[sophie89]

I have been looking at this website for so long thinking everyone else is doing so well and that I must be able to do it too!

So im 23 and in my final year of uni, over the past 6/7 years I have put on over 6 stone. This has mainly been due to drinking and student food! I went away to college at 16 and since then I have been living the student lifestyle of nights out, takeaways and hangover food.

Every now and again i try and be good but it only lasts for a few days until temptation kicks in! I live with two other girls. One girl can eat whatever she likes and stay a size 10. The other is a size 16 and also struggles with her weight. We will try and diet together but it never works as one of us always caves in and then the other gets tempted haha!

I joined the gym just before Christmas but I hated going because i was so self concious infront of everyone from uni who goes there. I have just brought an exercise bike so hopefully this well help when im at home.

I am going to my boyfriends for Easter and his mum is really good with healthy cooking etc., he also lives on a farm so we will be out and about helping all day so im hoping this will give me a much needed boost.

Im planning on walking/sitting on the exercise bike while revising in the build up to summer exams when we get back. Hopefully i can lose 2 stone for my friends wedding on June 1st. This sounds like a big goal but it is my pre-uni weight and although i'll still be fat it will feel really nice knowing I look how i did before I went away. A lot of the people there I wont have seen for 3 or four years. Im hoping to be able to treat myself to a nice size 16 dress, without having to stuggle to find one that suits my shape.

Shape wise i have quite small arms, big chest, big belly, wide hips, small bum and big legs..... i think im really hard to dress. I have always had wide hips and a big chest even when slim, so i tend to just put on weight in these areas.

I weighed this morning I was 16 stone 4, I would love to get down to 10 stone. My first goal is 14 stone for June 1st, then 12.5 for my birthday in mid-July. I will be graduating at the end of September so maybe 11 stone by then, which will give me only 1 stone to go to goal!

Sorry for the massive rambling but it feels so nice to get off my chest. I tend not to talk about my weight as i think other people will notice it less! Thank you for any advice/success stories and good luck everyone!

[IanG]

Thanks and welcome. This forum is great. The biggest thing I have learnt is that while exercise is important, diet is even more key. I used to try to lose weight through exercise but got nowhere because of all the junk I was eating. Now I am eating low calorie salads (all vegetables, little dressing, no cheese), things are really moving.

[MaddieBPhoto]

Let me try & discourage you from crash dieting down to 1200 calories out of the gate. I started out at 206lbs & ate 1700-1900 calories a day & lost 30+ pounds with that many calories. Dropped to 1500 calories & lost about 30 more pounds. Dropped to 1400, lost 10 more & then finally dropped to 1250 to lose the last 4 or 5 that wouldn't come off.

If you start at 1200 (which is the minimum amount of calories your body needs to SURVIVE per day), you have nowhere to go down when you inevitably stall out. Everyone plateaus, & part of what helps you to move from that plateau, is your ability to alter your calories.

Depending on your BMR, 1200 calories might not work for you anyway. I have tried in the past to just cut to 1200 to get the scale to move, & it has the opposite effect. But when I bumped them back up to 1400-1500, the pounds melted off.

I just want you to have a realistic view of jumping immediately to the minimum amount of calories per day your body needs. It may seem like an easy thing to do, but it's not. It's a lot less food than you think & it really gives you no wiggle room when you hit your plateaus. Slow & steady always wins the race - it's not fun this way, but it's the healthiest way, as well as a better lifestyle that is more easily maintained.

[Mozzy]

Good luck, you can expect to lose between 5-10lbs a month. I average about 8lbs

[Athel]

I think the question should not be how much can you lose but what is it safe to lose. After consulting my doctor and at a starting weight of 19 stone I did 5 months of VLCD which resulted in a 5 stone loss. I now have gallstones and am almost certainly going to have to have my gallbladder removed, it was a risk I knew when I decided to drop weight quickly (and I've read research which suggests that 25% of people who lose weight at more than 3lbs a week develop gallstones). You are also much more likely to get saggy skin etc if you drop weight quickly. Safe weight loss is quoted at 1-2lbs a week which would mean just over half a stone in a month.

Good luck with your weight loss