Need to Lose 100 LBS -Robins Thread !

Thursday Truth ... I reset the My Progress ticker tracker today because I realized that I am so close to making my 2nd 10% weight loss goal and I want to see what happens when I finally reach a goal I put on that Ticker! ....

When I started the ticker I put in the whole shebang ... 114.4 pounds to lose, and it was very discouraging to see just how much I actually had to lose, so I kind of stopped looking at it. Then I joined a year long calorie weight loss challenge calling to lose 1 lb a week and set my ticker for that lofty goal ... And there it sat. Again, it became discouraging to see how far I still had to go. This morning I remembered that my goal had been, at the start, to just lose 5% of my weight. But I prefer 10% and that's how I set my mind once I really got serious about doing 'something' about my overweight and awful health profile. I was taking 10 different medications a day when I 'found' MFP. Today, I take just 3. And, in another 3 pounds I will have met my second 10% goal.

My weight loss journey reads like a soap opera ... up and down, crisis after crisis; nothing stable, nothing permanent ... That first 5% goal? it became 10% at a WW group at work in 2008. That was the year I reached 278 pounds in a steady incline during the previous 26 years. However I wasn't able to maintain that 10% loss, and regained almost all of it by the time 2 years had passed. And there I 'sat' for the next 4 years ... up and down in that narrow 10% range. Coming close to reaching it then going back up. A lot of was due to my eating habits.

Breakfast and lunch were always on target ... bought from the cafeteria at work. But about 3:30 PM each day it would start to do downhill very rapidly. I'd have a vending machine snack to 'tide' me over until I met my boyfriend for dinner at about 6:30 PM. Of course, being from a vending machine it was either salty or sweet and full of fat. Plus, I'd combine that with a vending machine cappuccino. Supper was either a restaurant meal or one of us would cook at our homes ... we took turns. When we weren't having dinner together I frequently visited a fast food joint on my way home to bring dinner. The only time my kitchen saw any action was on the days I cooked for company. Also, we had gotten into the habit of a snack while watching TV or playing games ... cheese and crackers and fruit, ice cream and toppings, fruit and nuts. ... My food budget was out-of-site expensive and gourmet! ... So ... eating the way I did, how could I expect my weight to go down and stay down? How could I expect to get off the 10 different medications I was now taking?

In 2012, I had a physical at my doctor's office and his nurse practitioner called me up on the phone to give me a good dressing down. I had come into the doctors office gasping for air, unable to breath while walking. My feet and legs were so swollen I had to wear flip flops in January because my shoes wouldn't fit. My blood glucose was sky-high, as was my blood pressure. I had developed sleep apnea. My liver was so fatty and enlarged that it pressed my diaphragm up into my lungs and heart, and I looked like I was wearing a swimming inner tube around my middle.

That year I started logging my food after I found a calorie counter program online. I didn't lose any weight that year, but I did start making better choices ... and then I found MFP and decided to try it to see how it compared. That was in 2013, and over the course of that year I once again got close to my first 10% loss mark. However, in all this time since then, I have not been this close to making my second 10% goal ... and now I am so close I can almost see the number on the scale.

What has changed in the past 5 years? Well, one that hasn't changed is that my weight still goes up and down and up again. However each time it goes up the gain is smaller and each time it goes down I reach I new low weight. This tells me that I am improving on how I manage my food. Something that has changed is that I am not ashamed to talk about my weight, and I am not afraid to take a good long look at my body in a full length mirror. Lately I've noticed that when I am laying in bed I find my hands tracing the curves of my body because now I can feel curves instead of bulges. Am I still fat? Yes ... my weight is till in the obese range. However now I can see a better future because I am better able to stay on track. And, I really believe this would not have happened had I not found MFP and the community pages it offers. Reading about other people who have struggled, are still struggling, and who have succeeded has helped me so much to come to terms with my own food demons, to accept and love myself as I am instead of withholding that until some future when I will be slimmer than now ... because to hate myself fat is a self-defeating emotion. To love myself as I am allows me to help myself do better because I am worthy.