Hi everyone...I am not new to 3 fat chicks as I have always lurked around here and I love this site. But it is definitely my first time signing up and posting.

I have always been chubby. Met my now husband at 17 and somehow got down to 127 and was happy there for about a year then slowly but surely snuck up to 167lbs. I am 5'1 so definitely not good.

Then I stupidly took a friends advice and went to the dr and got put on phentermine. Wow, was that a mistake. Yes in 3-4 months I went from 167 to 139 and I looked great BUT as soon as the pills stopped I gained it all back and more..

In 2012 I found myself packing 206 lbs on my small frame. Yeah, it sucked big time...it made me miserable, miserable with life, miserable to be around. I hated myself.

I switched jobs, went to a lower stress career and and that alone dropped me 19 pounds. I sat at 185 forever then switched jobs again and started lifting weights. In 6 months I had toned up ALOT and gotten down to 155. I looked OK and felt great.

Then BAM I got pregnant in late 2013 (result of my new self esteem and flat tummy maybe???? lol) and I panicked. I stopped going to the gym and although my eating did not change in the back of my mind I knew the weight would come back.

Well it didnt and by month 4 I was down to 150 with no weight gain or negative symptoms. Then I lost my baby. Me and my husband (wonderful guy btw) were devastated and heartbroken. It took forever for the bleeding to stop, to get my energy back and to even want to leave the house.

So 2 weeks ago I stepped foot in the gym for the first time in a long time and started up my weight training again. As of today I am sitting at 168 ( ) but I am making progress already in the way I feel.

I hope to find some support and maybe a weightloss journey partner here on this site. Im planning on making lots of progress and I know this place will help me get there.

My major weakness is being a couch potato, sleeping and pasta!! Im half Portuguese, quarter Cherokee and quarter Mexican but I swear im an Italian at heart.

Well, thanks for reading my story. I would greatly appreciate tips and advice, especially on what type of cardio is the best to supplement my weight training.

Best of luck! You can do this!

Welcome. I was watching an interesting show. Part of this massive weight gain this country is experiencing is that people used to burn 700 calories more a day than we do. This makes sense, desk jobs, no one walks, elevators and so on. So activity levels have dropped off a cliff, and we are also cunsuming more calories, not less because our inactivity, so it's a double whammy.

Anyway glad you're working out, stick with it and you'll get there.

Thanks for your encouragement!

I agree, we have become accustomed to being sedentary and I know that is part of how I got to where I am today. But I am doing better.

Thank you for the info/reminder and your encouragement.

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm glad that you are able to focus the energy you need on yourself to heal and move forward. Getting more exercise is a great plan. It sounds like you had an approach that worked well for you in the past, so I wish you the best of luck in your journey.

Hi welcome again.

Thanks for sharing your story and i'm sorry to hear about your baby. I am sure its a very very hard thing.

The main thing i wanted to say is about the sleeping. First of all are you still depressed? And if so, going on antidepressants could be a good idea just make sure you are not given one that will increase your appetite. Not all of them do.

Sleeping a lot is a way i handle depression too. But i was also a day time sleeper and i have successfully become a morning person after nearly a whole lifetime of being a night person and having bad sleep habits.

If you can work on changing that you will find it easier to get your weight down because at night when there's nothing to do, people tend to eat and eat and eat out of boredom. If that sounds like you, then you need to reassess this pattern.

Here's what i did and i'm not saying you could just do it too because you are in different circumstances. To make the break from my night time being up and computer addiction habit i had to go away and live without the computer for some time. When i came back, i made a rule that i would not go on the internet after dinner which i eat fairly early. This helps you recognise when you are tired and you do not have to fight yourself to go to bed. Tehre's also something about the light in computers and tv which keeps you up and awake. I find that going to bed no later than 10pm in the beginning helped me. If i missed that moment, i might not be able to sleep until much later.

So i would go to bed earlier and take a book. Reading helps you relax and wind down.

So going to bed early and not being overstimulated is crucial to changing your sleep habits. I am not able to force myself to get up if i am tired so that's why its better to go to bed early. But if you're body clock is out of whack, you need to reset it and i find the easiest way to do it is to go away and have a major change or routine. Travelling helps me get that.

Also when you are up int eh day time, you need to have some thing engaging to do. I had an idea to start a new business and was teaching myself to pattern making and sewing. This gave me a reason to get up in the morning. So maybe if you can find some sort of activity that you can get e excited about.

I know that if you are still depressed you may not come up with anything for a while. But keep it in mind.

There's a lot more i could say about the diet thing but for now, that's the main point.

Best wishes.

Thank you for your kind words. Yes I really feel the lifting weights before helped me so I am trying my best to focus on that and get back into the rythym I had before.

Hi Patience. Thank you for your concern. Honestly, while there are times I do feel extremely sad and down about it, they are now far and few between. I try to focus on the positive and the fact that in the future when I am healthier pregnancy is still a possibility. However, those times when I am down and sad about it, i guess you could say I do feel depressed.

As far as sleeping, while I am that girl who can sleep anywhere, anytime for a very long time, I don't sleep during the day on a regular basis. I will take a nap here and there but its under control. As far as at night I have noticed that if I dont go to sleep around 9ish (I wake up at 530 am every day) the very next day it is extremely hard for me to wake up and I am exhausted and sluggish the whole day. So typically it takes 9.5 hours for me to feel really rested and function well throughout the day. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing....

Hi! Welcome and congrats on your first post! I also wanted to say I am sorry for your loss- I can't even imagine how you must feel.

On the topic of exercise, I love weight lifting, and don't love the cardio so much. The most challenging cardio machine to me in the gym is the stair climber, and I do that when I am at the gym that has it (I am trying to shape up this wide flat caboose). I have a membership to a gym that has multiple locations, and you can go anytime. I go to school in a different town than where I live and work, so I end up going to three different gyms. Too bad I can't get credit for three times the workouts!

Anywho, I also do high intensity interval training on the treadmill once or twice a week if I am not too tired. What that is, is you run or climb at an incline that is so intense you might die for a short period of time (like 20 seconds), and then rest for a short time (like 10 seconds). However, because I am a fatty and somewhat out of shape still, I do it more like 20-30 seconds work and 30 seconds to a minute of rest. Believe me, it is still intense. It wears me out, so the next day I usually don't do cardio. I try to plan those sessions for a rest day following it. Then I will alternate sometimes, doing three ten minute sessions on three types of machines. It breaks up the monotony that way, and it makes the thirty minutes seem faster.

I usually do thirty minutes at a more intense level, but maybe once or twice a week I will do 45 minutes to an hour. I figure this way, I am getting every type of cardio for every recommended length of time. If my fat cells read one article(yes they read, they are very cultured fat cells, lol) recommending longer, lower intensity cardio, then they can have that. If they read the one about shorter, higher intensity cardio or HIIT, they get that too. No fat cells are left untargeted. I think the most important thing is to pick a cardio exercise that you will actually do, and do it at a challenging level most days of the week. I also count my weight lifting as cardio, because I do my exercises in groups of 3-4 lifts, and I don't rest in between. Believe me, if you are lifting at a challenging level, this keeps your heart rate up just fine!

Best of luck on your endeavors, and remember that grieving happens as we let it, and it is okay to feel anything you might be feeling in your loss. It is also important to remember that we each grieve differently. Your husband may be fine when you aren't, and vice versa. Give yourself time, and be kind to yourself. I lost my mother 10 years ago, and I sometimes still need to feel those emotions I went through when I first lost her. I just let it be what it is, and I am finally okay with this process. Don't try to over analyze what you are feeling.
Now get going and don't stop!

Brandis thanks for the tips. I will definitely try HIIT. Yes my weight lifting definitely has my heart pounding, blood pumping, sweat everywhere!!!