Need Some Willpower

[TelephoneAngel]

I've just been for a checkup at the doctor's and I now weigh 15stone That 210pounds.

This is the heaviest I've ever been and I do need to lose weight.I'm getting breathless climbing stairs, none of my clothes fit and I look "round" in the face.

I just don't like what I've become.

I have the idea now that I need to start dieting for real..........yet I know I lack willpower.Icecream is just too tempting, and I drink too much coke.

[phantasy]

Thats roughly what I weigh, and my husband is overweight too. (Not my fault!)

He drinks a metric fuckton of coke per day (I totally had to say that, I saw it in another post, lol)

You want to start a diet together? PM me!

[blas]

Cutting back on or totally quitting drinking soda pop is hard, but can be done. Much easier than quitting smoking.

Start slow. I despised water when I first cut back, so I bought flavor packets. Fairly low calorie, some even have none.

Drinking enough water not only is an easy way to cut back on calories you don't need, but is healthy for every part of you.

I treat soda as a treat now. I have it on the weekends with supper. It's kind of like sweets or alcohol, just a treat.

[trailerparkmedic]

Start by making small changes. Alternate soda and bottled water. Try a diet soda. Go for a 10 minute walk after work. Try reduced fat cheese instead of full fat.

When I first started trying to lose weight, I was actually discouraged by all the success stories. "I used to be 343626 pounds and now I do triathalons every weekend and follow a raw food diet." I could see myself as the before person but didn't believe I could change enough to be the after person, so why bother trying?
I started slow, made some small changes, and tried lots of new food and exercises. I learned that I really like squash if I make it in a certain recipe. I love to swim and lift weights and the elliptical is tolerable with some good music. I will never be a runner and I refuse to eat fat free dairy. I'm not perfect--this weekend I ate a pint of ice cream, avoided the gym and drank too much. I just make more good choices than I used to, and usually make more good choices than bad and I've lost almost 20 pounds.

I found Weight Watchers to be a huge help for me. I love the support and the new program (at least, different than 3 or 4 years ago) is focused on teaching better eating habits.

[AdminAssistant]

I wish I could cut Coke or Dr. Pepper, but they just mix too well with rum and whiskey, and I like my evening nightcap. And mixing with diet is just gross. I'm also a caffeine fiend, so that doesn't help.

I'm at about 208 right now. :/ I'm actually down a bit from earlier in the summer, when I was going out to eat for practically every meal. I'm not cooking super healthy stuff, but at least it's not fast food.

[Cazzi]

Can I recommend the place I go to? I'm not sure of whether I can say who it is or if it would be considered advertising, even though I don't work for them...
I've lost 2 stone 8 pounds with them so far, can eat just about anything (within reason ), no calorie counting, they have different plans for different lifestyles & I'm never hungry. They have a website that can find you the nearest groups to you

I've very little willpower when it cones to doing it alone.. I know what I should be eating... but never seem to get round to it

[Exaspera]

You do know that many of those before and after photos, especially the really buffed ones, are in reverse. The companies go to gyms, find really buff people, take their photos and then pay them to gain weight.

Cut out the Cokes. That's major calories. Good luck!

[KiaKat]

Switch to coffee and tea. It'll satisfy the caffeine craving much more, and the calories are lower (only if you use skim milk and a tiny bit of sugar rather than cream and heavy sugar).

Keep a food journal. Write down everything you consume, even gum. Figure out your patterns. Do you eat when you're bored? Tired? Excited? Find something else to do as a replacement.

Start making your own food. Restaurant and fast food is not only high-calorie, but the servings are unnatural. Take your plate. One half should be vegetables, one quarter meat/protein, and the last quarter bread or carbs. Some diets even tell you it should be less than a quarter for carbs.

Don't bother with reduced fat or low calorie. They have to replace the flavour somehow, and usually it's via methods that mean you end up eating more. The idea is to change your eating habits in a sustainable way. Use full-fat and full-calorie foods, just use less of them.

The base of your meals should always be vegetables. Not lettuce - except for some of the darker leafy veggies, most lettuces don't have anything in the way of nutrition, since they're mostly water and fiber. Not filling, and not that good for you. Spinach, kale, chard, and other dark greens are good, though. Add lean protein; beans, chicken, pork, fish, other seafood (shrimp is great), and lentils. Finish it off with a bit of wild rice or whole wheat bread and some homemade dressing, and you have a fantastic meal that will stick with you most of the day.

Figure out what you like to do for exercise. I hate running. Figured that out a few months ago - I just assumed, since I'd always been a runner, that it was the best thing for me. Next month I start a dance class, and in a couple weeks I start working at a local stable in exchange for riding lessons.

Cut the soda, alcohol, and desserts for a while. Completely. Once you get used to not having them all the time, then you can reintroduce them as treats, rather than as a standard part of your diet. If I'm craving something sweet, I have a handful of berries, or I cook down the berries into a sauce for a lemon bread that I make. It's about half the sugar of store-bought sauce, and I can keep it around for a week. Plus, berries are packed with all sorts of nutrition.

Also check out the getting in shape thread here in OT, there are a ton of good suggestions and a lot of support.

[draftermatt]

At my heaviest I weighed 265 pounds. At last weigh in I was 235 pounds. The 265 was at Christmas 2009.

I lost the first 10 exercising on the WiiFit, the last 20 is from working at the lumber yard and moving around all the time.

My wife was diagnosed with hypertension, so we both went on a low sodium diet (which helped us both A LOT).

Cut way down on sodas and snacks (low/no salt chips).

But, when I want some Doritos, or a Mountain Dew, or some Oreos I have them (assuming they're in the house).

Why? Because if you cut yourself off completely you're bound to relapse (I've done it more times than I care to count)

Start off buy not buying the things you know are bad for you. Sometimes you'll crave it, but if it's not in the house odds are you'll allow the craving to pass before you go to the store.

[Flying Grype]

Cutting back on junk, by itself, never worked for me. I started riding my bike to work and that did it. I've lost twenty-five pounds from my heaviest (I was about 190, now I'm about 165). Find exercise that's vigorous and that you enjoy, otherwise you'll just poke along and not really get any benefit from it.

[tollbaby]

I can highly recommend the South Beach Diet... (basically replacing processed carbs with high fiber ones, and concentrating on vegetables and lean meats).

I have a RIDICULOUS amount of weight to lose - about 150 lbs, ideally. Shall we start a group?

[Magpie]

As to exercising: what I found helped me with that was that it made me less hungry. It's not going to melt off the weight, as you don't burn a heck of a lot of calories through it, relative to the food you can eat. It it put me more in touch with how hungry I was or wasn't.

If your job allows, switch away from having three larger meals. Have small meals and then snacks during the day (make sure you don't eat unless you're actually hungry!) or else more small meals. Do plan your snacks in advance though, as the "I'll eat when I get hungry" can result in you eating when you're not actually hungry.

ETA: I don't know if you can ever fix the problems caused by drinking diet soft drinks, I don't think they've studied that yet. From my own experience cutting them out can help. It might be that you manage to fix the damage, it might be that it's just that you've stopped feeding your habit for sweet stuff, so it's easier to cut the sweet stuff out later. But don't keep drinking them.