Is it impossible to lead a fulfilling life when you're fat?

It depends upon your definition of "fulfilling."

For me, I'd rather have my health than food that tastes good for a few minutes and then leaves me feeling horrible emotionally and physically afterward. I've found that the best antidepressant is eating whole, healthy foods. I refuse to give my health away anymore to "foods" that aren't really nourishing me.

What stuck out most to about your post is how food seems to equal happiness. I have been there and still am to a certain extent. I still overeat, I guess the difference now is that I'm overeating on healthier food when I do. Still not good behavior but it does keep me thinner than I would be eating McDonalds.

I know ads on TV don't help. They have you believe a cheeseburger, coke, and fries will make your day, if not improve your life.

I think the only time I've really modified my diet is after reading books on the subject.

The one that woke me up is Fast Food Nation. It is very well written and goes into how food marketing is killing us, literally. I've bid farewell to liquid sugar (coca cola) and fast food and don't even miss it that much.

I agree with the previous post that the focus must be on today, pat yourself on the back each step of the way when you make your goal. You can do it!

OMG, yes "Fast Food Nation" is a real eye-opener! If you've never read any books about food, this is one you should start with. It will definitely help change your opinion of comfort foods.

I find your post interesting. I didn't read all of the replies so forgive me if I am repeating what others have said. I have lost 56 lbs to date. I plan on losing more. Last night I had a cinnamon bun for dessert. Friday night, My guy and I had pizza. During christmas I went out with friends and had wings. Last summer I had ice cream at least once a week. What you're not realizing is that you can do all of those things an not be fat.

I agree with Kerrilucko. You can eat anything you want, just in moderation. My husband and I have Friday night pizza nights - and I haven't skipped one of them while losing weight. I'm the one throwing back the Michelob Ultras at the bar. I've been given the nickname "Cookie Monster" at work b/c I eat cookies. a lot of cookies! In fact, I've already eaten 2 today, and have another 2 planned for dinner later. But I've also eaten 3 pieces of fruit, oatmeal, fiber english muffin, healthy cheese, and some vegetables. And I spent some time working my butt off on an elliptical machine.

I don't feel like a different person since I've lost 55 pounds. I'm the same ol' sarcastic, fun, intelligent, adventurous girl I've always been. But there's less of me, I do wear smaller jeans, and I feel so much better about myself. This is something I can do! I'm not perfect. I'm not a vegetarian. And I'm not a boring "grey" kind of person who eats the same thing every day. And I don't always run. Sometimes I just go for a walk, other times I use the elliptical machine, sometimes I play basketball, sometimes I go hiking, and sometimes I do workout videos or group classes. Life is full of exciting things, and I feel like I can be a part of them now. I don't feel like everyone is staring at my chub, I don't feel winded after going up one flight of stairs, I don't feel awkward at dinner with friends thinking they're all judging me for the amount of food I'm eating, I don't feel like the "fat girl" at the club that everyone's staring at, I still see lots of room for improvement in my body (losing the weight has left me with some flappy skin and I still need to shed probably about 20 pounds), but I can see all of the hard work and sweat I have put into myself. And I love it.

I don't live with those fears and self-image issues anymore. Yes, in my opinion, it's worth it.

Is is possible to lead a fulfilling life when you are fat. Absolutely, there are a lot of people who do it every day. The real question is, can you? Will you go to a resort, put on a bathing suit and boldly take to the beach callling over cabana boys and ordering drinks? Will you go to a superbowl party and gleefully dive into the all the food, enjoying every bite with gusto and no guilt while you're joking and laughing with everyone else at the party? Will you and do you do all of the things mentioned in your post and never feel guilty about your weight or self-conscious? Will you be adventurous and leap into doing new things with new people or will you hang back or stay home because you're embarrased about how you look or because you are afraid that you can not physically keep up? If you stopped dieting today would you go back to your life and really enjoy it? If you can lead a fulfilling life at your current weight, and you don't care if your life is a little shorter as long as it is filled with quality then that's what you should do.

I've been following your posts for a year now and I can tell that you have become more stressed, more unhappy, and more emotional the longer you've tried to stay on this diet' For some reason, this is not getting easier for you and you seem to struggle more and more every day. My question for you is, why are you doing this? Really. As someone else said earlier, if you don't really want to do this then now is not the time.

Perhaps you should back off on "dieting". Figure out how many calories a day you need to feel full, satisfied and to eliminate stress and then cut those calories by a really small amount, like 200 calories a day. At the same time, start walking 30 minutes a day, even if you only do 5 minutes at a time. Once that becomes easier for you and is not a source of stress then cut another 100 calories out. Just make tiny, insignificant changes that you will barely notice. Don't try to change a lot more than that. Maybe see a counselor to try to understand more of your relationship to food and to get some professional advice on some steps to take.

You might want to explore rather or not your emotional stress is tied, not to fear of failure but to fear of success. If you are successful, what does that mean to you and to your life. There are a lot of people who truely fear what will happen when they lose weight and what impact it will have on their lives.

Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best.

I heard somewhere that changing your eating habits are like changing any other habit. For some, food is an addiction. I don't smoke, but I did hear this in reference to smoking, as well.

Before you can give something up, you need to really appreciate it. Don't do it out of habit, do it out of love. If you only eat food you really love, take the time to enjoy it! enjoy every bite, every flavor, every texture. Don't just eat because it's there. If you see some doritos don't just throw a handful in your mouth. Go ahead, eat the doritos, but ENJOY THEM. you'll eat less and you'll feel more satisfied if you hit your craving. If you don't love it, don't eat it.

I really love this answer and totally second it! :flowerforyou:

You said you liked to plan for what you were going to eat before when you weren't dieting, so why not enjoy planning now? See most us gained our weight because we 'didn't' plan. I throughly enjoy looking up new recipes, watching the cooking shows on FitTV now, instead of Food Network, I plan more now than I ever did, and love experimenting ways to have those foods that I enjoy only healthy versions, now. It's okay to still have food as your best friend, as long as it isn't your worst enemy in the process.

Last night DH wanted fast food burgers and wouldn't get them if "I wasn't", so guess what I ordered a cheap cheeseburger to appease him and came home and made the chicken dish I had planned on cooking all week, I fed the burger to the dog. I was looking so forward to my healthy version of Chicken Piccata because I had planned out how to make it, and bought the ingredients, and put it on my dairy, no yucky fast food burger that I've had a million times was going to get in my way.
Food is still an obsession and passion of mine, but it doesn't have to be an unhealthy one.
Just change up how you feel, it's like you have a love/hate relationship with it. You CAN have your best friend, you always will...you need it to survive so you two need to start living in harmony or you will never be happy with the food or yourself. It's not like drugs or alcohol that you can stay away from after you beat an addiction, so some way you need to develop a healthier relationship.
You can do it! At least you are still here, if you were ready to give up, you would have given up and we'd never see you, again. So, you are still in it!
Hope tomorrow is better, it's a new day!

Your success is highly related to how much you want it. If you feel like dieting is a punishment, you will fight yourself into overeating - the thing that makes you feel fulfilled. If you feel like working hard for a healthy lifestyle is actually a gift to yourself, then you will fight to make it work.

I know it sounds simplistic, but I believe if you write a pro/con list to losing weight, you will find out whether you're ready. I've spent so many nights asking my husband if I look fat, so much time feeling fat and guilty for what I ate - telling myself that tomorrow would be different, just to eat the same old crap again... However, I wasn't ready to lose weight until I made that pro/con list and realized that I was more unhappy with my body and lack of willpower than I was with making portion changes and different food/exercise selections.

I tried to quit smoking multiple times, but it wasn't until I was so disgusted with myself, my habit, the way I smelled, the deterioration of my health, the guilt, the hiding, the obsessing, etc., that I could finally quit. Fighting yourself is no way to spend your life. It's okay if you're not ready to lose weight now, but only if you are really okay with yourself as is - I hope you don't quit losing weight because it's hard - if you stop, you truly should be happy with yourself as is. It sounded like your post was rationalizing and trying to convince yourself otherwise.

Best,
Wendy

Lindsay ...here's my thoughts on the matter

I find if I am putting my food before my friends, etc. it is now because of pre-planning of it for an activity or event. If I plan my life around food and then toss in a couple friends then I know for me that's not the life I want to live.:noway:

Food will never be my best friend again, a best friend is there for you in ALL times, the happy, the sad, proud moments, achievements etc.

Food has never made me happy, quite the opposite in fact, it's made me feel guilty, alone, sad, angry, afraid, (insert hundreds of more negatives here) ....I wouldn't want to spend time with a friend if that's what I got from being around them:noway: . Sure we have friends and get angry at them, sad with them, laugh with them but it's something I do WITH THEM (at them) not BECAUSE of them! Not sure if that is making sense to others, but it does in my head for myself.

For ME? Food is not worth dying young (and YES 48 is young:flowerforyou: ), being sick, being on meds, never being content with what's in the mirror or never even wanting to look in the mirror....it's not worth losing years of good things that life can offer us (so much in the future we have that we don't even know how great it will be, each year keeps getting better than the next for me:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou: TRULY!!), we are not only here for only ourselves but for others.:flowerforyou: :bigsmile:

I don't want to cheat anyone out of me:flowerforyou: (all the good things that I'm finally allowing to surface) and what joy I gather from others in this world and what I can share with them!! With food as my friend in the past, I NEVER would have been able to say this.....I didn't know I had anything to offer others... :flowerforyou: (Hey folks time to tell Mike we need an online MFP therapist...LOL, oh wait we have one another to boost us up and give us virtual hugs and encouragement along our journeys, never mind:blushing: :laugh: :flowerforyou: )

Lindsay...you have SO MUCH TO GIVE THE WORLD!!! :flowerforyou::flowerforyou: something you probably don't realize right now... it comes in time as we give up things in life that have gotten in the way of who we really are:flowerforyou:

PLEASE PLEASE Don't give up on YOU!! We simply cannot afford to lose people like you in this world!, you're a treasure, I've seen you write, you have SO MUCH to offer each of us!!! :flowerforyou:

You are so young, you have ALOT of years ahead of you to share your heart, your beautiful writings, your joy and so much you offer each of us.... don't cheat yourself or US:grumble: :noway: or any of your family and friends off the net!! Food IS NOT anything more than a fix, like a drug for covering feelings that overwhelm us... if we learn to see our bodies as moving vehicles, a car that needs to have everything running smoothly, pumping good fuel into it, not things that might destroy our vehicles and make them run sluggishly.

I recall years ago feeling that way, thinking OMG I'll have to give up EVERYTHING:sad: because what can you really do without food (that was WAY WAY before I felt the 'click' go off..ah it's quite embarrassing:blushing: to realize I felt that way back then and to admit it now, but it shows me how far I've come!!:drinker: :bigsmile: )... it's true it's sometimes a center of a gathering if we allow it to be. But healthy ppl don't make food their god, as many others have shared if one is not ready for the flight/fight (not meant in a bad sense, but of conquering & flying freely) of becoming healthy there is not a thing any of our family or friends can do or give us to make it work. It sucks but it's true! IT HAS TO BE US that comes to the place that food is no longer more important than our own happiness, friends, family...FREEDOM!:drinker:

It's something we have to draw from deep within, then we can move forward realizing the importance of food is simply for energy to run the bodies God gave us to nurture. Food has never nurtured me, I could pretend in my mind that it would but I never felt it after the binge was over.

Food is not the comfort it tells us it is, it's a lie, food can tell us so many lies, it is no different than someone on drugs, alcohol, smoking etc... we bargain with it, we make promises we know we won't keep...yet we go back to it...our addiction, it try's to lure us back but the longer we stay away the more powerful we become:drinker: ...for then we can believe in ourselves and the longer we do that...the stronger we become.:drinker:

When we are truly truly ready for a change in our lives, & we are so fed up with the way we've been living, only then can we move ahead and begin to feel the freedom!

I've gotten zillions of wonderful PM's on here sharing how they too heard the click (my profile speaks of my turning point in life) and they knew.....they KNEW they were then ready for the challenge of taking back their life!:drinker: :drinker: :drinker: :glasses:

I don't think until a person hears that in whatever form will be successful.... oh heck I've had many false starts over the years got where I wanted to be, kept it off, gained it back, gained some more, lost some more. Until I came here and found all this support from all of you on MFP!:flowerforyou: :smooched:

It's different this time, a feeling inside me keeps me going....seeing how life was in the past with all that extra burden (self hate, sadness, feeling alone even among friends etc., less mobility, isolation, depression, anxiety) is simply not worth it to me anymore.

I would gladly give up the garbage foods I was eating for the contentment I now feel inside, the feeling of success & self love I will never get eating junk ....only by making healthy choices for myself have I been able to move forward in so many other aspects of my life. :drinker:

This isn't simply about food, I think many of us know that or are now in the process of learning...it's about quality of LIFE, living one of fulfillment, one where we know we no longer have to worry if we look fat when we go out, we get to go out and have fun, not worry so much about those voices inside our head telling us we aren't good enough, we shouldn't be having fun, we're losers etc., we all have our own versions.

Lindsay.......some have brought up that it's possible you're not ready, some call it hitting 'rock bottom' when a person is ready for change, they have nowhere left to go but up... even if you might not be, there are many small changes (actually they're huge!) you can incorporate into your life that will bring you joy and help you realize you CAN be successful at creating new habits.

OK so everyone on the sight by now knows the first thing out of my mouth will be increase your water:drinker: :drinker: :laugh:

Drinking none now? Try drinking a glass first thing tomorrow morning, perhaps you drink some but perhaps not as much as you wish you did?. Increase it by one glass...you'll see the results by sticking to ONE SMALL CHANGE that you feel better about yourself.:flowerforyou:

Eat fast food 5 times a week ( delivery counts) try eating one less fast food meal per week. No veggies? Try adding one in to a meal each day, no fruit? Perhaps begin with one piece.

See what I mean, you don't have to literally throw yourself into a complete life change if you are not completely ready to do so (no wonder you're overwhelmed!... but making small changes I think will make you feel you are on your way. Progression NOT perfection... perfection will only make one fail and then what happens? We beat ourselves up over it.:noway:

Keep your chin up girl, if you don't chart anything else on your food diary tomorrow, think on the water, the fruit, the veggies, take a walk. Don't try and do it all in one day, making a complete turn around, it's tough to do that and sometimes we fail, but the difference is we get back up, and start at that point & don't look back, baby steps to the water glass(:laugh: ), baby steps to the apple, baby steps to stepping outside into fresh air for your Vitamin D (yes I know it's COLD..brr..but fresh sunshine is healthy for our minds so we can make good decisions)

Ok, so those are my thoughts........ ah one more...

Lindsay I want to say THANK YOU:flowerforyou: .... you have given me much to think about reading your post here ...many tears fell (used all my tissues even:laugh: ), of sadness & joy and HOPE for a better future for us both... you have no idea how much more committed to the process you have gotten me!! I thank you for that...and for taking time to read this post:blushing: ....I haven't seen it yet on the thread but am quite sure it's probably my longest one yet:blushing: :drinker: :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

But that's OK, I got so much out of it, you really got me thinking about my own journey and how far I've come, sometimes it's easy to forget, and I am sure there is something here for you to grab hold of, I hope that others realize all the healthy things we each do for ourselves is not just for ourselves only but our families, our future!!

Cheers:drinker: :flowerforyou:
FC

Fitness Chick, I love you!

And one thing I've realized--once I cleared away all the gunk and junk...I realized that real food is AWESOME. I almost never ate veggies...like, I'd flip over the idea of a SALAD for lunch. Then I realized that a vegetable tastes even better without butter, and that a salad can be a cornucopia of flavors and textures--and it's waaaay better without a big swath of creamy dressing.

If you love Halloween and move to Germany, you might find you also love Oktoberfest. Change does not equal a wrong turn.

I enjoy food so much more now. Yeah, I probably get a little hung up over food, but I LOVE to try new things and combinations.

There are times when I DO miss a bigass bowl of cookie dough ice cream. But usually I'm missing what I associate a big bowl of ice cream with--a bunch of friends hanging out at the ice cream parlor, or my family and I just chilling with ice cream and the boob tube. Translation? I'm lonely and bored. Now, I go bang on my dormmate's doors and chill. I might have a bit of FroYo, but I don't need a big gloppy bowl of ice cream.

This post is awesome. I absolutely needed all of the responses in this post. I had not been eating so healthy over the last week and this is exactly what I needed to remember my goals and reasons for wanting to be healthy. Thanks to everyone who responded!!!