Who is here for reasons other than “getting skinny”?

It isn't the same as something like mono, but for years I've had problems with clinical depression. I'm doing better now, and want to stay that way. Part of my vicious cycle of depression is my eating/exercise habits and my weight. I want to get them under control to help remove that part of the cycle.

TBH, I also want to lose weight because I'm tired of being fat, but I also want to get in shape. I want to be better all around. Friend me if you like, I definitely understand how emotionally taxing long term illness (of any kind) can be.

Like this young lady I have struggled with clinical depression for over 10 yrs. I decided I wasn't going to let it control me, my bidy, or my health any longer.

Hi! I'm here to take back my health. I have over 60 pounds left to get to goal, but I feel better already. Whatever size I end up at, well, we'll see. I want to keep up with my friends and family. They're all active, and I don't have the energy to do what I did when I weighed a lot less.

I had mono in 2002 and no one else in my family got it. I was down from the end of January to the beginning of April and it was a dreadful illness, for sure. It took a long while after that to get my energy back. Keep pursuing the CF with your doctor if it's been longer than you think the fatigue is worse or it's taken longer than expected to bounce back. I will pray that you get the answers you need.

I am here because the tools save me a BUNCH of time doing the math that I would probably never otherwise do cause I find it time consuming and tedious. So it helps me stick to a plan I might otherwise either fool myself into thinking I was following but not really; or give up on altogether because of the tedium of all the manual calculations. But if I did that, I wouldn't ever get to my ultimate goal of getting rid of as much knee and ankle pain as possible or altogether if the Lord wills! Doctor won't believe there's anything more wrong other than my weight after my knee surgery last year even though I keep telling him it still hurts and given him a 23 year written history (since WAY before I was even close to overweight!!) of my joint issues. So I finally clued into the fact that the only way to convince him to pay attention is to actually lose the weight, get healthy along the way and go back and ask him what his new plan is when it still hurts like I've said all along. So I'm on a mission to prove him wrong -- but if I end up proving myself wrong by some happenstance, I still win because the goal is to be pain free!! One way or another I'm taking back control of this thing and getting on with life!

I've had insomnia my whole life. Most of that time was spent either not sleeping (therefore being too tired to exercise/put effort into being healthy) or on heavy prescription sleeping pills, which made me feel zombie-like and made me feel like I was hungover every day. Not good.

My doctor told me that I needed to exercise to sleep better. I exercised one day, couldn't sleep that night, and was like "it didn't work, she was wrong". I told her it didn't work and she laughed in my face (reasonable!) and told me I need to consistently exercise every day. She told me to give it 7 days in a row. I did, and I slept like a giant baby the second half of the week.

This was in May this year. So exercise was first, but it wasn't to get skinny. It was to sleep. Then I was learning that what I was eating REALLY impacted the quality of my workouts. That's when I found MFP and started logging. Suddenly, my body was changing (and my boyfriend was like a magnet!! haha). So now it's a big cycle. I exercise to sleep. I eat better to exercise better. Sleeping normally, eating well, and working out is causing me to lose weight and sculpt my body.

It is honestly so surreal to just go to bed and fall asleep. I will never look back. Eating right and working out has changed everything. It just sucks that it took me 28 years to figure it out!

I didn't read the comments yet. I also had a very bad case of mono and a secondary spleen infection when I was 13 and it left me with liver damage. I know that people on here do not like studies, but when you are really struggling with something that is not fully understood by medical science yet (as you are), you are willing to look into different things. Double blind studies, done on humans, with proper dosage are the best. The double blind studies showed that cocoa is so far the only thing that has been shown to help CFS. They determined that it helps CFS if you eat 2.5 tablespoons of real unsweetened cocoa powder per day. Don't mix it with dairy because that interferes with it. You can still eat dairy, just eat it a couple hours before or after the cocoa. You can mix cocoa into a smoothie, with frozen berries and other stuff. There are ice cream recipes made just for this. You can look it up. There is a lot of info on it. I first heard about it on Nutritionfacts.org Cocoa is yummy, so even if it does not help, there is no harm in it if you want to give it a try. I just wanted to let you know. I hope you feel recovery soon! :flowerforyou:

You can add me as a friend if you want.

Hey everyone.....as you can possibly tell, I have just joined today....and i'll be honest and say the weight loss side of things is important but my health like most here is the most important.....firstly I will say, beware of getting a major chest infection and a major lung infection cause you could accidentally end up in hospital being hardly able to breathe.....and now am the 'proud or not so proud' owner of an enlarged heart and are now termed a severe heart failure patient.....so as most things, all that news took its toll and i'll be honest for a while I kinda went into shock mode and not forgot what was seriously going on, but temporarily tucked it away in my mind as to what was actually going on.....

SO I mastered my first demon and that was smoking and have been smoke free for 2 years now and I have finally have the correct meds that have helped stablise my heart side of things......I guess I should also say that November last year I ended up needing to have a pacemaker put in because one side of my heart decided to beat out of sync with the other so now I its my time to travel a new journey and get better for me and for for the likes of becoming skinny cause sometimes like that just are not true to some people, including me....

And being a newbie to all of this, any friends, help and advice would be most treasured.....and my bad if I rambled a tad too much

While I do want to "get skinny", one of my biggest reasons for losing weight was the fact that at 37 I was starting to feel really old. I wasn't eating very well, was tired all the time and was wondering, "If I feel this way now, how am I going to feel 10 years from now?" I have 2 young children, and it's important for me to live as long as I can and feel as good as I possibly can for as long as I can so that I can enjoy them well into their adult years. I would love to be a healthy grandmother. I don't have a lot of healthy role models in my family and I want to be a healthy role model for my children.

To reduce high blood pressure is my reason for being here. I'm 30 years old and refuse to be medicated unless I absolutely have too. Working out helps relieve my stress and less stress help me control my eating (I'm an emotional eater). Now I work out to alleviate stress and use MFP to make sure I'm eating enough of the necessary stuff to be healthy. Congrats for taking control of your health and good luck on your journey :flowerforyou:

Im here for the pretty girls on my friends list!!



lol, j/k


errrr maybe?

Me! I am here to get healthier, not become "skinny". I equate "skinny" with being unhealthy. I prefer the term "fit", but that doesn't mean you won't lose weight too by dieting and exercising. Skinny isn't the focus, but it can be a side effect of getting fit, depending on your body type and genetics.

I don't have mono or CFS but I do have 4 young children so I am chronically exhausted from ongoing sleep deprivation!! In terms of health, I have impaired insulin & am losing weight (it's happening!!!) in order to reverse this condition. NO way do I want diabetes if I can avoid it! According to my endo' I only have about 3kg to lose before my BGL should begin to normalise - VERY excited about that!!!

Part of the reason I'm here is because I would absolutely love to (and really should) lose some weight.

But the real reason I'm here at this exact point in time is that I just started PA school (PA= physician assistant). It is the most intense, insane, and difficult thing I've ever experienced. I can't even begin to say how overwhelming it's been so far. Since I tend to deal with stress by turning to comfort foods and packing on pounds quickly- typical yo-yo pattern- I'm hoping that having the structure of MFP, will at least keep me from GAINING any weight this year. Plus, if I am losing, even a little, it will give me something non-school-related to celebrate and keep me feeling positive!

I had several reasons to lose weight.

1) To outsmart my genes: My father destroyed his body with Type II Diabetes. By the time he passed away he was on dialysis three days/wk, and was nearly entirely blind. He most likely could have prevented this had he maintained a healthy weight. My mother has had double knee replacement and still has difficulty walking and climbing steps. Her pain may not be entirely eliminated with weight loss, but it would certainly be lessened.

2) I was growing out of my size 16s and refused to be relegated to shopping in the big girls' section. As someone who is 4'11", shopping is difficult enough! And money wise, I couldn't afford the trend of needing new clothes as I got bigger (thankfully, I'm able to get hand-me-downs from friends now that I'm going in the other direction).

3) Chronic depression: I know that exercising and eating right is helpful in getting a handle on this, but in truth I don't notice any stark difference in my mood. I am however, slowly beginning to own this new body I've got, which is having a positive effect on my self-esteem!

I know from past experience that my mood elevates when I eat better/cleaner. That's why I'm back mainly - to return to a good frame of mind. Don't get me wrong - looking better helps too, it's all connected.
Mostly though, as I said, it's to encourage my own mental good health.

I am here to not get skinny. I am already there. I am here to learn to maintain.

It's a very different ballgame.

I never used to log my foods...but doing so I can see patterns. What foods I am more satisfied with,what calorie count I can get to without gaining, and also what cal count causes me to drop since I don't want that either, etc.

Maybe one day I won't have to log..but until then I like seeing the pattern and learning about myself and what I need to do to maintain where I am at.