Time to Get Serious About My Weight

I've had this off and on battle with my weight for years. A few years ago I was up to 238 pounds and fought to get myself down to 195. The problem has been that I just can't seem to keep it under 200 pounds. This winter has been extra hard. When I am in pain, I tend to crave sweets. Most people probably don't know that I really don't do a lot of sweet foods or candies, other than an occasional piece of chocolate or a pie at McDonalds.  But that is not all that common of an experience for me, except, as I said, when my pain level goes up. This year, I ate a lot more, and my weight slowly crept up from 202 to 216. I decided last week that it was time to get on it and get my weight down, but I knew it was not going to happen while we were traveling. So I set my sights on today... and today, I began to focus, not so much on a diet, but on eating more healthy and to increase my exercise. I've set my goals at modest levels. We leave for Cancun in June. By then I want to be at no more than 200 pounds. I know, people always tell me that this is too much too fast, but my body always responds well when I start exercising and eating healthy and if I hold true to form, I will most likely drop at least 5 pounds in the first week. So, it is not unrealistic for me to hope to drop 16 pounds in 10 weeks. I set my next goal at 190 by October 1.  I think I should be able to shed 22 pounds in 6 months. I really don't know if I will want to go lower than that just yet, so I'm not going to set any further goals as for weight loss until I get to that point. 

One of my problems is that people keep telling me that I'm not "fat" and that I look fine and don't need to lose weight. The thing is, I don't feel good. I'm not talking about feeling good about myself... I mean, physically, I don't feel well.  I am tired all the time and have very low energy levels on a consistent basis. My back and my knees ache and my doctors have told me that much of this is the excess weight. Beyond that, I've had heart issues and my cardiologist has said he would like to see me back to 195 as well because it is a strain on my heart to carry the extra weight. I'm going to post the following picture, not only to show all of you, but to remind myself what we are talking about. This pictures shows what 5 pounds of human fat looks like. I'm carrying at least 22 pounds of "extra" fat around... or more than 4 of those yellow blobs!  Yeah... it's time to cut loose of some of that. I have to!