Hi everyone!

I am new to this community and this is really hard to get started, as you all know. We all have to start some where.

I am starting this life changing, rest of my life at 355lbs. My goal is 180lbs
Just looking at the challange I have ahead of me makes want to curl up in a corner and give up. But that was me a week ago. I have been giving myself every excuse not to do it and I was the king of "I will start on (enter date here)" That procrastinating person is gone and it is time to take back control of my body.

I have never been the person to work out but again that was me last week. I have gotten this fascination with running and biking. I am starting on my tread mill which has been collecting dust for the last year while it sat there begging me to jump on and use and abuse it.
I met with my doctor and he suggested the South Beach diet which he actually did and lost 50 lbs and has kept it off for more than a year.
The wild hing about it is I had all of this motivation around me and I did not see it or I chose not to see it while I drove up to Taco Bell or Mcdonalds.

I do not want my children to have fat father. I do not want my beautiful loving wife to have a fat husband. Most of all I do not want to be fat because I am sick of being fat.

I have started the South Beach diet 3 days ago and it hoenstly has been easy. I actually eat more than I used to but now I eat foods that are good for me.

Well I think I have ranted enough but it was ment to be a good rant. I will do updates periodically when I hit mile stones.
My goal is to lose 100lbs by the end of 2008
My total goal is to lose 175lbs by September 9, 2009 which will be my 36th Birthday.
If I get there sooner I will be very happy but I did not want to get into this with unrealistic goals.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my goals. Am I being to aggressive or too passive?

Well good for you for taking the first step in losing weight.....

Ill be honest because criticisim is a good thing when trying to lose weight... I wouldnt aim your target goals at first so high. I see alot of people who do that end up failing because they try so hard and get tired of it easily...

I would go into it trying to lose 25-30 lbs.

100 lbs in the next year is realistic. I lost 125 lbs in 10 months but then again I am 21 years old. For you to lose this kind of weight your going to have to eat the right food and I would say your going to have to burn atleast, atleast 500-700 calories per day on the treadmill/oliptical and drink a good 1-1.5 gallons of water per day nothing else...

but, keep us posted on your progress and best of luck to you!

Thanks Burneed,

I will definitly keep it real. Congrats to you for losing 125lbs in 10 months, awesome!

I don't know how this is different for folks that have 100+ pounds to lose... I gotta agree though, I think your goal shouldn't be the weight loss, if it is gonna be the rest of your life then the goal must be to "be healthy." Then you can add milestones to that: (1) lose 10 pounds (2) walk 100 miles on the treadmill (cumulative), etc When you pass a milestone, then add another milestone and make the commitment then and there to pass that milestone.

Like you, I want to do lose weight by a certain date. It's something that we become attached to and then expect to happen. We really are setting ourselves up for disappointment (high expectations result in disappointment). If it happens, great, but I'm not going to sacrifice my longterm health or chance of success just to reach a weight by a certain date.

You will probably lose a bunch of weight in the first month. After that, it's probably OK to do 2 pounds per week for a while, but eventually you will need to slow it down (people who lose weight slower have greater long term success). If you have trouble sticking to the eating, you will need to increase the calories eaten per day by 300-500 and then see how the next two weeks go after that.

Just work hard and do the best you can. Your goals are reachable but don't beat yourself up if you do not hit your goals on schedule. Good luck!

Paydirt - Thanks for your words of encouragement. I know there will be stumbling blocks. Like I said in my previous post I am changing my life style of eating and I am eating healthy foods staying away from junk and sodas (I was a Mt. Dew Addict) and I was a salty snack food king.

I have tried my diets in the past as I am sure alot of us have but I go into saying I will try it. Now I am saying this time is different. I have made my mind up that this is going to happen. Yes I set goals but I am a goal driven person in my personal and professional life.

When I have "tried" losing weight in the past the first month is killer in losing 25-35 pounds and then basically saying oh this is easy and I would be back into my same old routine.
This time I have the "eye of the tiger" and nothing will get me off of my game.

Thanks again and it is so cool to be able to talk about this with people that understand that have been there or are going through it also.

I weighed Myself this morning and with 5 days of my change I have lost 8 lbs.

My first mile stone is 25 lbs. I am currently walking 25 minutes on the tread mill.

Way to go! I'm excited for you. Keep goin strong

This statement... "This time I have the "eye of the tiger" and nothing will get me off of my game." ...is NOT a license to do whatever you want!

Sure, you can restrict yourself to 1000 or 1500 calories and WANT IT and TOUGH IT OUT as much as you want and you will lose weight, but you ALSO greatly improve the chances that you will fail over the long term.

The key is to be reasonable in the rate at which you lose weight (after the water weight is gone) and to not "ease up" (either after the first month, or after you reach your goal).

You had aggressive goals when you lost weight before, right? Just saying "this time will be different" ain't gonna cut it. Being totally committed will help power you through this time, but maybe you should also not be as aggressive with your goal this time...?


I set myself up to lose 2.3 pounds per week. I am committed, but I wasn't able to stick to it. I hope I can stick to 1.5 pounds per week (get to my goal by September of this year), but if I can't then I will trim it down to 1 pound per week and I will for SURE stick to that. Stay flexible.

Paydirt - I think you might be mis understanding what I am saying. I never said I was cutting my calorie intake to 1000-1500 per day.
I am not starving myself. I am eating foods that are good for me and foods that would increase my metabolism and keep my body going. No more ups and downs and crashes. If you read to my 1st or 2nd post, I am actually eating more meals and snacks than before but spread through the day.

My goals are my starting point. If I need to adjust them, I will adjust. I am not saying I am going to lose my goal weight then go back to stopping at mcdonalds and taco bell every night for dinner. This for me is a life chnaging life style changing situation.

When I lost weight before, I went into it saying I will try. This time it is not trying, it is doing. I guess I might not be explaining myself in the proper way. I am not being cocky or I am not trying to have unrealistic expectations. My goal right off is to lose 2 pounds per week. If that does not happen then I change my goal. It took me 34 years to get this fat and I know it is not going to go off in a couple of months.

The "eye of the tiger thing" was being sarcastic but I tried to use that on how focused I was to changing my eating lifestyle, habits, etc. I have to change the way that I live everyday or I will not exceed.

I am not sure why you have the negative tone but 2008 is going to be great.