[cacowgirl86]

I found this site not too long ago when I was feeling not quite depressed about my weight but definitely not good about it either. So I'll try to sum my weight loss struggle up without it being too long and tedious.

I've been overweight since I could remember. I have always LOVED and i mean LOVED food. Of most kinds, but at the same time I'm super picky about what I like. I remember middle school being horrible, so horrible in fact that I went to "fat camp" and i did good but it was a cycle. Go to summer fat camp, lose a bit of weight, come home, eat away depressions: cycle 2 more years. High school was ok..I was much more active due to going to boarding school located in the mountains. Now junior and senior years were relatively awesome. I was being extremely active-going for runs in the woods, riding horses, just basically exercising a lot (with friends.) Senior year I went to a new school ended up on a dance team and ran 3 miles daily, didn't eat too much and dropped even more weight. So going from a 13 yr old 5'3 270 lb kid to a 17 yr old 140 lb young woman was exciting.

When I did come home, I tried to stick to my eating habits but fell out of line quickly due to depression and eating my way out, etc etc. I ended up getting pregnant at 19 and had a miscarriage, which after the pregnancy is really when i began to blow up. I'm now 26 still 5'3 and am stuck in 254 lbs.

I don't know why I'm not motivated to go to a gym everyday, or just plain workout. I'll have these brief moments where I go through a health fix and get going but then I lose interest. trust me I love the feeling of accomplishing something healthy and feeling good after. Some reason I'm lazy about getting up and working out. I'm not depressed anymore and i've cut out coffee and fast foods, I do have my "cheat foods" and I'll have those occassionally..I think my problem may be that I don't just eat smaller meals, but I eat lots of small things....never seeming to get full...

Any thoughts or ideas or suggestions for getting into that high school weight again...not only do I want to look like i did back then, but I NEED to be healthy. I guess I did kind of go on a bit long though.. SORRY!

[KawaiiCandie]

hang in there girl...

the thing is, you gotta wanna do this for yourself. i was there right where you are, disgusted with myself and knowing that i had a problem and that i should do something about it, and just not doing anything about it. you gotta find your drive. that thing that will finally get you off the couch and say, "yes! i'm gonna do this!"

plus you gotta do this to be happy. not to be "skinny" or to go back to your high school glory. just tell yourself that you're doing this to be the best version of you that you can be.

surround yourself with positive people who can help you out (we're here! ) and read up on different ways of getting healthy. try to get new healthy habits into your life like dropping soda and reducing portion sizes... eating more veggies... you don't have to go all out all at once with the crazy exercise and very strict diets. i think it's been proven time and time again that those don't work.

but most of all, you just gotta hang in there and persevere! the only way you can fail at this is when you give up! so even if you have a setback, you get back up again and you turn over a new leaf.

good luck!

[cacowgirl86]

Thanks for the input! It's not so much that I want to be skinny - well we all do right...but healthy too. And i'm content with how I am now, but i'd love to be ecstatic again about myself. I have this goal set in my mind that once I do lose the weight I can go about riding horses professionally again and competing on a whole new level. It definitely doesn't help that my work shifts are 3-midnight. But I guess I'll just have to start putting my alarm clock much further away and going for a morning walk with the dogs, maybe even do a bit of stretching

[epicskyline]

Welcome! While, of course, exercise is an important aspect of losing weight and overall health and wellness, in order to lose a significant amount of weight, the way you seem to want to, you need to focus on your diet. As you begin losing weight that way, I guarantee that you'll regain your motivation to get back to the gym. It's a self-perpetuating cycle: you eat healthy and clean out your system, you have the energy to work out, you're so excited by the results of working out that you want to keep it up with more healthy food and on and on.

I agree with the always wise KawaiiCandie that you should start with small changes to your diet. Cutting out fast foods was a GREAT start, but there is plenty of processed, sugary food at the grocery store that is as bad or worse for you than McDonald's.

My first suggestion to people is always that they stop drinking pop or any kind of sugary fruit juice/energy drink. They have literally NO redeeming features, they make you crave carbs, they take away from you getting your required intake of water (which is usually my second suggestion), they're riddled with chemicals that contribute to some serious illnesses and they jack up your sugar levels. Cutting out or cutting down on pop is hard, but it is worth it to start there because it is the one, single thing that provides almost INSTANT weight loss reward.

Once you feel comfortable with this change, move onto trying to eat more fruits/veggies (particularly if you can substitute highly caloric foods like chips or fries for them - double benefit!), then maybe cutting back on white carbs like white bread, white rice, white flour, sugar and fried foods. These are delicious, so you might have to start slowly on this. That's ok! Any little bit you cut out ratchets up that calorie deficit!

You should for sure be writing down everything that you eat, especially since you snack all day. Those snacks add up really quickly. You might not realize how many calories you're really getting a day. If you DO want to snack at home a lot, then make sure you have healthy foods to snack on. This may be a good way to incorporate those fruits and vegetables into your diet.

Anyway, but I'm rambling right now. Good luck. You can definitely do it, I know you can. Stick with us, we will always support you and help you as much as we can. This board has been extremely helpful to me over the course of my journey, and I hope it can be the same for you. Good luck!