Hi! Just joined today - would love support

Welcome! I'm sending a request now

Welcome - happy to support you
Jan

Feel free to add me as well. I'm always here to give support.

You have the motivationa and the determination and that's half the battle really. Congrats on what you've done so far! You will get to where you want and it's people like you who are achieving their goals that make me more positive that I can. Feel free to add me if you want! :-)

You can feel free to add me also. I'm on here every day! Just can't get enough of this site!

Support I am stuck with just a few pounds left to lose and don't wait to gain any of it back. I have been overweight for years and the emotional toll it took on me was horrible. I have helped many through their own journey yes but I still have my own too. I know that everyday I have to watch what I eat and track or the weight will come back. I can't ever go there again ;(

It doesn't say that on your profile, though...it's one big ad on your profile page...

welcome and good luck! I love MFP...its a great place to be dieting..thats for sure!

Hey All,

Not sure how much incentive this will be but...here it goes...

I'm a 304lb, 6'2", 43 year old guy that has never been one for diet or exercise. Still not.
I grew up in a family where meal portions were never exactly normal.

But I've always felt that losing weight is just a matter of portion control and calorie control.
And this site is going a long way to prove that to me, and in just only a few weeks.

So I set up my account, but having no scale, I had to guesstimate my initial weight at 300 pounds. I then started looking for a scale. Do you know how many home scales are available that go up that high? None. Or at least no inexpensive ones. But I needed a scale and since I had to spend extra money on it, it certainly was not going to be one that has a margin of error...as much as 2 to 3% of your actual weight. Home scales are off by that much on any given reading and when your measuring weight loss in terms of 1 or 2 pounds a week, that margin is HUGE.

So since I needed a scale, and since it was going to be a small investment, I decided to buy a doctor's scale. Detecto Model 439. Best $160 I've ever spent. Not only is it far more accurate, it provides some serious incentive. Staring at that thing daily keeps you honest.

So after setting up the scale, my actual weigh-in was 307 lbs - this was on 7/11. I set up my profile to lose 2 pounds a week with a sedentary lifestyle. This site said was allowed 1950 calories per day. And today, after about 2 weeks, I weighed in at 303. I was floored. I did a happy dance. I got on the scale again. I did another happy dance. You get the idea.

Just to be clear, I absolutely do not consider this dieting. I consider it a lifestyle change. I don't eat diet foods (I'm a firm believer that anything that has multi-syllabic ingredients is bad for you), I don't exercise any more than my casual day calls for in terms of walking around the office or running errands. But I do eat good food. I'm just as happy eating a bowl of baby carrots as a chicken parm sandwhich.

The only difference now is that I'll eat a smaller portion...and TRACK IT here. This site is great for that. I strictly adhered to the 1950 cal/day limit,,,mostly...I did slip a couple of days by a few hundred calories. It's amazing how much extra we eat per day if we don't actively make a record of it. It's even more amazing how many calories some foods contain. Wasabi almonds...really?!...wow!

It's amazing how quickly my calorie allowance, while generous at 1950, quickly approaches zero. So to be able to eat more food, I drink only assorted types of zero calorie vitamin waters, regular water, or tea with natural cane or raw sugar - no "sweeteners". That's a huge daily savings there. They taste far better than "diet" soft drinks and are at least beneficial.

As I said I am not concerned with "heathy" at the moment. By my thinking, simply losing weight is healthy enough for now. I'll work on lazy later. Based on what I've read on healthy weight loss, and what I've now seen in my whole 3 weeks of keeping a food diary, is that establishing a food processing metabolism is very, very key.

This site is working for me. Combined with the phone app I've no doubt I'll continue to lose weight. That UPC code scanner on the app is an amazingly useful tool.

Best of luck with your weight loss
--Frank