Time to kick fat's butt

Not really sure what to write here. I have been lurking for 3 months now off an on. Using MFP for past 3 months ( religiously for first 2 months but got off track during last month and part of 2nd month) My starting weight was 308, and I have now gotten myself down to 280. I suppose a little history on me might be helpful.

I am 35 (36 in 3 months) overweight my entire life. There has not been a moment in my life outside of early childhood where I was not overweight. I was not obese as I am now, but I was still overweight. I would constantly gain and loose the same 40 lbs for most of my early adult life until I hit about 23. It was around that time, that a job change and health changes started to occur for me.

The odd thing for me, is while I used food as a sort of crutch. I didn't eat all day long. I just didn't always choose good food choices or serving sizes. Now fast-forward to current. I decided I could no longer stand how I felt or looked. I Have not taken a picture of myself in over 10 years. And when other people would take my picture I would ask them never to show anyone.

I've finally decided I don't want to live this sad and lonely life like that. I have a wonderful husband (who incidentally has also been loosing weight with me) But when it got to a point where even using a restroom was difficult. I knew I had let myself go way too far. I always made excuses, saying that I didn't look that big. People always told me that I never looked as big as I said I weighed. I now realize I think they were just trying to be kind, and not let me know just how truly obese I really was.

I stood in front of a mirror and the person looking back at me was someone I hardly recognized. I am not sure quite how to explain it. Sure I looked in the mirror plenty of times, but it was like I was actually truly seeing myself for the first time without that haze of "I don't care". And what looked back at me horrified and scared me. So I made an appointment with a doctor and started to look at MFP.

I logged everything I ate, got told by my dear doctor that 3700 cals is what i would have to eat to maintain my current obesity. But that to loose weight I would need to cut that back to 2700. So for the next 2 weeks I tried to do that. Instead of cutting it back to 2700, I found I could not even eat that much. No matter what I did. I could not get myself past 1800 except for 1 rare day (who knew making my own meat stew could be so high in calories **Sigh**)

So my doctor said. Ok lets stick with 1500. He also put me onto Triamt/HCTZ to assist with getting rid of water weight. I was amazed with how much weight came off the first few weeks. I was excited and thrilled. But then I thought, this can't be normal. So i looked through MFP and sure enough, it's normal to loose alot at first due to water weight and your body kinda doing the whole "what is going on" moment, but that it would slow down. And that 2-3 lbs a week was still really good.

Well, I continues to loose.. some weeks it feels like I yoyo between the same 6 lbs over and over and then one day I'm just suddenly past that and onto the next set of lbs I get to yoyo over.

Fast forward into the 2nd month. I find that eating much past 1200 becomes a bit of a chore.. it's hard because I'm trying to also drink a TON of water (i drink 2L and my doctors tells me drink even more) So it's frustrating because most of the day I feel like I should be floating away. However I find that eating bread, or too many carbs in a day and I feel sluggish, bloated and sick. I have cut out all pop completely. And I limit myself to how big my servings are.

I have to make the best approximation that I can on servings because I don't have a food scale. So I use measuring cups and add a few extra calories just to be on the safe side so I'm not short changing myself.

And then I plateau. I can't figure out why.. So I cut back even more on my calories (I have a gym membership, but I'm having trouble getting myself there, I suffer from agoraphobia so getting there is difficult for me. So at this time, I'm not exercising like I know I should be.) I talk to the doctor and let him know.. he tells me that even with being mostly sedentary, with 1000-1200 calories I should still be in enough of a deficit to still enable my body to loose weight.

But then he prescribes me Phentermine. Not quite sure what to make of this pill.. don't really get dry mouth, but it does like to give nausea. But then it starts messing with my BP so he prescribes me Lisinopril for BP and Topomax to go with the Phentermine, because he feels I guess that I'm still snacking absentmindedly? I'm not really sure.

Anyway.. I'm terribly, terribly sorry for this horribly long post. I guess I had a lot to say. And not having someone to talk to, who can share the same troubles I have had like people here tends to make me talk forever

I guess what I'm looking for.. is like minded people who are also into kicking fat's butt. As of now I still need to loose about 125 lbs. to even reach my own personal goal. It feels a long, long way off to me, and sometimes I find that it just seems so far away. I know I should make smaller goals and go from there, but it would be nice to have friends to talk with who are on the same journey. That could provide just someone to talk to or even encouragement. I find that I do wonderful encouraging other people... but I fail miserably trying to encourage myself LOL.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I look forward to making new friends/acquaintances.