[Mayssa]

Hi,
I found this forum today, and I've seen some already quite inspiring stories !
This is the first forum i join, and I'm hoping it will help me to never give up this time !
I'm 21 years old and have been 125 pounds for most my teenage years. At around 18 years old I started taking weight and overall took 60 pounds in a year and a half. At my heaviest (4 weeks back) i was 192 pounds, being 5"4, that is obesity stage I. For the longest time I've been saying "enough" and going on diets (healthy food + exercice diet) that worked but i could never keep it up for more than 2 weeks then I would take the weight back and even a few more pounds. For the first time, I've been keeping it up and it has now been 4 weeks. I'm starting to lose the drive i had at the start because well... it's going slower than I expected and than previous diets(I've lost 9 pounds in 4 weeks), but this time, I'm not giving up. I wanna be 120 pounds for my graduation next year, and i wanna look gorgeous the day of my wedding (in a few years, but still), I don't wanna look back on those key moments in my life and tell myself "you wasted years of happiness and youth... for food and laziness, now look at this pictures that you will never be able to change".
I think I now very much need to be able to talk about it, to people that are going through the same things as I'm going through and to get that drive back again. I'm not going over my calories but I'm slowly eating a little more (more healthy snacks- fruits, nuts, whole grains, etc. but it's calories not needed at all)and skipping more and more of my work out days.
Anyways, so here comes my journey, and I hope this motivates me back

[Jacqui_D]

Hi Mayssa! There are lots of great forums here to get the support and encouragement you need. Some are more active than others. Under Support Groups, there's a sub-forum called Chicks Up For A Challenge and the monthly weight loss and exercise challenge threads always seem to be hopping. Good luck on your progress and congrats on how well you've been doing for the last month! You have some great goals, so keep it up!

[Mayssa]

That's awesome, checking it out right now ^^ ty !

[penmage]

Welcome to 3FC!

[Tuscany]

Hi Mayssa from another Canadian. I enjoy the weight loss and exercise challenges in the "Chicks up for a Challenge" forum. You're just in time to join in the August challenges, which will start up in a few days. Keep an eye out for them and join us.

Losing 9 lbs in 4 months is terrific. It might seem slow to you, but you should aim to lose about 1.5 to 2 lbs per week. If you lose any faster than that, chances are you will lose muscle and not just fat. If you lose too much muscle, you may like what the scale says, but you won't like what you see in the mirror...and that's the only important part. Plus, if you lose 1.5 to 2 lbs per week, then you'll easily make your goal of 120 by next year's graduation. Keep the end goal in sight!

[Mayssa]

Hi ^^
The only reason I'm not satisfied with it is because last time i did the SAME kind of diet, i lost 7 pounds... in 10 days. It took me 3 weeks to get to that this time. And I know that you lose muscle otherwise if you're on a low calorie based diet but not if you do weight training at the same time and eat enough protein to let your body build the actual muscle. So yeah, that's pretty much why i feel it's too slow
Problem with my goal is that the graduate pictures ( for some odd reason ) are at the end of summer, which I found out not so long ago. And i wished to lose a little bit more so that it doesn't show so much on my face that i'm fat. But hey, I still got a month left, maybe by then I'll be satisfied
And thank you for the advice, I will try to do the challenges even if august will be a very busy month for me, they look like fun