Hi everyone. I am back again, this time with a more positive screen name, I found this site a couple years ago and got away from it. Now I'm coming back to try and start over again.

I have always felt fat. I try to think about when I started to feel self conscious, and I think it was 5th grade into middle school. I remember my mom telling me I needed to watch what I ate, which I was upset about because she was overweight. I know she was looking out for me but at the time it felt hurtful. I went on to play sports but I always felt like the fat kid. I look back in pictures and think, what the **** was I thinking!? I looked great! I wonder if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My parents got divorced my freshman year of high school and I feel into a spot where I didn't care about anything. I started hanging out with a bad crowd and started smoking cigarettes and pot. That started the munchies. I dropped out of the activities in high school and partied. I dated a loser who didn't do anything for myself esteem and just went through the motions. My senior year I started getting myself back together. I had put on weight but didn't think much about it. I was probably around 250 at the time.

My college journey was like a big repeat, although instead of smoking I started drinking. I chased after guys who I wanted to love me but were total jerks, I think because I didn't love me. But, I made great friends and was successful and graduated with no problems. However, now I was probably around 315 pounds.

When I started my job I thought great, I'm cutting back on drinking, I'll be up and moving and lose some weight. However the last 6 years have been amazing, except for my weight. I love my job, I met and married a wonderful man who loves me, and we want to start a family. However, I'm now around 370 pounds. WHY is the one thing I can't get under control my weight?! I'm so sick of being heavy, of having to shop in the specialty stores. I hate sitting in chairs that crush my legs together and hurt. I want to travel but am totally self conscious about squishing into the teeny tiny seats and squishing the person next to me, I want to play with my kids and not get tired, I want to move with more grace and ease. AH! I just want it gone! I know it didn't happen overnight and it won't go away overnight. I am going to try and take it one day at a time. I'm going to kick this fat's a$$ I have to to save my own life. If you're still reading this and not asleep, I appreciate you hanging in there and letting me pour out my story. I've been so inspired by your stories already and you don't even know it.

Howdy Cabin,

I can relate to some of your story. When I was in school, my mother constantly harped on me needing to watch what I ate. I poured my heart out into sports. And when I was 16, the unthinkable happened! I hurt my knee so bad, I needed (and still do) a complete knee replacement. I couldn't walk for a year. I blew up from an average size teenager to (what I felt was) a blimp. It completely destroyed me and my self-esteem.

Congratulations on the wedding! :-) It's always the most amazing thing to find the person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with.

It sounds like you've achieved a great many things already in your life - despite how you feel about your weight. Don't let it deter you from anything, ever.

I've just recently found this website and forums, and I already love it here. Everyone is just so supportive and friendly. It is a step in the right direction.. and that's all it takes. one step forward.

If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know :-) I'd be happy to help!

Jessie

Thanks Jessie! It feels good to be back. It felt good to get all that out in the open. I know good things are coming. I just have to slow myself down and quit playing the what if game with myself, like "what if I can't lose the weight" It's a bad habit I've gotten into that I need to break. It's time to get positive.

Afternoon Cabin,

It's easy to judge ourselves the harshest. We see ourselves in the cruel limelight of our own attention to minute detail. It is unfair, to say the least.

The real question is.. "what are you going to do when you lose the weight?"

Perseverance is another trait we get :-) we are too stubborn to give up! You can do this. There are too many great people to help you along the way, so you're never going to truly be alone.

Don't play the "what if" game unless the question ends on a positive note. There enough things and people in this world who can and will tear us down - don't do it for them.

It's super late for me, lol. Sorry if my response is muddled and confusing >.< I really need to start going to bed sooner.

Jessie

Welcome back! It sound like you have a lot of positive motivation to make your life even better.

I also had issues with my mother watching what I was eating from a very early age and that totally warped how I thought about food and myself. Even though it was inadvertent, I got the message that no one would love me if I was fat, which was so, so damaging. Luckily I think it can be healed and is definitely part of this whole process.

Thanks ladies. I appreciate the support. I'm struggling today. I've been tracking what I'm eating on myfitnesspal. My calories are insane which obviously is part of the problem. My issue seems to be dinner/afternoon. I come home from work and feel like I'm starving so I eat and then eat for dinner. Any suggestions?! Please!

Cabin,

Your current weight was my heaviest weight on a doctor's scale, though I am certain that at one point I weighed more than that. Now, check out my ticker. Weight loss is possible.

After that 370 weigh-in in summer 2009, I think, I lost 40 lbs, then bounced up and down between 330 and say, 360 for a couple of years.

Then, last year I restarted at about 330. Since then I have lost more than another 100 pounds, as you can see. I've gone from barely squeezing into seats and huffing up the stairs to fitting neatly in them, crossing my legs at the knee (with pleasure), and jogging up the stairs. I've gone from a 32/34 at my heaviest to 16/18. I'm still losing. It feels like a miracle, but it's work and most of the work is mental.

You have to find a method that lasts for you, and you have to plan ahead. For me, I am a night-owl and a snacker. So, instead of trying to quash that, I just tend to eat all my meals later. I eat breakfast late and lunch quite late and dinner quite late, so there's not much night-snacking time. I come home from work late, so I always have a plan for dinner in my head. I cut up stuff for salad ahead of time and begin dinner with a giant salad that takes the edge off my hunger while dinner cooks, so that when I do eat my dinner I have time to feel full (because dinner is a two-course meal). Ditto with lunch: I eat raw veggies with lunch everyday, before the 'main' mean, so that my brain has the time to process my body's signals.

I am not saying it is easy. It is very, very tough. But it CAN be done and you CAN do it.

cabindreamin: I am back again after about a year and I can SO relate to your post. Thank you for posting and helping to remind me that I am not the one with the struggles I have!

mnemosyne: Wow! That is inspirational! Are you following a certain plan? I am just getting started (again) and I am trying to figure out what is best for me now.

Welcome back. First off congrats on your gradution, having a job you love and your wedding. You came to the right place it is great for encouragment find a plan that fits your lifestyle and add some excersize you will do great

tw326at41 - I am not following a specific plan! I am a vegetarian and I suppose the closest thing to what I'm doing is calorie counting, though I don't log food and I don't specifically count each calorie I ingest, I am VERY calorie aware and force myself to look up everything and read all labels.

My meals are vegetable dense and mostly homemade, but I don't mind leftovers so that is pretty easy. I do NOT eat anything that I do not like. Never choke anything down, and I make sure my meals are things I will enjoy so that I look forward to and enjoy them.

My day is usually:

Breakfast: oatmeal + coffee with creamer. I measure out the creamer, but I didn't start worrying about that in the beginning. I DID take some things in stages.

Snack (if there is one): banana or apple

Lunch: bean/lentil-based soup, or bean/lentil-based salad depending on the season, with loads of veggies. + loads of raw veggies, + sometimes an individual serving sized bag of popchips or baked chips of some sort.

or: veggie burger, vegetables, + (maybe) those baked chips.

Snack: usually only if I didn't have one between breakfast and lunch: a piece of fruit or sometimes frozen greek yogurt.

Dinner: large salad with many vegetables, yogurt-based dressing, olives, and 5-6 croutons counted out. Followed by: something I like. Varied.

I prepare everything in advance and always have an evening snack of jello and fruit or popsicles or sugar-free hot chocolate or whatever. I do not buy tempting junk of any sort. I figure I resist temptation at the grocery store where it is easy to do so. I have weaned my idea of 'treating' myself at at the grocery store, but when I DO want to 'treat' myself I pick up some vegetable rice-paper wraps from the sushi place in the grocery. So: low calorie but it feels indulgent.

Even healthy things can cause me to overeat, so with baked chips I ONLY buy them in individual bags. I don't have much of a sweet tooth so while I have some other 100 calorie pack things int he house, I rarely eat them. I never, ever, ever buy big boxes of crackers or chips or cookies, as I have trouble not eating these if they are around. So again: resist at the store. Almonds may be healthy, but I would totally overeat them so they aren't in my house, except again a few 100 calorie packs.

I LIKE the way I eat. It fits the way I live. It requires extra planning, but I built the habits to do the planning. So, I would say worry about those meal-planning and buying habits whatever your plan first, without being too worried about EVERYTHING. Then gradually tackle other habits. Like, I always used too many croutons/toppings on my salads, but at first I didn't worry about it because I was changing so many other things, too. Then, after I was pretty in-the-groove, I tackled things like the cream in my coffee and the toppings on my salads.

I have fast-food plans, even. In case I need a quick meal, and I know which mid-priced chain restaurants have food I can eat. Throughout, I've allowed myself at least one 'normal' meal a week - with wine or beer and dessert after - and occasionally more, if there are occasions and I am participating.

And after my healthy-eating habits were pretty well-established, I tackled exercise!

mnemosyne: thank you for all the info. I think you hit the nail ont he head for me and that is that I need to "plan" and I need to grocery shop, and I need to prep. I think I am stressing over not doing things "perfectly" so I appreciate the notes about not tackling everything at once. I don't have a lot of time during the week but I could do some meal planning so that come Saturday I can grocery shop. Plus with the three day weekend I should be able to get some good prep time in. You mentioned that you prepare everything in advance; how far in advance? The day or the week? Do things "keep" OK?

Cabin: Didn't mean to highjack you post. I hope you are doing better today than yesterday. Since I am not really back in the swing of things I don't know that I should be giving advice but have you thought about having a snack before late afternoon/befor dinner so youa re not starving at dinner. I am remembering I used to eat and apple and/or cheesestick on my way home from work so I could make it to and through dinner OK. I found that eating something every 3 hours or so really helped me.

Hey ladies! No worry on asking questions tw326, I was thinking the same thing! I am doing better. I know its an every day challenge and I'm taking it one day at a time. I'm using myfitnesspal and that's helped me be accountable even if it drives me nuts sometimes. I've been over on calories the last two days but I'm getting them lower and lower. I do have to plan too, if I don't its disasterous! I am feeling better emotionally too. I've been drinking lots of water to help the "hunger" pangs in the afternoon and that seems to be helping. I liked your post mnemo that you tackled food first then exercise. Exercise comes easily once I get started, the food is where I struggle.