Success stories starting at 300+lbs? I need motivation!

I started out really positive and lost 15 lbs but i fell into the purple haze.(chocolate feeding frenzy).I have started back today after a week and a half of gorging .I fall in to the trap ive got so much to lose how can i possibly lose it im useless blah blah .Yes i have a lot to lose 126 lbs but im starting again . Perhaps this is how its going to be on and off.I have struggled with food demons all my life and i am at the stage where i seriously need to battle these demons and win .Any tips and encouragement are so welsome please help .

hey there, well done on getting started

log and weigh what you eat hun, be honest with what you put in your mouth, many people under estimate what they eat

find an exercise activity that you enjoy, yur more likely to stick to it if you have fun insted of seeing it as a chore

lift weights and not the little pink plastic weights either, lift heavy. hopefully you will have access to the gym when you start school. check out the books new rules of lifting for women or strong lifts 5x5

its going to take time and effort but if you really want it you will get there

my weight loss is from febuary 2013 but had a lot of yo yoing for the first 10 months

Honestly, deciding to start is one of the hardest parts about losing weight, so kudos for taking the first step.

I also started my own most recent bout of weight loss (part of an adulthood long yo-yo, ugh) when I was kind of shocked/angry/disgusted by how far I had let myself go (380 lbs, about 11 months before I got on MFP). And it is good to feel that anger at yourself, and let that be a bit of a motivator to get started, but don't let it keep running you now that you're on your way. Our weight is just one part of who we are as people, and it doesn't have to define us, whether we're fit or not. I started feeling better the moment I started to get on the right track, just because I admitted to myself that there was a problem, but then I knew I was doing something seriously to take care of it, so I was able to let go of a huge chunk of my anger and that bit of self hatred that I think a lot of self conscious overweight people have. People at every stage of my weight loss will either still think I'm gross and fat, think it's great that I've lost a lot of weight and that I should relax on my diet for an hour/weekend/holiday/whatever, or (most likely, because no one notices us as much as we notice ourselves!) just not care about it one way or the other. If you let yourself stay in a negative space, then your whole weight loss experience will, I think, feel negative, and it shouldn't, because if you do it right, then you should feel freaking awesome because you're doing something great for yourself.

Sorry if I rambled, but that's just been my experience! Feel free to add me as a friend if you want someone on the interwebs who'll notice if you're keeping your diary updated and give you a friendly shout if you drop off the face of the planet for a day or two.

I started at 336. Just take it one step, one meal, one day at a time. Stick with it and eventually you'll get there.

I've been heavy starting in the second grade and by the time I finished college at 22, I was already around 280lbs. When I finally decided to turn things around for the sake of my health, I was 32 and almost 320lbs. I think what motivated me was realizing that the entire time I had been telling myself that I was happy with who I was and at least I didn't have any health problems, the hard truth was that my body was suffering the consequences. At 32, my knees were wrecked, my lower back was wrecked, I had chronic heartburn, gastroparesis/ IBS, high cholesterol, early warning signs of hypertension (BP was starting to turn up a little high on routine checkups), and was getting very concerned about developing Type II diabetes. Although I know some of this could have been exacerbated by PCOS, I know that the main culprit was and always had been my weight. So I decided to do something about it.

I started out on Weight Watchers and eventually transferred over to MFP when I was feeling more confident in my methods. I lost 100lbs and got down to 216 within 2 years (I haven't weighed that since the 8th grade!). I've struggled with a few ups and downs in the 2 years since and am trying to find my way to getting down to my goal weight. However, I consider my weight loss to be a huge success story already. Although some of the damage I did to my body is irreversible, some of it has improved and continues to get better. I have high hopes of getting off of my blood pressure and heartburn medications. I no longer worry about my cholesterol or devloping diabetes. I don't wake up sick to my stomach from the gastroparesis every morning anymore. I'm not in as much pain with my knees or my back. And I've learned that I am so much happier at this weight because I can do things now that I couldn't do before (walk a 5K, get on a rollercoaster, walk into a store and find something I actually want to wear in my size, look in a mirror and not cringe). For me, it has been worth the struggle and it is worth continuing to fight my way down to an even healthier weight.

You have to find the desire and motivation within yourself to do it all again. But it sounds like from your history of ups and downs that maybe you need to focus on a sustainable lifestyle change instead of just on losing weight. The best advice I ever got about losing weight is that you should never do something to lose weight that you aren't willing to continue doing for the rest of your life to keep it off. Another piece of advice -- don't try to force yourself into a bunch of huge changes all at once. Start small and focus on developing good habits as much as you do on losing the weight. It makes it easier to get started when you start small and, the more good habits you develop, the more success will just build on itself without it seeming like such a huge job. Forgive yourself for the past and just start fresh. And, when you make missteps this time around (because you will, everyone does), forgive yourself for those too and just keep moving forward. Every day is a new day to try again!

Good luck!