In addition to introducing myself and getting my post count up, I'm trying to get to the roots of myself and discover why I so often fall into the cycle of gaining and losing weight.

My name is Haylie and I'm 26. I joined 3FC a few days ago figuring maybe I could use support from others who know what it's like, rather than bashing myself non-stop and other over weight people because I figured we just didn't have the self control to be thin. I have always pretty much loathed myself for not being able to "just diet" or "eat less" and hated myself for always making excuses for my terrible eating habits. I have never been considered "normal" weight and have been obese to morbidly obese my whole life.

I started here weighing 302 lbs. a few days ago, the third time I crossover into the 300's. First time and highest weight ever was 315 after graduating college with 4.0 gpa and receiving summa cum laude honors (talk about stress) and the second time (306) was after sustaining an injury.

I'm ready to change, I want to change, but I'm tired of failing. How many times have I said, "this is it, this time I will lose weight", probably thousands. Why does it feel like there is a child inside of me that throws a temper tantrum for junk food to sabotage my efforts when I try to make healthier eating choices? A greedy gluttonous lazy child.

Anyway, that is enough of my soap box, what are your stories and how do you overcome challenges?

I signed up for a 20 day challenge starting July 1st, if anyone would be interesting in being my weight loss buddy and who doesn't mind an odd sense of humor (I'm usually not this mushy) that would be awesome.

Thanks for viewing

Hi Haylie!

I'm Katie, 22 years old and going to start my final year of college in September. I started a profile in December 2011, wrote 2 posts and then stopped. But now I'm pack and determined!
I've struggled with my weight ever since I can remember; even as a child, my family called me Katers Potaters because apparently I resembled a sack of potatoes.

At first I didn't want to accept this weight gain, living in yoga pants, I refused to buy new clothes as that would mean acceptance, but now I want to change. I look in the mirror every morning and put on this fake smile of confidence, but I want to put a smile on my face from pride.

I'm planning on doing the July challenge to see if I can lose 10lbs.

I would love to be your weight loss buddy! We can message and and encourage one another!

Welcome Odd Duck!

Please stop beating yourself up. I have never heard of that helping anyone. The only reason I am successfully losing weight this time is because of this site. The support here is great. There is also so much information on different ways of eating, exercise, health, vitamins, and of course the whole emotional aspect is also covered. Most importantly there is also learning about maintenance. It is not just losing but living at maintenance that is important. Jump in and find what works for you and what you can live with for the rest of your life.
Another thing that works for me is making a commitment to eat healthy for a year because motivation comes and goes.

Good luck. Ubee

Hello Odd Duck and welcome! First of all your story in some ways sound so much like me, the old me. I used to tell myself all of those things you say. I have been overweight nearly all my life. I was first put on diet pills at 6 or 7 years old. The problem was that I was stressed out by being called names as a child and the first year I was in school I put on 20 pounds, too much for a child that has not gotten much taller.

As I got older, I had all those ideas ingrained in my head and kept believing them. Through the course of a broken marriage and several things that do nothing to build up my self esteem I would lose weight and gain back more. It was because I never dealt with the issues and learned thoughts and behaviors from my childhood that had caused my obesity. Even when I would get down to a nearly normal size I would still see myself as fat. Over the past several years my weight has been at its all time highest.

I finally got to the point where I thought "you earned your Master's degree, raised a kid by yourself (for the most part) and pay your way so why can't you lose with?" About 2 years ago a man who I went to high school with came back into my life and over the past year we have become very close. He could not understand how I could ever feel that way about myself. He fell in love with me in high school but never said a word because he thought I was too beautiful for him. He has spent many times trying to explain to me how he sees me. He tells me every day how beautiful and perfect I am. I still find that hard to believe but between him and other sources I am learning to build up my self confidence. I found this sticker that I put on the wall just outside my bathroom that says "BE YOUR OWN KIND OF BEAUTIFUL."

In April, I went to a doctor for bloodwork, nutrition and medical advice. Based on my bloodwork he put me on some different vitamins and gave me an eating plan that is low in sugar, fat and limited to 1700 calories a day. Plus I must put in 150 minutes of walking per week. I probably went a little extreme (not that bad really) and I eat about 1500 calories a day and walk about an hour. I take all my vitamins as he suggested. I am down 55 pounds from my highest weight (I was not at my highest when I first went to see him). They are fussing at me right now saying I am losing it too fast. I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full. I stay away from high calorie, junk food and fried foods but I do not deprive myself. Today is my birthday and my family is celebrating my birthday, my granny's 93rd birthday and my parents 50th wedding anniversary with a dinner and party. I will let everyone know how I fared on this one later.

In fact the other night I went to Sonic with my friends and was offered an onion ring and ate only one. The Sonic also made a mistake and gave me sweet tea and I only drank a little of it instead of the whole cup. The old me would have swigged it down and wanted more as well as wanted my own bag of onion rings instead of just having my Jr. Burger. The extra value meal is something I always just thought I had to have. Now I am very calorie conscious and don't want to waste my calories on something that have more calories than satisfaction. I need to mention here that I also used to base my restaurant selection on how much food I could get rather than find one that I could get a good nutritious meal in favorable portions.

I have also upped my exercise from 20 minutes to 60 or more minutes a day. That is something that I have always lacked in. In another thread I told everyone about my first 5K that I walked Friday night. In March I would have never thought of doing a 5K or even training for one. You see in my signature, THE FORMER MISS LAZY, the name I gave myself. I did this because I walk everyday, raining or hot, windy or not. I think I am scared to stop walking even for a day because I don't want to fall back into my old habits.

It has taken me a very long time (over 40 years) to get to this point in my life. Yes, I must be a slow learner in some things (LOL). I guess this long winded story is to say that I just finally got to the point where I decided it was time to do it and I have stuck with it and will continue to do so. I was thinking just the other day, I have a 20 year old son who cannot remember me being under 300 pounds. I am determined to change that. I want my grandkids to only know their granny as health conscious and in shape. I know I have heard others say this but I am going to also, if I can do this anyone can do it.

I'm just like you I've been on and off the losing weight train so many times it's hard to count. I grew up the chunky kid and was reminded of it all the time from everyone around me. It eventually brought my self esteem to an all time low. When I got pregnant with my daughter it was just another reason for me to eat whatever I wanted because I would just have a baby belly... right? I gained 80 pounds during my pregnancy thankfully I had no complications. I weighed 280 pounds the day I went into the hospital and within a month I was down to the 260's trying for the 250's. I did in fact make it to 250s but I started to slowly climb back up the ladder and before I knew it I was past pregnancy weight. I came back here a few days ago because this is the one place where you will find very nice people, people who know what you are going thru, and are really helpful and keep pushing you along. What helps me with this site is I am held accountable with my ticker that everyone can see. I want to keep it going down and reach my smaller goals. I've seen it many many times here set small goals 3-5 pounds and when you reach them you will feel so good about yourself and you will want to keep going then set another. You don't have to look at the big number take baby steps and you can do this. We both can!

I'm Jane, and at my largest I weighed close to 500 pounds. I have been obese my entire adult life. I grew up with a father that weighed over 700 pounds, and eventually died a slow death after a stroke brought on by complications from a gastric bypass (That I don't believe he intended to survive, I think by the surgery, he'd given up). I was 19 when he died. My youngest brother was 14, and we'd all spent our whole lives helping my father function.

I've never been good with people, and I have extremely low self esteem. I hid out in college and ate myself nearly to death. I saw the light when I moved home and had a few friends that wouldn't give up on me, but we still made food our main form of socialization. The end came for me one year ago, nearly to the day, when I traveled out East with my friends and couldn't keep up at all. I stayed back from a lot of activities, and I left one incredible attraction to head up the stairs early, because I didn't want them to see me struggle. Then, when I got home, two people in my life got engaged, and I used their wedding dates as inspiration.

I've lost about 100 pounds. I've been plateaued for a while, but I can swim every day, carry my 50 pound dog up two flights of steps and do yoga. I feel alive, and I no longer fear becoming my father.

If I can do this, anyone can.

I was a LOT more thinner/athletic when I was younger. My issue began in high school when my parents divorced and my mom moving us across the country in 9th grade. That was when I turned to food whenever I was lonely, happy, sad, etc. which was the majority of the time.

So take that learned behavior of food and fast forward years later - add depression/broken engagement issues on top of a non-functioning thyroid and bam! Here I am.

I think it's so easy to beat yourself up when you're overweight. I think that, more than anything is going to be my biggest hurdle!

For me, I was always on the higher end of 'normal' weight growing up, and I remember so clearly the day that we had to weigh ourselves in PE class- all the other girls were 130lbs and I was 158. I thought I was hideous. I hated my body and bemoaned that the sports I played gave me muscle-y thighs, not nice skinny ones like my friends had. And so I stopped eating- that is, I pretended to eat, but other than breakfast (which I had to sit down to with my parents) and maybe a few bites of dinner, I didn't really eat. And the weight fell off and I got tonnes of comments about how great I looked, but I still felt huge. Then I had a big upheaval in my life and switched to eating everything I could get my hands on. I never felt full, and so I ate and ate, and the bigger I got, the more miserable I became, and so the more I ate! It was a horrible cycle. That started almost 15 years ago. And now I'm in a place where I'm happy with my life, with my work, with my friends and family, but not with myself. I regret what I've done to my body. So this year has been my 'get healthy' year. And it hasn't gone as well as I'd like- I'm down 40lbs, and I'm still struggling to see that as 'wow, 40lbs, that's amazing!' rather than 'only 40? Who am I kidding?'.

I'm tired of the excuses I give myself, so I've given myself the challenge of losing another 40lbs by the end of the year. And I'm determined to get there. My ultimate goal is the 158lbs that I'd thought, as a teen, made me horrifically fat and ugly, so that I can prove to myself that I was fine then, and that you don't need to starve yourself to be happy, nor do you need to stuff your face.

If you're still looking, I'd love to be your weight loss buddy! Having other people to motivate you is so important I think, and I think it helps remind you that you're not alone, and that you are doing well!

I think the hardest thing to do in the loss/maintaining world is changing our mindset.

I think most of the time we look at "diet" and "exercise" as torture, a cross to bear, a curse, a road with no end in sight, and we believe we are being tortured and deprived, due to some unknown sin we committed. Or something like that anyway.

If saying awful things to ourselves worked, we'd all be a healthy weight and gym rats. Obviously that behavior does not work.

I hate the work "diet" as it does have the connotation of deprivation.

After all the first 3 letters in the work diet spell DIE!

So, sometimes we just have to sit down and have a little talk with ourselves, and say "now self, what you've been thinking and doing isn't working, so you need a different plan!"

My story. My Mom has been obese as long as I can remember and my weight has been up and down, though never as high as my Mom's. I was however, headed down that path a few years ago.

I decided I didn't want to have the issues she has in her golden years due to her obesity so I joined WW, and lost 50 pounds. I got cocky and quit going and gained back 25. So, I went back and lost 30 and have so far kept it off for 2 years and 11 months. My 2 year anniversary is in Sept.

Believe me, I still have to have little sit down sessions with myself once in a while, but the biggest thing was accepting the fact that I will always have to be aware of my diet, () and I need to workout.

I do a lot of strength training, because I enjoy it, it's very good for women, and it helps me function better at my job at the veterinary hospital.

Welcome OddDuck! You're not alone. I'm 26 too. Overweight/obese my whole life. Never could understand how I could be so disciplined academically but cave at the first sight of a cupcake. Topped out at 310...thought, "holy sh1t, I weigh over 300 lbs,", seven months later I've lost about 60 with a long way to go.
I've so enjoyed reading all your stories I see so much beauty and tenacity, I'm cheering each of you on!