First question I got is What are some vital healthy Nutrisystem diet tips? Many thanks for any response. 2nd question I got is.. First of all, it's good to be back. I have missed interacting with you over the past 6 months or so. I would pop back in every once in a while, but in reality avoiding this discussion board was a symptom of a larger beast I was fighting..

To the vets - it is great to see you again. I'm glad to see the successes and humbled by some who like me are struggling with the overall process. New members - Nutrisystem works great! It's the other part that I'm still a rookie with - maintaining when you take breaks from the plan for whatever reason..

I have restarted Nutrisystem this week after basically a six month vacation, during which I gained back a lot of weight. Just now making the decision to restart (which I did several times over the 6 months but couldn't stick with it), I have started the process of analyzing what went wrong. I still don't know all of the answers, but I think I'm ready to start sharing my experience. I am doing this for three reasons - 1)to try and get my life back in order, 2)to admit my failures so I can start fixing them, and 3)to provide to you the story of one who was once an Nutrisystem legend and who now sits humbled before you after falling WAY off the wagon. I am the Leif Garrett of NS! I hope my experience sheds light for others so you don't have to go through the same thing I did..

The problem is - as I write this, I think this restart is going to stick, but I can't be 100% sure. I have family support again, as I always have. I think I finally have the desire to get back to the new physical body I had when I hit my low of 236 on May 31, 2008. My hope is that by soul-searching and publicly admitting my failures, I can avoid them when I begin to look around at other foods that create the problems for me..

When I started gaining the weight back, I wasn't in denial of that fact, but I had convinced myself that losing weight was easy, and at any time I could start again and get back the losing momentum. Up until last week, I was still in the belief that whenever I was ready, I would get started again. NOT THE CASE! I think the low point was when the realization hit that I could not do this by myself, coupled with the low self-esteem that I was already experiencing because my new skinny clothes didn't fit anymore. The mental hit was devastating. I have always been up front about the depression I fight. It just about got too big for me, but it took a jolt like that to I guess wake me up and understand I needed help..

Now that I'm back, I'm looking for signs that may have presented themselves over the past 6 months that perhaps I could have observed to stop the upward spiral of my weight, combined with the downward spiral of my self-esteem. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this since I restarted Nutrisystem on Monday of this week. I hope to come up with some semi-concrete answers that I and others can use to try and prevent this from happening again..

For now, just admitting my failures and posting here today has been a good start. My first day to step on the scales since July was on Wednesday, and I weighed 303 (after a satisfying NS-induced mega-dump!) I have officially gained back 67 pounds, a little over half of my original weight loss. It's time to stop and get back in the right direction..

I'm sorry this is so long. Respond if you would like. I want this to be as helpful to others as I hope it will be to me. I'm going to post this on the blogs as well as here in the Men's Room because I have friends in both places..

Gentlemen - losing weight is easy. Keeping the weight off is now the hardest fight of my life. Good luck to us all!.

Grace and Peace - Bandmaster..