Hello all!

I joined 3FC some time ago. I didn't stick around long, but I'm trying to get back on the horse.

I've been down this road before and I'm just plain terrified. I'm a DRIVEN person. I've set many goals for myself in my life and I'm proud to say I've smashed those goals

I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, my health is good, but I'm in my 40s and I know eventually all this fat is going to cause some real issues. Both my parents have chronic health issues.

I feel I can be honest here, I'm just terrified I'll never be able to conquer my food and weight issues. For the past 2yrs I haven't even REALLY tried, because I was/am terrified of failure.

So I'm going to face this fear and do it anyway.

I'd like to make some accountability friends here, I know I'll accountable to my trainer but I need someone who understand the struggle.

Oh and me and my trainer have the same (not very popular) name! That has to mean something right?

I find it easier to think about it one step at a time. Don't worry if you can conquer your food and weight issues. Just focus on conquering your next meal. Conquering your next workout. You can only live one day at a time, so why borrow the worry from another day? I used to do the same thing, if I had one little slip up I'd be all like, well I'll start back on the 1st or Monday, or tomorrow. Just start back that minute. So you ate a carton of ice cream. Doesn't mean you give up you just try and make your next choice better.

You can totally do this.

Thank you! That is a wonderful way to think about it.

Congrats on your choice!

I completely agree with MC.

While focusing on one meal at a time, another part of your mind will also be taking on a long-range perspective. That is, you'll have an acceptance and awareness that this is a long-term project. The benefit of long-term projects? There's room (lots of room) for imperfections. Never throw in the towel though. One poor meal out of the thousands coming up does not mean defeat. Of course, you don't want to make a pattern of behaviors that prevent weight loss, but you also want to really fill your mind with acceptance of short-term imperfections (one meal or missed workout) within a long-term healthy lifestyle.

Another thing that helped me tremendously is finding which foods trigger my appetite and which help me feel full for longest. For me, I really can't do sugar/carbs on an empty stomach, and it's best if I pair those with protein and/or fat. It may be the same for you or a different magic recipe. Finding what helps you is a huge benefit. I used to find restricting calories so hard, but that's b/c I was eating too many "healthy" foods while cutting out fat. For example, I'd eat fruit, either by itself or paired with another carb like crackers or rice cakes. But that just made me starving and made me feel like I was dieting, rather than eating in a way that made me feel good and healthy. I'm someone who must pair carbs with protein and fat to keep my appetite in check. Doing that makes restricting calories so much easier for me. It also has me eating less processed foods.

It's good to be a little scared b/c it means you're taking it seriously. But it's also good to keep a sense of humor about things, to know how much control you have over the process, and that if it ever feels too hard there's probably a better method out there for you. You can do this!

I agree with the other posters. Don't look at this as a "BIG" thing.

Sometimes, we can go whole hog and get drastic with lifestyle change. Some are successful at this.

I found after doing this many times, Slower is ok. It may take a little longer, for the good choices to stick. Your body will respond, to all the drastic stuff, but until you get your brain, and thinking in the right place, it does not matter if you are doing shakes, running 10 miles a day, eating only 3 foods, ordering all pre prepped food or whatever.

We need to understand, we have what ever issue it is we have, accept that, and figure out how to turn the negative into a positive.

Being a healhier version of ourselves, should not be a battle or a war, it should be, "ok", this is what a I have, "game on" I will figure out, how to take what I have and make it work!

I'm in very much the same boat. I'm still struggling to keep any weight loss at all. What I will say is that I had so much fear built up around my weight and around trying to lose weight that as soon as I started trying it made a huge difference to my mental well-being. It was like I had been pouring a ton of energy into making myself miserable and all of a sudden I had it back to do other stuff. After a while, I also realized that moderate exercise is really not that unpleasant, which was also helpful. I just made a goal of getting to the gym every day, even if I didn't do much there, to try to stop being so afraid to go. Once I got used to exercising every day, I found it generally made me happier and more "on the ball" for the day.

I'm scared too. Lots of family health history. I'm fighting it tooth and nail.

I was thin until age 30. I have gained my weight rapidly concurrent with a lot of health problems and I understand your fear. I'm worried I will become diabetic or have a heart or stroke. I've been an ICU nurse for 11 years and I know that obese does not equal long life.

So okay, but speaking as someone who used to be two types of thin:
1: as a puberty stricken teenager I was initially fighting food, fighting cravings. I was thin, but always hyper-aware of my diet which makes a person miserable.
2. I joined a gym with my mother at age 13 and worked with a great weightlifting and diet coach (Middle-aged, very healthy, drug-free power lifter). There were not a lot of women at the gym, but the lesson was the same for everyone. Food is GOOD, Food is your friend, not your enemy. If you are starving, exhausted, or crabby then you are not getting enough calories, nutrient, carbs, or protein.
3. As a 37 year old woman with a slow thyroid I have learned what foods make me feel awful (processed "healthy" junk), and what makes me feel satisfied with energy. I am doing WW to help me with portion control and the first two weeks 2 lbs lost a week. Small baby steps I guess.