New and need help and motivation!

Hi this is my 100th time trying to lose weight and need that motivation just to get going. I need to lose about 100lbs and I know it will not be easy, but I have the drive and determination to do this.

I'm at it again. I joined 3 months ago and then did nothing. I have now committed myself yet once again to losing the much needed weight I need to. At 50 years old I cannot be 165 lbs and that is with doing a triathalon the first weekend in May and working out with a trainer. My downfall is my nutrition. I love to eat and need help with moderation. I know what to do, I just have a hard time doing it. My committment is to consistently log everything and make time to connect with others on this site. Thank you.

I am also finding this weight loss difficult, find it almost impossible to work out, find it very boring and tedious, can't afford the gym, and get no helpful motivation from anyone at home. Have just looked at the 30DS and think I will give that a go, see if it helps. I started this weight loss about 12 years ago and am no the heaviest I have been! No will power and too many temptations, but I am feeling really low about myself, so here I go again.

For motivation I recommend watching the HBO documentary "The Weight of the Nation". Discovered it through another forum post. Search the title on the message board website and you'll find a good discussion. Even without HBO and from outside the US you can watch it online. (don't know about countries other than Canada where I am). Watching it has been an affirmation of all I've been learning since starting my new life 9.5 months ago and a great way for my family to catch up and hopefully make the decision to care for themselves better too.

Knowledge is power... which can be a huge motivator.

Also, I recommend you read "The Cure for Everything" by Timothy Caulfield. It was publishe here in Canada around about January, and just published in USA a few weeks ago. Two reviews:

1. FRom http://www.weightymatters.ca/2012/02/book-review-tim-caulfields-cure-for.html " If you don't feel like reading the rest of this review I'll summarize it by saying, Tim Caulfield's The Cure for Everything is the perfect antidote to the idiotic glossy paged world we're stuck with and is a definite must read.... Tim's book is something I'm not sure I've ever read before. I'd describe it as an "evidence-based romp" (words that I'd never thought I'd string together) and his clean writing and his truly delightful and delicious self-deprecating brand of humour makes you want to pick it up again and again."

2. From http://sweatscience.runnersworld.com/2012/05/review-the-cure-for-everything/ "...as the book makes very clear, health is a very complex topic, and those who claim the answers are simple, clear and easy are invariably selling something. What's most important is the way Caulfield formulates his conclusions: by looking at the evidence -- and, crucially, by evaluating how reliable different kinds of evidence are. The most interesting part of the book, for me, was his look at the forces that distort health messages, not just in the popular press but in academia and peer-reviewed literature."

Both of those reviews take some issue with Caufield's chapter on diet and I have to agree. His approach to his own weight loss journey was very abstention oriented (too many food no-nos) - more than is necessary at least in my case. But then again, he was already an athlete and didn't really have a lot of fat to lose. So in his case he may have needed to be more strict than I have to be in order to achieve the results he was pursuing for the purposes of writing the book.

The documentary and the book make great bookends for learning about why and how to change your life. I've found both to be a source of motivation to keep up with my choices.

Good luck to you.