Hello All! I somehow stumbled upon this site while reading weight loss success stories and looking for some kind of weight loss support message board. I am glad that I found this one, because the support given & received is almost overwhelming, and I think that's very important not only to have support from family and friends but to be in touch with others in the same situation as well as those who have overcome and tackled their obstacles. So I'm happy to have joined. Here's a quick bio about myself;
I am 25 years old and have been overweight since about the 5th grade, I was always the skinny one growing up but my parents worked 24/7 and My siblings and I ate nothing but junk! For some reason, we had extra fast metabolims until we started getting older. I have two skinny sisters who can wear anything and are very happy and social, a skinny brother, and then an obese brother and an obese sister (6 of us total!) My mother's entire side of the family is either obese or morbidly obese.
Since I've been overweight for so long, my mindset was "it's comfortable, it's normal, I can be happy being fat--it's just me!" But I was only kidding myself. I pretty much was in denial at how heavy I had actually become. While others noticed it, I always had some excuse. I pretty much had my turning point when I was in the kitchen cooking and my boyfriend took a picture of me and said "Aw, that's a cute picture" and he turned his phone to face me and I was in disbelief. I said "Delete that! That's not me!" and he kind of looked at me confused and that's when I decided enough was enough. I went through the "feeling sorry for myself" phase and then asked myself "what are you doing?" I stood in front of the mirror and just looked at myself in disbelief, I took pictures and decided to circle in red, all the areas that I wanted to change about myself, and by the time I was finished, I had more circles than picture! I circled my arms, my stomach, my legs, my neck....and so on. I saved the picture, and now every month I will put a picture beside it to compare, and re-circle to see all of my progress.
My change was pretty drastic but much needed. I've got a lot of will power and self control, I just didn't have the tools or the know-how. So, about a month ago I made the decision to change my life. I count calories and exercise religiously. I decided to take off 1 or 2 days a week from exercising but when I get to a day off, I end up getting up early as usual and exercising because I feel so much more accomplished for the day. My exercise consists of walking four miles each morning. I get up at 5:30 and have breakfast, then go for my walk. I have a snack 2 hours from my breakfast, and then around noon I'll have lunch, then 2 hours later a snack, and 2 hours later dinner. Sometimes I'll squeeze in another snack after dinner if needed. I never eat past 7PM. My daily calorie intake has gone from 3,000+ to 1,500-. The day I decided to change my life is the day that I cut out everything bad from my diet, and not once have I cheated. I will have a skinny cow ice cream sandwich after dinner if i am craving sweets, but that's as good as it gets!
So, my starting weight was 286. I started on 07-18-2011, and have so far lost about 12 lbs. The hardest part for me is not temptation, but the wait! I'm impatient so i expect results quick, but I'm always reminded "It took years to put on that weight so give it time to come off" I plan on joining a gym soon and that should speed things up a little bit, I hope!
But anyhow, I'm truly motivated and want to congratulate those who have reached their goals as well as those in the process. These success stories i've read on this site are truly inspirational and the before & after pictures are priceless, good job everyone!
