Hello! Any advice would be much appreciated!

JuneBetty

Hi There, my name is Betty. I am 23 years old, and I am slightly overweight.

All my life I was tall and thin, people used to call me twiggy, or a stick, but when I moved in with my long term boyfriend 5 years ago, I started slowly gaining weight. I am 5"10 almost 5"11 and currently weigh 178lbs. When I was at my smallest before I gained the weight I weighed 155lbs, which for my body structure and height was a perfect weight according to my doctor and a dietitian. In February of 2012 I weighed my most at 195lbs, I was mortified because even when I was thin I had body image issues. I gained a good 20lbs when I quit smoking from July of 2011 to February of 2012. The weird thing was most people didn't even notice my 40 pound weight gain, because it spread out across my entire body and I suppose because it wasn't really a sudden weight gain as much as I said before a slow 5 year duration. I can see it the most in my face, and I obviously can tell since I went up 2 pant sizes, and I have stretch marks on my hips as well as my inner thighs. My problem is that I get un-motivated relatively easily, and I think that's just because I was used to being thin my whole life. At my old apartment we had a gym and I used it every day for 3 months and only lost about 5-10 lbs, then I tried the "10 Minute trainer" and I didn't see that many results (in my mind) and I stopped, then I tried the Wii Fit, and then stopped, and now I do Zumba, but it's an on again off again type of thing. I love to swim, but I feel so self conscious of my stretch marks that it actually prevents me from going to do lane swimming. I really am trying to get motivated, but I can't seem to stick with any program. I do not eat a lot, less than 1500 calories a day, and I don't eat a lot of bad foods. Generally my daily meals consist of: For breakfast whole wheat bread with peanut butter and some sort of fruit, lunch is usually soup, and then dinner is normally a chicken breast sandwich with some sort of vegetable. Also, I don't have the money to go to a gym, or a personal trainer or anything like that.

Also, I don't drink alcohol, I don't drink coffee, tea, energy drinks, soda, anything like that. Just juice and water.

Any advice would be amazing,
Thank you for reading/listening!

Betty.