Hiya, i'm from the West Midlands and i have partial spina bifida which makes normal excercising difficult

Raspberry74 ; welcome to the forum. I am sure that you will find lots of support and encouragement here to help with your weight loss

Hi and welcome! Good luck on your weight loss journey

Hi raspberry74 and im sure u find it to be as useful as i have! any questions just let us know and we will try our best to help you out

Thank you all for the warm welcome! I'm currently twice the weight i should be for my height ( as my dear mum used to say 4ft 10 and a tab end ) and as i lost my mum at a young age for her due to her weight and the health problems that go with it, i know i need to do something about mine. Mainly my problem is comfort eating and knowing when to stop so i have cut out all the rubbish and am eating things like porridge with honey for breakfast, chicken and sweetcorn sandwich for lunch and baked potato or a weight watchers meal for dinner along with celery or carrot sticks to snack on so i am doing ok at the moment and it's nice to know there are lots of people in my position who can inspire me to keep going! I don't feel alone anymore

im so sorry about your mum hunni . It does sound like your dedicated to make the changes for weight loss, i too comfort eat, my mum used make huge portions when i was kid, she did it out of guilt i think because she has a mental illness and when i was young she was sectioned for months at a time leaving me and my younger brothers with my pathetic excuse for a adoptive father, so when she came out she would pile the plates high with carbs and meat and the sweetie draw was always overflowing! i only ever really gain so much weight while pregnant though as i again i comfort eat to deal with a horribly painful pelvic condition i get, now im left with the over-eating aftermath lol!

i have found it to be so brilliant on here, everyone is in the same boat and so we understand eachother and the challenges dieting brings, i really do hope u get the same feeling of support and warmth i have xxx

Oh my! We sound like we could be sisters! My mother was sectioned a lot too although i ended up in foster care which led to clean plate mentality ( sit and eat til it's gone or else ) and the or else part was usually very nasty. I didn't realise how bad she was until i was 16 and went back to her in which she played the guilt card every time she self harmed saying it was my fault.

If i could i would be out at the gym every day taking my frustrations out on some sort of machine, haha but my spinal problems have increased over the last couple of years. I used to be a school cook and did all the usual heavy lifting that goes with it and to anyone i hadn't told i seemed completely healthy but hours got cut and i couldn't afford to travel to the school to work and nowhere near me was taking on so i handed my notice in. From there i started getting what the doctor thought was sciatica until i reminded him i was born with partial spina bifida and could it be getting worse? I went for numerous ct scans and mris to be told i have 2 vertabrae fused together, a cyst at the base of my spine, a split in my spine in which one side is smaller than the other and the left side of my spine is dehydrated due to a spinal fluid leak and as there is too much wrong i can't be operated on because it hardly ever improves the situation for a spina bifida patient so i am resigned to a life of tramadol and diclofenic taking it easy! But that has drastically reduced my activities. When i was first in pain i took some washing out of the machine and couldn't walk for 3 days, i couldn't even move my hips to put my legs on the bed as it hurt too much! Now i am increasing my walking to strolls into town which is about a mile or so and i am waiting for someone from the local leisure centre to assess me to see what else i could do to get more exercise.

Anyways i think i have gone on waaaaaay too much! Thank you for sharing mummyof3 and keep up the good work! xxxxxx

Good luck to you Raspberry74! I can understand your pain - a little - as I have rheumatism/artheritis and god it is hard getting up to go loo in th night when all your joints creak and crack!

Whether we have a huge hurdle to cross, multiple things wrong with us or just a can't be arsed attitude - we all find it hard to stop stuffing and start slimming! I am definately a comfort/boredom eater and need to go back to eh Slimming World way of eating.