How to Lose Weight

Three years ago I weighed 215 pounds. I gained weight throughout college as a result of extremely poor eating habits and no exercise.

One day I finally decided to turn my life around and joined Weight Watchers. I learned how to read labels, watch my portion sizes, and exercise in moderation.

The meetings were extremely helpful in keeping me motivated. My leader was an inspiration and being around people dealing with the same weight issues as myself aided in my weight loss.

I lost 40 pounds almost exclusively through dieting. Exercise has never appealed to me and my only form of it consists of walking my dog.

I currently weigh 175 and my goal weight is 160. I hope to achieve this weight within the next six months.

My boyfriend is currently on deployment and a group of us women from the boat have decided to do the biggest loser. We are basically weighing ourselves at our monthly meetings and the woman who loses the most at the end of deployment wins a pot of about $300. Continue reading »

In January 2006 I was at my heaviest weight ever. I was a 5′8″, 235 lb, 46 year old female, who had tried every diet known to man.

I had been married for 18 years at that time, and had gradually put on 8-10 lbs a year. I had tried gyms, personal trainers, nutritionist, walking, joined Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutraSystem, been to diet Dr.’s.

I could go on and on. I so desperately wanted to get back down to 155 (what I weighed when I got married).

My weight yo-yo’d so frequently, I’m surprised my health is as good as it is today. I was so depressed, my marriage was falling apart, I had no life except work. I began hearing about a weight loss surgery…Lap Band.

So I began searching all I could find on the internet. I finally located a Dr. with credentials that was to my satisfaction. Dr. Jaime Ponce in Dalton, GA. I contacted them to set up an appointment for consultation.

After I met him, I left with a different attitude. He offered me something nothing else had, a life time change, not a quick fix. I scheduled my surgery for November 6, 2006, by that time my weight was 246.

It has been 21 months I am down to 142 and a BMI of 21, (which had been 36). I don’t regularly exercise, but I must say I’m healthier today than I’ve ever been. My marriage has been restored and I thank God for this opportunity.

Insurance did not cover this, we had to dish out $20,000.00, but I’d probably spent that much over my life time of trying to lose weight anyway, so what was another 20???? This may not be everyone’s answer, but it was mine. Continue reading »

I am a 43 year old female, 5′5, 190 lbs. I have tried numerous diets to lose weight and have been unsuccessful until now.

To give you some background on myself, I have no medical conditions, I don’t smoke, drink socially. I had a baby late in my life which contributed to the weight loss & also stress & depression.

My goal has always been to get down to a size 12 again.

At the advise of my doctor, I tried some weight loss pills that she prescribed telling me their were no adverse side affects.

I had horrible side effects, sweating, nausea, tired, listless feeling. In the past, I had tried various diet programs; I found these to be of no help either.

I paid a fortune for food thru them, and lost some weight, but could not afford to keep up buying the food & had horrible counselors that basically just cared about taking your money.

I also had tried just plain starving myself, eating one meal a day, and drinking lots of water. I did lose some weight, but felt horrible most of the time.

I then turned to working out & joined a health club, feeling I would be motivated by other people working out. I lost interest in the first couple months and became very bored with this. Continue reading »

I am a male that is 45, 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall, 235 pounds.

I wanted to lose around 60 or so pounds, so I started the Atkins diet. In the first two weeks of the diet I had lost about 6 pounds.

To be successful on this diet I had to cut out my carbs such as, bread, soda’s, potato’s, milk, and things like that, but had to eat a lot of meats and veggies.

I also walked every night as well as bike riding whenever possible. The diet got a little difficult when you had cravings for bread and milks and deserts.

But having the strength and will power to stick to the diet helped a lot. Over the years I have tried many diet programs such as prescription diet pills, over the counter diet pills, diet shakes and diet food plans, but none seemed to work as well as the Atkins Diet. Continue reading »

I am a 27 year old woman. I am 5″5′ and currently weigh 230 pounds. I would like to lose 90-100 pounds.

I have had success losing weight in the past with the Weight Watchers Core plan.

I lost about 50 pounds with this plan before getting pregnant. On Core, there is a list of foods you can eat “until satisfied”.

Anything else, you can eat, but you have to count points.

This plan worked well for me because I never felt tempted to starve myself, then binge on junk later.

It also motivated me to exercise, since workouts helped me earn points I could then use for non-Core foods.

I also like Weight Watchers because of the accountability involved. Each week, you have to show up and weigh in with your leader.

After a few weeks, you feel like your leader is becoming a friend, and not losing weight would disappoint her. Continue reading »

I am a thirty year old woman who is five feet two inches tall and currently weighs 175 pounds. I am working very diligently to lose forty pounds and get my body mass index down to the desired levels.

I was a gestational diabetic during my pregnancy, so I have structured a diet for myself that follows some of the same principles as the diet I was on before. I limit the carbohydrates I have at any one meal and eat more frequently during the day.

I have three main meals a day plus three snacks. It is not a difficult diet to follow, but it has required that I really think about what I eat. One of the biggest things is portion size, especially around breakfast time.

When I have cereal, I use a small bowl and if I have to, I measure the cereal to make sure I am eating the right portion size. I only allow myself to have 30 grams of carbohydrate at breakfast and 45 to 60 grams of carbohydrate at lunch and dinner. For snacks I can have 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrate. Continue reading »

I am 150 pounds. I stand 5′2 inches tall. I am 28 years old and I am female. I just had a baby in November and I didn’t gain much weight but this is a far cry from the 98 pounds that I weighed when I graduated from high school ten years ago.

I would like to lose around 20 pounds. I do not want to go back to being stick skinny because I have learned to embrace my curves, but I would like to be able to look in the mirror and be happy.

I think that it would also make it easier for me to find clothes and for them to fit like how they are supposing to.

I find myself buying clothes to hide behind. I do not think that I will diet but I would like to start eating and adopting a healthier lifestyle. Continue reading »

I am a 44 year old female and I wanted to lose about 40 pounds. In my 20’s I lost about 50 pounds, but I didn’t lose weight in a healthy manner.

I tried a combination of starvation, diet pills, illegal speed, and the Atkins diet and while it worked, almost too well, I eventually developed heart palpitations and ended up spending two weeks in cardiac intensive care.

Once I started eating normally, all the weight came back plus about 20 extra pounds.

After the birth of my daughter, I wanted to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight so I started researching a more healthy way to lose weight.

I first tried the South Beach diet, but all I could find were cook books which listed a ton of recipes, but no real guidance on how to follow the diet.

Eventually I decided upon the Weight Watchers program after attending an introductory meeting at my place of employment. The program offered at work was quite expensive, so I decided to enroll in the online program, which was only $16.00 per month. Continue reading »

About six years ago, I’d gained a lot of weight after giving birth to my third son. I had never been what anyone would call “skinny”, my normal weight is 165, with me being five foot nine, but not being able to fit into my clothes spurred me to do something about it.

I started in January, when I weighed close to 250 pounds. I bought a bike, and started to ride the bike trail every morning for an hour. I’d heard somewhere that the more you sweat, the more calories you burn, the more weight you lose so I would wrap myself in plastic wrap, and then put on my sweat suit over it.

To me the hardest thing about excising is actually getting started, and when I don’t see results right away, I get really discouraged, but I stuck with it and it finally began to pay off!

I began to drink more water instead of the sodas that I loved. I stopped buying sugar and after a few days lost the craving altogether. Continue reading »

I have been a yo-yo dieter for most of my adult life. Usually what happens is that something changes in my life and my weight goes up or down.

When it goes either way, it goes rapidly. For example, when I have fallen in love, I have lost a lot of weight because I’m more focused on the other person and not food.

When I have gotten depressed, I have gained weight because I use food as a reward to keep doing the things depression makes difficult.

I have also used medications that seemed to make me hungry all the time.

I have also lost weight trying different diets. I did low fat and lost weight. Continue reading »