Welcome to ASD.  You might want to start by logging your food into
www.fitday.com   This will give you some idea of the number of calories
you're eating every day.  Many in the group suggest 10 x current weight as a
starting point for losing weight.

I find drinking plenty of water really helps me.  It not only fills me up
but I feel better when I remember to drink it.

What type of workouts are you doing at the gym?  I normally do weights a
couple times a week and ride bikes 2-3 days a week.

Beverly

A good start would be to eat a decent diet (including some fish, meat,
vegetables etc), and at the same time limit the total quantity of food
eaten so that you have calorie deficit. It is good that you are
already exercising and cut out sweets.

It helps to not be in a great hurry to lose weight (no crash dieting),
and it also helps to have a rational attitude about it. (that is, not
freak out at setbacks).

Once you lose weight, maintaining it is about as much struggle as
losing it. Maybe a little less difficult, but not much more difficult.

Many ordinary people lost weight and maintain their weight loss for a
long time. They key for them is making it a priority in their lives.

Some people do very well when they cut out a lot of carbohydrates in
their diets and go on a "low carb" diet. They really work, although
other diets also work. For low carb discussion, go to
alt.support.diet.low-carb.

i

"starting over" with the exception of cutting out the sweets. If
anyone has
any ideas or suggestions or where I can start, I'd really appreciate
it.<<

I humbly recommend keeping track of your food intake and exercise at
www.fitday.com.

As always, YMMV.

Kasey
365/257/???

Well, I'm probably different from you, but I can tell you what has
been working for me.

1) Regularize and Minimize

I cut out a lot of randomness out of my diet (which was mostly
fast-food options) and settled on a quasi-routine. I eat several
meal-snacks a day, plus a more-or-less normal dinner. My goal is to
lose 2lbs/week max, so I shoot for a 1000 kcal/day deficit. By cutting
out the crap from my diet (soft drinks, candy, snack foods) I've got a
lot of calories to actually feed myself with.

2) Be normal

I don't eat cheeseburgers without the bun (not that I eat
cheeseburgers often). While I think ketogenic dieting could indeed let
me lose faster and be more protein sparing,  I'm looking for a way of
eating that is low-maintenance and hassle-free, so I'm using plain old
portion control for my dieting.

3) Drink lots of water

I buy gallon jugs from Walmart (the 'Spring Water' is pretty good). I
make sure to go through half a gallon a day, more when I go out in the
heat.

4) Don't avoid fats (the good unsaturated ones)

My lunch or mid-day snack is 1 serving (1oz, about 28 nuts) of
almonds. They taste REALLY good with my water, even thought they load
25% of the daily recommendation for fat, I don't care.

5) Go for some long burns

Exercise for more than 2 hours occasionally. Don't overdo it, but
really clean out your system once in a while. Stay hydrated when
exercising, and don't get hungry -- I use clif bars to keep my carbs
and energy humming when I'm out.

6) Don't deny yourself

I can eat cheese with my meals, eg. with a sliced apple.  I have ca.
2000 calories a day to eat, so I can afford to add in tasty stuff here
and there. Don't give into stupid temptations, but live a little and
don't make food the enemy. Everything in moderation, and while the
journey isn't really the reward, extreme dieting is most likely
counter-productive in the long-run.

7) Get your protein

Find a protein shake that you like. Mix it in with stuff like oatmeal
or your cold cereal. A scoop is 200 kcals of goodness.

8) Eat well

veggies, etc. I could do better here. I think the reports that dairy
intake helps dieting may be true, but even if not I like the energy,
protein, and satiety I get from 1% milk and the occasional cheese.

Heywood

232/195/182

oh yeah, one more:

Instrument your diet progress

I keep an excel spreadsheet tracking my diet. I couldn't imagine
keeping to a diet without this daily accounting of progress or lack
thereof. I even graph it:

http://homepage.mac.com/t_d/.Public/week19.jpg

and I can say the graph has been been very motivating for me.

Note also that I use the spreadsheet to calculate my "moving average"
for each day. Weights on the scale vary quite a lot, but the moving
average is a lot more reliable.

The calculation is pretty simple:

today's average = yesterday's average + (today's weight - yesterday's
average) * 0.25

tracking the moving average every day is actually pretty fun -- as
long as your scale weight is lower than the the average, the average
will go down. Since the average movement lags the scale movement, if
you eat right it's pretty easy (at least for me) to keep your average
moving down consistently even when the scale weight fluctuates up &
down a little or plateaus. Quite the sanity saver.