Staying Motivated for the Long Haul

@fessmom, I just came across your message. I am attaching this link and I encourage you to have a look.
http://diet.mayoclinic.org/diet/success-stories
I rely on the book as my guide. I am learning to make better food choices. And also how to incorporate some healthy habits into my daily routine. The Mayo Clinic Diet is actually a life long path to healthy eating, and weight loss/management. I am motivated to stick to it because I like the positive effect on my own health.
There is also a newsletter that I think that you might especially enjoy!. It offers encouragement, as well as suggestions for how to keep on going when veering off course.
@fessmom, After looking, what did you learn that might help you?
Looking forward to hearing from you, Rosemary

@fessmom, I just came across your message. I am attaching this link and I encourage you to have a look.
http://diet.mayoclinic.org/diet/success-stories
I rely on the book as my guide. I am learning to make better food choices. And also how to incorporate some healthy habits into my daily routine. The Mayo Clinic Diet is actually a life long path to healthy eating, and weight loss/management. I am motivated to stick to it because I like the positive effect on my own health.
There is also a newsletter that I think that you might especially enjoy!. It offers encouragement, as well as suggestions for how to keep on going when veering off course.
@fessmom, After looking, what did you learn that might help you?
Looking forward to hearing from you, Rosemary

@rosemarya @fessmom I neglected to include some of my best helpers in losing weight.
I have a fitness tracker. You set what you want your goal to be and it lets you know how you are doing. It really pushes me to get to that goal and beyond.
Next, I use myfitnesspal to track everything I put my mouth. I have not been doing that recently because I know have been not eating correctly but I am getting back on track with that too. It also syncs with my fitness tracker and adds to my allowable caloric input, the amount being dependent on how much exercise I have gotten.
Last, I have a scale that tells me BMI and fluid retention. I know it is not professionally accurate but it does give you a good gauge of things, primarily my fluid retention (you have to have bare feet for that to work). If I gain weight and then see that my fluid retention is high I don't feel as bad. It measures fluid against BMI so when my fluid retention is high, my BMI is low, like in the teens and we all know is not true for me. Still, it does help me. When I start seeing my weight going down it spurs me on to stay with dieting. Sometimes if it goes up I sort of throw in the towel but I getting beyond that mindset now.
This type of scale is not as costly as you might expect. Mine is a Tanita that I got on Amazon and if I recall it was around $45.

I have included a screenshot of one day this week with my fitness tracker. I took this to send to send to my son. I did really well that day, one of my all time bests.
JK

@rosemarya @fessmom I neglected to include some of my best helpers in losing weight.
I have a fitness tracker. You set what you want your goal to be and it lets you know how you are doing. It really pushes me to get to that goal and beyond.
Next, I use myfitnesspal to track everything I put my mouth. I have not been doing that recently because I know have been not eating correctly but I am getting back on track with that too. It also syncs with my fitness tracker and adds to my allowable caloric input, the amount being dependent on how much exercise I have gotten.
Last, I have a scale that tells me BMI and fluid retention. I know it is not professionally accurate but it does give you a good gauge of things, primarily my fluid retention (you have to have bare feet for that to work). If I gain weight and then see that my fluid retention is high I don't feel as bad. It measures fluid against BMI so when my fluid retention is high, my BMI is low, like in the teens and we all know is not true for me. Still, it does help me. When I start seeing my weight going down it spurs me on to stay with dieting. Sometimes if it goes up I sort of throw in the towel but I getting beyond that mindset now.
This type of scale is not as costly as you might expect. Mine is a Tanita that I got on Amazon and if I recall it was around $45.

I have included a screenshot of one day this week with my fitness tracker. I took this to send to send to my son. I did really well that day, one of my all time bests.
JK

Jane, good luck at the club! I hope I didn't add more confusion to a topic that already has so much to think about. I actually began college studying exercise sciences and took some nutrition, exercise, and excercise planning courses.

You are correct in that BMR is the amount of calories your body theoretically burns just to maintain your current body. The more muscle tone you have, the higher your BMR is because muscles burn more calories.

The best way to burn fat, and keep it off long term, is to do excercises that get you breathing hard for longer periods than 2 minutes. Don't overdue it if you have any health concerns, but oxygen is what actually burns fat, so moderate excercise that elevates your heart rate and has you breathing a bit harder is what actually burns an animals fat deposits! This of course all goes hand-in-hand with a good diet. But, simply cutting calories is not always a long term solution! I hope this didn't muddy the waters more! These are the same things I struggle with daily. The diet is hardest for me as well.

Jane, good luck at the club! I hope I didn't add more confusion to a topic that already has so much to think about. I actually began college studying exercise sciences and took some nutrition, exercise, and excercise planning courses.

You are correct in that BMR is the amount of calories your body theoretically burns just to maintain your current body. The more muscle tone you have, the higher your BMR is because muscles burn more calories.

The best way to burn fat, and keep it off long term, is to do excercises that get you breathing hard for longer periods than 2 minutes. Don't overdue it if you have any health concerns, but oxygen is what actually burns fat, so moderate excercise that elevates your heart rate and has you breathing a bit harder is what actually burns an animals fat deposits! This of course all goes hand-in-hand with a good diet. But, simply cutting calories is not always a long term solution! I hope this didn't muddy the waters more! These are the same things I struggle with daily. The diet is hardest for me as well.

Jane, good luck at the club! I hope I didn't add more confusion to a topic that already has so much to think about. I actually began college studying exercise sciences and took some nutrition, exercise, and excercise planning courses.

You are correct in that BMR is the amount of calories your body theoretically burns just to maintain your current body. The more muscle tone you have, the higher your BMR is because muscles burn more calories.

The best way to burn fat, and keep it off long term, is to do excercises that get you breathing hard for longer periods than 2 minutes. Don't overdue it if you have any health concerns, but oxygen is what actually burns fat, so moderate excercise that elevates your heart rate and has you breathing a bit harder is what actually burns an animals fat deposits! This of course all goes hand-in-hand with a good diet. But, simply cutting calories is not always a long term solution! I hope this didn't muddy the waters more! These are the same things I struggle with daily. The diet is hardest for me as well.

@rosemarya @fessmom I neglected to include some of my best helpers in losing weight.
I have a fitness tracker. You set what you want your goal to be and it lets you know how you are doing. It really pushes me to get to that goal and beyond.
Next, I use myfitnesspal to track everything I put my mouth. I have not been doing that recently because I know have been not eating correctly but I am getting back on track with that too. It also syncs with my fitness tracker and adds to my allowable caloric input, the amount being dependent on how much exercise I have gotten.
Last, I have a scale that tells me BMI and fluid retention. I know it is not professionally accurate but it does give you a good gauge of things, primarily my fluid retention (you have to have bare feet for that to work). If I gain weight and then see that my fluid retention is high I don't feel as bad. It measures fluid against BMI so when my fluid retention is high, my BMI is low, like in the teens and we all know is not true for me. Still, it does help me. When I start seeing my weight going down it spurs me on to stay with dieting. Sometimes if it goes up I sort of throw in the towel but I getting beyond that mindset now.
This type of scale is not as costly as you might expect. Mine is a Tanita that I got on Amazon and if I recall it was around $45.

I have included a screenshot of one day this week with my fitness tracker. I took this to send to send to my son. I did really well that day, one of my all time bests.
JK

Jane, good luck at the club! I hope I didn't add more confusion to a topic that already has so much to think about. I actually began college studying exercise sciences and took some nutrition, exercise, and excercise planning courses.

You are correct in that BMR is the amount of calories your body theoretically burns just to maintain your current body. The more muscle tone you have, the higher your BMR is because muscles burn more calories.

The best way to burn fat, and keep it off long term, is to do excercises that get you breathing hard for longer periods than 2 minutes. Don't overdue it if you have any health concerns, but oxygen is what actually burns fat, so moderate excercise that elevates your heart rate and has you breathing a bit harder is what actually burns an animals fat deposits! This of course all goes hand-in-hand with a good diet. But, simply cutting calories is not always a long term solution! I hope this didn't muddy the waters more! These are the same things I struggle with daily. The diet is hardest for me as well.