50 to lose or it's no cruise!

You have not given yourself much of a "time window" to reach that 50 lbs. weight loss goal. When a person pushes the limit in the short term goals, they often set themselves up for failure. I am pasting what I usually send to new MyFitnessPal friends to help them get on the right track. Hope it will help you too.


Welcome to my Heart Healthy World
The Making of the New You


Welcome to the beginning of your new, healthier lifestyle. You have embarked on a great program where you are the only one “in charge” of your own personally developed nutrition and exercise program on My Fitness Pal (MFP).

From my age of 18 until the present, more than a 55 year adult life span, I have lost and re-gained from between 30 to 75 pounds in my life so many times (the yo-yo dieting syndrome), if I had not done that I would weigh over 800 pounds (IF I was still alive).

On 15 November 2010, a good friend and I were visiting ladies in our church and I was telling her how depressed I was over my frustration in trying to stop being overweight. She told me how one of her adult sons (she & her husband raised 10 children) had lost a whole lot of weight using this free online food and exercise diary program. I went home that afternoon and checked the web site carefully and said, “YES”! I started the program the next morning.

From that first day, 16 November 2010, I started accurately weighing or measuring (depending upon the food/fluid item), leveling off all excess quantities & recording it all on MFP. You may look at my photos and statistics and scoff while thinking that I didn’t have very much weight to lose. Please consider this, 35 extra pounds on my short, very small body frame is not much different than 75 or even 100 extra pounds on a taller person with a larger body frame. It has taken me more than nine very long, very slow months to shed all but the last 1.1 pounds.

To begin, you should have the proper tools for accuracy and ease of staying with your program. Those are:

A digital food scale
An individual set of 4 measuring cups: ¼ c, 1/3 c, ½ c, 1 c
An individual set of measuring spoons: ¼ tsp., ½ tsp., 1 tsp., 1 tblsp.
A small, straight blade spatula or knife for leveling off all excess quantities

START THINKING DIFFERENTLY but do NOT think “diet”. Use the lighter, lower calorie mayonnaise (that has olive oil). Look at the various brands of lower calorie margarine spreads that also have olive oil. SHOP DIFFERENTLY in the SUPERMARKET. Allow a lot more time when you shop. Do NOT pick up items and put them in the shopping cart until you have carefully READ every single label. REMEMBER THIS: All ingredients are listed in order of highest quantity to lowest. If the first 4 items on the ingredients say: salt, sodium, corn syrup or any form of sugar, dextrose, maltose, or other sugar forms, buy something else. High sodium contents will prevent you from losing weight well & can cause water retention as well as cardiac overload. When we’re packing around all those extra pounds, our hearts are already over-worked. All our body systems work as a team so when one organ system is out of whack, so is everything else. Prepared or frozen foods are nearly always overloaded with sodium and fats. Low calorie is not always low sugar nor low fat. “Healthy” is not always labeled correctly. Once you become an avid “label reading shopper”, you will learn which items work best for you and which ones to avoid.

Beware of well-meaning family members, friends or even co-workers who think they know what is best for you. You are the only person who knows how you feel and what will help you become successful in achieving your personal healthy goal. I believe in your unique ability to be successful. You can and will succeed if you keep following your program faithfully by taking things one meal at a time/one day at a time on a continuous basis. I have had some former MFP users complain about “too much counting”. It does not take me any more extra time to take the proper measuring spoon to level off my single PORTION of mayonnaise or mustard that it used to by just dipping the spoon in the jar and dumping a lump of stuff on the plate, the food or the bread. Then we have, what I call, the “enablers”. Those are the people who consciously or even sub-consciously, are out to keep you from being successful. They’re the “Oh, just one little piece of this dessert I made just for you won’t hurt you”. Or, I made all your favorite recipes for your birthday, Christmas dinner, etc. Just tell them that you’ve developed some difficult ALLERGIES and are under medical supervision (do not tell them anything more than that). You don’t have to tell them that the “allergies” make you “break out in FAT”. Then we have the proverbial, “You’re getting so thin, you’re going to get sick and end up in the hospital” types. They may even try to carry on by telling medical horror stories how someone they knew who ended up dying because of blah, blah, etc. Change the subject quickly and keep the conversation light and comfortable.

MFP tells us how much of each items chosen is ONE PORTION. It is up to us to tell the computer how much of the portion we plan to have or did have. I call this program a “no brainer” because the computer does all the work for me. All I have to do is look up the item in the database and select the correct product. Watch out for all the idiots who’ve monkeyed around with the database by putting in their own screwball versions of many items. As you first begin, keep that product label handy as you do your food diary recording so you can check before you add that item to your diary. As time goes on, you’ll understand how this works better.

You will soon get into the mode of thinking of “eat this…not that” of the items that you enjoy having that are working to help you reach your successful heart healthy ultimate goal.

GOAL SETTING: Please be extra kind to yourself and not set impossible goals. Think in terms of short-term, reachable goals for now. I started by using Dr. Mehmet Oz’s “Just 10” program, i.e. thinking in terms of just reaching the next set of 10 pounds off short-term goal.

I’m personally in this for the “long haul”. That means, I will be doing this for the rest of my life as long as the program is available and I have the capability of using it. If I stop keeping a daily food diary or stop weighing, measuring, etc., I know that I’ll end up piling the fat pounds right back on and never get them off again. Last November, I was in a full-blown DIABETES state and was sick all the time. I refuse to put my body through that ever again.

You WILL be successful because you’re a WINNER. I strongly believe that and believe in your ability to keep on winning.

Remember, you are in charge~~~no one else can ever take your place!

I am going to steal this and use it if you don't mind. Well said.

You can do this, 50 lbs in 9 months is totally doable!!!! I will help you!