My name is Stasia, and I'm 22-years-old. I'm at a great university with a sound mind, good friends, and a loving fiancé. While I'm told I'm beautiful, I know it's not the look I want to be; there's a subtext beneath beautiful.

"...for being overweight."

I grew with an overprotective father who never really let me go outside and play with the other kids or get down and get messy. I was barely allowed to ride my bike around, and even then, it was on the smallest and shortest bit of sidewalk. I played sports in middle school for a while but somewhere along the line between fourteen and twenty-two, I completely lost my way and really started packing on the pounds.

I know the intent of my family is good. But everyone is overweight - my older brother and my father the most. It's currently rather cold, icy, and icky outside where I live (a winter in Iowa, haha!) and I'm embarrassed to go to the gym.

I don't know what clothes to buy to exercise in. I don't know how to feel good about myself.

I try very hard to cut back on the things I love that are very bad for me, but when it's late, there's no food ready, and I've got work to do, sometimes I make bad choices. And sometimes the good choices don't feel like they fill me up enough.

It hurts.

Two close friends of mine are getting heavier and heavier despite promises of going to a gym with me, so I decided... I need to take a stand, and maybe look for some companionship on here to help me through.

So far, I'm trying to just learn to lose 2 pounds a week at a time. Nice, safe, healthy. But please - help me to learn to enjoy exercise instead associating with headaches, sick stomach, saliva-filled mouth, and heavy breathing.

I hate being like this. I know I could be better.

I'm going to be a teacher come next year - what kind of example am I if I can't master myself?

So, please. Help learn to make right choices. I'm tired of seeing how much fabric I need to cover my shame, of hating the rolls of my flesh. I'm tired. Tear-stained, broken-hearted, and scared, I lay this plea out to someone to please help me with this. Because as hard as I've tried, it's apparently not working on my own.

The weather is awful and money is scarce: help me to lose weight and keep it off. Not just to fit better in smaller clothes, but because I want to be healthy and know people are saying kind words to me because they're true. Not because they're not trying to offend me.

No more musical thunder thighs or kadonka-donk butt. Just...hope.

You can do this! Email me if you want one-on-one support, we can do it together!!! I'm not perfect, and I'll have days where I need you to support me right back, but we can do this and we can help each other!

rachel.meyer9 at gmail dot com

Keep coming back! Lots of great people, ideas and support here at 3FC!!

Hi there!

You're in the right place! We all have felt/feel that way. There are some pretty amazing things happenning here. Pull up a chair and join the conversations.

You can do this! You are worth it and you deserve it!

Losing weight is hard- I don't depend on anyone but ME to lose weight. that being said the support here at 3fc is wonderful

If you don't have healthy stuff on hand and little time to cook, prepare stuff for yourself on your day off that you can eat during the week. Like chicken breasts and salads and soups and other snacks

All you need is a good sports bra, sweats, and a tshirt to work out (well underwear too I guess lol).

If you are embarassed to go to a gym you have many options- buy a used piece of exercise equipment from somewhere like craigslist (I spent $100 on the treadmill from craigslist that is very good), get some weights, some resistance bands, and a couple of exercise tapes. Also if you have a long lunch take walks. 3x a week I walk on my lunch with any coworker who wants to come- I bring weights and power walk the whole way- I LOVE IT If you have OnDemand from your cable (I have cox cable) you can access the freezone and there are usually free exercise tapes.

Slow changes also help, maybe now concentrate on diet and making better choices and preparing food in advance, then start exercising.

It's time to be "selfish" and think about you

You have a made a great first step by reaching out. You are NOT alone and can find a lot of support here. Take some time to read some of the success stories as they are so inspirational and proof positive it can be done.

You deserve to have the body and life you want. It won't be easy but it can be done. Keep coming here to 3FC for support.

Hi Stasia,

Your subject line caught my attention as you said: " (...) I'm fat"

First of all, I know you can definitely do this. As I've learned, a significant part of reaching your goals is your mindset and self-talk.

So here's a little tip and actually something that I used in that regard:

- Instead of admitting to yourself that "you're fat"...
- ... it's better to admit that that's physiologically impossible.

You ARE not fat. You're just temporarily carrying around more body fat that you'd like to.

This may come across hokey, but it's actually a pretty subtle nuance, because it means you're not seeing yoursel at the same level as the 'fat' again.

This puts you in a position (at least mentally) to be able to let go of it, because it's not 'part of you'. Again, you're just temporarily carrying around more of it than you'd like.

Perhaps that helps to 'master yourself' as you called it... At least, again, it instantly puts you in a position of control 'mentally'.

So whenever you think you're fat again, stop that line of thinking, and start thinking that you're only carrying it around and you can let go of it if you want to.

Worked pretty well for me... (of course if I followed up with lots of other stuff to actually 'let go' of the fat... but that's a whole different story isn't it? ;-))

Anyway, this might give you a place to start...

Best wishes,

Hannah