Feeling Frustrated

Hello

This is my first post, so please be nice ^^
I would like to say first congratulation on losing 15pounds in 2 months! That's great!
Now, one thing I would recommend is that you start seeing your weight-loss journey not as a diet but as a long term lifestyle change.
You should eat healthy things that are tasty and that you could see yourself eating everyday even after you have reached your goal weight. If you restrict too much your calories because you want to lose weight fast, it will only work in the short run, but the cravings will become too much as eventually you will give in, then feel bad, eat more, gain all the weight back, feel more depressed, eat more etc.
I would definitely up your calories to at least 1450, aim for a 1 and 1/2 pound loss per week on MFP settings instead of 2 pounds. The fact that you are hungry shows that you are not eating enough, if your body is on starvation mode, once you start to eat 'normal' again the weight will pile back on. It is better to lose slowly and steadily trust me.
Also you should be able to indulge (not too often but maybe once a week) in what you call 'comfort food' as long as you try to limit the quantities. French onion soup, spaghetti, pancakes etc are can fit in a 1450calories plan when the quantities are limited. Like I said before, this is a lifetime change so you should not ban your favorite food. You can have it in moderate quantities once in a while.

Hope this helps,
Laura

Hi Laura,

Actually, what you said does make a lot of sense. I feel pretty good about losing 15 pounds in 2 months, even though it didn't meet the goal of the trainer through a work-sponsored program, which was 1% of our initial body weight each week.

I do think if I bump up my calories by 50-150 per day from what I've been averaging, I might still lose weight and be less frustrated.

Thanks!

I do like walking, but to have the doctor tell me that it's off-limits due to the joint problems was very frustrating. It doesn't leave me a whole lot of options. they want to see if pt will help, otherwise, they'll probably want to surgically correct where my kneecaps are. Good for your grandmother If you read my profile, you'll see that one of the reasons I'm trying to lose weight is because I'm 50, but feel like I'm in my 70's or 80's - and I can't imagine how bad it will be for me if I live into my 70's - what - will I feel like I'm 120? That is part of the motivation. Also because, if they do decide to surgically correct my kneecaps, I'm thinking post-surgery rehab will be easier if there isn't so much weight on the joints.

A four-mile walk for me is pretty significant. I'm not sure what you mean by you "cannot fathom someone at 180ish pounds being unable to walk .... due to joint problems". Joints are really pretty important - they work with muscles to move the body. My first injury occurred when I was 15 years old (at that point, I weighed about 120 pounds, so I wasn't terribly overweight); the gym teacher pushed me down into a full split, without warning and I didn't have the flexibility to do it. Consequently, my knee joints were damaged, cartilage torn, meniscus torn, bursitis set in, etc. My knees would suddenly "lock" while walking, forcing me to manually "break" the joint from the locked position. While I knew it was very painful, I wasn't able to do anything about it until I got my own health insurance in my mid-20's as an adult and had surgery. That's when I found out how much damage had been done - and learned that without that surgery, the doctor's figured I would have been in a wheelchair permanently by the time I would turn 40. The "locking" of the knee joint was actually loose cartilage jamming the action of the knee joint - and every time I had to stop and "unlock" it, I was actually ripping more of the cartilage away. Unfortunately, relocating the patellas at that point wasn't pre-authorized by the HMO insurance. My second knee injury occurred just a couple of years ago, while walking; the left kneecap dislocated in mid-step, I fell and fractured it in the dislocated position. Per the surgeon, it's not a question of IF they will dislocate again, but merely WHEN. Which doesn't mean I don't want to walk - I do. I tend to try to walk with my service dog - and we've been walking so much, that she's lost weight too - enough for people to notice.

Your second response is pointless, your weight loss isn't everyone elses's responsibility.

I cannot fathom someone at 180ish lbs being unable to walk, male or female for exercise, due to joint problems.

My Grandmother can barely move, and she walks all the time.



You go on for paragraphs explaining good tasting foods, and it simply sounds to me like you

aren't ready to give up the old lifestyle and that is your problem. You will never beat this

condition if you don't give up your old lifestyle.


Caffeine can help suppress appetite. Eating your meals when your cravings get bad can as well.

Taking a nap through hunger is you absolutely must can help.

I don't understand why you are eating at 1200 calories being at 180 lbsish. That seems to low to me.

Restructure your diet for more filling foods and find a system you can stick with.


And no, i was 80 lbs overweight myself, check my photos, so I am talking from actual experience.

To note, not trying to be mean, but the ONLY person who can help you lose weight is YOU.

If YOU don't want to do it, you won't.

I am also sorry for your family situation, keep in mind though that doesn't excuse your behavior.

I can't imagine the pounding your knees have taken as a paratrooper. I know I once had to jump from from a window about one story off the ground, barefoot and landing on concrete - but that that's nothing to landing from thousands of feet in the air. That's <insert expletive of your choice> scary.

I do think that because the initial injury was not treated promptly - nor properly - that it accelerated the damage to my knees. My parents refused to take me to see the doctor. After three weeks of hobbling around in pain with knees swollen twice their normal size and so inflamed that you could put your hand several inches above my knee and feel the heat radiating off of it - I finally told my parents that if they still wouldn't take me, I would hitchhike to the doctor's office and sit there until he could see me. I actually had to hobble out the door and head for the street before they realized I was serious; at that point, they caved in and agreed to make an appointment.

When the family doctor finally saw me and examined my knees, he yelled at me for waiting so long and said they were ruined - nothing to be done, I'd be in pain for the rest of my life. He gave a cortisone shot to try to reduce the inflammation, but other than that, nothing else. As far as the doctor, he stopped yelling at me when I told him I'd been trying to convince my parents to allow me to see him since the injury - and since my mother was in the room and instantly reacted with "we didn't think it was anything to worry about", he stopped yelling at me since she had confirmed that it was her decision to not have me treated for so long. Oh and he gave me crutches so I could try to keep weight off my legs as much as possible.

I know that eventually they'll want to do the surgery to move the kneecaps where they should be - and in theory, once that happens and I get through rehab, I should be able to do more activities than I do now. Biking is no impact, but it's really painful - even on a stationary bike - because of the way the kneecaps are positioned.

I've gotten creative on some of the forms of exercise that I do - mostly involving upper body work. For example, climbing up a ladder, hanging onto a tree with one arm and using the other arm to hand-saw branches from the tree. (It's a tree I eventually want to take down anyhow - it's a pine tree, maybe 50-60 feet tall. I've gotten maybe about 30-feet up on it so far - no branches left on the bottom half of the tree now!). Then alternating and sawing using my non-dominant hand - took a bit of getting used to. Digging out cracks in the driveway and then filling them with crack filler, twice, since the crack filler material shrinks as it cures. Getting on the roof of the house and cleaning all the shingles from branches and bits of moss that were taking root. Since I'm afraid of heights, my heart was pounding just from that alone. Hammering nails to make shelving and supports for the shed. Tug of war with two dogs (one 20-lb Jack-Chi mix, the other a 55-lb American Staffordshire - what most people call a Pit Bull). The Jack-Chi will grab the rope and I can do pull-ups with him on the end; I don't have the strength to lift a 55-lb dog that way. I do have a small vegetable garden, so tend to that a few times a week and just got the last fall planting in last weekend - but again, that's all upper-body stuff.