New here, really looking for non judgemental support

Hi Megan
Please try and get a doctor to come and see you. Work with them to manage your diet first and then think about exercise. Do you have friends/relatives or carers that can help?

Talk to real people not just the internet, although I am sure you will get support here. Work on any issues you have that have led to your depression.

On the upside, as soon as you start to make some changes, no matter how small, you will feel better.

Good luck.

I didn't exercise for the first 6 months or so of being here. I felt it was just too much change all at once. You can lose weight without exercise. Your doctor might have specific exercises s/he want you to do or NOT do, depending on your specific health challenges.

If you've gotten the green light for exercise, try something simple to start with. Just get up out of a chair, sit down, and do it again and again and again until you feel it in your muscles. Try arm exercises with hand weights (or holding soup cans, even). There are many little things you can do to get your muscles used to exercise again.

Add me as a friend, if you'd like! I'd be glad to support you!

Hi Megan, We all want to help you.

I invite you to come and read some of the discussions on the group that me and some friends started called 3fc pals. (can you see GROUPS above) I try to provide a range of useful ideas that i've picked up in my year of dieting and successful weightloss. My friends are still about but they are too busy now to come in so often. I didn't frighten them away. Anyway the group is a resource as well as a place to get to know others to or have ongoing chats with. You can start your own conversation with us there or diarise if you want.

Here's some little tips that i find great for me which may help you too.

1. Weightloss is 80% diet and only 20% exercise and that exercise stuff can wait. I didn't invent this ratio. Its seems to be the latest right view. If you start worrying about exercise at this stage of your journey you may well injure yourself. that said any type of movement is good. Have a go at washing the windows. But i bet you won't feel like doing that if you are depressed. I have always found it hard to do any exercise when i'm depressed. Anyway housework or gardening is a great way to get exercise.

2. You will find it easier to eat less right from the start of your journey if you reduce your carbs a lot. So dump the bread, the pasta the rice, the cakes,all the processed foods you can and replace them with vegetables, fruit, meat, chicken fish (but not processed meats). YOu can also replace them with lentils chickpeas and beans. If you can't do it all at once, don't worry. Just go by the numbers on your calorie counting diary. I'd suggest the best thing to quit first is sugar (all honey, artificial sweeteners, and refined sweet foods). The sooner you give these up, the easier it all becomes. I found quitting sugar a lot like quitting smoking.
I quit sugar this year. And i helped Angel in our group quit too. Although i am not sure she is quitting as much as me lol. But she did quit it from her tea and coffee which helped her let go most of her other sweet treats too i think. Once you let go sugar you find that fruit is all the sweetness you really need. And you will find other things to include your diet that you are probably not eating now that you will like even more than all that stuff. 8 months into my journey, i started making desserts without sugar. I wasn't really ready to do it before then and i wouldn't advise it from the beginning either. Its better to retrain your body into loving all the healthy foods and in good proportions before going back to desserts. But anyway now i have my sugarless desserts in my fridge and freezer and don't need to eat them all at once. I am also satisfied with a very modest portion (they are often still very high in calories (because of lots of butter cheese or cream, nuts and seeds) but without the sugar i don't have that urge to make a pig of myself until its all gone.

3. YOu can get yourself into an optimistic mode of mind if you can just start and get a little bit of a result. I mean once you commit to a diet and start seeing some results this picks up your mood and gives you some moment. You have to work with that and don't ever let up and think you can start taking liberties. But so long as you can stick to your plan, your mood will keep getting better even though you've got a long way to go. I found i just love being on the journey. In some ways its almost as good as being at goal. Now that my food is healthy, and i am enjoying preparing it, eating and knowing that i am doing good things for mseylf while the wait is slipping away, it makes me happy.

Keep prioritising your mood because its the downers that send us back to our bad food habits. And i agree with the others, if you can find a supportive councillor through this, it will help you a lot. I have had much depression in my life and plenty of therapy and coucncilling. Now this year, i decided to get help whenever i got stress i couldn't handle and this has helped me avoid going off my diet. I have not been depressed all year though i have had some major challenges. Stress is bad for weightloss. It makes you hungry for carbs.

4. Of the latest trends in dieting is the 5:2 fasting diet. You do not fast only on water but on minimal calories (500 for women) two days a week. If you were doing it, i would suggest your 500 calories are no carbs at all except vegetables. Just fish and vegetables. In fact, why not make it two days a week or even only 1000 calories of just fish, vegetables and maybe a bit of olive oil for cooking. When you add oil to a low carb diet, fat becomes your main energy source instead of carbs. but also fat makes food more enjoyable. And for people who don't like steamed vegetables and who get sick of salads, olive oil does much to improve this situation. They say the French diet is 40% fat and while there are overweight french people they are doing pretty well on that ratio. It seems to be the bought junk food that buggers us all up. For me its supermarket foods like ice-cream, cakes biscuits, chocolates and lollies. So i quit them. I don't binge on savoury junk food but eating all the sweet things makes me want to eat all the time and eat anything except healthy food. I bet you are pretty much the same. I Know others eat just a lot of pasta and bread but they tend to have a similar affect as sweets do with me.

I usually steam then sauté my vegetables in olive oil. A big plate is only 300 calories. In that recipe, 1 medium or small potato is ok to include but no more than that. It should be about 4 different vegetables . Grill the fish. Choose a nice fish like red salmon and have fresh lemon to squeeze on it. If you don't like fish, choose some other quality meat like steak or free range chicken. But definitely nothing like a sausage that is processed. The useful thing about low carb is that your hunger is brought under control and it makes the other days of the week easier. It will correct your leptin resistance problem which you probably have and just make the whole dieting thing easier.

I do my fasts back to back but most people do them separately. There's a fasting site with forum called the fast diet to look for on google. And a tv show which introduces fasting as a way of life called Eat Fast and Live longer by Dr Michael Mosley, a british guy who runs around talking to all the scientists about their fasting diets. then came up with his own plan 5:2 . You can watch the show on you tube.

Many people are attracted to this diet because it is made to look easy. In a way it is easy. It may take about a month to really figure what works best for you but there's lots of people on that site who've been doing the fast for a while and we've all worked out how to make it work for us.

On the other five days of the week, you are advised to eat at your TDEE or not too far below. I reckon when you start unless you are already very slim, its best to eat at your TDEE until you get used to it all. Count calories or keep a food log though so that you don't go over your TDEE. They have good calculators on the site.

5. I think its also worth playing about a bit with low carb diets per se. I did one this year for about six weeks. As a consequence of that i think aiming for around 100 carbs a day. 100 is a good place to start for anyone but then if you want to go lower, you should probably read up on it. . If you really want to burn fat for fuel all the time then you will have to reduce your carbs but i think the hardest way to do it is the atkins induction and slow working back up. I'd start high and work down if anything because that way you keep your food choices as broad as possible and you don't have to go any lower than necessary. It will take you longer to get into ketosis this way but you will still get there and you will be losing weight even before you get into ketosis anyway.

One of the great things about low carb is that you make a sort of commitment to stop eating refined sugar and refined flour products without giving it too much thought. thos foods are so high in carbs that they just blow your carb budget for the day and rob you off your vegies and other good stuff which you quickly realise you love and treasure.

6. Don't be in a big rush to get this weight off. Its just not going to all come off in a short time. Accept this and be patient. You will have more success in the long term if you do it for the long term. And tailor your eating style for the long term. If you think about it in this way you can cultivate your commitment and keep making good choices. You just can't get into bad habits of thinking "oh i deserve a treat because i've been good", or cheat days or any of that rubbish. You can factor in the foods you love and don't want to live without forever but you have to come up with strategies that you can do for the long term. e.g. I've quit sugar right? That actually means i don't buy it or eat it at home. I don't buy it when i'm out either. It means i only eat it rarely because the only time i can have it according to my rules is when someone offers it to me. Or if i am at a restaurant with other people (not if i go alone). then i can order a dessert. If i am at someone's place i can have one serve. Buffet situations are difficult because no one would notice if you had more than one serve but its my rule. Just one serve no matter how small. Solmetimes i think it would be easier for me if i ruled out the buffet table situations altoghert and made myself stick with the savoury stuff.

7. keep your protein intake up and eat a wide variety of foods. Don't just eat the same thing over and over. This variety optimises your nutrition which makes weightloss easier. Don't choose low fat foods. Fat is not bad. Choose whole foods over processed foods. Don't go for juices. They are high in sugar even when fresh, they are calorie dense foods that do not provide long lasting energy. Go for whole fruit and vegetables. flavour your foods with small amounts of nuts, seeds and cheese as well as good quality oils like olive oil and other nut oils. Cook. Use recipe books to expand your repertoire. Increase your fibre. Fibre is healing. watch the tv show on youtube catalyst - gut reaction parts 1 and 2. Do not cut your overall calories severely day in and day out. Only on two fast days a week. Very low calorie diets are not sustainable. AVoid being hungry. At the beginning of my diet i ate three meals close together in the earlier part of the day.

If boredom is an issue, and it probably is if you can't do much, then you need to find some stimulating activities to help you avoid boredom eating. Take up knitting or other handicrafts that occupy your mind as well as your hands - try to find groups where you can go and do it with other people. Take up writing. Poetry. Start a little herb garden. Try to find some voluntary work in a community organisation. I've got a job at the local community centre. People are caring and the job is undemanding and i am more in the loop about what services are available to me that could interest me. What about sewing? Singing? Buddhism - learning meditation is very helpful. Join an AA overeaters anonymous group. Try to develop your social life.

I am sure that's all you want to me from me at the moment. So good luck. Message me anytime for advice or ideas.

re my herb garden idea, i meant a garden of herbs in pots. Well i wrote a lot there. Please copy it into you computer and work through it slowly because there's a lot in there that you won't be able to take on board all at once.

But if you gradually look into and try all the things i mention, you will find this project easier. No one gets it all right from the beginning. It was about 3 months before i realised that i needed to eat more protein.

It was about 5 months before i started playing with low carbs. And 7 months before i started 5:2 fasting, though i did start my diet off at the beginning of the year with a one day water fast . But that was really hard and i don't recommend it because you need to be able to keep yourself really distracted the whole time.

Good luck.

Oh one more thing i have found really helpful all year is hanging about on diet forums. It keeps you focused. You get useful ideas and tips and support for all your trials.

Megan, you're in the right place. There's already some great advice in this thread. I would encourage you to go over to the "Success Stories" forum. There are many people here who have lost 100, 200, and even 300 pounds. It is possible! You can read how others have done it and find ways to get encouraged.

Hi. Meg. Welcome and I will add you as a friend. I was just looking for some inspiration for you and I see 5string had the same idea. You can find many amazing weight loss stories under Message Boards > Success Stories.

Here is one:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1416270-how-i-lost-391lbs-in-18-months-with-youtube-video

Best of luck. You can do this!

Wow...reading through the thread you are going to be overwhelmed. I'll send you a PM - calories are your main issue. My take is to attack them first - everything else can follow.

You can do this!

Wow...reading through the thread you are going to be overwhelmed. I'll send you a PM - calories are your main issue. My take is to attack them first - everything else can follow.

You can do this!

^^^ THIS!!!

I actually encourage new users to hide the other columns so the only thing they see is calories. Once that is under control and they can hit the calorie goal for a week or two, then it's time to add in macros. Sodium falls in there somewhere but I wouldn't worry about that. Short version is above BMR, below TDEE. (Those can be explained and walked through).

Send me a PM/friend request if you need any advice and help. I try not to push any particular strategy, but you will find I have my own bias (and none of them involve additional money or plans besides a food scale).

Hi Megan,
I don't usually send messages this way, but good on you for taking a step to better yourself and to get into life more fully.
Take your time with your changes, dont try to rush it. Do some research to find some healthier recipes that you really enjoy (but are not too muchwork!) And know that these changes are for you and not because of what others say. :smile
all the best
Roz

Hi Megan! This is now my second attempt at logging my food and daily using MFP. I am obese, and I have type2 Diabetes. I take several medications for depression, thyroid trouble, statins for cholesterol, 2 meds to avoid forming kidney stones and one to help me get to sleep at night. My doc tells me as I lose weight, I can drop some of the meds. I saw my grandmother come to visit with a shoe box of meds she had to take. I vowed that would never be me. I found some help in self-hypnosis and meditation. It really helps with stress control, and I picture myself on the beach on Maui to keep me focused on my goals. I have discovered I must think like a thin person in order to become one. Find a roll model that looks great and eats healthy, and follow suit. It may take some time but you can acquire a taste for good food. I would rather eat chicken/veg stir fry and Brussels sprouts than eat sandwiches. I still have a sweet tooth, but I don't binge on candy anymore. I buy cantaloupe, grapes and Atkins protein bars to steel my wool. I wish you the best of luck and I have sent you a friend request.If you would like to discuss ideas and get encouragement, you can send me messages to my profile page, where it is more private, if you like.
_flamingblades