I used to be one hot tight chick. Now I am often the heaviest gal in the room. It took a little over 2 years but I have packed on 50 solid go nowhere do nothing pounds. My knees ache, my feet swell and I am exhausted all the time.
I own no decent clothes b/c I can't stand anything touching my fat. 2 weeks ago my SIL bought me the book Eat to LIve.
I have been a vegan for 5 years but I fell into the habit of eating chips. vegan ice cream, Captn crunch cereal w/ soy milk and cooking veggies in gobs of olive oil. Oh and i can eat an entire family sized container of Hummus w/ a bag of rice crackers in one sitting. I am not happy until my tummy aches.
So, I have been semi following the Eat to live plan. I won't weigh my self again until next week b/c after being on the meal plan for 5 days I did weigh myself and the scales was 159, which is the heaviest I have ever been. I even weighed less after giving birth to my 9 pound plus infants.
I want to beat back my sugar monkey which is the bane of my existence.
i even tried going back to Zumba class where I was once the hardest body in the studio. now I jiggled and flopped around and my body is screaming in pain.
dr. gave me a script for lyrica. It made me too loopy.

Does your doc think you have fibromyalgia?

I can empathize with you. I used to be rock hard, 135 lbs with very little fat. I was very active- running, rock climbing, kayaking. You name it. Then my health began to fail. After 9 years and 90 lbs of weight gain we finally got it diagnosed as Hashimotos...an autoimmune condition of the thyroid. I am now being treated. I did lose 25 lbs from treatment but have 70 more I need to lose and it's NOT coming off easy. I have the typical and expected joint pain, sore feet, etc. from the exercise, because I'm heavier than I should be.

I applaud your decision to give sugar the boot. That will help a LOT. You might also look to adding protein which will help you feel satiated and make you feel full longer. At lunch I often eat a small (around 300 calories) Kashi frozen meal (often Vegan) but I add a 100 calorie vegan protein shake (the protein source in mine is from peas and beans) and I find I am full for HOURS. I'm usually not even hungry by dinner time.

thanks for the reply eagleriverdee.
Being overweight has increased my paranoia so I was feeling sorry for myself that no one responded to me intro. poor pathetic fat me syndrome. Yuck. who is this depressed witch inhabiting my once firm body. get her out.

Welcome to the forum, Arrow!

I know it's difficult now to do when you are feeling so down, but please don't be so hard on yourself. When I get the urge to talk down to myself, I try to remember to treat myself like I would a friend in the same situation. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to call us pathetic or fat, would we? We should treat ourselves with the same respect. Our bodies are amazing machines that will bounce back from a weight gain (in my case, numerous times...lol) if we just treat it with respect and love ourselves along the way.

Sorry to get so emotional about this. It just hurts me to read how you talk to yourself. I've been there in the past and it really doesn't do any good.

Good luck in reaching all of your goals!

Arrow, I agree with Sandy. It's not good to be down on yourself. I think many people who struggle with their weight struggle with self-image. I know I do. But it's important to keep your internal comments to yourself positive. There's this short story out there called "The Strangest Secret" (you can google it) that talks about how important what we think is to what we accomplish. It's not very long at all, and I found it very enlightening.

Stay with this forum! The people here are wonderful, and very supportive.

EagleRiverDee, thank you for mentioning "The Strangest Secret". I had never heard of that before but just watched the short video of it here: http://www.thestrangestsecretmovie.com/

It makes so much sense. I'm going to forward that to a few people who always seem to be down on themselves and save it in my favorites whenever I have a woe-is-me moment.