JeanneTops Member

Tami, You are my greatest inspiration. I especially appreciate the emphasis on exercising and losing weight for good health reasons - the most important ones of all.

I never heard that term before but I have a "B" shape too! More than anything else I'd like to get rid of that over-the-belly-button roll! I'm 5'6" on a good day. I started at 242 and am now at 160. To all of you who have 160 as a goal, it does feel great! But my first goal is to get to 149 - five pounds under the BMI line…

This may sound a little weird but I think you should think of them as the FIRST 15 pounds. You know, "If only I had stopped gaining weight at the first 15 pounds, this would have been so much easier." The key to slow weight loss and a plateau near goal is to think of it as practice for maintenance. If you read any of the…

And it is absolutely critical for long term success! Every time you look at yourself positively, you are retraining your thoughts towards naturally thinking well of yourself. It will become a new habit right along with your new eating and exercising habits. Self-discipline has got you where you are but a positive…

How about calling it the First 10 pounds Club? I figure that this is the first 10 pounds I gained after the last time I gained it all back. So now all I have left to lose is the first 10 pounds :-)

I just posted something about this on another Success story but I'll repeat it here. Just as we work on controlling our eating and exercising more, we have to work on getting our thoughts under control and turned in a positive direction as well. It's absolutely critical to long term success. There are lots of ways you can…

Congratulations on your success! You have done it the only way that will really work in the long term - focus on your health, educate yourself and watch those binge eating triggers. But I have to add, as someone who has lost and then re-gained more than 50 pounds at least once a decade, you have to work on your mental…

I've been on MFP for 16.5 months now. I didn't tell anybody, including my husband, that I had started and I never talk about it unless someone asks me directly. I've lost a large amount of weight but I"m not even announcing it here until I reach goal weight. Since I've done this before, more than several times, and then…

I've been there too - gaining back all the weight - over and over again. And this time, I've been struggling with how frightened I am of doing it again. This week I officially entered the "last 10 pounds" stage. But it hit me - this is the 10 pounds I wish I had stopped at the last time I started regaining. So now I'm…

That's a good point. It doesn't help to eat the exercise calories if I'm not actually doing the exercise :-) I've been thinking about maintenance all along. I agree that one factor is thinking - "It's ok, I don't need to lose weight any more." And that "ok" is not exercising or increasing the portion size or having that…

Wow, at first I thought - way too much data. And then I remembered the spreadsheet I'VE been keeping for the last 15 months. Just weekly weight change in a chart and two graphs ;-) I wish now I had entered the calories as well. I just might go back and collect the data off of MFP although I think I'd have to do it…

I've done the same thing - either had to go out and buy new larger sizes or pulled the old fat clothes out of the back closet to put on again. So depressing and, frankly, just increased my comfort eating and made me gain even more weight. This time, as soon as the season changes, I donate the previous season's larger…

This is a great question. I've been on long-term diets where I paid absolutely no attention to the scale. In WW, I would not let them tell me what I weighed or how much I had lost or, on my own I just didn't weigh myself. I went by how I felt or how my clothes felt. Both times I lost 50+ pounds. (I weighed myself once I…

I think you have to view binge eating the same as you would a chronic illness. And people with chronic illnesses often say that their symptoms worsen when they are under stress, overtired, or not eating healthfully. And sometimes, their symptoms just flair up for no discernible reason at all. For we binge eaters, this…

The key is to only do what you are sure you can do for the rest of your life. Some folks are great at being precise in everything, others can be comfortable eyeballing it all. But it won't do you any good to be very precise about it all until you hit goal and then stop, figuring you've learned new ways. It won't do you any…

Successfully losing weight is all about learning patience and persistence. Maybe you need to lose it fast for some reason but if you don't learn patience and persistence along the way then you can count on gaining it all back. Check out the maintenance threads on MFP. They all agree - maintenance is harder than losing…

I have a question rather than an answer. Why is it so much harder to stop the weight gain at the first 5 or 10 pounds than after 20 or 40 or 50? Does "tired of dieting" or "tired of exercising" HAVE to be overcome by "despise the way I look" before it's possible to stop, turn around and start all over again? Has anybody…

I started out last year only weighing in once a week. But I waited so impatiently for weigh-in day and experienced disappointment several times when I didn't lose as much as I thought I had. So I started in weighing daily but only my once-a-week official day "counts." That's the weight I track. I'm glad I started weighing…

Like others, I really needed this today. I've been on MFP for a year, lost 70lbs and have kept weekly records. I know that with almost identical weeks of exercising and eating, some weeks I lose nothing or gain a half pound and other weeks I'll lose 2 to 3 pounds. On the no-loss weeks - especially a run of two or three in…

Jeannie, A great post. For background, I'm a one-year MFPer and I am in as good shape as I was when I was 18 and that was 41 years ago (ok, maybe a few additional aches and pains but I feel as good, if not better!) I have one long-term goal and by "long-term" I mean "the rest of my life" and that is: to not gain the weight…

Yes! And after this year, I have a permanent New Year's Resolution - "I'm going to be just as fit a year from now as I am today."

Once, after I had lost about 60 pounds, I foolishly answered someone who asked me how much weight I had lost. She looked at me in astonishment and said, "NOOOOO, you never looked that fat to me." The moral of the story is that you don't really know what people are thinking about how you look. The truth is that almost…

This is so right! Unless you work on your mental habits while you're losing weight, you will still be the same person with the same thoughts about yourself at goal weight that you had when you started. I'm convinced this is why people gain their weight back because I'm sure this is why I did. Most importantly - consuming…

If I remember right, a year ago the iPhone MFP app was highlighted in Apple's ads for the iPhone and iPods. I downloaded it right away, started tracking my food RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON and have had a year of great success. I've logged food while away on vacation (including overseas), checked calorie…

I've been doing the up and down thing for 42 years. I've spent the last year here on MFP losing the extra pounds I gained over the last time's weight loss, plus the pounds that I gained back. I still have to lose the pounds that I gained back from the weight loss before that one and so on and so on. I've been losing and…

I think you have to remove the spaces before and after "dress" in your PhotoBucket account because photo links here just gag on spaces.

May I join in too? I've never joined a group before but this one sounds like just what I need. On Dec. 23 I'll have been on MFP for a whole year. My goal is to figure out, while I"m losing weight, how not to gain it back. One thing I've worked out over the past 11 months is that I'm going to have to watch what I eat for…

I think talking it over with a professional is a great idea. It's not that you "can't handle it by myself". You wouldn't think that you could get over a broken limb or an ulcer or an inflamed appendix "by yourself." If you had constant stomach pain or your arm hurt all the time, you'd go see a doctor for a diagnosis.…

Tami, I've said it before and I'll say it forever - you are the best! I was so impressed a few weeks ago when you posted that you were only two pounds away from goal and - semi-jokingly - said you were willing to wait two months to lose it. You could even see a silver lining - that it would exactly two years you've been…

You are the best.