Successful Diet Plan

I ALSO NEED TO LOSE ABOUT 100 POUNDS AND I KNOW I MAY NOT BE THE BEST AT THIS BUT I HAVE FOUND THAT IF I USE ONE DAY A WEEK TO GIVE ME A CHEAT DAY I AM OK. NOW I DO NOT GO WAY OVER MY CALORIES BUT I WILL GO OVER BY ABOUT 200 CAL. THIS HELPS MY BODY NOT GET USE TO THE SAME SCHEDULE ALL THE TIME.

I also am new to this - nearly 3 mos - but I've been more successful than I ever have, and I now know why I failed in previous attempts. So I will share that with you. These things do not override what anyone else has said, someone previously had a lot of great ideas.
1. Set realistic goals and expectations. In the first month, I set my exercise goal at 3x/week for 30 mins burning 300 calories. I figured, I can do that. And I did, and exceeded my goals in that. So I upped it - a little - the second month. And so on. Now my goals are set a big higher and I have to actually work to reach them, but they are attainable.
2. Have a realistic eating plan. This "1200 calories a day" crap - people who are overweight by a lot will probably not be successful at eating 1200 cals per day, for several reasons. One being you're feeling deprived, and so you will eventually fail, and secondly, your body may rebel and not lose the weight you want to anyway. MFP's settings seem to be realistic, so set your goal to lose 1 pound a week, eat the calories it says for the days you don't work out and eat the workout calories on the days you do. Eventually you can start to drop the calorie count, but you may find it pretty difficult (I did) in the beginning to stick to them. If you go over, don't beat yourself up, start again. Just because you've had one donut and "ruined" your diet anyway doesn't mean you should go ahead and have 6 more.
3. Remove temptation. If there's always bagels and donuts at your work break room, start taking your breaks somewhere else. If you have junk food at home for the rest of the family, you'll be tempted. Your family can live without chips and ice cream, except as an occassional treat.
5. Make it easier on yourself to suceed with food. Have pre-prepared snacks so when you want something now, you can have it now, whether it be a 100 calorie pack of something, a snack bag of cut up veggies, whatever. I have a problem with lunches, after feeding my kids and getting them settled, I'm starving, and I don't want to prepare something for me. So I prepare it the day before, making 2 or 3 of something and that covers my lunches for a few days. And in the beginning, so what if you buy pre-prepared stuff, yeah, it'll be high in sodium, longterm bad stuff, but in the short term - you want to succeed and that will help. Read the packages and make sure it's good for you. Whatever your worst time is, prepare for that in advance. If cutting up tons of veggies is a chore to you, buy the pre-cut up ones. Eventually you'll be doing it on your own, but the key here, is success when it's hard.
6. Drink your water. Really.
7. Nothing is "off" your list of what you can eat. Until you can make good choices, maybe you can only allow yourself 1 dark chocolate 60 cal stick a day... but you can still have chocolate. It's all about having a reasonable amount. Do your research ahead of time, though, if you are going to eat out, and even log your food for the entire day in advance so you know where you are.
8. This is probably the most important. Why do you eat? Based on your description, it's not to fuel your body. It's not because ooh that smells good let me have some. There's an emotional reason there. I'm not judging you, I say this from someone who is still working on it! If you consistently fail after 2 weeks, and always find an excuse, then there's an emotional reason. In order to be successful long term, you have to find that problem and fix it. It might require actual therapy, a weight loss support group, a self help book, or just some deep thinking. Keep a food journal (physical, not just the online one) and on one page write what you ate and on the opposite page write what you're feeling. You may find triggers that make you eat, things that make you turn to food for comfort. Either you're failing to lose weight because you don't feel you deserve to be healthy, pretty, thin, whatever, or you're failing because it meets a need in your emotional/mental life and you haven't found a different way to meet that need.
9. Be accountable to someone for what you eat and for your exercise. It can be online, in person, whatever. Just someone that you are accountable to and has the right to chew your butt if you don't go to the gym when you said you would (not in a bad way, but a get your butt in gear way).

So why am I 44 years old and still fat if I know all this? Mostly because I have learned these things in the last 3 mos! I had always set unreasonable goals for myself, working out too much, depriving myself of stuff I really enjoyed. Once I set reasonable goals, and started to suceed, I was able to make better choices. I had french fries a few weeks ago, first time since I started, didn't know the calorie count, got home, logged it, and went oh, it so wasn't worth that much time on the treadmill. Other things are worth that extra time.

Also, after being on this for 2 months, we (I'm making hubby eat what I eat) realized after eating my son's birthday cake and getting seriously sick - that we're detoxified. Those things we used to eat (yes, I used to be able to eat a whole cake) actually were making us sick and feel bad. So that one piece of cake made us sick! It was a shocker. And those things just don't appeal to me at all anymore.

I also have learned I eat out of boredom (a lot, I'm a stay at home mom) and stress. I've stopped most of the boredom eating because I don't sit in front of the tv like I used to. And when I do, I have stuff to eat that is good for me. And the stress eating, well, on bad days I go over my calories by 200 but that's still a lot better than I used to. I don't eat the bad stuff when I'm doing it either. I have a cupboard filled with junk food for my kids and I never touch it, it doesn't appeal to me anymore. My latest cravings are coffee... which is funny, I"ve never liked coffee... so my treat is a non fat light yadda yadda once in a while.

Here's a thread with lots of answers to your questions.

:flowerforyou:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/41685-how-it-s-done-tips-from-me-to-you

adopt4--wow--you gave tons of level-headed advice. thank you for sharing!

and swimfit--you will succeed!

Idealy I'd like to lose 70 lbs in total but I'll settle for 55 or 60 lbs. So far I've lost 22.4. I also used to lose motivation in the past and go off. I think one of the biggest changes i made is to not focus on the big picture. Every time I do it I always focus on how much weight in total I have to lose and it just depresses me and seems soooo far off and so impossible, when I have 50 lbs to lose and I step on the scale and lose 1.3, it used to set me over the edge. Now I don't focus on the big number at all. When people ask me how much I want to lose, I try to avoid it. I look at the day/week ahead of me and that's my focus, when I work hard all week and then lose 1.3 I'm proud that my weeks work had + results. I have to honestly say that it makes a huge difference concentrating on the week and not the big picture. I also finally realized that the next year is going to pass regardless of if I lose weight or not so I migt as well spend it losing weight. We all have drawbacks, I have days that I have less motivation then others but then I concentrate on what I lost and I think about the next weigh in, not past it and it really helps you. Take one day/week at a time. I'm doing weight watchers and the weekly meetings help also

Well, I seem to fall off the wagon during those times. What I needed to remember is one day of eating badly does not mean I have to keep eating that way. It was one day. After that day is over get right back on the wagon. Another thing I have always had issues with is portion size. I found that watching my portion size makes a HUGE difference.

I have a good idea without measuring what is an acceptable portion for the calories I eat for a day. I have had a box of thin mints at my desk at work for at least a month. Each day I take out 4 cookies which is one serving. That is what I keep it at. This is teaching me I need to have self control. It is really working for me.