Reaching out for help....I have a problem

You have a choice to make, do I want to make a change? Or are you not ready for that change yet? We can give you lots of you can do this cheerleading stuff, but if you aren't ready, then you aren't ready and nothing we say will change that. But that decision is totally up for you to make. It's not a bad thing to admit you aren't ready, when you are ready it will click.

Now if you are ready then great, You CAN do this! And once your head is in the game, it's really not that difficult. Read this thread as it has really good advice to get you started.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Good luck to you in whatever choice you make.

Ah, sorry - I obviously didnt type all of this down. I had a slipped disc in 2009, and this is where I put on most of my weight. I couldnt stand for more than 20 minutes, couldnt sit for more than 20 minutes and got quite depressed. then after the surgery, everyone says oh you cant do this exercise, and you cant do that, and so I ended up putting on weight.

Also, now that I am this weight, I have pain in my back more and more often, and i DESPERATELY do not want to go back to a time when I could do nothing.

Also, I have a big problem with sugar, and I am noticing that I have headaches more and more often lately. I am sure this is related, as I quit for a few days, and when I then had more sugar, I had more headaches again

This gives me a reason to reply. I am 5'2" and I used to weigh 294 pounds. I had trouble getting up stairs, in cars, and a whole lot more. Going for a walk filled me with trepidation because it would take so much energy. I also had a ruptured disk or two in my lower back.

I currently weigh 209 pounds. I lift at the gym and walk the treadmill. I eat clean on most days. I don't log every day, but I should and I know it. That is because I make a bad decision to not log.

It is all about decisions, not motivation. How do you want to live your life? I can tell you that having lost weight, my back doesn't hurt me but once or twice a year, whereas before it was every darn day. I have more energy as well.

I don't believe in 'motivation'. I believe in making the right decision. Some may disagree with me there, but it is a decision between not losing weight and keeping on complaining about health issues or losing weight and finding something more pleasant to talk about. It is a decision between eating a piece of chocolate cake or settling for an apple, which has more nutrition and fiber.

You have to make that decision. No one else can make it for you. No one else can force it upon you. It is up to you to make the decision to change your lifestyle so that you can enjoy life by being active and healthy or not change your lifestyle and make a decision to not enjoy life and die at an early age.

The choice is your's to make.

What I hear you saying is that you had a back injury that led to a sedentary lifestyle. This, is in combination with overeating, led to a big weight gain. Now that some time has passed since you injured your back, you are ready to start moving more and regaining mobility, and you realize that your eating habits have contributed to the weight gain. Perhaps you didn't have to worry about what you ate as much before your injury, but that has changed now.

I think you are on the right track here. You have a gym membership and have been going regularly a couple times a week, even though you haven't lost weight. It is actually a great thing that you feel comfortable with your body, because self-confidence and a positive body image can actually help you reach your goals and make the whole thing a happy process as your strength and fitness level improve.

Nutrition is the most important aspect of weight loss and physical fitness, as you have seen. You can go to the gym every day and not lose an ounce if you are eating mindlessly, or eating far in excess of your daily needs. I suggest really diving into this site. Set your weight loss goal and start logging everything. Carrying around excess weight can be really debilitating to your mobility and energy level, so hopefully as the weight comes off, you will find yourself feeling lighter and less sedentary.

I have disliked what I seem in the mirror for years now. I too though didn't feel fat on the inside. When I told people what I weighed they thought I was lying. I am was 5'6" and 296 lbs in October. I decided enough was enough after I went to my children's school and literally could barely breath after walking up two flights of stairs.

I first had to shop around for a doctor because I had been neglecting myself for years! I went and just said bluntly "I'm morbidly obese and need help." I told her I didn't want anything sugar coated. I wanted to know all my risks and what I needed to do. I think having an EKG done and finding I had a healthy heart was a turning point for me. I decided I needed to change before I did permanent damage to it.

Needless to say, it started out as baby steps. It still is really. But I'm down to 279 today and I can feel a difference with just that little gone. I too was not heavy all my life. Half of it I was a size 3! I don't expect to get there again, I just want to enjoy my life with my family.

Maybe you need to get "scared straight".

I lack any motivation of any kind.

If you really, truly don't care...then there is nothing any of us here can tell you.
If you care deep down, but it's too hard to care because it hurts...then it's time to suck it up, feel the pain, accept that you are in a place you do not want to be, and start to make small changes.

I am a member of the gym, and go maybe twice a week. I joined the gym in May last year, and I have lost no weight at all. I know I do overeat though, but mainly I JUST DON'T CARE!

You can go to that gym every day, do a ton of cardio and strength training...but if you do not get your calorie consumption under control you still will not lose weight. Exercise is very healthy, and everyone should do it...but it will not take the pounds off unless you are also controlling the number of calories you consume.
You can lose weight without exercise if you eat appropriately, but no amount of going to the gym can overcome constant overeating.

I was in a similar boat, I think. And, every day, I failed, without even knowing it.

I love food. I really do. I love french fries, burgers, ice cream, and everything they have in the aisles of the grocery store. That's where I failed. 95% of the products from the middle of the grocery store have been cheapened and/or chemically altered to make you crave it like crack. (Pringles need a rehab center, IMO). Turns out what I loved was what the food industry was engineering for me to love. When you think of it that way, it's kinda gross.

I'm smart. I don't feel I need others to succeed at my goals, and I can handle my personal life myself. That's where I failed. I enrolled in a fitness program that was designed for people with extra weight to lose, and hearing the struggles of others and how similar the stories were to mine helped me stay on track. I needed the accountability; I couldn't do it on my own.

I always put other people first, and my own needs (one of which was to be healthy) went to the bottom of the list. I give blood regularly. There's a medication that I should but don't take which will make me more mobile and energetic, but I avoided taking it because I couldn't give blood on it. That was where I failed. In reality, I needed to take a chance and put myself first, and for once worry about my own health, which I'm doing now. I needed to be healthy, so I could do more things for more people, and I didn't recognize that early enough. Now I long for the lost opportunities that I had.

I avoided moving, especially stairs. But I worked in a building where I didn't need the stairs, and I lived in a house that didn't have many stairs. I'd get winded on stairs, so I just avoided them. That was where I failed. A trainer told me to speak to a doctor about possibly having asthma, which I apparently have had for most of my life. I started using an inhaler just before working out, and not only can I finish a workout, but I even run for fun now.

Anyway, the way I changed wasn't just eating better. It wasn't just exercising more. It wasn't just finding a support network of people like me. It wasn't just finding a reason to want to live longer.

It was all of these things.

And once I started doing all of these things, I left my goals in the dust. (see below)

Now, when working in my accountability group, the people who see the most success are those who set attainable goals. They may be "No ice cream this week." It may be "hold plank for 10 seconds longer than my previous best." They may be "lose 3 pounds this month", but they are small, attainable, and don't drive everything you do. If you strive for monstrous goals, you can expect disastrous results.

For you, I would suggest something like this:
1) Every week, lose a half pound that you had last week. If you lose three this week, that's great, but you still need to lose a half pound next week. Weigh in every Monday morning, and then put the scale away for the rest of the week. Or, use the scale at your local clinic; they usually let you stop in and weigh in for free, and then you won't go do it every moment. If you hit the bare minimum on this, you will lose 26 pounds a year!
2) Use MFP daily to log everything, and to set a calorie goal equivalent to losing 1 pound/week. If that doesn't work after a month, up it to two lbs a week. It doesn't seem like a lot of food, but your body will adjust. (I went from 3500 cal/day to about 1300 for maximum results.) Get friends on there who will scold you if you don't do it.
3) Don't eat after 7PM. Your food can't turn into anything usable and be used after that point, so it will just be converted into storage, and nobody wants that.
4) Pick one meal per week where you can eat whatever the heck you want. Stick with it. You have a craving, save it for that meal. You probably won't want to eat it by then anyway.
5) One day per week, don't eat anything with ingredients you can't pronounce. Week 2, up that to two. By week 7, you think you will have your "cheat meal" to look forward to, but you'll actually start to taste foods differently, and you'll actually be "cheating" with healthy foods anyway.
6) Workout, get moving, do something so you earn back calories every day in MFP. BUT, only eat half of those. So if you earn 600 calories mowing the lawn, only eat 300 of those for the day (or less).

You want to change, so you will. But you have to keep wanting it, and (stealing this mantra) you need to go after it with gazelle intensity, or else... well, you know what happened to the slow gazelle.

-William

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My goals: Note that I started in May '13
1st goal: Lose 40 lbs in the first year - completed by end of July
2nd goal: Lose 40 lbs in this next year - December set me back, but I've got 13 to go in the next six months.
3rd goal: Run a 5K by the end of 2015 - Did that last November.
4th Goal: Run 3-5Ks each calendar year until I can't. - we'll see how that goes.

I totally get this! I started at 190lbs (nearly 14 stone) and I still thought I looked great like when I was a good 50lbs lighter, then every so often I'd see a photo of when I thought I looked great and realised that a) I did not look good b) someone of my size should not wear a bodycon dress and c) when did my face get so big??? I'd be bothered for a few days get over it and then got back into my head that I was fine....

It was only in the summer/Autumn that I had to stop wearing my wedding rings that It really hit me.

Don't worry your moment of clarity will come x

I absolutely understand what you are saying about being both concerned and unmotivated at the same time, not recognizing that you look overweight and yet realizing and worrying about being overweight at the same time.... I suffered from this confusion for many years.

For most of us (and I'll exclude people with major medical (ex. thyroid) issues), gaining weight and becoming obese was a long, slow trauma that we inflicted upon ourselves by using food in an abusive way toward ourselves, under the guise of "comforting" ourselves or soothing our painful emotions. We didnt' know how to cope with the difficulties of life so we ate to feel some modicum of pleasure. It's extremely subtle, not exactly black and white like, "I'm sad. Therefore I'll eat this ice cream until I nearly puke". No, it's more like, "I eat ice cream over and over and can't stop for some reason, even though I really want to". We need comfort and happiness, and yet we deliver the exact opposite to ourselves by means of weight gain, guilt, shame, and sharp self-critque.

Many people in trauma/abuse situations block out large portions of that trauma in order to cope with the pain of what's happening to them. I believe chronic and compulsive overeaters do just this. We have to "shut off" parts of our selves - some of our memories, our values, our desires - in order to cope with the fear of the "beast within" and the disgust and self-hatred we have long developed toward ourselves.

Thus, we are extremely disconnected with ourselves. Our dreams and hopes. We've "given up" in a sense. And yet waaaaaay down deep in there.....we really DO want to be happy and healthy. But we do not allow ourselves to believe it. It's just too painful considering we've come this far and screwed up our lives so badly.

Over time, this disconnection deeply damages the relationship between our DESIRES and our ACTIONS. We convince ourselves that "it's not that bad", "I'm not THAT overweight", "I can eat just a little of these cookies", and on and on... And yet it IS that bad, we ARE that overweight, and we CAN'T only eat a few cookies at a time. it's like living in a fantasy world. Numbness.

In order for you to experience true motivation, you must begin to bring those desires for health and freedom into alignment with REALITY which requires real ACTION in the real world. The first step of action is realizing and admitting you have a problem. I believe that by coming on these boards you are dipping your toe into the waters of admitting this. I suggest you sit down, think about it, maybe journal about it, and DIVE IN to this concept. "I have a problem and that's OKAY. I am admitting it, and will seek help. I will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get that help. I will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to value myself enough to get this taken care of."

Then begin the journey. What might that look like? It might involve getting involved with a support group, such as overeaters anonymous (I highly recommend). It might mean reading some good books on this issue ("Food Trigger" by Rhona Epstein is an amazing book I'm reading). It might mean meeitng with a therapist or pastor. Visiting a nutritionist or personal trainer. Making friends on here and asking for support. Logging your calories into MFP.... There are a host of ACTIONS you can perform to bring your DESIRES to life.

Sometimes it takes a step out onto the water before you discover you can walk on it. I highly encourage you to do this, figuratively. For your health and your sanity. If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me. Blessings!

I was in the same boat for years. I knew I was obese when I saw myself in the mirror or in pictures but I didn't really feel that bad about how I looked or felt most of the time. However, as I reached my highest weight in 2009, I started feeling more self conscious and noticing that I couldn't get around as easily and although it took a few months to fully set in, I finally decided it was time to do something about my weight. And I didn't care so much about getting skinny just to look better, I mostly wanted to feel better in my skin and be able to do more physically.

You're the only one that can figure out the goals that will really work for you. Take some time, put some thought into it and keep writing down things as they occur to you. For me in the beginning it was mostly about getting out of the obese range, lowing my bp and cholesterol and trying to get some movement in. Then it became more about meeting fitness goals (running a 5k for instance) and now it's a balance of the two. I'm continuing with my fitness AND working to finally get into the healthy BMI range for my height.

Just make sure those goals are small, realistic and achievable so you don't set yourself up for failure. No need to be in any huge rush. Slow and steady wins the race.

to be honest I was in a slump for a really long time and I didn't care but the fact that you are here and seeking help and advice is a good start - if you do what you are supposed to do - not only will you drop weight but you will feel better about yourself as well and you will start to care more about what choices you make....good luck on your journey!