I want very, very badly to lose weight, insha'Allah. Before my daughter was born, I weighed - no joke - about 80 pounds (I'm 5'2"). I couldn't keep weight on no matter what, and used to have to have high-calorie shakes and drinks between HUGE meals to stay healthy. When I became pregnant, I had morning sickness 24 hours a day, and had to eat constantly to keep my baby healthy because I would lose anything I ate within 15 minutes. The good news is, I put on weight! The bad news is, my metabolism changed so much that even though I now stay at a steady 1000 - 1200 calories a day of healthy foods, I'm 220 lbs.

One thing that makes it difficult is that many vegetables upset my stomach terribly, and some I can't even process hardly at all. Especially peppers; I LOVE PEPPERS, but I can't eat them. So taking the further step of adding more veggies to my diet is not an option. Another major downfall is that in the US, non-processed foods are very, very expensive, and a lot of fruits need to be imported to my area, making it even more difficult to open up the wallet for foods that not only cost a fortune here, but are coated with so many chemicals to keep them from rotting during transport that it's probably worse to eat them than not.
I'd love to get down to a HEALTHY range for my height, somewhere in the 120 to 140 area (I'd rather have a little extra padding than not enough). All thanks be to Allah that I've lived to see another spring, and I can start walking extensively. I'm also going to be working brain-tanning hides for leather insha'Allah, which is VERY physical work. My garage looks like a horror movie right now with skins waiting for tanning. :lol: But insha'Allah it will bring in a little extra revenue for the family.
ANYWHOO, one thing I'd recommend for anyone whose kids have a Nintendo DS (NOT a DSi, or DSXL) is a "game" called "My Weight Loss Coach". You have to have an original DS, because the game comes with a pedometer that you need to be able to plug into the GameBoy slot to get the program past a certain point; the DSi and DSXL do not have this slot (however, if you know someone else that has one, once you get past that point in the program, you can run it on any DS system). The pedometer is junk, you'll want to get a new one, but the program is full of challenges, tips, and mini-games promoting a healthy lifestyle. It does contain stick-figure animation that I found extremely inoffensive and friendly to all faiths. Before winter hit and I got lazy, it helped me shed 15 pounds slowly and safely, and I was feeling great. Time to fire it up again!
If you get this program, fun tip for parent/child interaction: if your children play Pokemon HeartGold/Soulsilver, those games came with . . . a pedometer! The more you walk, the stronger the Pokemon in the pedometer becomes; I used to take my daughter's with me, because it encouraged me to keep walking more and more and surprise her at the end of the day with how many steps we'd built up. Now I have my own and we go walking together "with our Pokemon".

And then I can plug it into the weight loss program, and see how I'm doing for the day. I love mixing fun and health.