Obese

briemindock

Hello- I am new here. I am morbidly obese and ready to lose. I am hideous looking and cannot stand myself. I've been ugly and fat my entire life. I know if I lose weight I'll be pretty. I'm just fighting being morbidly obese and don't know how to do all this weight loss.

AnnPT77

You can lose weight if you commit to the process, and doing that will be easier and more achievable if you choose a non-extreme path.

How to do it? Set up your MFP profile, pick a moderate weight loss rate rather than crazy fast, start logging your food honestly and fully in your MFP food diary. Gradually work your way toward your calorie goal, making manageable changes to your portion sizes, frequency of eating high calorie foods, and that sort of thing.

In parallel with that, notice which foods or timing of eating helps you stay mostly full and happy more of the time, and eat in those ways more often. That will make it easier to stay the course. Keep reviewing your food log, gradually making positive changes. Stick with it. You'll succeed.

If you have an off day here or there, don't let that stress you. Learn from it. Why did it happen? Spend just a few minutes adjusting your plan going forward so it's less likely to happen again. It's like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups, a series of experiments. Not all experiments work out as we'd anticipated. The right thing to do is learn from that, adjust the plan, and go on.

If you make a plan, keep improving it, mostly stick with it, you'll gradually lose the weight. Also, and maybe more important, I'm pretty sure that it will help you realize that you can set goals in various areas of life, and patiently put in the work to accomplish them. That's powerful and empowering. You are stronger than you know, and if you put in effort, you will surprise yourself with what you can accomplish, and that will change your life. I'm not exaggerating.

I have to be real, though: I'm concerned about you. I can understand that you're overweight, even obese. I've been there. But you sound deeply self-critical. I'd encourage you to seek a way to value your current self, because that will help you invest the persistent effort it will take to make positive changes in your life.

Lots of things can improve as you lose weight, at least that's what lots of people here have found. Will you be prettier if you lose weight? I don't know.

What I do know is the we see people here somewhat often who do lose weight, but are still deeply self-critical. They simply find a new thing about themselves that they think makes them not enough, lets them devalue themselves. That self-criticism can really be a separate issue, one that both complicates weight management, and seriously hinders overall quality of life. Please give that some thought, and consider ways to make that more positive, too. If that includes consulting a professional that helps with difficult thought-patterns, there should be no more stigma about that than consulting a dietitian if we need help with nutrition. It's worth the effort.

Best wishes!

michellelou77

Im starting out again, so I'm right there with you, this is for me and no one else, this is gor my health. I like myself but no losing weight will help my health. Learn to love yourself and you will get there.

ddsb1111

Judging from your motivation to be pretty leads me to believe you’re young, and I can certainly relate to that feeling when I was there and comparing myself to my peers. I could be totally off base here though. When you reach your 40s and beyond, “pretty” is replaced with thoughts like, “My knees and back hurt, and I can’t breathe.” I will say though, none of those scenarios feels good, inside or out.

Knowing what that felt like then and now, I will say that self reflection can be a positive or negative thing, depending on how you use it. I applaud you for understanding you need to change something causing you pain and discomfort, so I would encourage you to approach the solution in the most practical and positive way you can. Why make things harder and more uncomfortable than necessary, right? So, you’ve come to the right place.

Set up your goals in MFP and log your food daily. If you do this consistently, you’ll reach your goals and learn a lot about yourself along the way. Consider this the phase of discovery of the new you. See, that’s pretty exciting.

As you’re on this new path of self discovery, health, and wellness, stay focused. There will be a lot of snake oil salesmen trying to get paid by offering you a faster, easier way, but I guarantee you’ll be poorer, older, and end up where you started, so stick to the plan and trust the process.

And, you don’t even need a special diet or designated meal times. Assess your meals and figure out how to fit that food into your calorie allowance. You’ll start to learn what satiates you, what energizes you, and what treats you can fit in your daily or weekly calories. It’s all tailored to your preferences and life.

There’s a lot to look forward to. Read the success stories, and you’ll see that you’ll gain more than just feeling pretty. But, if that’s important to you, then that’s just scratching the surface of what’s possible with being healthy.