Hello All...

[jacobhottberry]

I just found this site and I'm very excited about it! Now for a little about me...

I'm 24 and ready to go on Atkins for the second time. I went on it first about four years ago and lost around 70 pounds. I managed to keep most of it off for about three years, but the past year has been pretty difficult for me, for a lot of reasons, and I regressed to a lot of bad habits and gained about 40 back.

One of the biggest problems with this past year is that I stopped exercising (again, for a lot of reasons). When I first started Atkins, being very obese, I was unable to do much more than walk for 30 minutes. However, I took the diet very seriously and also insisted on exercising 3 or 4 days a week, and after about 4 or 5 months I had lost a LOT of weight! I was very excited and kept the exercise (which had turned into running) for years.

So this summer I've decided to get healthy again (it's not just about losing weight for me, but heart and general health). Although I've not been running much over the past year, I still retained some of the endurance, so I decided to start a 5K running program. Also, I've taken up tennis again, which I had also let slip.

SO, this summer has been very good for me. I tried Weight Watchers for about a month (while running/playing tennis) and noticed very minimal weight loss, so I decided to go back to Atkins a couple weeks ago, and I've lost about 10 pounds since! I'm trying to not pay too much attention to the scale and focus more on how I feel, how I look, and how my clothes fit, then the scale, in that order. So far I'm down two inches on my pants and fitting into some old clothes.

On the note of old clothes, I have a pair of pants from when I was at my lowest weight..these pants were my "fat pants" (a size 32 was fat back then), and I always kept them so I'd have a point of reference (if I'm fitting well in these pants, then I'm too heavy!). So over the past six months or so I got too fat for my fat pants! I had to buy new pants and it was very depressing. So I finally decided this summer that instead of buying a whole new wardrobe, I'd make myself fit into the old ones. The good news is that yesterday I put the fat pants on and they fit! It's sad that I'm happy to fit in my fat pants, but I'm hoping that soon they will be too baggy to wear again.

Anyway, sorry for the extra long introduction, but I'm really excited about dieting and getting healthy again, plus I've been running like CRAZY and loving it! And my tennis is coming along even better!

Quick question for those who are knowledgeable: what should my goal weight be? I'm ~5'3 and I currently weigh about 160. I'm thinking 40 pounds would be a great number to lose, but for my height, I think 50 could even still be healthy (at my lowest 4 years ago, I weighed 135). What do you think?

Anyway, sorry again for taking so much space, but I'm excited to be seeing results already and to have my running and tennis be improving every day. Good luck to everyone and I hope I can help with any suggestions on food/exercise/etc.

Ciao!
Jacob

[Lyssie]

Your goal weight completely depends on your body style. For example, my friend is 5'3" and basically all muscle and he weighs 135, but the charts will show his BMI as being either overweight or obese. He has basically no fat on his body but isn't bulky, so if you factor in those things... well, it's a pretty wide range.

Basically, your goal needs to be up to you - what weight did you feel really good at??

[carbless_in_seattle]

holy crap I hope 135 at 5'3" isn't considered overweight on the BMI charts!

[Lyssie]

Ack. Okay, I was wrong... it's 1 point off from overweight. Maybe they revised the charts 'cause the last time he would have looked would be like, 5 years ago... or maybe I'm just retarded.