Depression and Weight IssuesHave you been diagnosed with depression, are possibly on depression medication, and find it affects your weight loss efforts? Post here for support!
Sometimes I just feel like it's not going to happen. With all the small changes and the exercising it's just not enough. I know I need to do a WHOLE LOT MORE but ......Ahhhhhhh I just don't know. Sometimes it all just feels like to much.
I want to give up all the time. Then I remember that if I do nothing there's a 100% chance that nothing will change and maybe things might get worse (you were 256 at your starting weight I was 284). I think of it like the Disney song, if I put one foot in front of the other, soon I'll be walking out of the obesity door. I figure if I try at least I have a 50/50 shot...and it will pay off.
Congrats on your first 14. I'm somewhere around losing my first 50. Cheering you on.....I'll see you in onederland
I have felt that way most of my life. I tried exercising a LOT, I tried eating what I thought were healthy things. I never managed to lose more than a few pounds here or there...and this was over years and years and years. I've been overweight since I was very young. I joined weight watchers recently through my work. I was completely skeptical and only joined because we can get reimbursed for it through our insurance so it's essentially free. 26 pounds later I'm amazed!
In the past 3 years, my weight has been rather stable where I would start an exercise program and nothing would happen. It was rather frustrating. Only in the past two months have I finally been able to drop 12 pounds or so by running. I was never a runner in my life prior to now, so that and eating better (and sticking to it) has actually jump started me to lose weight but I have stalled a bit the last 2 weeks and it's kind of freaking me out.
I have all these thoughts that my body just won't let me lose weight. I feel what you feel, and it sucks. I have to believe it's not true as we have seen from other successful people on this forum. I think weight loss just takes time and continued persistence. We can't give up and I won't give up. :|
But yay for both of us, I decided that approximately 10 pounds was a significant mile stone and it meant that whatever I was doing was working. Here's to the next 10 pound milestone.
Last edited by solarplant; 09-29-2011 at 07:09 PM.
YES absolutely. Esp as I got older I found weight to be more stubborn. Every pound lost is a victory, and let your past results inspire you! You deserve the credit and to be proud of yourself!!!
Cutting bread and pasta and sugar waaay down helped me loose those first 5 lbs. I found that women at ANY age can lose weight.
I also had to really examine all of the lies I told myself throughout the day and why. "It's OK to eat that." or the worse one, "You deserve to eat that." Oy.
Just keep on keeping on. Spiritual strength, hope, and encouragement to you.
Yeah ....everything you all said is correct. funny thing is I don't really remember being 256. I know I was because I remember saying to myself I can't buy pants another size bigger.....I won't.
w00t, another Brooklynite (okay, I commute from NJ, but my college is in Brooklyn)
In all seriousness, yes, in hindsight, I never thought I could lose weight, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I think I had too much going on, and I ate when I was distracted all the while trying to eat quickly and not think about what I was eating. Ugh. I don't remember that me anymore.
You kind of have a point though... if we felt we couldn't do it then, and we did, how do we feel so sure we can't do it again, can't do it now?
Good luck to you on your weight loss journey Hey...baby steps... you can do this, just keep walking
Oh my goodness YES! I tried for years. Low calorie, low fat, exercise, etc. I was trying, trying, trying and NEVER seemed to be getting anywhere no matter how much effort I put into it.
SO frustrating! Then I tried low carb. For me, this seems to be the "key" to my weight loss. But even now there are times when the scale is bouncing around and not going in the right direction, when the lifestyle is harder than I think it should be and I wonder if it's all worth it. I look at the big number I still have to lose and I get a bit defeated and think I'll never get there.
But, I look at where I've been and how far I've come. I've never lost this amount of weight in my life and no matter how difficult it may be at times or how much bouncing around the scale does or how much further I have to go I know that if I don't keep pushing forward I'm absolutely certain to NEVER get to where I want to be.
I did give up over and over and over again for almost 35 years.
We're taught to give up, because we're taught to only celebrate big success. Small successes don't count for much. In fact, often small successes feel like failures.
I remember in Weight Watchers often being "consoled" by the scale ladies when I "only" lost a pound or less. They'd say "you'll do better next week," or "well, at least it's better than a gain, right?" (in a voice that made it clear that the didn't see it as much better than a gain).
WTF, really? Consoling me for what we should have been celebrating?
We have all these expectations about what "normal weight loss" looks like, and we really don't have a clue. My doctor set me straight on that one, because when I started this particular weight loss journey 7 years ago, I was almost bed-ridden, I ate most meals in bed and needed help to shower and dress. Just showering "wiped me out" and I'd need a two hour nap after a shower. I wasn't eating a lot, but I also wasn't moving, so my calorie needs weren't very good (I wasn't just sedentary, I was virtually immobile, and the online calorie estimators don't take that kind of sendentary into account).
I complained to my doctor that I was only losing a pound a month and I should be able to lose at least 2 lbs like a normal person, and my doc said something like "where'd you hear that garbage, normal isn't 2 lbs a month - normal is nothing at all - or gaining. Just maintaining any loss at all, was not normal, it was extraordinary - most people don't do it. Just by "staying in the game" I was succeeding far beyond "normal."
We compare ourselves not to real people, but to mostly imaginary ones (all the people who are succeeding far more than we are). We see all the people doing beter than us, and virtually none of the people who aren't doing as well. It's like running in a marathon and concluding that you're in last place or close to it because you see a thousand people running ahead of you, not looking back to see the 20,000 people behind us.
It's harder than that kind of marathon, because there aren't many ways to see the people behind you. You can't just turn and look behind you, because the stragglers don't advertise their status. When we see people (even people we think we know very well) we don't see "has tried to diet for 20 years and has only gained 40 lbs for the trouble." We don't always see the successes either - but we see a lot more successes that (the more typical) strugglers. The slow losers don't appear on the commercials and the talk shows. The gainers don't usually make it into the public eye either unless their story is freakish.
When we're taught to see even the small successes as failure, it's no wonder we give up. Even though we're succeeding, we feel like we're failing because we're not matching the pace of the success stories we see on tv. We're not "the biggest losers" so we think there's something wrong with us.
We don't see other people's failures, so we think we're the only one doing so poorly (when we're not doing poorly at all).
I LOVE my TOPS group because the group helps remind me that I am doing well, even though I'll never be on a talk show and no one will buy my diet book for losing only 95 lbs in 7 years. But there is no "only" about it, because most people don't ever lose their 95 lbs in 7 years or in a lifetime. Considering where I started and what usually happens to people in that state, I'm a miracle of acheivement, but very few people will see that. Very few people will see my story as one to emulate (who wants to take 10 to 20 years to lose the weight they want to? - and many of them will only be fatter in those 10 to 20 years, because my example wasn't good enough).
I don't feel like giving up any more, because now I know what "normal" really is, and I know I'm not just doing better than normal, I'm doing blipping fantastic. As I said, I love my TOPS group, because every week we go around telling whether we've gained, lost, or stayed the same and we each get applauded if we lost or maintained, and we're told by everyone "we're glad you came" (not "boo," or "sorry,) or "better luck next time," or "well, at least you didn't gain more").
And then the weight recorders announce the total gains, losses, and net gain or loss for the group (and this is one of the most miraculous tools of all - because you get to see what "real average" weight loss looks like. Because the average isn't even one pound per person. And TOPS has been researched for decades by The Medical School of Wisconsin, and TOPS groups do far better than the real average/normal. So what's normal in TOPS is actually extraordinary in the general population. So if TOPS members are losing an average of less than one pound per week (more like a quarter to a half) then the national average is much tinier.
But we all know people who've lost faster, so we still want to tell ourselves that losing 1/4 lb per week is not success. It's a lie, and we have to remind ourselves of the lie, to prevent what I believe is the truest enemy of weight loss - seeing failure where there isn't any. Seeing failure where there is actually impressive (if we were allowed to really talk and think about such things truthfully).
You're not failing. Being fat is not inevitable (and so what if it is - you don't have to be "as fat" as you are today). That's another myth of weight loss that we're encouraged to believe - that only the end result counts for anything. If along the way, we realize (or believe) that we cannot make it to our ultimate goal, we give up. Because "if we're going to be fat anyway, we might as well get to eat what we want." It's stupid logic (and we know it, but we're encouraged to feel that way anyway - because it's just one of the rules we follow because everyone else seems to be following them). Every pound matters, and even if you can't lose more than you have, the weight loss you've acheived is worth keeping, even if you never lose another pound.
That was hardest for me to learn, but it's also stopped my yoyo cycle, because I remind myself every day that I don't want to go back to where I started. If I never lose another pound, I'm still determined to keep off what I've lost.
You may say "easy to say, after you've lost 95 lbs," but I started to think this way from the very beginning. And I think it's one of the reasons I'm succeeding as I have not in all those decades of dieting and only getting fatter as a result. I'm not trying to lose weight this time. I'm trying to maintain the weight I've lost and "maybe lose just one more." I've been telling myself this (maintenance and "maybe just one more") for the last 75 lbs.
When I weigh myself in the morning, I celebrate everything but a gain (and even then I don't beat myself up for the gain, I just weigh myself the next day and celebrate everything but a gain again. Which means that even if I haven't lost the pound I've gained, I still celebrate unless there was ANOTHER gain. And if I happen to be down that pound I gained yesterday, I really get excited).
I get to celebrate a lot that way - where my old way meant I rarely got to celebrate, because even small successes felt like failures because I didn't want small successes, I wanted huge, miraculous successes.
Celebrate the small successes (staying the same, walking a few more steps today than yesterday....) and you get to celebrate and feel successful a lot. And that makes this journey fun, exciting, and rewarding, because success builds on success.
I still have a hard believing that I've lost as much weight as I have and also that I'll be even able to get to a healthy BMI, crazy, right?
The best thing for me is to break everything into small goals and focus on those. I actually have lost my weight through small changes over time. I'm constantly tweaking my diet. It doesn't mean I lose fast but I keep on losing and my goal gets closer and closer every day!
Hang in there, keep working at it and over time you WILL lose weight. The only way to ensure you won't is to give up.
I think weight loss just takes time and continued persistence.
Well said. Time is key. Stick with it and you'll see results. I've found that patience is extremely important when losing weight. It's a bit of a cliche, but we didn't gain weight overnight, so we won't be losing it overnight. It took me three years to go from my goal weight back to my original start weight. If it takes me three years to get back to goal, so be it. I'll get there eventually because I'm making good, healthy decisions every single day.
If you just keep at it, one step at a time, one mini-success at a time, one meal at a time, you'll end up where you want to be. Have faith in yourself. You can do it!
Sometimes I think of how I let my weight get so far out of control and I think of how much I have left to lose and it's really daunting. But, I just try to stay positive. I know that I CAN'T give up. The longer I wait to lose weight, the more difficult it's going to be, and I'm sick of letting my life pass me by. If I can't lose it when I'm 24 and single with no kids and no responsibilities. I can't imagine how I'm going to do it out in the "real" world.
you are so right that any loss is a victory because so many people don't get there. esp if you are having to try to lose, your body type is probably one that doesn't lose very quickly. i'm just so grateful that i sort of stumbled into learning that i could lose weight?? i started walking to try to keep from gaining anymore and then realized i could jog, run, and then lo and behold, i started losing! i've had alot of lifestyle changes to adapt to, and some injuries along the way, so i've still got some to lose. but oh man i can't imagine now having to start over at the beginning, how that must feel.
I did feel that way during the many times that I tried to lose weight. Looking back, I was going about it the wrong way. Undereating, not drinking enough water, not working in exercise, etc... Once I found Weight Watchers(basically calorie counting) I started to experience some success. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could lose weight. Then, I added in walking which became powerwalking which became jogging, and then running. Exercise made a difference for me but I am convinced its mostly what you eat. We all know you can't cancel out a piece of birthday cake with a 30 minute walk. Just keep working at it. I did NOT set a long term goal. I just enjoyed the journey as the weight started to drop off. Good luck-You can do it!
Did You Ever think you wouldn't lose weight?
Ugh. I don't remember that me anymore.
