Fresh new start

You've taken the right first step by signing up here and taking yourself to task. Just remember it's a lifestyle change that you have to implement and not just a diet until you reach your goal and then going back to your old bad habits.

Welcome aboard!

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.
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).

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.
OH sorry this is so long! But I forgot to say one thing - your body will plateau and get used to what you're doing roughly every month. That doesn't mean you've done ANYTHING wrong!! You haven't failed - in fact you've succeeded! Your body has adjusted to your new lifestyle! Then you need to change it up, whether you up your exercise, change the way you exercise, lower or up your calories, etc. there's lots of things you can do. I learned this when I first joined the gym and so at 3 mos I've never plateaued because about every month I change it up. That doesnt' mean I'm NOT going to plateau, I know I will! But that's another reason I failed in the past, I didn't know that was normal, I plateaued for 6 mos and it seemed nothing worked, and I gave up and gained half that weight back. Now I know what happened and what to do. And yeah, a plateau may last for awhile, and you may need to experiment to see how to shake up your body into losing weight again... but you can do it!

The larger you are, the easier it will be to lose in the beginning, the closer you get to your goal, the harder it will be. That's just life and if you're prepared for it emotionally you can push thru it.

Never, ever starve yourself to lose weight. The drinks, the meals... it will work only temporarily and once you get back into "real" life your body will put all that fat back on.