GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!!! RISE AND SHINE!!!!!!

(that is what I bellow at 15 yr old son when he sleeps in. He just loves it.)

Ellis-Right now i am jogging in place in front of the TV. I need to start doing crunches again, because my stomache has gotten so flabby that when I walk on cement my back starts hurting. I know that if I strengthen those ab muscles it will be easier to walk.. I have gone on a few short walks with DH, but want to get back to where I used to be. Used to be no matter WHAT my weight I could walk for hours. I used to take karate with my kids too, but it got too hard to get there once they quit. Imagine it-a 4' 11" round fighting machine!! I was still heavy, but a lot tighter. Lots of the young guys thought I was a joke, until they had to spar with me!! One day I was dancing around my instructor, and he said, "come on in and try to tackle me, you are wearing me out." I said, "That is my only hope, if I come in close you'll have me on the mat in 2 seconds!!!" Because I am so small, I was good at avoiding things. But now I just can't move that fast.

Leens-glad to see you!! I missed you!! How are you doing?

LilSis-I don't know if I can stick to low carbs for the long haul or not. I am mostly trying to break my craving for them. I'd like it if I could get to the point where i can really enjoy a small portion of a healthy carb instead of having agonizing cravings for french fries!! Actually, i'd like it if i could get to the point where they make me sick. 3 years ago I tried the carbohydrate addicts diet. It lets you have a "treat meal" where you can eat anything. (some restrictions may apply.) After a few weeks of this I was craving fruit instead of chips and ice cream, but was having problems forcing down breakfast!! This time I am trying something that will allow me more choice during the day, but no treat meal. So I HOPE that it will be easier to stick to and break those cravings even sooner.

Kriss-see you over at 40+!!

Hello there! Im up late and thought about all of you! hope you are all doing much better then me.

This is tough? huh? It is hard to keep up with all the stuff that is out there! I am so sick of being fat and uncomfortable in my own skin that I want to cry! I am 26 years old and feel like I am 90 years old! What's up with that?

Am I just weak? Why cant I do it? Why! I dont get it! I want it so bad, to feel good about myself, I take the medications and I try keeping a good attitude and I feel like a big fake!

But I sit here first doing work that I brought home then just sit here and surf e-mail and read and wish that I had a success story! But I dont. No I sit here and feel sorry for my pathetic butt!

Well if you can tell I have had a bad day and feel like a cow! I have drank plenty of water but ate whatever I wanted.

I am sorry about this being all about me, I just feel alone, its weird I don't know about anybody else but it is sad being heavy, people treat you differently, men pay hardly any attention to you and thin women well they wonder how you can be that way? Sad really but true- Also I can only speak for myself, but I can hardly look at myself, and I assume that I make my boyfriend gag. And by his actions sometimes I wonder why he even bothers with me I am unhappy and certainly dont have the energy to be all that for him. And I will find myself very irratable with my kids because I am disgusted with myself. I know what your thinking? I think the same thing.

I hope you are all well and that you will share your success with me it gives me "real"hope .

Lil Sis

Lil Sis, are you walking for 10 minutes in the morning? Didn't I tell you to get your butt out there? You're supposed to be listening to us! It's too easy to sit at the computer for hours... then you get up and you feel like CRAP!! How about this... you're not allowed to read your email until you've walked for 10 minutes. Put a sign on your computer to remind yourself. Go and do it now. We want you to succeed!
And stop feeling crappy about yourself. You have a big self-esteem problem. You're not going to get slim in 48 hours, so just put that right out of your head. Work towards the first 5 pounds.

Listen, I assure you... if you go and walk for 10 minutes before you read your email, you're going to sit down at the computer afterwards with a smile on your face. I can pretty much guarantee it.

I'm 37 years old, and I feel 90. You don't want to get to 37 and STILL feel like you're 90, do you? Go and do something about it now! Yes, you ARE weak. Pull yourself together. Walking for 10 minutes IS NOT GOING TO KILL YOU!! And once you've done it, you can stop calling yourself weak.

When you don't feel good about yourself, it shows. Maybe that's why your boyfriend looks at you like that. Or maybe he's just a jerk. But you can't let other people control how you feel. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY!! Screw everyone else. Be a good, kind, loving person. Be strong for yourself, feel good about yourself. Like who you are INSIDE. The outside stuff will come later. If you don't like who you are, you're going to look like H E L L (pardon me) to other people. And once you start liking yourself, then who cares what others think of you anyway!?

Listen, yesterday I screwed up. I ate half a bag of Bridge Mixture. BUT... I gardened for 2 hours and I can feel some muscles starting up again. I know that if I keep up with exercise, that I can tackle the food problem later.
I'm going to go for a 20 minute bike ride today for my exercise. I want you to go for a walk, okay? Come back here and tell us you walked.

Hey... you drank lots of water? GOOD FOR YOU!!! That's a big deal... keep it up! (and would you walk for 10 minutes now, for goodness sakes! )

Get back here and tell us you've succeeded. Hurry up... we're waiting... we know you can do it.
love Ellis

Ellis, I will be right back!

Lil Sis

I think half the overweight people I know are on anti- depressants, including me. (The other half of people on depressants are those that lose their appetites -- I always wanted to be one of them!).

I agree with what everyone has said about exercising -- it definitely helps. Remember, set very small reasonable goals for yourself. You won't get better overnight. There is no "magic pill" for this (depression or weight loss). One of my problems is that when I start to lose a little weight and get on track, my mind races ahead and suddenly I'm daydreaming about losing 150 pounds, being stunning, and turning down dates. Not surprisingly, this isn't as motivating as it sounds -- it tends to overwhelm me and I get off track.

One of the problems that depressed people often have is distorted thinking. For example, we use "all or nothing" thinking and we're either "on track" or we're complete failures! Or we overgeneralize our failures and forget our small successes. I suggest the "Feeling Good Handbook" by David Burns. He's a psychiatrist that is cognitive oriented. Cognitive psych isn't so concerned with how we got where we are -- it's more concerned with how to change our patterns of thinking. I know that I was a hugely negative self-talker, and I'd also think that everyone else was also definitely having these negative thoughts about me. I needed to think more realistically -- not everything's happy, let's ignore reality, but not everything's bad, I'm a complete failure either. This handbook gives some great exercises for countering this type of thinking -- recognizing your thought patterns and arguing with yourself, basically. For someone like me, who overthinks things to death, it was really helpful.

I'd love to say I've now solved all my problems and lost all my weight, but I can't. It's a process, and I'd say I've made a lot of changes in the past year, even though I haven't lost a lot of weight. But because of those changes, I'm now ready to attack the weight problem more directly and with more assurance that I can do it. Sometimes we have to attack other problems first in our journey.

Hi Lizabee, and welcome!

I know what you mean about those who lose weight on anti-depressants. I kept waiting and waiting for the weight to "drop off", but it just never happened for me.

Thanks for your input. I agree completely. Cognitive behaviour therapy is "it". It's the Pollyanna game. I've learned a number of good coping skills in the last few years. I was a very negative thinker, too. I must admit though, it was much easier for me to learn CB after going on meds. But that's me. I know it's not the same for everyone. I think that CBT should be required in our schools' curricula. It's a life skill.

Lizabee, what are you doing to lose weight? Can we offer you any support? Like you, I've got all the answers, but still can't lose the weight.

Lil Sis... where are you? You said you'd be right back! Come on girl, you can do it!
Here are a couple of links re:CBT
Possibly a little dry, but you'll get the general idea.

http://www.nacbt.org/
http://www2.vhihealthe.com/article/gale/100084360


take care all... ellis

Ellis -- actually, right now I'm gearing up to a big summer, and trying to finish up a crazy semester. As such, I'm not focusing on dieting per se, but on setting up structures to make dieting easier both when I go away for the summer (more on that in a minute) and when I come back.

One thing I'm doing is calculating the calories in some of my old recipies, and setting up a recipie and calorie file of foods I like that aren't too bad. One problem I have on a diet is that I end up eating a very narrow range of foods and get bored.

So what are my big summer plans? I'm going away for about 10 weeks to Structure House in North Carolina (www.structurehouse.com). It's a "fat farm" that focuses on the psychological reasons behind our eating. I went last year for a month and lost 30 pounds. I did regain most of that, but I know I was too confident when I left -- I felt I had "solved" the problem, when this is a lifelong thing. So over the year, while I gained weight slowly, I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't for me.

What works at home:
Structure:
-- 3 meals a day, 1 optional snack (if hungry, which I added in as it is not on the SH plan), all planned in advance.
-- exercise in the mornings (or it doesn't happen)
-- preparing meals for the week on the weekends, even including measuring stuff out where possible, and putting in containers.

Mostly, I do better when I am more aware of the dangers of overconfidence (remember, reality!) and give the problem the respect it is do. It will never get easy, and it will never go away, although hopefully in time, management will be a little easier. I also have to make this a priority, which is tough given I've got tenure to worry about.

Hello Ladies! K Im a little better! I did better then 10 min I did my Leslie Sansome Video Walk away the Pounds 1 mile! I felt really good after I did it. I also felt like an idot for sounding so tragic.

Sorry, Anyway here is my plan to drink the water one of my least favorite things to do! And excercise every morning. And just make a effort to be aware of why im putting things in my mouth. I am an emotional eater.

Soooo its a start. and your right I did'nt get this way overnight or will I get thin overnight so I have tried all the other stuff pills , fads, so I will try patients.

And this site, you are all very motivating!

Thank you Lizabee, and Ellis for the encouragement.

I will try the sites you suggested, and the book that Lizabee mentioned I do need to change some things.

Dentrassi, my plan is above just a begining! I Thank all of you! for taking the time to encourage me.

Lizabee I would like to hear more about your summer plans what is it like ? What do you learn? What is the regiman?

Ellis I needed that get off your butt talk!

Thanks you guys!

Lil Sis

Dentrassi,

How is the low carb diet going? Give me an update !
I wanna know how things are going? I hope all is well -
I know about the treat meal - My problem. I eat a lot of treat!

Yikes!

Lil Sis

Hi everyone!

Lil Sis, I'm so proud of you! I was afraid that I'd frightened you away. Now, do you think you can keep going? Try not to miss more than a day or two of exercise at a time... it's too easy to slip back into bad habits.
You have to keep reporting in, okay? That's what this is all about. You can tell us the bad stuff, but we want to hear good stuff, too!!
And it's okay to sound tragic occasionally... we all have our moments.
Can you make yourself a chart or something? It sounds stupid, but my sister is a teacher, and she makes up a monthly exercise chart for herself. She gets a sticker everytime she exercises. She said it really motivates her when she looks at the chart and sees big areas with stickers and only little areas without stickers.

Lizabee, 10 weeks at Structure House? Wow, you lucky girl! A friend in another forum sent us this quote... I love it.

"The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor" - Martha Graham

What are you studying? How much weight do you have to lose? Will you start exercising when you've got some time? If so, what will you do?

Lil Sis, once you get into drinking water, you'll find your body craving it. Hard to believe, but it's true. When I get up in the morning, I have to have 2 glasses of water because I recognize now that I'm dehydrated when I wake up. It's a good feeling to know that I'm listening to my body.

I ate poorly this weekend, but I biked for 20 minutes yesterday (against a strong wind ). I've had 2 glasses of water and a couple of coffees, and I'm going to do well today!!
Let's listen to our bodies, ladies.

talk soon... ellis

HI EVERYONE!!

LilSIS- The low carb WOE is going okay, but I don't know if I can stick to it for life. I am hoping to AT LEAST get rid of some really bad cravings. If I can feel like a baked potato is a treat maybe I'll find it easier to pass on the fries!!!

LIZABEE-HI!!!!! Welcome!!!! Sounds like you have a good plan set up for yourself!!

Ellis, Leens, Linda-HIYA!!! Hope you are all doing well!!!

I am also a first time poster here. Lil sis, I can really identify with having health problems and struggling to stay healthy in spite of them. I was never what you'd call skinny, but I wasn't visibly overweight until a car accident left me with a ruptured disc in my back. That leaves out pretty much every type of excercise except recumbant biking (I have one but it's boring boring boring) and swimming (not an option in small town Minnesota until June). It's very difficult not to let this become an excuse for me, and there are many times when I feel I need a huge kick in the butt to keep it from becoming so. Is this how you're feeling too? As far as anti-depressants, I feel that I should probably be on something, but I am kind of borderline right now and don't want to do it until I'm done nursing my son (shooting for another 4 months of nursing!) Keep up the good work with posting, because seeking support is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

hi aaronsmom... welcome!

how wonderful that you're breastfeeding... I loved it! (I mean, I loved breastfeeding my children )
I understand how you feel about wanting to take some meds but wanting to wait so that it won't affect your child. I was severely depressed during my second pregnancy, and it wasn't until two years after my son's birth that I finally sought help.
Hang in there!

Hi Lil sis, Den and Lizabee...

aaronsmom... hope you come back...
take care everyone...
ellis