I remember feeling bigger than everyone even in kindergarten, so I don't really remember when I went from being bigger than average to being overweight/obese. My parents were always loving and supportive, but my mom was always trying to lose weight, and I definitely picked up some body hatred from that. She would do slimfast, buy "diet" foods, take dexatrim, all sorts of things. I don't think she ever had much luck. I first tried to lose weight (more than just wishing I could) the second semester of my senior year of high school. I severely restricted my calories, mostly just drank slimfast, and I was terribly unhealthy, but I lost weight. I was probably around 160 and a size 11/13? I remember going to my pediatrician and him showing me a chart of my weight, and saying, "If you had kept on the path you were on, you'd be at 200 right now, how does that sound?"

After high school, I did a year of AmeriCorps and I ballooned. I remember coming back from one project (we traveled around) and trying on a pair of pants I had left and running to my teammates and saying, "I f&%#ing exploded!" At some point during that year, I weight myself at 212 and I wrote it over and over on a notebook page like "oh my god, this is so awful."

Several years later, I was 244 and feeling totally hopeless. I ended up in the hospital for depression for a few days last fall, finally got on some medication that helped, and by April I was feeling human again. I started tracking calories and exercising. I started out walking more, then I added the gym for Couch to 5k, and strength training. The past month has been rough, both anticipating returning to school (a major anxiety/depression trigger for me) and having less sunlight, getting sick with an awful lingering cold, and traveling a lot. I've fallen off track with everything except walking -- I've been doing 20k+ steps a day almost every day. I haven't lost any weight over the past few weeks, but I haven't gained much if anything, either.

I need to get back on track because exercise makes me mentally healthier and I want to keep improving both my physical and mental health. Today, I will go back to tracking EVERYTHING. Next week, when I return from my trip to Maine, I'll go back to the gym.

(Edited to add: wow that's a lot of text to say not much. I've just been a mess lately and I suppose it helped to write things out)

I have always had weight issues since I can remember. I have been on one type of diet or another since around 9 years old and I have just gotten bigger and bigger. I have been on weight watchers (to many times to count). I've done LA weightloss, Atkins, cabbage soup diet, low carbs plus many more. So many I can't remember. I must have lost hundreds of pounds over the years, but nothing stuck and I gained it all back and then some. The program I am on now seems to have some promise. It is a bariatric weightloss program which you may possibly get surgery if you qualify. Am looking into that possibility but I would like to do it without surgery. I am warily optimistic as I have been through this many times with little success. My husband believed that this was the program that would make the difference, so this is for you Honey. Miss you

I have been big all my life. I looked very pregnant by age 7. I was relentlessly bullied all through school. I have been on constant yoyo diets since age of 10 when i was 140lb. By age 16 I was 245lb. My highest adult weight has been 322lb this year, my lowest adult weight after a severe raw vegan starvation diet i briefly went down to 175lb (very short visit) The day I first saw 175lb on scale was the last day i saw that number prior to is skyrocketting back up until reached 294lb, few years later i got down to 182lb for an equally short visit before making my way up to 322lb. Plus all the thousands of smaller yoyo fluctuations and plans along the way.

I think I must have worked my way through almost all the clubs and special diets in past with no long term results. The plan i am doing now came about by accident in terms of it being for weight loss. I am following a ketogenic eating plan for other neaurological health reasons, hoping it will help sooth bipolar symptoms. It is a bonus that it has removed my hunger and cravings. It gave me the added kick of motivation to follow an eating plan that incorporates many of the changes I already knew were helpful to me.

I am definately looking at this as a long term permanent way of eating and not a short term diet. Once I realised this would work for weight loss too, I focused on maximising that aspect as well by combining Ketogenic/Paleo/ "clean eating", whole food, principles with calorie deficit and also intermitent fasting where i eat lower calories 2 days a week but not always. This helps compensate for my lack of mobility a lot of the time. I feel very happy with what I am doing and it is working well for me. The only thing i can see changing much in long term is that I will increase my calorie intake when nearer to goal or when i am able to be more active or find i get more hungry. I have almost completed 6 weeks so far which is amazing as usually aside from two long stretches in past, normally i fall off wagon after two weeks when cravings wear me down. Not having the cravings makes it much easier to stick to. Sure I would still quite like to eat lots of things that I used to eat such as mass quantities of junk food but I can choose not to so i do. Before the cravings were so bad they drove me crazy constantly until i would cave in. I don't have that toturouse craving now and that is what makes the difference. I guess this is how naturally healthy or moderate eaters or naturally slim people are around food. No wonder they can't understand food addiction.

I should probably point out that although I have lost 31lb in 6 weeks , 27 of those came off in first week and a half, I had much worse fluid retention issues that I ever dreamed. I was peeing it all out in that first week and half faster than i could keep pouring more water in. My abdomin is no longer sore and swollen (still got big fat belly but not with added fluid and inflamation from eating all the foods i was intollerant to but addicted to) My shoes are now loose where swelling in feet and ankles has gone. Just all over a layer of added fluid puff has gone. I then mostluy stalled for a few weeks before things started shifting again last week or two. What is going now is the more settled in fat. I feel much better without the 31lb of baggage shed so far what ever it was

hey ya'll :bigsmile: I'm Betty from Georgia. 50yrs old and 340lbs today :noway: yep, this is a big ole girl! I've been big pretty much all my life. I believe I started to eat more and gain weight on purpose as a result of a traumatic childhood event. But this continued all my life even though I totally understood why I was doing it. I've dealt with this trauma as an adult, but never was able to stop my bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. I married my husband of nearly 30yrs when I was 20 and weighing 230lbs. He adored me and didn't care one bit about my weight, thank goodness....because by the time I was 30 (2 children later) I had ballooned to 430lbs!! He heard my muffled cries at night and watched me withdraw from social gatherings in my attempts to protect my loved ones feelings from shame of being associated with this big me. Before my 30th birthday, he delicately presented me an option through his new insurance of having gastric bypass. I was grateful for an answer to my prayers and jumped on that bandwagon!! By the end of my birthday month, I was laid up in the hospital recuperating from my lapband surgery! Now that was 1994 when they only offered non-adjustable and it was a pretty new procedure. Within the first 1 1/2 yrs I had lost 215lbs! That was 1/2 of me!!! Unbelievable! Freeing and life-changing for me! I loved it! Exercise became part of my life for the very first time! I even joined a gym! I got myself a part-time job once my youngest started school and life was going good. But then everything changed for me. I fell down my backporch steps one afternoon and messed up my ankle pretty bad. Laid me up for about 6wks with crutches. This was the beginning of my downfall. No exercise. No work. Home alone. In my feelings. Food began calling my name again. Soon enough I was healed and back at work with bad habits once again to break. But no sooner had I began working, walking, and improving my eating....then suddenly I had to have an emergency appendectomy! Lordy, Lordy. let me tell you that is some kinda pain leading up to needing that surgery. I had worked for 2 days with that pain, doubled over at times, crying my eyes out at night with my hubby...but thinking the whole time I had a stomach virus or food poisoning. Thank goodness, he insisted finally on rushing me to the emergency room because they said it was on the verge of rupturing! WHEW! Anyways, now that recuperation took 9 more weeks of healing. This just zapped all the fight and will power I had left. I gave in and gave up to laziness and temptations from then on. Of course, this lapband limited the amounts I could eat. However, if you're not eating the right stuff then this shows you can still gain!! I suffered as well with this lapband. I've spent nearly every day of the whole 20yrs throwing up. Yes, sorry for that visual, but that is my life to this day. My lapband, while a godsend for the loss in the beginning, has always made me sick. It's my understanding from my doctors that my body has actually been in starvation mode for way too many years and holds onto every single calorie that I do eat and keep down. It refuses to let me lose weight while in starvation mode. I typically would eat 200-500 calories tops, yet lose nothing. Just hold steady for years. I began in April to have severe acid reflux. My gastrointestinal doctor did an endoscopy and discovered that I have Barrett's Esophagus as a direct result of my lapband. This disease causes the growth of cancer cells on the esophagus that COULD, not necessarily WILL, lead to esophageal cancer. My doc performed an ablation in June, which is lasering or burning the cancer cells off the walls of the esophagus. That hurt like you wouldn't believe for at least 10 days!! Burning from the throat down to the breastbone! Affected by every movement my body made so I had to be like a statue in order to have even a moment of comfort and peace. Well, I went back just recently on the 28th for another followup endoscopy to check-see if any more cancer cells had re-appeared...and yes, there were more. So here I sit today after another ablation. I'm not hurting as much as the first FULL COURSE ablation, but it's no picnic. My doc says it could take 3 or 4 shots at these cancer cells before regrowth ceases. Fingers crossed that it works soon. He also wants to remove my lapband after the Barrett's Esophagus is under control. I can't risk myself again. Once I live a few months with no lapband and my body heals, he then wants to perform a Roux-en-Y procedure on me. This new gastric bypass will totally bypass the stomach altogether, so no more stomach acids to worry about flaring up into my esophagus. I must admit that I'm tremendously nervous about several things here! First, I haven't been without a lapband and on my own to eat for 20yrs! Those months of healing are gonna be scary for me. How will I be without the lapband??? Also, after all that I've dealt with and suffered from due to the lapband...do I really want to do a gastric bypass again? I know it's 20yrs later now. Modern gastric surgeries are different now. I've talked with many people that have had the Roux-en-Y and I hear that some still have the same issues that I had with the lapband though, as far as throwing up, definite foods that are not tolerable, not losing weight, and even regaining their weight with this procedure still in place. Some issues never change. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. In the meantime, I'm learning good eating habits and for the first time in my life...I'm counting carbs, proteins, fats, and calories. Even looking at sodium lol These were never of interest to me before. So it's fun and interesting to me now. I'm on a 20 carb lifestyle (diet is an optional word that I don't want anymore!) that my doc says is standard leading up to a gastric bypass. Whether I decide to do it or not, it's still a good process for me to wean myself off many high carb foods in my life. I feel I have 2 good options waiting for me down the road after my lapband comes off. I'll just have to decide whether by then I feel strong enough and capable enough to fight this weight on my own once again or whether to trust in my most excellent reputable doctor and believe that I'll have a better desired experience with this new gastric bypass. Time will tell..... :flowerforyou:

like most of you I have tried every diet going,had some success and some failures, being honest i never really stuck at anything long enough for it to work properly, i would condition my brain to think if i had a bad day and ate one biscuit too many that i was doomed, and then i would eat everything in sight, instead of just drawing a line under it.Also if i had a good week, and went on the scales and was not 14lbs lighter i would think my "diet" was not working, and again stuff my face.
I have always been a big girl, even as a child, i was always the biggest in my class, and fattest out of my group of friends.. I am fed up of wasting my life not going out socially or being too ashamed to accompany my husband on work events, too scared that people will judge me and talk about my size. I have now decided (AGAIN) that i will give calorie counting a decent go, i mean i have nothing to lose except weight, and the alternative is too be another 10lbs heavier this time next year if i don't do some thing about it. plus my knees have started to let me know that they are fed up of carrying my bulk around. hopefully i can condition my brain to be pleased with small losses and the end of the week, instead of thinking negative when i lose a little, i should see it as a step towards goal.this is coming up to my forth week, and so far its ok.i have slip ups and bad days but i just draw a line and continue.. i have 100 plus pounds to lose and its a long journey but i have made a start and don't intend to turn back now.