Love to hear about successes....but....

I agree with you. I would like to know if people are eating back all their exercise calories or not. I seem to be stuck because I have been. Just curious what everyone else is doing.

...speaking as someone who hasn't so much had to lose the weight as keep from gaining it, I can only say that it takes a TON of old-fashioned WILLPOWER to JUST SAY NO and keep your EYE ON THE PRIZE. I like to say that if if the fat gal inside me had her way, I'd weigh 300 pounds inside of a month and it's the truth. But. The SKINNY girl that I am and intend on staying keeps me under control and struggling to say NO NO NO to the constant temptations out there. NOTHING tastes as good as being fit and healthy feels. Good luck, all ya'll. Sending good energy. :-)

...speaking as someone who hasn't so much had to lose the weight as keep from gaining it, I can only say that it takes a TON of old-fashioned WILLPOWER to JUST SAY NO and keep your EYE ON THE PRIZE. I like to say that if if the fat gal inside me had her way, I'd weigh 300 pounds inside of a month and it's the truth. But. The SKINNY girl that I am and intend on staying keeps me under control and struggling to say NO NO NO to the constant temptations out there. NOTHING tastes as good as being fit and healthy feels. Good luck, all ya'll. Sending good energy. :-)

Well said!!!

I am eating lean proteins, no fried foods, as little processed foods as possible, avoiding "diet foods" and trying to get the majority of my carbs from fresh fruits and fresh or frozen veggies.

I am glad to share. I will start my saying that I have lost my weight without exercise. I am unable to because of numerous physical issues. So in my opinoin, these are the things that helped me the most.

I alway have 12 eight oz. glasses of water every day, sometimes as many as 20. But 12-14 is the norm.
I hardly every eat out and do my best to not eat processed foods because of the high sodium levels. Although my diary recommends 2500 mg of sodium I try to stay around 1500.
I eat frequently, usually about every 2 1/2 to 3 hours but small meals or healthy snacks.
I have very few sweets, but occasionally PB & J made with sugarless jam.
Then I eat baked potatoes it is only a small amount and without butter or topping, with the exception of when I have baked potato with 2 tbls of Wolf Brand chili with no beans. It gives a nice chili flavor without adding a lot of sodium.
I eat mostly baked chicken or Fish (baked or fried in olive oil)

Please feel free to look at my food diary and see my meals. I hope this works for you as well as it has for me. My last checkup the Dr was amazed at my progress in both weight loss and overall health. All my bloodwork was norm or high norm except for low electrolytes and High uric acid (I have gout) (I add Smartwater and Gaterade sometimes to up my electolyte levels)

let me know if you have questions. I am not the most knowledgeable person here, but I have learned these things from other and my experience has been good overall

what worked for me, just taking one day at a time. there will be some goods weeks and some bad weeks.. it took me 6 yrs to lose my weight. now its off for a year. i won't say it was easy. just keep tracking, exercise, drink your water and take in one step at a time. you don't want to the weight to come off too fast.

I love to read about everyone's successes. I absolutely love to see before and after pics. But for those of us still struggling, how about some info on what worked for you. What exactly, with details, did you do? We can be inspired when we read it... we can be super inspired when we see the pics... but we can be super duper inspired when it comes with instructions. I know what works for one will not work for all, but it may work for someone. So how about it? Little help here?

Well...since I think I finally found what is gonna work for me I will share my experience so far...

I have been focused, driven and on task fully with this since the end of September. By that I mean I have not been overindulging, make excuses or looking for ways out like I used to. I truly was ready to get this weight off for good and was working out and eating right consistently! My husband is a personal trainer, so needless to say that aspect of things is well dialed in and taken care of. My struggle has ALWAYS been my eating habits. We have three kids and the habit of eating off plates, snacking while I am putting together lunches, and eating their snacks was doing me in. I also work night shift and I had a tendancy to eat out of boredom ALOT. Especially sugary snacks because I felt like they helped me stay awake when I started to fade.

So...I was eating what I thought were all the right things....lean protein, good fats (ie olive oil, avacado etc), veggies, fruit and what I thought were good starchy carbs like brown rice, whole wheat pasta, quinoa, oatmeal etc. I personally steered clear of bread & potatoes the majority of the time because I felt they worked against me. But, after almost 4 months I had not even reached the 20lb mark. I was averaging 2-3 lbs a month loss and the scale was all over the place.

Within the last week I have started following the paleo/primal way of eating. Eliminating all starchy carbs and pretty much processed food period. I am eating lots of lean meats, fats from olive oil, coconut oil, butter (yep butter), and the fat in the meat. I am eating alot of veggies and moderate amts of fruit ( alot are pretty high in sugar so you have to keep this at a minimum when trying to lose), and a moderate amt of nuts (again you don't want to go overboard here). At least for about the first 30 days I am also eliminating dairy, but I am pretty sure I will add that back in after 30 days. I had been leading up to this for probably the last month, eliminating most starchy carbs already anyhow and increasing my protein intake. In the last week, I have lost 3 pounds.

I really believe some people have an intolerance for starchy carbs/grains etc and their body converts them to sugar and fat instead of allowing them to be burned off. I seem to be one of those people. I am happy I seemed to have found what works for me. It may not work for others, but I am sticking with it. I have gotten this far and I am not looking back. The sacrifice is worth it to me. I entered ONEderland today ...the first time in 12 years I have been under 200lbs. I am excited! Hope this helps!

So far so good, I've lost 19 lbs since October 22 an it's been funny, I've drifted around sampling all the different ideas on MFP except for the more extreme ones. Sometimes I've lost sometimes not. My plateaus have been pretty long (a few weeks sometimes) followed by bursts of weight loss. Now though and this seems to be most consistent, you can look at my diary, you will say omg I can't eat all those veggies, lol, that seems to be the first reaction of most folks. However, I see lots of folks with same calories complaining about their hunger. Trust me, I am never hungry except when I skip a snack since my meals are pretty much tailored to run out at snack time. Lots of folks talk about the need for snacks, tis true for many, but if you are at a desk job perhaps not. Here's my list:
WATER (I do 10 minimum), GOOD FOOD (get rid of most or all of the junk), cook more or eat some raw, I eat lots of salad but I am weird and love spinach in anything.,
PLAN AHEAD - stop forgetting your lunch, running out the door without breakfast (I used to do this, bad idea), do your prep the night before, it only takes a few minutes to pack your lunch, put all your snacks and stuff by the door and leave yourself a note that your lunch is in the fridge of your morning is crazy. I cut the veggies for salads and breakfast scrambles on the weekends when I have more time and that cuts food prep time way down, pull the containers, toss the veggies in the pan, (an some in the salad for lunch) whatever protein you are using (I only get 1500 sodium so its tofu or lowfat turkey, cooked up into crumbles and seasoned to be spicy without salt). You just made breakfast and lunch in like 20 minutes (I get up a bit earlier).
MOVE - If you don't have time (or money) for a gym (I cut out my takeout coffee, lol, paid for the gym) then get some handweights or a couple of cans of soup, or a jump rope, hula hoop, video, stairs in your home (run up and down it's a heck of a workout., etc, there are endless ways to move more.
EAT LESS OF THE WRONG FOODS - that's right, I know they say "Eat less, move more" well I can tell you i eat more now than ever but it's the right food.
Well, thats the short list, feel free to friend me if you don't mind a message when I see too much junk food on your diary, lol or too little water.

I agree it would be nice to no what they ate and which foods we could copy

I agree with you. I would like to know if people are eating back all their exercise calories or not. I seem to be stuck because I have been. Just curious what everyone else is doing.

Have you tried stopping and see what happens?

I agree it would be nice to no what they ate and which foods we could copy

I found this very helpful when I started, stalking other peoples' food diaries. For the first year+ I kept a food diary on another site, but have been logging here for several months now & my diary is public.

I have kept very detailed records of what I've done all along the way so I won't put it all in here. (If you're interested: http://stubbysticks.wordpress.com/weight-loss-summary-by-month/) Besides, it has changed multiple times depending on what my needs were & what I felt like doing at the time. The way you find out what works is by trying things out to see how your body responds to it. Change is good, as long as you're giving each strategy you try enough time to produce results (several weeks, at least).

Last semester I lost 15ish lbs in 8 weeks, ate whatever I wanted so long as i stayed around my daily calorie goal. It wasn't healthy but it worked. I lost two more without trying at all. I maintained for a while during finals. Now I'm back. This time I'm trying to eat healthy foods but I'm not as worried about my calorie goal. Before I would have a day where all I ate was bread, butter and pasta, and I could still lose weight. I have definitely slowed with weight loss, I've lost only 3 pounds in a month, but I feel good about eating healthier, and I'll continue to lose just more slowly.