Gained all my weight back HELP

shopaholic97504
shopaholic97504 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have had an eating disorder since I was around 13. I recently this past year joined WWs and joined zumba. 5 days a week I killed it dropping 35 lbs. Now where am i? I quit weight watchers...and zumba and running and now I gained all the weight back within 3 months!!! I'm so depressed it's a vicious cycle I can't escape. I quit WWs and zumba due to financial hardships right now. Please help me with thoughts or motivational suggestions...i feel helpless and everyday I try to start over...at the end of the day I fail and cave to my depression.

Replies

  • D_squareG
    D_squareG Posts: 361 Member
    This is the million dollar question. So many of us have done the same thing, over and over. If someone could figure out a way to help us stay motivated, ingrain the good habits, and realize that if we stop we will go back to where we were, they'd make a million! Don't beat yourself up. You know what to do. You just have to do it. Do it for one day. One day of success leads to another. Good luck to both of us!
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    Hi--I'm sorry for your frustration and depression. I don't have experience with eating disorders, but I have lost and gained weight several times. This time around, I finally figured out that whatever method I use to lose weight needs to be a method I can live with for the rest of my life. Otherwise, the weight will come back once I've reached my goal weight and I relax. For instance, you say you were killing it with Zumba/running 5 times a week. That's a great fitness goal, but is it realistic in the long run? I like to run for exercise, and if I had time and stayed injury-free, I'd run long 5-6 days per week, and lose weight quickly! But I know that in reality, my life happens and gets in the way, and I can probably only reasonably rely on running 1-2 times per week. Lowering my calories to compensate will help with that. I'm also using walking and strength training at home, since those are easier on my body (walking), and easy to do at home when I can fit it in (strength training). So I'm in this for the long haul this time, and I'm trying to lose weight doing reasonable exercise that I feel I should be able to keep up with over the long run. MFP has also helped me tremendously to keep track of calories, and I really see myself needing to use it to log forever, or at least for the next several years. Maybe this can take the place of WW for you, since there's no cost?
    Good luck, and I wish you the best!
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    I meant to add that my weight loss has been fairly steady over the past 2 months--I've lost 11lbs, so just about a lb per week. I'm okay with losing even more slowly, because I really plan to just keep up with this for a long time. It hasn't been too difficult--eating at a 250 calorie deficit and 200-300 cal burned from exercise per day. My exercise calories burned might not always average that much, like during a super busy week, but the eating deficit would still have me lose 0.5 lb/week, which I can live with. Losing weight quickly and killing yourself at the gym will work to lose weight fast, but burnout or other life factors might derail such a plan.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    You don't need to spend any money. Put your stats into MFP, choose 1 lb per week goal, get your calorie goal, and start logging your food and drink, accurately and consistently, every day. Instead of going full speed ahead, focus on making small changes, little by little, that you can keep up for the rest of your life. Move more however you can, whenever you can. If you have a bad day, try to learn from it, shrug your shoulders, and get back on track.

    Most people who yo-yo try to do too much too fast. They completely change everything, race toward the finish line, and crash and burn and rebound. Instead, take some time to figure out a happy medium - a way to eat for the rest of your life that you enjoy, that satisfies you, and that will keep you at the right calories. It will take a little trial and error, so you have to be patient. But once you find it you don't need motivation. Good luck!

    @shopaholic97504 in addition to the above, are there any affordable resources you can get from your doctor/health insurance for your eating disorder? Have you had cognitive behavioral therapy? CBT helped me manage alcohol, as well as food.

    This book on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for overeating was available in my library system, so perhaps yours as well.

    The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person

    Can thinking and eating like a thin person be learned, similar to learning to drive or use a computer? Beck (Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems) contends so, based on decades of work with patients who have lost pounds and maintained weight through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Beck's six-week program adapts CBT, a therapeutic system developed by Beck's father, Aaron, in the 1960s, to specific challenges faced by yo-yo dieters, including negative thinking, bargaining, emotional eating, bingeing, and eating out. Beck counsels readers day-by-day, introducing new elements (creating advantage response cards, choosing a diet, enlisting a diet coach, making a weight-loss graph) progressively and offering tools to help readers stay focused (writing exercises, to-do lists, ways to counter negative thoughts). There are no eating plans, calorie counts, recipes or exercises; according to Beck, any healthy diet will work if readers learn to think differently about eating and food. Beck's book is like an extended therapy session with a diet coach. (Apr.)
  • johnnylloyd0618
    johnnylloyd0618 Posts: 303 Member
    all I can say is... diets do not work. Eating and being healthy is a life style. Take a good hard look at the last 3 months, what changed? You quit WW but did you stop eating healthy? You quit zumba, did you do anything to replace that? I do really well when I do not have beer at home. However...if its there, there goes my healthy lifestyle. Sweetie, you have to take the first step, like mentioned already, start logging on here and be honest about it. You will only hurt yourself by not being so. Find a little "me time" and walk around the block, jump rope, ect... You will be surprised by the little things that make a difference. Good luck, we are all pulling for you!
  • msmarriah
    msmarriah Posts: 4 Member
    I too have gained weight back, but only 6 pounds. It is still nice to read all of the comments. I have found that one day at a time works for me, and its just eating healthy and exercising. I plan my meals so I always know what I am going to eat, and I always have my healthy meal available (I bring breakfast/lunch and snacks to work). Since you are not doing ww, make sure that you are planning low calorie meals. I make a large pot of brown rice at the beginning of the week and usually roast a chicken. That takes care of a few lunches. I always have an eggwhite scramble for breakfast (I make it the night before- usually when I start craving sweets- just to remind myself to stay strong). There are a million recipes out there, so just find a few that work for you! If you have no plan for the day it is almost impossible to keep weight off. Every time I forget/don't bring lunch to work I go over my calories for the day. I hope this helps you.. it is so hard with our society feeding us 4000 calorie meals with out thinking twice!! Love your body, just as it is, and work from there. You are just taking care of the body you love.
  • extra_medium
    extra_medium Posts: 1,525 Member
    May have already been posted, but keep in mind you don't need WW or Zumba classes to lose weight if financial situations are holding you back. Log your food, keep track of your calories, talk a walk everyday or find some workouts on Youtube.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,382 Member
    edited September 2016
    With a name like "shopaholic" I have to infer that there are other behavior problems you have identified as well. ksharma2001 above said what I would have said - but the bottom line is that *something* is bothering you. Something is causing you to have this anxiety disorder, and that something is the way you are thinking.

    You can control your thoughts. You can change the way you look at the world. I would suggest reading as much as you can about CBT, mindfulness, overcoming anxiety, your "inner child," anything you can find to help with this. It is a cognitive distortion that is causing you to spin into a negative spiral.

    Don't torture yourself with your own thoughts.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    This time around, focus on new lifestyle changes for the permanent future. Rather than just dropping your calorie goals, exercising, losing weight, then going right back to eating like you were before. Time to learn new life skills. The good people of this forum and site can help with that. You just have to put your mind to it. So lose the weight, then slowly build up to maintenance, keep logging for a while, and exercising, at least until its second nature. I fully intend to be here at least 2 years if not longer until it's all second nature. I never want to gain the weight back.
  • Fitnessqt27
    Fitnessqt27 Posts: 12 Member
    I understand what you're going through, I feel like my body tries to stay overweight at all costs, I have to fight hard to get it to lose. I have been struggling with eating disorder and my weight problems since I was young as well. It's a psychological thing I think, I am trying to keep myself "safe" in my fat, unattractive, and unsuccessful, subconsciously. We learned these thoughts because something has happened in our lifetime that we have told ourselves that we don't deserve to have these things. =(

    But you do deserve to be successful and fit and comfortable in your best body and most importantly we have to be willing to put in work every single day to attain it, along with our own positive reinforcements. I have tried every diet there probably is from Keto to HCG injections and beyond and those things work, but they are only temporary fixes because once you stop the weight returns and brings friends. Counting calories and exercise is almost always the best way to go and luckily it is super easy and I feel like it is the fairest, because even when you go over a little you only gain a few oz's at a time instead of lbs and you can work whatever you over eat off that same day to still have a loss the next day :)

    If you can't afford the gym try going for long daily walks and use Map My Run/Walk/Hike to log your calories. I like to do floor exercises for strength training after walking such as pilates, yoga, and using weights or watch a Youtube workout vid :)

    I have decided to make fitness one of the most important priorities in my day, and I have started seeing results! You can do this! ♥
  • jadorade91
    jadorade91 Posts: 119 Member
    I just have to thank all of you for your comments...Reading through these were great! I also deal with a slight OCD eating disorder, so many of these words and mindsets are very comforting. Your input means so much!
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Seems to me that those who succeed at both losing weight and keeping it off are those who lost weight by methods they could incorporate into their lives for the rest of their lives. Learning how to cook, learning portion sizes, learning what 100 calories looks like, learning how to recognize hunger, establishing a routine of moderate exercise or slightly increased activity that is long term sustainable.

    Those who enter programs or do 90 day shred or w/e the fitness product if the week is and push themselves hard for a limited time and then stop when they reach their goal haven't established the habits necessary to maintain their weight and they more often than not put it back on. You certainly aren't alone there.

    Need to learn to do this by your own two hands not via a program that eventually you quit.

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