Before you can truly be successful with weight loss you have to realize that it’s not actually your weight that you are unhappy with. You are actually just unhappy with yourself, and using food to try to find happiness. Inevitably though, it is just making you more depressed. Realize that food is your coping mechanism with life, and it’s time to find you a new one. Realize that your happiness lies in having pride in yourself and in your accomplishments and has absolutely nothing to do with your scale weight. Realize that we need to lose the constant obsession of food, and instead think of eating as a means of survival. Therefore, counting your calories is only a temporary lesson in understanding what your body actually needs, not something to obsess over every day of your life.
Understand that whether you want to admit it or not, you are going to be mad at yourself every time you have that sugar binge, which right there means it isn’t worth it. 
But realize that without the love of food, you will feel an emotional void, which is exactly where exercise slips in. This is where your identity changes. Yes, I know exercise is hard and you don’t have time for it. And I know you have bad joints, but lack of movement is to blame for that. Yes I know you don’t like exercise and it doesn’t give you that high that all exercise junkies talk about. You will in time, they just have a few years on you. But you have to give it a fair chance. You have to change your attitude and know that it’s actually a privilege to go to the gym and workout. So many people don’t have that ability for some reason or another.
Have fun with it. Make new friends that will help hold you accountable. Find classes that you can actually look forward to. Put it on the calendar and don’t let anything get in the way. Let your identity change into that happy person that you currently find annoying. Let your love for food turn into your love of exercise, because that’s what will make you feel accomplished. And in return, that’s what will help you find happiness. And no that has absolutely nothing to do with how much you weigh or ever what you look like. The funny thing is, once you let those requirements go, they are a lot easier to control.
by Kristen Cole, Owner, Skinny Without Struggle™