Hello everyone, this is my first try at all this.
I'm early 30's mother of a 12 year old and wife of a supportive man.

I'm 5ft and 225lbs.

(I can't believe i just declared that!)
I've been on every diet regiem there is.
Currently failing at nutrisystem.

Last night something broke in me.
I can no longer be comfortable in my own body.
I can no longer love me just for me. I need to change, and change NOW.

Unfortunatley all my family and friends can't be there for me.. they don't know what its like.

I'm not normally a weepy cry baby. I"m a strong determined woman, at least I thought I was until for the first time I really looked in the mirror, and saw nothing but a weak minded lazy girl.

Can anyone here help me?
I need help.

I just posted this as a response to someone else. It's the only advice that I can give to someone that is hurting because of their weight. I am biased, since it worked so amazingly, beautifully, miraculously for me.

I am a firm believer that diets just lead to eventual weight gain. Excessive caloric restriction and eating diet "frankenfood" just start a molecular domino effect that slows the metabolism, consumes muscle mass and holds onto fat reserves. When the plan stops, the weight comes back - but NOT THE MUSCLE. All the weight comes back as fat, since fat is metabolically inactive, basic metabolism is slowed and it takes fewer calories to sustain the body.

What worked for me:

* Greatly reducing processed foods (and fast food and sugary soda, foods with little to no nutritional value) - avoiding high fructose corn syup and trans fat (hydrogenated vegetable oils found in most packaged baked goods, cookies, crackers, etc)
* Making it a goal to eat 5+ servings of vegetables every day, fruit, whole grains, lean protein, low fat dairy and healthy fat
* Eating enough calories a day - making sure I was below maintenance level for my height/weight/age/gender/activity level but only SLIGHTLY below maintenance
* Exercise
* Committing to a lifetime of healthy eating, not a plan or diet I would start and then one day stop.
* Making my goal long term health - weight loss was a happy byproduct of eating foods to be healthy

All my life, I thought if I could cut some calories to lose weight, I could cut MORE calories and lose MORE weight. I was sucked into the "eat less, move more" mantra, except I took "eat less" to excessives. Could I lose weight - yeah, I have lost a lot of weight over the years. Did it matter? NO because I could never KEEP the weight off. I always gained back all the weight AND MORE.

I changed the "mantra" to - eat less unhealthy food, eat MORE healthy food, move more. It has made all the difference - 70 lbs lost, nearly 19 months of maintenance.

Good luck!

I would also recommend these two books:

Ultrametabolism - the author says some stuff about detoxing that I don't really believe, but everything else is amazing. Please please read the excerpt on Amazon about the "starvation myth"

Super Foods Rx: 14 Foods That Will Change Your Life - this is the book that changed my life. The idea that some foods are nutritionally powerful and can prevent long term health problems (nuts for your heart, spinach for eyes, blueberries to prevent age related brain deterioration, yogurt for the gut, tomatoes to protect the skin against sun damage)

while i cannot tell you what will utimately work for you I can tell you that after years of trying and failing at weight watchers.. and getting up close to 300 pounds at 5'3 3/4 I finally knew I was going to die. I knew my husband was going to die if we didn't do something.

We looked into the South Beach Way of LIFE (basically whole foods nothing processed and whole grains)....

we committed AS A FAMILY to eating and living better. We planned for about 2 weeks to start on May 1st. we ate up all the junk in our house (and enjoyed it)--then we cleaned.... I gave away tons of frozen and unopened stuff and canned goods and THREW AWAY 4 huge green contractor bags of foods we would never eat again.... only to replace them with the healthy versions.

I committed to cooking all our meals and planning everything.

So far I've lost 32 pounds and my husband has lost an incredible 75 pounds.

we eat a lot of food. we like everything we eat. I cook and shop a lot (and that's hard with a full time job on top of everything)... i'm going to the gym 6 days a week.

we drink a lot of water.

the only way this works is to make changes for life....not just a diet... not just a bit.. but forever....

you have to find a plan that you can live with and modify to fit your life not try to fit your life to a plan....

Thanks Glory and Lady but, I guess I know all those things, I have to change my life.
It's just so difficult, I love eating the foods I eat, even though I know they are killing me. It's just so difficult to abstain from them.

I guess what it comes down to is it my life or those fried chicken fingers that I love more.

Right now, I just feel so hollow and empty and sad.

I never let myself feel this way before, I guess it was an attempt to look over what I had become.

Did either of you have these bouts with depression like this? How did youwork your way around them, because to be honest all I want to do is eat right now.

However I am planning on going to the grocery store and stocking up on veggies, I can definatley eat 5+ servings a day.

i suffered from depression a lot in my life but never from weight. I come from a family of dysfuctional eaters. either bingers or anorexics or bulimics...... very interesting mix.

I'm not going to give you the crock of "NOTHING tastes as good as thin feels" because i think it's a crock... thin sucks when there's good cheesecake to be had. but i can tell you that I doubt I could eat a whole slice now. Maybe half. and I would probably still get sick.

Chicken fingers? easy enough to do in a healthy manner... get some good chicken breasts... bread them in whole wheat bread crumbs and 'oven fry them"... no they aren't the good ones but they are do-able.

Losing weight and getting healthy are NOT easy. I won't lie to you. it's HARD work. It's expensive. I was in the gym at freaking 9 pm last night... I get up at 5 am to start our day and after I got home from the gym I had to bake oatmeal bars and boil eggs... BUT I do it. AND after a 9 hour day at work I make dinner EVERY NIGHT FROM SCRATCH....

it's a pain but it's a labor of love and I wouldn't do it any other way. Why? because DEATH is not an OPTION. IF I don't eat well I will die. When I eat well I SLOWLY lose this weight....

IF you tell yourself you love the foods you eat and don't want to eat good foods then that's what will happen. if you open your life to new foods and new experiences you will find it will change...


ONLY you can make the choice.