Me too.
 

Hi, my name is Linneah (Linee, to my friends) and I've just started today too, and it's a little overwhelming. So much to look at, and not sure where to start. I'm 46, and 117 pounds overweight. Ugh... I used to be so active outdoors, camping, hiking, biking, and especially snow skiing, which I can't do anymore because I refuse to buy bigger ski pants. I soooo want to lose weight because I want to get back to the things I used to love, but don't have the energy for anymore. Any encouragement (or advice) would be welcome.

When you start to lose weight, you'll have more energy than you know what to do with.

Hi Linee, you will get there one step at a time, like snow shoeing! After that, you'll be on the slopes ;-)

A good place to start is just log what you eat, get the hang of it. It's really eye opening! Measure everything with measuring cups or a food scale. I prefer the scale, you can't fudge it like you can with rounded measuring cups. The "food browse" option is more user friendly than the search bar. You'll probably end up making a bunch of custom foods too, which is a pain at first but really helpful once you've built up a library. I use calorieking.com to find nutrition info too. We're a friendly bunch here, so come back often :)

Thanks for the encouragement! I've been scanning the site - it tracks just about everything you can imagine. I'm very motivated to get going. That's a good sign. :)

Welcome to the boards honey. This is a great site, very motivational and helpful. We have a lot in common, I'm also in my 40's, started with 124 pounds to lose, and I ski! Although admittedly skiing isn't really my thing, but the DH would rather ski than breathe, and for some crazy reason the children all got that genetic defect too...

Do you know how many calories/hour skiing burns? It's an insane workout, and waaaayyyy more fun than a treadmill, so you might want to rethink that snowpants thing. Buy them second hand, heck I have a pair I'll send you, but don't stay off the slopes because of some mental road block over a clothing size. Also another thing you might think about is that right now you have more insulation than you need, at my heaviest I wore my snowpants to the slope and spent the entire day sweating in them. Maybe you can find a pair of wind breakers to wear over some layers, long johns, sweat pants etc? Swallow your pride, put on some fat ski pants and get your fanny to the mountain. Okay?

As for a place to start, one of my best buds is a nutritionist, and she gave me the best advice. She encouraged me to write down what I was eating for 3 days, not to diet, just to record. After that exercise, it was very clear exactly where my habits needed improvement.