I started mine by having a talk with my father. I never had a problem if the junk wasn't in the house, but he does the shopping and I end up wanting it. So he's buying less, just enough for himself (since he won't exactly lose weight himself). Plus, I'm eating more chicken in place of the more fattening meats (which is another thing I had to talk to my dad about...he won't eat any chicken or fish so we were eating way too much red meat).

In addition, I'm no longer throwing cheddar cheese over things like its going out of style, though since some of the things I used it on was the plethora of red meat dishes removing those killed two birds with one stone. The cheese I am still using are lower fat varieties, and this spread that's only 40 calories a pop that can go well with chicken. That way I can still have some, but not as often and not as fattening.

My job also has us going out to eat a lot so I'm bringing a healthier lunch instead of eating at restaurants every week. Might go to one once a month as a reward if I behave myself, that way I can look forward to something if I reach my goals. But at first I'm just going to avoid it...it's good that a few health nuts in the room also bring their lunches.

As for exercise, I make sure to walk for a half hour before work and a half hour after. Also, every 30 minutes (including right after this post is done) I'm going to just walk and stretch for a bit to keep the metabolism going eve when working on the computer. Mom also taught me an easy breathing exercise that helps to tone the stomach so I'm using that at times, like when I'm standing to get some water from the fridge or brushing my teeth.

If I'm good this whole month, I will reward myself with a good treat. Don't know what this month's will be, but I'll decide by the time it ends.

Heh, Yeah weight loss was my New year's resolution so I've been working on it. Over the last 6 months I've phased out soda,juice, and most of all junk food out of my diet. I drink nothing but water nowadays, though i am having problems with reactive over eating.. because i have a tendency to fast for quite a while. Does anyone have a method that makes you feel full, without endlessly eating? I've also been doing power walking for 45 minutes a day, and my weight has come down a few pounds... but I can't seem to drop it down past 210 pounds. Anyone have any ideas on how i should go about getting under 190? Thanks!

I know this is sort of silly sounding, but when I think I am hungry but know it's too soon to actually eat something yet... I chew ice cubes!

It gets more water in my system, and the feeling of chewing tricks my brain into thinking that I am eating so it stops the random "snack" urges. Plus the fact that they melt as they're going sort of fills my tummy and I don't even have the "hunger pangs."

I prolly go through 7 ice trays a day. Mostly in the evening when I am getting tired, when I would usually go and finish off some leftovers.

I applaud all of you in your healthier living goals! It looks like you have all got the right idea - mixing balanced nutrition with exercise to lose weight and just generally have a healthier body. It's so great to see people rejecting the diet fads, none of which work long-term and some of which can cause health problems. Not the way to go.

Normally, I'm very active. After my son was born last June, I had a lot of catching up to do to both regain my fitness and lose the baby weight. My solution was to put the baby in a jogging stroller and go out five or six days a week. I started by just walking 20 minutes. By the end of August, I was running between 45 minutes and an hour, and by the end of October I weighed 5 pounds less than I had when I first got pregnant. In November, I added strength training to the regimen in the form of a TRX suspension trainer, which uses core muscles and body weight to give an excellent strength workout. I also cut my endurance training to three days a week. By January I had to stop that entirely due to it being too cold for the baby and the roads too icy for me to run safely on. I continued to use the TRX trainer 4 days a week, and also did 50-meter sprints outside in the snow, pulling my baby behind me in a toboggan. It wasn't exactly endurance running, but it sure got my heart rate up!

The point I'm trying to make is that you can always find a way to be flexible in your workouts. For a lot of people, finding the time to exercise is a lot harder than choosing healthier foods. Nothing, believe me, nothing in life takes up more time than caring for a newborn. But I discovered early on that babies are lulled to sleep by movement, so my daily walks and runs with him in the stroller served double duty by giving him a solid one-hour nap and me my exercise regimen. My outside winter sprints were like playtime for him. It was so funny to be panting along like a steam engine and hear him laughing behind me while I pulled him as fast as I could run.

So for anyone struggling to fit exercise in, my advice is to get creative. Make a repeat cycle of stair sprints. Set up cones in your back yard and sprint from one to the other six times, stopping just long enough to bend down and touch the cone before you run back to the other one. Use your hallway to practice crab-walking and backbend-walking like you used to in elementary school gym - it's great for building both flexibility and power. There are so many things you can do, and the more you mix it up, the less boring it is and the more you'll find yourself looking forward to it. Unless you are training for a specific type of event, there's no need to limit yourself to one type of exercise; in fact, you can gain a lot of benefits by mixing in different ones because you will work your heart and lungs and muscle groups in different ways.

Good luck and good progress to you all!

Okay, I've been trying the all veggies and fruits diet for 5 days now, and I just lost about 3 lbs! I know it's a small number, but this type of diet is really good! I don't feel weak and my face doesn't look like a ghost! I now know my mistake when I tried the vegetarian diet, I need protein and healthy fat. DX

I hope I can lose a bit more weight by the end of March, so no more chubby tummy! *pokes mah belly*

For everyone else, keep it up! ^o^b

Something that I've learnt over my years of being a veggiatarion: There's a lot of different brands that make meat-flavored tofu.
It's not really "tofu", ('cause even I can only stand that in certian things. Like Stir-Fry. Mmmm....) It's....Well, It's difficult to explain. XD But When My family has Hotdogs: I have Tofupups. When my family has basically anything meat-based: I have a verity of things from the brand "Gardein". I buy them at Giant. There's things like "Tuscan Chicken Breasts" (Made from something that ISN'T Chicken) and "Pulled BBQ" to things like "Italian Sausage" and A bunch of different meat tasting Tofu Cold-cuts.
A good place to look for those things is a local health-food store.
I know that at MY local Healthfood store, all the employies know my name. XD

Good thread, I like this idea a lot! As for myself, I'm trying to start a low/no-sugar diet because my sugar intake is insanely high and it's making me even more sluggish and lazy than I normally am. Not sure how I'm going to start, though, because almost everything has a ton of sugar in it!

I gotta start gaining weight, too. Not fat, but muscle. I'm so bad at keeping up with working out on a regular basis, so it's pretty tough!

Great job! I'm glad you're getting the proper nutrients in this time! And 3lbs in 5 days isn't a small number at all, weight loss should be done slowly and steadily over a longer period of time, rather than a quick drop in a few weeks.

Good luck to you! I think it's best to eat things that are naturally sweet at first to ween yourself off of it, like fruits. Also natural sweeteners like stevia have become a staple in my house. I'm assuming a large amount of your sugar intake in through soda? If so, try and find drinks where you can control how much sugar your putting in yourself, rather than sodas that have a predetermined, and very high amount of sugar. This way you can add less and less.

As for muscle, I'm not too muscly myself but I do follow a lifting routine. I highly recommend looking up some throughout guides on lifting to find what routine would best fit you.

(sorry for the double post, I wanted to reply to some people before I talked about my own stuff)

So I've switched up my work out routine a bit, and I think I'm going to love the new adjustments! My mother has been going to this hot yoga class for awhile now, and she invited me to come with last week. I enjoyed the session so much I joined the studio and plan on going once a week now. I have such a tight schedule, I was so happy to see they had sessions during some of my few times off.

I'm going to go to a few more session just to see if it's really the thing for me, but man I think I am in love with it. If I decide to stick with it I'm going to treat myself to a nice mat and a set of yoga clothes. It was incredible, but since it's hot yoga by the end of it you're so sweaty that it's hard to keep from slipping around.

I really really love being warm, and now I have an excuse to sit in a 100 degree room once a week oh yes oh yes.