Diets & Weight Maintenance Support Group

You have come to the right place. We are all in the same boat...struggling to lose weight.

Read some of the older posts and discover what is going on with this board!

What plan do you have to lose...WW, South Beach, Atkins, Low Fat, counting calories or ??? How much do you want to lose and do you have any exercise restrictions?

I don't really want a set plan. When I try to set a plan I generally fail because I become envious of all the stuff I "can't" do. I am trying an approach of just making better decisions about what I do and eat and being happy with that. In a sense tho I am going to try and do a little bit of calorie counting to make sure I am not over eating.

My problem is that I lack motivation when I start to feel like I am failing at losing weight. That is where I am hoping to find some people to talk to and keep motivated.

I understand what you mean...so think of this as a life change. Eat healthier, live healthier.
1. You have to make a goal, otherwise you will have not direction as to where you are going. Make your goal realistic...Do not expect to lose more than 1-2# per week. And if you are just making healthier choices my might want to expect only 1/2# weight loss each week.
2. After you have a goal in place, you have to start formulating your definite plan of action. The best way to do that is to observe your current habits.
Start a food and exercise journal to determine your baseline numbers. You need to know what you are eating so that you know where there might be opportunities for improvement.
You also want to understand why you are eating. If you are like me at all, emotional eating can play a huge role in how much you eat. Understanding what your triggers are is an important first step in controlling your emotional eating.
Do the same thing with exercise. Do you exercise? What did you do and for how long? If you didn't exercise, determine why you didn't workout.
3.Identify Small Areas for Improvement
This is where 97% of all diets fail. They tell you to make wholesale, drastic changes. That simply won't fly.
Don't try to make too many changes too quickly. If you're used to eating whatever you want, whenever you want and being inactive, the drastically changing your diet and going overboard with exercise will just cause you to give up faster.
I speak from experience. I don't know how many times I set out to lose fat, only to quit after one day of starving myself on some crazy diet plan or after one intense workout after a 6-month layoff.
Decide to cut out ONE item that might not be a good choice each week. Add five minutes of exercise weekly. Small steps. Trust me, the tortoise will win the race.
I am suggesting you to choose one small change to make each week. This greatly simplifies the process and helps you to stay on track.

So baby steps! You can do it!

Me too! I'm doing weight watchers. Whats your course of action?

I have actually been trying various techniques for many years. I always seem to give up if I try to specify anything. My main problem is that I always focus on how I am failing. So I need to focus on what I succeed at 1st. I figure that if I can do that, then I can start to concentrate more on what I can and can eat, or how much of what exercise I need to do. I generally eat healthier, and exercise when I am happier. So right now that is my first goal. I think this is true for a lot of people. So I am trying to lose weight, but at the moment not looking for any significant changes in the near future as I am not on such a strict routine. I don't want to say I'm on a plan because if I don't lose that 1-2lbs this week, I'll see it as a failure and give up.

there is a great web site Joyce recommended to me http://www.theweightlosscafe.com/e... it is great and i even bought the book 100 days of weight loss so far it is awesome mind you i have just read the first couple of pages but it is suppose to be a daily motivator. check it out i will be more than happy to support you