About 600lbs, Time to Lose a Few

rlinz123

Hi, I am impressed by your willingness to reach out and ask for help as well as your decision to get healthier! I'm not your size, I'm around 240 pounds, but I struggle too with overeating and am trying to be healthier. I am sending you a friend request.

I took a quick look at your food diary, and I was struck by your Mountain Dews. I love soda too -- I used to drink a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke every day (at least!). I have reduced that to no more than 1 12 oz. can of diet soda a day, and I try (occasionally) to not have any soda at all. What if you tried switching from regular soda to diet soda, and cutting that amount by half. So instead of at lunch having, say, 2 cans of Mountain Dew, you have 1 can of Diet Mountain Dew and 1 glass of water. That would reduce a lot of sugar and calories. Not that diet soda is "healthy" by any means, but it might be a little bit of a better choice in this case.

Good luck with everything. We are all rooting for you!

Rebecca

knottyceltic

Dani, I'm 47 years old but it feels like being your age was just a blink of an eye ago. The time passes so quickly. Don't spend it struggling being fat. If you have to struggle and life in general IS a struggle for most of us, then struggle to be healthy instead of sick. I almost hit 300 and was already starting to have physical problems from the weight. Doctor's didn't take any of my aches and pains seriously b/c they said I was just too heavy for my knee or my ankle or whatever. I was having dizzy spells and feared pre-diabetes or worse and I was having sleep apnea. It was when I got symptoms of being fat that I made the change in lifestyle. But don't wait until your weight makes you sick. Do something about it now and I promise you that the struggle to lose weight will be far less damaging and difficult than the struggle you will have as a morbidly obese person. I'm going to be honest with you. You can't go into this with a negative mind set, you can't go into it thinking of it as a "diet". What you really have to do is say to yourself "just for today I'm going to eat right, like a normal healthy person does". Eating right, isn't a diet. It's just living your day and making sure you are healthfully nourished. I've embraced the old cliche, "Eat to live, don't live to eat". For me my weight has been all about indulging myself to smother negative feelings. All I've done is told myself that if I open the pantry door or the fridge door other than for a "meal", I'm eating out of something other than nourishment whether it be boredom, habit, craving, binge, comfort or whatever. Keep moving forward Dani. If one day at a time is too hard then take one hour at a time. Break things down into more simple, achievable goals. If you start out with too big of goals you will just feel you can't do it. Just get yourself from meal to meal and get really tough with yourself in between times if it's anything other than a scheduled snack. And use your food calculator in this website. It's been fantastic for me. I either use my meal cards OR the counter in this site but use something that will help you get through your days one by one or meal by meal. BTW...I had been immobile for 2 years and I did exercises with hand and ankle weights. When I did walk I could only stand for 10 minutes tops but every 10 minutes I did was more than I had been doing. Start small and work your way up. At 600 pounds you have to be realistic and your efforts have to be achievable so that you'll want to carry on. What sort of supports do you have at home or with your doctor or any others? I wouldn't be able to do this without the supports I have in place which are my weekly TOPS meeting, my friends and my online weight buddies. Learn to lean on your supports until you can get yourself moving in a really good direction with things. Friend me if you like. I know I didn't start in your weight category but I was classed as "extremely morbidly obese" when I started. I am just moving into a better BMI soon but I still have to get there yet. Anyway, think about it. Barb

knottyceltic

fat_destroza You're doing GREAT! Keep it up

ctpeace

HI Dani, I assume you're working with your doctor on the diet, but I just wanted to send some encouragement your way. You can do this! I agree that taking it one step at a time is really important for success. Don't beat yourself up over the things you haven't done, feel proud of the things you have. The really key thing for me has been to be proud of every good decision and not get depressed over the bad ones. Each day you'll have to decide to eat healthier, and each day it'll be a struggle, but think about the amazing change you're making! It's important that if you do "fall off the wagon" that you get right back on it, one bad day/week/month is not the end, each meal or snack is an opportunity to make a good decision. I used to think that if I ate too much in the morning that I'd start eating right the next day, now it's getting easier to not let another unhealthy meal go by before adjusting. I know a couple of people have mentioned 4000 kcals having "wiggle room", and it probably doesn't feel like it to you, but my suggestion would be to start finding out what things make you feel fuller so that you don't feel like you're depriving yourself. A baked potato and a protien shake (or just low fat yogurt and fruit) will make you feel a whole lot more full than fries and a soda, for example.
As far as exercise, I hope you're doctor's gotten you started, and there have been some good suggestions in this thread, especially the suggestion to ease into it, injuries make the whole process take longer. I don't know what your mobility is like now, but try to challenge yourself to do something you couldn't do. Sitting to standing exercises as well as sitting aerobics would be good, and walking if you can. The milestones you achieve in this area could be very encouraging.
I hope you're very very proud of yourself, and feel free to add me as a friend.

sheppardwe

Hi Dani,
Congrats on making the decision to start tracking, honestly, what you eat on a normal basis because facing the reality of what you're putting in your mouth, while sometimes depressing, is in fact the best way to start with weight loss. That being said while numerous people offered great, very easy suggestions, on how to get your eating habits under control, looking at your diary makes me think that you didn't follow any of those suggestions. Honestly, while you eat a huge number of calories a day, I wonder if you're malnutritioned from only eating sweets and heavily processed (like taquitos, pizza) entrees. Clearly, lab tests from your doctor will tell you best. I noticed that you often eat a lot of processed foods from Costco. By processed I mean foods that are prepackaged with lots of high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, sodium, and minimal nutrition. Since you have a Costco membership, I would suggest putting your money toward whole foods, like chicken breasts, lean sandwich meat, yogurts, fruits, and vegetables. Surprisingly, you will find that if you stop eating things like Pizza and muffins, and start eating lean meats and fruits, you will feel full faster and longer than with those other foods. In fact you'll eat less servings than you are now. AND they actually taste delicious!! Also, I love sparkling canned water like perrier or la croix because you get the carbonation but you're not drinking empty calories (calories that do not provide protein or energy) and you're not drinking those horrible aspartane beverages. The other benefit to purchasing things like chicken and vegetables is that they're cheaper than those pre packaged meals. You might think you hate these foods, but try them, I think food like this tastes much better than greasy processed food and I feel better after eating it! I think if you look at typical healthy food plans online as well as looking at other's food diaries on here you might gain a sense of what is healthy. If you honestly did not realize that the foods like pizza, muffins, doritos, and taquitos are lacking in nutrition (I'm not beating up on them b/c they're also fatty, I'm beating up on them because they just don't provide the fuel a body needs, unlike say a steak), I would suggest seeing a nutritionist. They're great, they definitely help design food plans around your lifestyle and your food favorites and educate you on food in general. Lastly, the good news is that at your weight, dropping a lot weight fast is definitely doable. The important thing is to really remember that this shouldn't be stressful. Yes it will be difficult, but do you really want food (that is supposed to keep you alive) to cut your life short? Start finding foods that are healthy, minimally processed, full of protein, and lower in sugar that you really like and start putting those in your diet. You have a choice to choose to be healthy and to choose life, which is much better than those who don't have a choice when it comes to awful diseases and terrible accidents. Focus on the positive and man-up!

KatNewby

It looks like most of the advice has been covered, but I just wanted to add that I can relate to how you feel when you say that making that decision to lose weight puts stress on you and makes you want to binge. Oddly enough, every time I have honestly considered beginning a healthy lifestyle, I have actually gained weight at first.

This processes usually lasts for me about a month before I "diet" then I severely restrict my calories and starve myself, and then I plateau and am unable to lose anymore.

This time, lets do it the right way. Lets make a change for our lives and not just for our weight. Eating foods that you can be proud of and living a life that keeps you active and vivacious will lend to the overall quality of your life in a HUGE way!

Take baby steps, and don't be scared. You can do it!

sabrinalee8

My name is Dani, and I recently discovered that I weigh a little over 600lbs. I recently found this out during a doctors visit, which I must say took a lot of courage to attend. After some difficult consideration, I'd like to try losing weight again.

I knew that I weighed more than 550, since that's as far as my scale goes at home. I'd really like to get back below that, a possibly get some extra wiggle room in there too? I think it could help enormously with my mobility, which for someone of my age isn't really that good right now.

I'm looking for support from other women that are my size. I really think that once you're over 500 or so, everything changes and it becomes really really hard. Advise on how to exercise when its hard to walk? Any advice on how to keep my calories under 4000 a day? I have to say that I'm not looking forward to this at all...

Thanks everybody.

-Dani

I'm 26 and currently weigh around 279. Mobility is a big issue for me too, I can't walk long distances without my back, hips and knees hurting really bad. I started doing light walks every day for 10 mins a time with my dog and the pain in my knees is fading.

Try cycling to get some light exercise. Swimming is also a good way to get exercise in which doesn't put too much strain on your muscles so it doesn't hurt as the water supports your body.

I am struggling to reach 1200 calories a day after changing what I eat. I have changed from semi skimmed milk to skimmed, white bread to wholewheat bread and cut out soda in favour of water. If you don't like water on it's own, which i don't, use no added sugar cordial/squash.

Good luck! x

nc805397

Girl you got this!!!!! Small steps at a time!! Adding you as a friend!! Hope we can motivate each other!

astrampe

Hi Dani,
Congrats on making the decision to start tracking, honestly, what you eat on a normal basis because facing the reality of what you're putting in your mouth, while sometimes depressing, is in fact the best way to start with weight loss. That being said while numerous people offered great, very easy suggestions, on how to get your eating habits under control, looking at your diary makes me think that you didn't follow any of those suggestions. Honestly, while you eat a huge number of calories a day, I wonder if you're malnutritioned from only eating sweets and heavily processed (like taquitos, pizza) entrees. Clearly, lab tests from your doctor will tell you best. I noticed that you often eat a lot of processed foods from Costco. By processed I mean foods that are prepackaged with lots of high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, sodium, and minimal nutrition. Since you have a Costco membership, I would suggest putting your money toward whole foods, like chicken breasts, lean sandwich meat, yogurts, fruits, and vegetables. Surprisingly, you will find that if you stop eating things like Pizza and muffins, and start eating lean meats and fruits, you will feel full faster and longer than with those other foods. In fact you'll eat less servings than you are now. AND they actually taste delicious!! Also, I love sparkling canned water like perrier or la croix because you get the carbonation but you're not drinking empty calories (calories that do not provide protein or energy) and you're not drinking those horrible aspartane beverages. The other benefit to purchasing things like chicken and vegetables is that they're cheaper than those pre packaged meals. You might think you hate these foods, but try them, I think food like this tastes much better than greasy processed food and I feel better after eating it! I think if you look at typical healthy food plans online as well as looking at other's food diaries on here you might gain a sense of what is healthy. If you honestly did not realize that the foods like pizza, muffins, doritos, and taquitos are lacking in nutrition (I'm not beating up on them b/c they're also fatty, I'm beating up on them because they just don't provide the fuel a body needs, unlike say a steak), I would suggest seeing a nutritionist. They're great, they definitely help design food plans around your lifestyle and your food favorites and educate you on food in general. Lastly, the good news is that at your weight, dropping a lot weight fast is definitely doable. The important thing is to really remember that this shouldn't be stressful. Yes it will be difficult, but do you really want food (that is supposed to keep you alive) to cut your life short? Start finding foods that are healthy, minimally processed, full of protein, and lower in sugar that you really like and start putting those in your diet. You have a choice to choose to be healthy and to choose life, which is much better than those who don't have a choice when it comes to awful diseases and terrible accidents. Focus on the positive and man-up!

This is the best advise anybody can give - and it is up to you to follow it.....By eating that much pizza and other "junk" food, you will never cure your addiction to food - because those kinds of food are nutritionally weak, bad for you and one always craves more.... You cannot live on cookies, pizza and muffins and expect to get healthy...
If you are serious about this, please follow the advise above?

Smoothtacular

Congratulations on your decision and future success!

Lynds7128

Welcome! I think it is absolutely wonderful that you've landed here! Everyone is so supportive! I would love to be your friend and a part of your supprt team!