This is my last resort

This post sounds exactly like where I am at. I can easily spend $20.00 (that I really should use on something else) on KFC or pizza but would never cross my mind to buy something for me more useful. I always complained that I didn't have enough to purchase a polar HRT or a bodybugg but I had enough to spend $20.00 several times a month on junk food. Until I realized how much of a hold food had on me and came to a decision to change my life. It doesn't matter who tells you that you need to change, if you don't want it for yourself than you will never do it. I have wanted to change for years, I knew how it was affecting me but I just didn't feel like changing until something just suddenly woke up with in me. I am now just restarting the path of wellness, not weight loss because with better choices in wellness (like eating better, sleeping more, hydrating, and exercising) the weight will come off and I will learn new habits for the rest of my life, its not a diet for me anymore its a lifestyle change. I will send you a request and maybe we can both help each other out. Best wishes!

I went years in the same boat. I did get diabetes. It is either lose weight or use a needle a few times a day forever. So I took action. Ive tried about every diet imaginable. Ill lose and then gain it back. I had to realize that I needed to change my lifestyle. I now count my calories and carbs (especially the carbs). I also have an office job. so I have to go to a fitness club to get exercise. Im not quite to my halfway point. If I can do it you can as well. If I can help you, let me know.

It's happened!
I can't say I wasn't expecting it, I just never thought it would be this hard.

I've hit rock bottom. I've hit the point where a smile feels like pure pain. I can't bring myself to even wear a shoe that slightly shows my foot as my what was once a tiny foot is now a swollen mess.

I continually tell people (and myself) that I am happy with the way I am, but how can I be when all I want to do is lock myself away in a dark room?

The mirror shows a person I don't like. Someone I shouldn't be. How did it get like this? One minute I am a 15 year old cheerleader with a flat tummy and not a care in the world. Now I am a 25 year old mundane office worker with a hate for everything that involves being in day light.

I need to make a change, it needs to happen now or else it will never happen.

You would think that being told that if I don't lose weight, I will never conceive would have been enough.
You would think that being told that I am likely to develop diabetes before the age of 30 would have been enough.
You would think that the pure memory of the time my boyfriend said 'You can tell you've put weight on' would have been enough.
You would think that my nephew asking me how I got a big belly without having a baby would have been enough.

No! So what does it take to stop a person doing this to themselves? I continually comfort eat. I can easily justify spending £20 a time on a take away but I can't seem to gather the sense behind treating myself to a nice outfit? A top for £20 wouldn't even cross my mind as an option 'waaay out of my price range'....however, 'oh I'll take the large with stuffed crust for £19.99 please'.

My life shouldn't have come to this and no matter what excuses I have, its over. New me, New everything!

Care to give a damsel in distress a lil' help?

Hi Starrjo,

Long post ahead, here.

Thanks for your open letter and congratulations on being courageous enough to put things the way you did in your letter.
When we get to rock bottom I strongly believe that acknowledging small important things must take place in order to validate them when you yourself are swimming in an ocean of negativity and self-loathing.

You will no doubt get many difference replies here from different perspectives. It is difficult to get a realistic sense of the situation by simply reading something, so I may be off in my interpretation.

In reading your introduction, what strikes me the most is that the weight you are carrying isn't only physical as you've described it, it is emotional and psychological. Your post contains a lot of revelatory information that - for me personally, anyway - begs to be examined in greater detail.

It is a sad post because it sounds as if you are in some type of pain - pain can often manifest as anger, depression, anxiety, etc. You've identified this enough as hating the world of light, along with information that relates to your body weight.

The first thing I will say without knowing who you are is that you simply do not deserve to be treated in this fashion - either coming from you or from someone else. As humans, professionals, parents, students, friends, etc, we may have many things in common - one thing is that we are very hard on ourselves. For whatever reasons, your post about yourself isn't flattering one bit, and I find it difficult to believe that you do not have qualities that are attractive.

My instinct is to tell you to seek some form of counselling or therapy as a long-term initiative. Changes in dieting and routine for most people are either grounded or rendered stagnant by underlying psychological issues, and reading your post suggests to me that attempting to embark on a new path or approach to nutrition and health would start from a psychological one. Others may scoff at this suggestion, but if you are type who is open to this type, I would recommend finding somehow a means of contacting a professional and start from there. Discussing things - be it body weight, past issues, emotional issues, etc - can be a powerful means to greater stability later on.

I have been overweight for the past decade and have changed this with very small steps. Even before changing what I ate, I started off very, very slowly. I started walking daily. It is simple as that. After work, I would get my ipod, load it with good music, and take a path and simply walk for an hour, back and forth. At the end of the walk, I said, good job. I treated it as an accomplishment and I continue doing so each and every time I do it. I am 22 pounds lighter, feeling amazing, and I continue to walk on a daily basis. I started out as 3-4 kilometres a day, and 2 months later I am doing around 90 kilometres a week. Every step I take I see it as a step towards better health, and towards gaining a more solid hold on my life. Try it and if you are doing this, then congrats and keep doing it. Try increasing the distance on a weekly basis. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see myself as still being overweight. I look at myself as being LESS overweight than before, and MORE healthy.

Try to desensitive yourself or change your behaviour regarding emotional eating. Substitute fatty, sugary unhealthy foods with something that you can eat without gaining weight. Perhaps later on you can find the root cause for your emotional eating with the hopes of addressing it and thereby nixing the eating.

Stop beating yourself up with the "you'd think being told "x" would be enough to"... You are obviously intelligent enough to understand the ramifications of emotional eating. But being aware of a situation cannot always be used as justification for not doing something. We are far more complex than that. If life were that simple, we wouldn't have bankruptcy, crime, obesity, murder, massive corporate profits, environmental damage, etc.

What also works for me is that it is easy to get carried away with histrionics as somehow pointed out to you already. Sometimes when I get bogged down, I think about what I should be grateful for. I list the attributes that put me in an advantageous situation. You are young. When you get older, it is often more difficult to lose weight. Being young counts for you. You have a job. Admittedly it is mundate and you hate it, but there are MILLIONS without jobs. Being overweight without a job is worse than being overweight. Check yourself and ask yourself: am I being overly dramatic? Is my situation that dire? If so, try to shut it down.

Track your food if you haven't already to get a sense of what your take-out food costs you calorie-wise. Is that enough of a shock to make you think twice about spending money on food?

Cut out any consumable liquids that have sugar or aspartame in them. Drink water as often as you can. I was at first peeing like a racehorse, but afterwards I learned to drink water before, during and after my meals pacing myself. If I feel full I don't drink water, but first thing before my morning coffee, and before I call it a day, I drink water.

What helped me initially was forcing myself ot be more self-aware. When I would be at the fridge opening it, I would literaly say, "what am I doing here?" "why am I here?", and my rational self would kick in and say, close the door, you aren't hungry. And if I had hunger pangs, I'd have 2-3 failsafes in mind. Drink water, drink more water, have vegetables or get up and go for a walk. Sitting idly by does not help your situation lol. Every time I'd feel discouraged, I'd literally tell myself to cut it out. I'd have a set reaction or response for negative behaviour. I.e. if I felt a negative emotion about my weight situation, I'd get up and go for a walk with music. I would distance myself from my fridge and from my apartment, even. That way after a 2 hour walk, having a healthy snack or a meal wouldn't give me a guilt trip because I did something to earn that hunger.

I also accepted the fact that failure is important. I learned to treat failure as it should be - a learning opportunity. Rather than focusing on how "bad" it was, I learned to learn from it. Why had I failed? What did I do that prevented me from succeeding? I also learned that having off days is normal. You can't be expected to shine 24/7. Forgiveness in this sense is waaaay more powerful than constantly having high expectations and then beating yourself up somehow for not meeting these goals.

Speak to your boyfriend if you haven't already, and make it clear that his support and acceptance is required. This means that you tell him how a particular comment - implied or otherwise - can make you feel. If he's a caring guy who wants to help you (which I hope he is) then he can cut them out. Tell him how useful he can be by supporting you and list examples of what he can do. A guy will want to help out and being told how he can is the easiest way for him to be supportive.

You've done a solid job of listing negative attributes you have. Enough. List positive attributes. Already by reading your profile can I say this:

- You are in a relationship and you live together. That takes commitment and responsibility. I know enough people who are unable to do that.
- You use very frank language to describe your situation. Your post albeit negative was lucid and honest - two very important qualities in being able to be self-aware. I know many, many people who have gone through years of therapy and are in traction because they cannot accept things, nor understand things, nor improve, because they lack the insight or understanding.

Understand that your journey to better health will be a long one. I get irritated sometimes when I think I should be losing more weight or at a faster pace, but then I remind myself that it took me DECADES to put on the bloody weight. No way for me to shed it off in a matter of months. Every gram down I congratulate myself. Accepance of yourself, your limitations, your weaknesses and strengths, all are part of that constellation of positive self-image that has the tendency to grow over time as you practice it.

I'm gonna stop here because it's a lot already. Start walking a bit if you haven't already, drink lots of water, and try maybe to find a counsellor of some kind for you to discuss how you feel and get strategies and positive feedback to right yourself emotionally.

All the best!

Hey Starjo,

I've been, I am where you are. Two years ago I did what I needed to do, I ate a balanced diet and got to a place where I was 10 lbs above my target weight. Disaster! I got a NICE hamstring injury and because I was obsessed with losing weight i didn't stay off of it. It was a slight pull that turned into a level 2 strain (meaning, I could walk but barely). Nursing it back to health, I've been up an down since.

The short of it is, you'll have your struggles, your pain, the comments that PIERCE so heavily into your heart. But, you have a village of support. Review the forums, and come here often because i'm sure, like me, you'll find that MFP will help you get our of your mental state.Then, when you accept where you are, and what was can all do to help you...you can start the first few steps in running the marathon that is weight loss AND lifestyle change. Just be honest with yourself and keep your goals right in front of you.