help a person stay at a healthy weight long term.

Too many people arrive here with an extreme plan, trendy named diet, punitively intense daily exercise, no treats, all superfoods - that kind of thing. That doesn't usually end well, but most often seems to end quickly. None of those things are essential for weight loss, either.

Maybe those people with radical plans leave MFP and succeed with their intended total lifestyle instant revolution, but the number of "I'm back having regained" posts in the Introductions section makes me skeptical that that's common. Therefore, I'm advocating an easier, gradual plan instead.

I'm a hedonistic aging-hippie flake with a strictly limited budget of motivation, willpower or discipline. I'm not going to rely heavily on those things for weight loss, and I for sure can't keep them up for the whole rest of my life. Since I want to stay at a healthy weight for any years I have left, "gradually find and practice new, more positive habits" worked a lot better than "lose weight fast". It's an entirely different mindset.

Best wishes for success: It's worth the effort it takes to achieve!