Hi everyone, I am new here and I have decided I need to get serious about losing weight. It seems ever since I went thru radiation last Spring, I havegained 35lbs and I can not lose it. I walk, I watch what I eat for the most part, and I have had my thyroid checked (came back normal) my doctor told me that after 30, woman's metabolism slows down and so the need for so many calories is no longer required and he said 1200-1400 calories a day is appropriate at my age (35), anyway ..................... I need to lose this weight and want to do it the correct way.

I travel 5 days a week for work, so it is very hard for me to go to a gym and the hotels I stay at, I pretty much just crash when I get back from a 10 hour day of work................ so I need advice on home exercises that I can also bring on the road, such as bands, ball, etc. I also want people's input as to what has worked for them for a life chnge.

The diet to lose weight doesn't work for me, I need to find something that I can actually live with and not starve myself from certain foods. I did the Atkin's diet and lost 45 pounds and was actually starting to get a disorder of sorts from it, I was obessed with the weight I lost. Then I stopped because I realized that, and over a year + off of the Atkins, I gained the weight back as well as another 20.

So I am very open to advice and even politically correct criticism of sorts

Hi there, Magpie! Welcome to the Weight Loss Forum!
First of all, I hope this forum and all the people here can help you to achieve your goal.
I'm 33, I also travel quite much for my work and so I know the difficulties that it brings to weight-loss and exercise.
Most important thing is to watch what you eat. Weight-gain and weight-loss are totally dependent of how many calories you get from your food and how many calories you consume throughout the day.
When it's impossible to choose or even know what the food you're eating contains, it's very easy to just unknowingly get a lot of extra calories. Have you kept a food log to know how you eat? Most people here use FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal to track what they eat. I have my own spreadsheet for that.
You wrote: This I find totally preposterous. Your doctor should know better, but then again, he/she is not a nutritionist/dietitian.. You can for example use this website NutritionData.com NutritionData's Nutrition Facts Calorie Counter and this section of it http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burned to find out what is the average daily calorie consumption for a woman of your size and age. I can assure you that it's a lot more than 1200-1400 a day. A good weight-loss plan is usually to take the daily consumption number as your starting point and to make a caloric deficit of about 500 calories a day (with added exercise to consume more and a bit less calories eaten to get less).
At the moment I aim to get about 1700-1800 calories a day and do some exercise every day (30 minutes to 2 hours, I'm on holiday ). With that I should achieve about 1 pound loss in a week.
For exercise, when I'm home, I run, walk, cycle, go to gym etc. When I travel, I pack a swimsuit (many hotels have a pool) and a pair of shoes I can walk in. There are also many exercises you can do to strengthen your muscles (in the privacy of your own hotel room) for which you only use your own body weight, no need to carry any equipment.
When you have the time, stroll around this forum. There's a lot of good information and many real life experiences to learn from here!
Juliette

Thank you Juliette so much for the links! Rep to you for that! i really appreciate it. I thought my doctor was a tad off as well, I just can not for th elife of me understand what is going on because I don't eat sugar, just Splenda, I watch my salt, etc. the only main issue I have is I do not eat breakfast most of the time due to running around like a mad woman in the morning.

I am definitely going to start that journel tomorrow.

Thanks again