Panic Attacks & Dieting #3
 

Hey everyone how you all doing?

thought it was time for thread #3

tommrrow is my 2nd weigh-in at WW so fingers crossed I have been super dooper good this week with NO straying form teh path - now THAT has to be a big achievement in itself - I just hope it's reflected on the scales - Lord knows they never lie! lol :dizzy:

I'll let you know how I go.

see you lighter,
MyGirl :wave:

I lost more weight!
 

Hi everyone,

got back from WW meeting, and "WOW" was the person's response who records my weight.

I couldn't believe it either - I lost a whopping 4.5 pounds! :dizzy:

I am soooo happy can't "weight" for next week!


MyGirl :wave:

Hi MyGirl,

CONGRATULATIONS you loser you! Good job!!!!:D

Seems like this thread has settled down a bit - somewhere else! Where is everybody? I hope this means that everybody is anxiety free and living happily. I was brave and actually got on an airplane. I am going to avoid flying from now on, though. I always say that but this time I mean it. There is really nothing enjoyable about it and I would rather have the thinking time in the car and actually get to see where I am going. The anxiety has always been a problem for me on an airplane, but now it is a lot worse. It isn't fear, exactly, it's more an overall extremely uncomfortable thing.

I guess I'm not doing so well, but I am trying to stay OP. I don't know how much I weigh but I think I am doing ok on a maintain.

Good morning all,

Congratulations MyGirl, I have never lost more than 2 pounds in a week, what is your secret???? Maybe following the program to the letter works?? Keep up the good work. I am trying to make myself walk despite the rainy cold weather, sometimes it is a struggle. They are opening an exercise place called Curves for women in my town and I am thinking of joining it. I usually walk no matter what the weather but I am getting tired of the elements!!

You are brave Jennifa, I have never had the need to fly and I wonder if I could. That is so great that you are able to again. It is such a good feeling when you conquer anxiety in any form. I enjoy the view from the car, but I am not much of a traveler.

I am working on getting these last couple pounds off before the great pumpkin visits with his candy LOL!! I know it is all downhill from there for me as far as being strict on my eating.

Where are all our posters? Hope everyone is doing good and not haveing too much trouble with anxiety.

Daytona

Ok, here is a weird question.

Do you use your weight to insulate yourself from life? Are your extra pounds a comfort measure to help keep the anxiety away?

A recent situation has happened to me where usually a fat person wouldn't have to worry about the stress. Yet I STILL have to worry about it, and now I have to worry about being fat, too! ACK! I just doubled my stress from trying to keep it away!

Staying "insulated" is NOT A GOOD THING!

I'd like to hear your thoughts, please post, thanks!

Jennifa
216/190 something/170

Hello Jennifa,

You know when I was 85pds overweight I did use the fat to make excuses on why I didn't want to do certain things. Like avoid family gatherings, etc I was just so sure people were talking about me!! I also didn't look for jobs because I knew I didn't fit the "look" of the typical office person. I was married at the time so I didn't have the guy thing and using the fat to avoid dating. In reality, I think I was letting my anxiety about how bad I felt about myself color what I thought everyone else was saying. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion but I think I was correct. It is so much easier to use food to numb the feelings rather than deal with the problems. Hope things work out for you.

Hi everyone else to,

Almost Halloween, are we all staying out of the candy??? I havn't bought mine yet, but I hear Walmart has the good stuff cheap LOL!!

Have a calm and relaxing day.
Daytona

Just checking in ...
 

I'm back, but not the loser I'd like to be. I did rejoin WW last week, but did very little dieting since then. My mind is not behaving! I did tell my husband that if he bought any chocolate candy I would revolt. So, we have candies that don't mean much to me. Yes, there is such a thing. :lol:

I was taking an antidepressant called BuSpar and I found it dulling my emotions to the point that I didn't feel right. So, I cut back from 60 to 40 per day. The doctor said that the normal dose is 60, but I feel better with the 40--20 in the a.m. and 20 in the p.m. I don't feel like there is a wall between me and my emotions anymore.

My son gets married in less than 3 weeks and I am resigned to appearing in pictures looking exactly like I really look. It would be so nice if the camera made me look like I want to look instead of being so cruel. Oh, well, after the wedding we will be driving to our older son's new house for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to that. And, they cook very health--mostly stirfry.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Merridy in Baltimore

hi everyone!
 

hi to you all and nice to see we are all making a steady come back.

I've been pretty busy these last few days and weeks getting work done on the house and trying to keep calm throughout all the mess!

I have made a point to go out everyday and try to go about my daily business as I normally would have - trying to put my anxiety behind me. It is hard sometimes because it is always there lurking in the background but, to a much lesser degree these days! ;)

Gobbie - hang in there! try to visualize yourself at your goal weight and break up your goals into small 'bite' size pieces.
All the best for your son's wedding!


daytona - hi how you doing? you really are our pillar of strength! It's so true what you say about our personalities almost changing when we are overweight - we tend to change our approach/outlook to suit or compensate for our weightgain...come to think of it, I think I'm a thin person trapped in the body of a FAT person...heeeelp! :dizzy:

jennifa - you're so right! staying insulated means that we are somehow protected and distanced from everyone else. So by not competing with everyone else I find that I automatically put myself out of the running therefore feeling 'safe' - how wrong could I be! I am tired of sitting on the sidelines and watching I want to be part of the action and back to my old fun loving self!I also feel though, that I had to go the full extreme or full circle before I got back on the road to getting better - sometimes we need to hit rock bottom to make the climb back to the top all the more successful and rewarding.

Take care,
MyGirl :wave:

Gobbie, MyGirl, good to hear from you.

Any hints on how to break this insulated mindset? It's great that I know it's going on, but what next? Help!

I am trying to get a handle on things but since the 11th it's not happening very well. Hope you all are doing a good job of staying OP.

Jennifa

Hi everyone,

Sounds like we are all busy and doing well over all. Gobbie, you should just try to enjoy the wedding, it will mean the world to your son just to have you there no matter how you look. You will loose the wt, just don't give up. Isn't it funny how medication effects a person, it is sure a life saver when it works right! Hey, at least you won't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

MyGirl, I have been doing fall cleaning myself and it takes forever. I just got the Halloween stuff put away and now I have to put up the Thanksgiving stuff LOL. I have been making myself do a few things that have been causing me anxiety lately. I went and checked out a fitness place called Curves for women and the instructor was less than nice. Sure makes me wonder how people get and keep jobs, the woman didn't explain how to use the equipment or anything, just wanted me to sign up for a year program at a "special discount" for today only. I made tracks out of there! Then I checked out the Y and it was so much nicer, they gave me a free month pass to check it out and the guy was a fitness expert etc. You know the thing is, just doing these things cause me to feel a lot of anxiety and you wonder why you are feeling anxious then it occurs to me it is just my anxiety. Must be something that never fully goes away. At least now I can usually tell it is just my nerves and nothing that I should let stop me from doing things. It is still scary at times.

Talk to you all later.

Daytona

I am so glad you ladies are here!

Gobbie, how are you doing? Please tell your dog I said hello. Thanks for sharing the meds info. It helps to know.

Daytona, it is so funny to sit back and look at what is making us anxious. I think that anxiety problems are one of the few things that let a sane person be totally insane while being sane. How crazy is it to just say "oh, I am just being anxious" and then do a scary thing anyway????

If this makes sense to any of you, you are on the right thread! I highly recommend The Fear Book by Cheri Huber. You can order it at bookstores. It is a very simple but helpful book.

I am just being the silliest girl in the world, one would think with the education I have I'd be otherwise, but little things do bother me and show up in the ODDEST ways. But today I am just happy being human like the rest of us. :lol:

hi everyone!

I've been busy as usual and still working out ways to improve my weightloss efforts - my latest addition is that I....wait for it... (drum roll in background) joined a gym!!!! ta daaaaa - sound surprised? well so am I !!! I surprised myself when I decided to join...and it's the best thing I've done for myself in ages- now for the more challenging part, actually doing the program they have set out for me. lol

I've just told myself that I will do it mechanically and not think about it too much to begin with.

Please God let this be the one thing that helps me get back to my old self. :^:

I couldn't have done this 6 months ago as I was way too house-bound and anxious.I've seen a great improvement in my health - the fact that I am getting out every day is a miracle I also think consistency is the key...just doing things despite of how I feel is empowering.


Take care,
MyGirl :wave:

Good morning all,

WTG MyGirl, that is so great, you must be making more progress than you give yourself credit for!! Joining a gym is a big step, and it will be so good for you to be out around people. How much weight do you need to loose? I keep struggleing with the last few pounds and I want to get it off B4 the holidays. I went to the YMCA and got a trial membership (free for 2wks) I have been talking about joining a gym or something for a year now, how funny we took the plunge at the same time. It is really strange all those machines and trying to remember their names and how to use them. Keep us posted.

Jennifa, I know what you mean about being educated and still having the problems we have. I just think of it as if we weren't as smart as we are then we wouldn't know we have a problem LOL. Seriously, anxiety seems to effect all walks of life and I sure appreciate having this group to talk to. It helps so much to get everyones input and ideas on how to cope. You know it is one of those problems that you have to acutally experience to be able to relate. My friends say just pull yourself together, if only it were that easy.

How's everyone doing on the Thanksgiving plans? I will be making dinner as usual so I can try to make it healthy.
I have a new litter of Shihtzu puppies and they are so cute, I may end up keeping them all. They should be ready to go the week B4 Christmas. Have a good weekend.

Daytona

Hi all,

My Girl, congrats on joining the gym! You are going to be buff girl pretty soon. Every time I think of joining a
gym I think of Linda Hamilton in Terminator II... talk about using your anxiety to advantage!!!!

Daytona, you made me laugh out loud. I am so thankful you guys are here, I will be toasting you on Thanksgiving. I am so not looking forward to that day. My family is not supportive of my vegetarian choices and they are always putting things like chicken broth in recipes and then telling me they are vegetarian. (#(*(#*%^&!@) Drives me batty. I told them I would
bring some dishes this year as last summer's BBQs saw me eating potato chips and beer, the only options available. I'm thinking I will be eating yams (I'm bringing them), pumpkin pie, and wine. There. How many points? Well, I think in order to do that we need to find out how many calories are burned per nail chewed off.

I have had to back off the diet thing but I am keeping a lot of the things I have learned going. Today I am drinking lots of water. I have been binging lately because my anxiety is totally out of control. Please keep posting and keep this thread active.
In fact, right now this is the only thread I really have any desire to post on. The others are dieting, dieting, dieting, but I need to break through the reason I need to diet first, and that is where you are helping me. So thank you very much. I know you are the only ones who can possibly understand. Other people say they know but when I look at how they live their lives I know they are far from really understanding.

day 1 at the gym
 

aya yaaaa!!!! boy am I sore....lol well it was to be expected after my very first day at the gym...I didn'y overdo it but boy did I wake up some dormant muscles or what?!

my body is probably thinking "what the heck is going on"? well my first visit went better than what I thought...no-one stared at me and whatsmore not everyone at the gym is in shape! yipee this actually made me feel so human and I guess evryone else was busy doing their own thing that didn't have time to bother with anyone else...this had in the past been one of my fears...sounds crazy I know.

so I know I will be quite sore after my first week but I will just hang in there and it will pass.

jennifa
thanks for the encouragement it really means a lot to me. ;)
and lol at Terminator II

daytona
thankyou also for the encouragement (much appreciated)
I have a long way to go I need to lose about 40 + pounds...but I figure "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step"

I'll check back in again soon,
Take care,
MyGirl :wave:

Hello everyone
 

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Hi everyone. I've not posted in quite some time but have been periodically going in to check how all of you are doing. Missed communicating with you.

You have all been so busy joining gyms and getting in shape, having litters of puppies (well not you but you know what I mean) and stuff. You are great!!!

Went back to work the 7-30 after being off for 7 1/2 months. Going back was great at first. Then I found out that some of the Managers didn't want me back because they were afraid I'd be off again. Don't understand this, as it's the first time I've ever had to take a long term sick leave. Been working 12 to 16 hour days, 6 to 7 days a week. Was fine at first but now I'm getting dragged down.

Hadn't had any panic attacks in over 2 months and now they've started back up. The depression is also starting. There for awhile, I was so busy with work I wasn't taking the medication like I should. I soon learned that that was not good. I've been taking it regularly now for the last 2 weeks. Tuesday night I had an attack so bad that I fell and bruised up my face and side. Boy oh boy does that hurt. Oh well......should have known to sit when the attack came on. One day I'll learn.:dizzy:

We have some of those curve gyms by my home too. I checked them out but found them to be expensive for what they offered. I'm still looking for a place I'll feel comfortable. I'm over weight by a lot and I feel very self concious. :o I'll have to get over that though. I just want to go with other over weight people and not Linda Hamilton until at least I lose some of it.....

Thanks. It's been great to just talk again. Like I said, I've been reading your post and getting alot from it. I should have taken the time to write as well and for that I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.

Take care and God bless.:)

Jan

Good morning all,

Glad to hear from you again Janney, you are just having a little set back. Don't let it bum you out to much. Try to remember all the things you have learned when you were in bad shape befoe and start taking your meds regular. Sounds like you were pushing yourself way to hard and not taking very good care of you! Don't let some of your co workers opions up set you, there are always the few that have so much to say about something they know so little about. When I went to check out Curves I didn't like the way the lady just told me to get on the machines and change stations when the voice came over the intercom. She gave me no instructions, all she wanted was to have me sign on the dotted line and I didn't. I think I would get to bored with going in circles forever. The Y suited me much better. It is more of a family atmosphear.

Mygirl, way to go on the exercise. Isn't it funny how we notice muscles we never knew we had? I can't believe how many hurt when you don't use them. Must be a good thing. Your gym must be good if everyone was busy doing their own thing and you felt comfortable. That is just the greatest when "real" people exercise and not just the body builders LOL.

Jennifa, you will loose the weight, just take it slow and try and binge on lite candy or whatever. I am also a binge eater, I can go for a week and be perfect then I eat everything in site and undo all the good I have done. I been making sugar free fat free finger jello and eating that with cool whip free when I start getting hungry and it seems to help.

Everyone got their plans for Thanksgiving? Hope we all have a clam and peaceful day.

Daytona

Hello, all,

Maybe I am just being picky but I like the threads to be on one page - anybody up for starting a new one?

Janney, good to hear from you again. Don't work too hard, girl! You don't have to prove anything, do you? Take it easy!

Daytona, thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I had a hideous dressing room awakening last week and am definitely locked back onto the wagon... it was 3 days ago and I am still not over the self loathing. I know all the things to tell myself like it was bad lighting etc. etc. but the fact is I just did not ever want to see that in the mirror, ever. Way worse than the first gray hair. I am trying really hard not to beat myself up over this. I know I will get there, it is just a matter of time and effort.

I had a lot of stress last week and didn't do so hot. But now I am relaxing and getting a better grip on things and I am going back to the Chopra methods because they actually work for me. I am also re-committing to the fact that my body is a wonderful temple and should be respected and revered, especially by me.

I don't like gyms but I do like running, yoga, and cycling. I exercise because it is fun. If it isn't fun I won't do it. So... I tend to get outside and get that great vast American sky over my head, it does wonders for my attitude.

hi all
 

Hi everyone,
it's nice to see everyone getting active again... no matter what we do I think it's important to keep moving (listen to me talking...like I am an expert or something...lol) I read somewhere that if you keep moving ie; walking, or anything involving getting up and about, that only 3-5 minutes of it is enough to get rid of the excess adrenaline that our body produces when we are feeling panicky and anxious...if you burn up all that excess adrenaline then you feel MUCH better. ;) I'll have to try that one next time I am feeling on edge!

jennifa
I'll start that new thread right after I post this reply...I think you're right about 1 page being easier. Great to hear that you're enjoying your exercise...I do Yoga once a week and I find it VERY therapeutic, I am fortunate that my teacher is excellent. Last week we all practised the Yogic breath and this she said helps to slow down the breath & therefore feel calmer- which is exactly what I need to do when I feel panicky and anxious.

daytona
thanks for the peaceful wishes for Thanksgiving - I am sure we will all have so much to be thankful for this year and offer hope to others for a brighter future. It's times like these that I find renewed strength within me that I never even knew I had!

janney
hi ! don't be too hard on yourself - in fact you ought to be congratulated on your HUGE effort of going back to work that is an accomplishment in itself not to be overlooked! Don't be put off by setbacks - we all have them even people who DON"T suffer from anxiety have bad days. Sometimes we just have to be let them be and take courage and have faith in teh knowledge that this too will pass. I often find that a comforting thought. :)

gobbie
how are you doing on WW? What about the Wedding? Please keep us posted we would love to know how it all went.