Just saying hello!

annekka

Just a pop in to say hello.

I'm in my young thirties,and trying to get in shape, get healthier and get back to the weight I was at a few years ago or even lower. I'm about 5'6" with a starting weight of about 76.5 kg. People never told me I looked overweight as I have a bigger frame, and my body tends to hide it fairly well. But my BMI was definitely within the 'overweight' zone.

My story is such: I was always skinny and thin through my college years, after college the weight started slipping on and being a teacher I was finding myself too exhausted at night to go to the gym. Not to mention my gym local to me only offered cardio machines and weight training. After I moved abroad for my job I was able to live for 2 years in a place where I could go to the gym regularly, but that only lasted a year until I moved away from the gym. 2 years after that I moved to another country and the weight gain happened. I gained a ton of weight within 1 month about 3 years ago due to a) a sedentary lifestyle b) a bad medicine combo and c) lack of gym availability. Okay so there is technically a d) too, I was living in a country where anybody who could afford a maid had one, so I had one 2x a week who did all my cooking/cleaning etc.

Now I am in my 3rd country, last year I finally decided to get my butt back to the gym, it took me all year to really get into it, but I lost a bit of weight by April. My biggest problem is school lunch. My school, as a perk, offers school lunch to teachers at the equivalent of $12/month. I can't feed myself for $12/month. So I opt to eat lunch at school. Problem is entering the calories into MFP as some of the stuff i have to guess at portion size/food type etc., or find something vaguely familiar. This year I have started really cutting back on what goes into my mouth at school especially since everything is very oily, even the vegetables are cooked in oil (traditional way of the country I live in).

My other struggle is medicines--I am on medicines which are known to cause weight problems, and I can't go off of them. If I go off of my birth control I risk the come back of a chronic gynecological condition which would require surgery. It is cheaper on my pocket, health and sanity to just stay on the birth control. Also, I've tried going without the SSRIs, but ultimately the relapse I had was not worth not being on them.

So where I am now: I started this journey at 76/77 kg, following an 8 day juice fast, I dropped down to about 73 kg. Continued 1-2 juice fasts followed by monitoring my weight and cutting back on foods. I have the occasional slip ups. Right now my body weight is around 70/71 first thing in the morning after the first pee and without clothes. My goal is to get down to 68 kg by December, ultimately I would love to hit a solid 65 kg. I go to group fitness classes 3-4 times a week, and have a love-hate relationship with Les Mills Body Attack (love how it makes me feel, hate it when I'm working out), but also frequently do a core work class and body pump.

Anyways, saying hi! Don't know how much I"ll be on the boards, but if anybody else here has tips for dealing with foods that aren't in the food database and you have no idea even remotely what might be in them, let me know!