So I was just having a conversation with someone about how hard it is for me to workout. Even simple things, I feel like completely drain me of what little energy I have. I've had this energy problem for a while. I've seen doctors about it, and I have a slightly slow thyroid, but nothing other than that should be causing this extreme tiredness. Trust me, I've tried everything short of taking speed. Eating more protein, eating less carbs, no wheat/dairy, and none of it helps. Anyway, that is not the point of this point.

What the person went on to say is that my body is too far gone. They said that I "may be at a point where I won't be able to recover." I'll admit since I gained 40 lbs, it is much harder to do the simple things, but never being able to recover? It just felt like such a major put down. I feel like I'm never going to get this weight off and I'm seriously considering going to a doctor to get weight loss pills. I just don't care anymore.

No, I don't think you're too far gone. I think you haven't found what works for you yet.

Good luck!!!

Honestly, I'm beat after exercise. I exercise right before bed so then I can just go to bed afterwards. I am not one of those people that get major energy bursts for the 5 hours following a workout.

Your body is not "too far gone". You just need to keep trying different things that work.

No. I don't think that there is such a thing as "too far gone." No one is hopeless. No one is beyond positive change. It sounds like the person who you were talking to just has a very negative outlook.

What works for me won't work for everyone else. It's all just a matter of finding what works for you. I agree with Mozzy. Keep working on finding the right diet to fuel your body. Don't forget that all important sleep part! Make sure you're getting not just plenty of it, but good sleep.

Some exercise, no matter how little/slow, is better than no exercise... always. So you may not have the energy to run a 5k... So what? Spend 10-15 minutes just walking on a treadmill or outside. You may just find yourself gradually able to do more or spend more time working out. Working out doesn't have to involve a gym either. On days when I'm busy and tired, I force myself to take the stair at work. If walking up 9 floors of stairs is all the exercise that I get in a day... It's still better than none.

Don't ever give up hope.

I always tell people that endorphins don't work on me. :P They just don't! I keep telling myself that doing these little things will get easier and then I can do more, but it's not working out that way. It feels like it gets even harder as time goes by to do what little workout I do. I do squats, take the stairs in our apartment building, and do a little bit of walking. Oh, and I use 5 lb hand weights. Why is it so hard? Do I have no muscle anymore? I just don't understand.

I had to lose about 75 pounds before I found myself with a body that actually wanted to move. Put another way, as long as I was over 200 pounds, I had to make myself get up and exercise, and I was exhausted after a workout. Once I got below 200 pounds, it was as though a switch flipped - I found myself taking the stairs two at a time, I found myself getting antsy to take a walk if I were just sitting around the house. I ramped up from going to the gym 2-3 times a week to going 4-5 times a week, plus very long walks on the weekends. I really did feel like a different person. I thought I was just not an exerciser - an inertial, lazy person. Turns out that it was just the extra >100 pounds I was shlepping around that was dragging my body down. Go figure.

Of course there are still days when I feel lazy or low-energy, still days when I would rather do anything at all than drag myself to the gym. But on the whole, as my body got smaller, I found it just wanted to move. So don't give up on your body. Keep working on your eating habits and get the weight off that way - you may find what I did, that the energy to move the body improves when the body gets smaller.

I started at nearly 400 lbs and a diagnosis of arthritis, fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease eating at my joints and respiratory system, asthma and possible copd, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and then diabetes, borderline low thyroid....


I was sleeping up to 20 hours a day (asleep, not just in bed, awake) and I couldn't even tie my shoes or take a shower without assistance. I had to use a cane to walk short distances and couldn't shop any stores that didn't have a motorized cart, and even with the cart, one hour in Walmart would shoot my energy level for several days.

I have a long way to go, but I'm a long way from where I started. It was like digging myself out of a deep well with a teaspoon, but I'm not sitting at the bottom anymore either.

For me, it was necessary to make small changes and progress slowly, but I obviously wasn't "too far gone."

Too far gone? Never. Check this out for inspiration - no one is ever too far gone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448

if the link gets removed, Google "Arthur Boorman disabled veteran of the Gulf War"

Also, check your ferritin (iron) levels. They can go along with thyroid issues and make you super tired, low energy, depressed, etc.

Please!!! See another doc!!! I had been dealing with subclinical hypothyroidism for probably about a decade. My TSH was only in the 3's and rarely in the 4's, but this was back when the "normal" tsh was under 5.3

It took my husband saying I should get my antibodies checked, something that is not normally checked to find out I have Hashimotos thyroid. Now some day my tsh might have ended up really bad, but at the time it was discover my tsh was only about 2.6- 3.0, which is "with in normal" limits even by the newer standards. My promary doctor said it was nothing worth treating since my labs were "normal". As a nurse, I was basically just like "f this" and went to a highly recommended endocrinologist. He was more informed on treating symptoms as I have AWFUL hypotyroid symptoms. Because I have Hashi's when my antibodies increased I'd feel worse. I remember not having the energy to get off the couch for months at a time. I had other hypothyroid symptoms too.

Anyway he put me on synthroid and it was a complete change. I have not had that drained feeling since (well I'm pregnant now, but otherwise).

I cannot stress enough how important it is to find a doctor that treats your symptoms, The fact that you even say you say you have a slightly slow thyroid is enough to find a doc that will treat it. My tsh is usually about 1.0 and I can actually feel when I need my synthroid needs to be increased, and labs confirm that my tsh is usually in the high 2's.

Please get your thyroid treated, it is definitely enough to have symptoms.

Oh wow!!!!!! That video had me bawling but grinning from ear to ear. Just amazing and I loved it. Thank you for sharing that. It is never to late.
Believe in yourself!!

What a ridiculous thing for anyone to suggest to you. It's so easy for us to believe anything negative, isn't it? I wonder why that is, but either way, it's completely untrue.

You don't need to workout to lose weight. There are plenty of people who lose weight just by limiting their calorie intake.

I hope you can let this negative talk motivate you to prove that person completely wrong. How cool would that be!

physical exhaustion can be caused by depression and anxiety, as well as stress. are those areas of your life well maintained? if not, you could consider therapy or some kind of medication. a lot of my fatigue comes from being in a constant state of anxiety.

but, no. no. no way at 240 lbs are you too far gone. that's ridiculous.

All it means is that you have a very strong reason to look further for medical issues underlying your fatigue symptoms. For the weight - no. You've got an added challenge, but you're not too far gone. It's OK if you can't exercise much right now. I lost with very little formal exercise (because of medical and extreme fatigue reasons).

If you are having any metabolic syndrome issues, of which weight gain is a major one, your body is likely very reluctant to burn fat whether it's dietary fat or body fat. If your body is in that mode where it just wants to store, store, store, it doesn't matter how much energy you have in terms of fat stores because you can't USE the fat for energy, your body just wants to store it, so you want to sit on the couch. If you can get yourself into fat burning mode (easiest way to do this is very low carb, high fat diet), it's like flipping a switch. When it happened to me, I was shocked. It was like all of the sudden I just couldn't sit on the couch anymore, I *wanted* to exercise!

If you're interested, check out this.

Echoing everyone else's replies, I don't believe you're too far gone at all, if there is such a thing.

But if you ever feel a little bummed out when someone says something like that, just go to the mini-goals and goals on this forum, particularly the ones with pictures. They always motivate me so much when I need it the most, and show that anyone, with the right dedication, can meet their goals.