Hello all! I'm Lia ... 20 years old, college senior. I'm 5'9.5'' and this morning weighed in at 191. This is the most I've weighed in my entire life and I've been here all summer. Before that I hovered around 180, and have for my entire adolescence except for a 2-year stint with bulimia/anorexia where I rapidly lost 50 lbs and gained it back just as rapidly when I began recovering. From that experience I learned that my favorite weight is somewhere around 150-160. At that weight I look fit and athletic, but still curvy and not too skinny. I actually look very oddly proportioned at around 130 where I was at my thinnest, so I don't want to go back there!

4 years ago, my freshman year of college, I gained the "freshman 15" (or more like 30) not because of eating out or eating junk or drinking more, but just because I was eating in general. I developed a mindset where eating was an accomplishment in and of itself, since I was recovering from anorexia. I remember the milestone days where I was able to eat candy as a snack, or eat french fries without flipping out, purging or hurting myself afterwards. To me, those were celebrations.

But that was 3-4 years ago and it's no longer neccesary to force myself to eat out of a fear of relapse or accidental fasting/restricting. Now, if I skip a meal, it doesn't need to be a warning sign. I need to switch off that mentality and allow myself to not eat if I'm not hungry!

Other problems I'm facing with my weight loss:
- Although I walk all over campus all day to classes, I haven't found time to ACTUALLY excersize at the gym or go running. I need to start squeezing that in, even though it seems impossible.
- Also, I need to get over the horror I feel at the idea of wearing sneakers all day long (I'm a fashion design major and I live for cute shoes and heels). When I wear cute shoes, I'm 75% more likely to take the bus to class instead of walk the entire way. I bet if I just wore less cute shoes I could get in an extra 2 miles of walking per day!
- I don't have anything I can "cut out" of my diet. I've never liked junk food in my life, and if I eat it I feel sick afterwards due to, I've found out, GERD but also because I just feel gross and undernourished afterwards. I can't stomach fried foods or chips. I love chocolate, but I'd rather have a high quality, super-rich dessert than a cheap cupcake from a place on campus, so baked goods don't tempt me unless I'm at a nice resteraunt or something. This makes it hard for me to change my eating habits because I already eat so healthfully. A typical meal for me is a grilled chicken sandwhich (grilled chicken patty, bun that I only eat partially, tomato slice, spinach leaves, mustard + ketchup, one dot of mayonnaise), a cup of fruit, and a salad (spinach, chickpeas and kidney beans, olives, grapes, sunflower seeds, olive oil and pepper). A typical snack for me is an avocado, or pretzel sticks/carrots with hummus. I love cooking healthy food when I have time and money for it. I also never drink sodas of any kind - I prefer tea or water, or occasionally milk or soymilk or non-sugary juice. Anyway, all of this makes it hard for me to "cut out" things or "Reduce" what I eat. I guess I can focus on snacking less or reducing my portions but that's been a point of annoyance for me because that's usually the first thing to do with weightloss - change your eating habits.
-Although I need to change my force-myself-to-eat mentality, I do have the tendency still to purge after eating so that I "digest less calories" or some sort of justification. I need to stop doing that, and focus on EATING less so I don't feel the need to purge.

Any advice for these issues would be much appreciated!

I bet there would be a market for really cute but seriously comfortable shoes. You may be on to something there if you can design something that appeals to the fashionista and still lets them walk comfortably across town.

As for eating... I'd recommend tracking your food for a week or two - not trying to eat less just tracking everything you eat every day for a couple typical weeks. That will give you a good idea how much you're actually eating. Count the calories even if you binge - maybe since the calories are already being counted you'll be less likelyto cheat and get rid of them? For these two weeks you want a good sense of what you are actually putting in to your body so no fair cheating.

It may be your metabolism is still out of whack from your anorexia? I've never had an eating disorder (if you don't count "plain ol' eating waaaay too much food" as a disorder) but I wonder if purging can also mess with it. Our bodies have an amazing ability to compensate for whatever abuse we throw at them. But they also can recover. You may just have to go through a recovery phase before you can really lose weight healthily.

There are great discussion areas here for people with challenges like you face. I'm sure you can gain more insight there. There's so much combined experience and real life practical knowledge here at 3FC - you've come to the right place.

Welcome to 3FC and good luck!

I'm certainly no doctor, but I guess the best advice I can give is that when it comes to exercise, you just have to up and do it! I know schedules can be tight, especially if you're juggling full-time college schedules (or close to it) and a job. It's also so difficult to get to gyms. A lot of the time, memberships are really expensive, or if you're like me @_@ you're just scared of them... not because they're unsanitary or germy or whatnot, but just because when I go to a gym all I ever see are super fit people a'workin out D: and it's like zomg, you have to work out to go work out!

But, I digress... even if it's only 30 minutes a day, you have to get the exercise in somehow. The way you described your eating habits, if you can't target the diet bit, you just really need to do more activity to compensate for the calorie intake.

The only thing else I can think of is to spout on about what you've prolly heard a gazillion times like, park far away from the store so you have to walk through the parking lot, take the stairs, anything to get yourself moving just a little more than usual. I don't know that's true or not, but my mother always told me that if you do something everyday, like walking around the college campus, you can't really count that towards exercise, because it's just part of your routine. I guess what she meant was you have to exert yourself MORE than normal.

That's all I got :O hope I helped some! Good luck and welcome to the community =D

--Jadey

Lia to 3FC!
Hugs and support on your weight loss journey

Hello and welcome to 3FC. Good luck to you in your journey and in reaching all your goals.

*warm hugs and sweet whispers of support to you*

!!!! That right there sort of set me off !!!!

Purging.

I noticed that as I was beginning to recover from bulimia and I would feel guilt and would purge after eating relatively small amounts of food, it actually became more difficult to lose weight.

It sounds like you're pretty self aware about it needing to stop though so I'll just wish you the best.

In regards to what ^ was saying, exercise can really help a sort of stunted metabolism much more than any sort of stimulant like caffeine or what-not.

I know you said that your a fashion major so this may sound like a cardinal sin, but there are these semi newish shoes out there that really help tone your legs and calf with like, individual toes in them. It's basically as close to barefoot as one can get. They're incredibly thin and super durable (but not in a big bulky croc-ish way) my mother just bought a pair in black and they're actually decent enough for her to wear at her job in a hospital.
So, if you've got the cash lying around and feel like a good run or walk would do you good sometimes, tossing a pair of these in your bag might be an easy solution.

*** Along with proper hydration at all times ***

Hi and welcome to 3FC.

Good luck with your goals.

Hugs
Michelle

Thanks all!

Today I'm starting out my "cute shoes" weaning with some sperry's. I will be able to walk with those, so I'm going to try to walk my entire route from class to class today instead of bus most of it. I'm also going to keep track of my calories, including snacking, which I think I probably do too much of since I'm eating all "healthy" foods.

Welcome Lia to 3FC, we are glad you are here!