[FatNena]

I have always been overweight tried lots of times to lose the weigh. I have an eight month old I was 220 when I found out I was pregnant and 220 when I gave birth (didnt gain any weight due to uncontrollable puking on the daily) After my son was born I was 205 and stayed there for two or so months but now my weight is climbing again :c

In four days of restricting calories I have lost 4 pounds 2 inches around ribcage/waist none on my butt which Im pear shaped so that will be the hardest place to lose.

So my question is where do I start with exercise? I want to be doing 30 minutes a day but I dont really know what I am to be doing? I want it to work but I dont want to be so sore I am discouraged from doing it the next day also exercising always makes me really hungry when Im done how can I avoid that?

Im not really counting but I would say my calorie intake is about 800 including drinks restricting dairy and bread type products. Im not a super big eater in general regularly I only eat about 1200-1500 calories but Im very sedentary and the food I eat is alot of carbs and dairy.

[Treasa]

Hi @FatNena! I signed up to reply to you. Our stories are very similar, except I imagine I'm a bit older. I'm 48 and have four kids, lost weight with each baby due to extreme vomiting and gained weight after each of them was born. I started married life at 110 and eventually went up to 214 after my last child. I lost 30 pounds during the 29 weeks I was pregnant with him - went from 198 down to 167 but then kept gaining until I hit that 214.

The reason I'm posting is because I think you've got a couple of things going on. First, like me your body was in starvation mode during your pregnancy and if you've only lost 4 pounds on 800 calories I think it's still in starvation mode. First things first, are you taking a probiotic and a multivitamin? Vitamins always made me nauseous, but I finally found a high rated brand I could take. I think you need to figure out what minerals your body is deficient in, and it surely is after all that vomiting. This will take some trial and error. I needed magnesium (most of us do), iodine, and chromium. I'm still determining if there are others and I suspect there probably are, but right now for the first time in more than a decade, I'm sleeping better, I'm sweating again (I've always been a sweaty girl, but when my body was nutritionally deficient, I hardly perspired at all), and I have much more energy.

The next thing I'll tell you is that probably at this point the best exercise you can do is walk. Get yourself a fitbit and work your way up to 10000 steps each day. That may take a while, but if you get a baseline and discover your normal step count is 3000, then you can work on getting that doubled each day. That's enough exercise at this point until your body is lighter and you can put more stress on your joints.

The last piece of advice I'd give you is to look at your eating. Here's a peek at mine. I gave up Nutrasweet. That was very hard for me. Although I gave it up cold turkey in August of 2014 I had dreams about Diet Coke and I craved it for much more than a month. Once I had my NutraSweet problem under control, that Lent (Feb 15) I gave up sweets. I only missed them for about 3 days. Every time I really was craving something I substituted apple slices. This is when my weight loss began! I lost 20 pounds without ever really being hungry (I believe that was thanks to my mineral supplementation and less blood sugar swings). Once Lent ended, I did begin having dessert two or three times a week and my weight loss has slowed significantly, but it is still happening at the rate of about 2.5 pounds per month. But most importantly, *I am eating a way I can eat for the rest of my life*. This is no longer a diet but a live-it. I'm down more than 30 pounds and I'm still losing. Here's a typical day for me:

Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, two pieces whole wheat toast with Kerrygold butter. Tea with lemon (unsweetened) I only rarely stray from this breakfast. Sometimes I'll go out to breakfast with my husband and get a bacon egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel.

Lunch: a cheeseburger and potato chips (I rip off most of the bun), OR chicken salad and potato chips OR chicken and avocado (or Wholly Guacamole) and bacon bits wrap w/potato chips. See a theme here? I haven't given up potato chips. I need to eat them if I'm going to stick to this eating plan.

Dinner: This meal changes the most. If I've had a big dinner the previous day or two, I'll have broccoli w/cheese for dinner, but typically I'll eat a meal similar to lunch. Except that I'm much more likely to actually cook a meal. Some possibilities: chicken vegetable stir fry, Baked, breaded or grilled chicken with asparagus or broccoli. One day on the weekend, my husband and I usually have a date night and I may have two or three glasses of wine and maybe even a steak and salad for dinner. And no question, that wine will set me back, but not as much as desserts, which I might have two or three times a week now. (I consider anything sweet a dessert - even a blueberry muffin).

Snack: Somedays I feel like I need a little more. Then I'll have either a one hundred calorie pack of wholly guacamole with some tortilla chips or an apple. Maybe cashews or sometimes even a handful of potato chips. (Potato chips were more at the beginning. I'm generally not that hungry now).

Remember this is not a race. This is about your health. Good luck and get walking!

[Treasa]

One thing I should have stated. Make sure protein (or vegetables) is a significant part of your meal. Bread and chips are the little extras you give yourself. I have found avocado (and the individual Wholly Guacs) to really help with hunger and my eating. It's fat, but fat's not bad. It's the bagels and bread and chips that we need to moderate. Once you start eating better, you'll crave the crap less. When I first started, there was no way I could've satisfied myself with one of those 180 calories bags of chips, now I sometimes don't even finish it.