Serial Starters

Hi everyone. I too am a serial starter. Sometimes I wish I would never have lost any weight in the first place because now people just expect me to do it again like it's easy. A couple of years ago I went from 237 to 189 pounds. Right after that, I moved away and stopped exercising and eating healthy. I've gone up and down since then. Topping out at 257. I'm 253 as of today. Every time I talk about how unhappy I am with my weight everyone just kind of bothers me by saying "well I know you can do it. You've done it before." Obviously if I could just do it I would. Now my older sister is about to get gastric bypass and I'm terrified of being the only one of my sisters that's still fat. My little sister already lost her weight. I just don't want to be that one who couldn't do it. And the more frustrated I get, the more I eat and drink. (It feels good to get this off of my chest)

mitzi2013 wrote: »

Hi everyone. I too am a serial starter. Sometimes I wish I would never have lost any weight in the first place because now people just expect me to do it again like it's easy. A couple of years ago I went from 237 to 189 pounds. Right after that, I moved away and stopped exercising and eating healthy. I've gone up and down since then. Topping out at 257. I'm 253 as of today. Every time I talk about how unhappy I am with my weight everyone just kind of bothers me by saying "well I know you can do it. You've done it before." Obviously if I could just do it I would. Now my older sister is about to get gastric bypass and I'm terrified of being the only one of my sisters that's still fat. My little sister already lost her weight. I just don't want to be that one who couldn't do it. And the more frustrated I get, the more I eat and drink. (It feels good to get this off of my chest)

Welcome Mitzi!

You are now in the safe space for people who have tried, succeeded, regained weight and started again. Thanks for sharing your story. I've been on this current journey since January 1 of this year. I don't know what turned on that switch in my head that said "now is the time" but I do know that tracking calories and exercise with MFP has helped tremendously. I didn't start following the community boards (including this one) until about July and have found this group to be enormously supportive and helpful. No judgment, just help.

My unsolicited advice is to take it one day at a time and try not to pay any attention to what others say or do. Figure out what works and doesn't work for you. Spend the next week or two tracking on MFP without trying to restrict anything just to get a feel for how it works and how much you are/aren't eating and exercising (I linked the step tracker on my phone to MFP and it was very enlightening especially in the beginning. For example, it helped to know how much I needed to walk in order to eat that piece of cake and stay within my calorie limit).

Breathe. Set a reasonable intermediate goal so the amount you want to lose doesn't seem so overwhelming. Take it one day at a time. Celebrate the little victories ("yay! I drank 80 oz of water today!" "Yay, I stayed within my calorie goal today!") ESPECIALLY the NSVs (non scale victories). Surround yourself with positive images of large people living life to help you realize that you don't have to wait for your life to begin until you've lost weight (are you on Instagram? Follow Unlikely Hikers, Fat Girls Hiking and Fat Girls Traveling). Use this community to share your victories, frustrations, questions, advice - and to help you not compare yourself to your sisters. We all progress at different rates.

And forgive me if you know all this already and I'm being annoying!

Best,

Tess

Thank you both so much for the support. It means a lot. Update on that situation: I went back to the gym and officially started training for my events. At the end of everything, I got on the treadmill and decided to go the full 5K distance and just see how well I could do without really pushing myself, just going the best I could without feeling too overwhelmed. It was my first attempt at going this far running and I did it in 37:03 - way better than I expected from not pushing myself, at the end of my workout, on poor sleep, while only about 90% recovered from being sick. So, the jerk ghost can go fall in a ditch. She was wrong and now I have the numbers to prove it - and within a month I'll have even more than that.

I don't know how I've managed to keep my strength up so well between all the various times I've given up, let alone all the times I've fallen back into disordered eating habits, but I am not complaining.

Good morning all!

Exploding -- YAY YOU! Oftentimes, the biggest obstacles in our path are the ones in our heads. Just because they are ghosts doesn't make them any less real. I'm so impressed that you recognized what was going on and tackled it in a healthy way. And you've inspired me with how you pushed yourself (especially with coming off a bad virus). I've just started running on a treadmill at the gym and have been sitting at 1.5 miles for a couple of weeks. Maybe it's time to see if I can go farther.....

Waves to all. Sara, good luck with shopping. I need to do that later but first I need to come ion with lunch ideas for the week.....

BBL

Tess

Love the name of this group - I had to join. Thankfully MFP is so forgiving - I'm back again..

Sunday night update: thanks again to everyone for the support. Went back to the gym tonight for more training. Feeling better, so I did a bigger workout. As for running practice, I'm doing 45 minutes on the treadmill, however far that takes me; will probably bump it up to an hour as it gets closer to event time.

Tried playing Zombies, Run! - discovered the hard way that it doesn't work too well on a treadmill, despite having a setting for it. Got chased by zombies. App didn't register that I was picking up speed - not even when I was sprinting at 12 miles per hour. Ended up throwing my headphones off while struggling not to scream and almost went flying off the treadmill because of the interruption. From now on I'm only using that app outdoors!

I also need a new pair of wireless earbuds - no, not for the reason you're probably thinking. The charging port broke on the ones I currently have, as I discovered shortly before I went to the gym - ended up using an old wired set today; they almost wrapped up my ankles and made the zombie chase incident way worse.

And, I left my phone at the grocery store because I was too exhausted to think after my workout. Whoops. Have to go in first thing tomorrow morning to retrieve it. I couldn't go back tonight because parking is way too much of a pain, but I called and at least I know it's there.

All that said, other than that it's been a pretty boring kind of day. Tomorrow, it's back to school. Forgot to make lunch tonight and I'm too tired to do it now, so it'll have to be something pretty quick I can make in the morning - I'm thinking one of my "Aggressively Californian" sandwiches.

Answer to QOTD: This week I'll focus on Pilates and sticking to my meal plan, once I plan it.

*waves to all who drop in*

Sara - CONGRATS!!! So glad you are being recognized for your efforts!
Sometimes I think my smoke detector is more of a "timer" for cooking than an emergency device! LOL
QOTD: My son gets married Saturday so all focus is on that!!

Exp - Good that you dealing with those ghosts from your past! Be careful of those treadmills, they can be tricky if you arent paying attention. (not that I would know that from experience or anything <sheepish grin>)
You have piqued my curiosity - what the heck is an Aggressively Californian sandwich??

Lana - good luck with the paperwork and your claim! am dealing with similar issues with DH and the VA.

Mitzi - have the same voices in my head and hear same thing from friends and family. its never easy. just keep at it, one day at a time.

Have been trying to clean house and get everything ready for influx of family this weekend. Was hit with a migraine so lost precious time this weekend. Am trying not to get stressed about it but DH uses the dining room table as his business "filing system" and I have not seen the table top in months. He promised to have it sorted, filed, and table cleaned by the 20th. He has yet to even touch it.

Had great niece's 3rd birthday on Saturday so meal plan was out the window. I did log everything, however. Was wishing I skipped the appetizers and had another cupcake considering the cupcakes had many fewer calories than the beer cheese dip and buffalo chicken dip! LOL Did get a lot more steps in by chasing toddlers around though!

Not much sleep last night as DH seemed to have been kung fu fighting in his dreams! Now I hope I dont fall asleep in any meetings today.

*waving Cboy over to take drink order & schedule a massage*

Hi Kathryn - good to see you~ I hope that all goes swimmingly with the upcoming wedding!
Give DH a deadline day and put a cardboard box there, so either he can use it, or YOU will use it, if the filing system isn't gone on time! LOL!

Welcome to Jane
Waves to Sara and Dawn and Samuels and Mango~~

Off to yet another physical therapy appointment......

Lana

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