I've recently turned 50 and have decided it's now or never to get healthy. Really healthy. Not just thin by any means, but to aim for true health. My goals are to exercise consistently and to slowly replace all processed foods with whole foods. I've been practically unable to lose any weight at all, regardless of the diet I've chosen to follow, for about 5 years. The only time when I did manage to drop any real weight was when I started smoking again a little more than a year ago. I have since quit again (for the last time) as of Oct. 18th. The "interesting" thing is, I began putting on the weight when I quit five years ago or more, steadily adding pounds every month until i picked up the nasty habit again. I dropped 17 lbs over the next four or five months, then leveled off once again. Decided smoking would kill me faster than being 50 lbs overweight would and quit.

So now it's health. I refuse to follow any crazy path again. For me, they don't offer permanent solutions. I think decades of dieting have screwed up my metabolism so much that losing weight is next to impossible. I won't give up. I have faith in the human body's ability to fix itself, given the proper nutrition. So I'm plugging away - eating cleaner foods, less processed foods and going organic where affordable. I'm working out an hour a day and shooting for 6 days a week.

...Well, here it is six months into this journey. Today I reached the 30 pound loss mark :D Turns out I have a bit of a thyroid issue and just a little pill (half, actually) has finally enabled me to lose weight. Finally. So I've been taking it for a little over 6 weeks now and dropped 11 of those 30 pounds. Amazing. Now I'm 20 pounds from goal weight and I can actually visualize it. I love this site.