Follow the yellow brick road... to a skinnier me!

aklannan
aklannan Posts: 4
edited October 2024 in Introduce Yourself
Hello! My name is Angela. I am a 26-year-old new mommy. I have a 3 month old little boy. My pregnancy with my son really opened my eyes to my need to loose weight. I was considered gestationally diabetic months prior to when it is generally identified due to my poor health and eating habits. I officially hit my highest weight point during my pregnancy... 336 lbs. I am of average height, so this is considered significantly overweight for me. I have lost some weight (301.4) since my pregnancy. This weight loss is due less to diet/exercise and more to the re-balancing of my hormones. Now I am getting to the hard part. I want to loose the weight. I am willing to diet, it is just so hard. Everyday I try my best. Some days go better than others. Everyday I seem to crash around 7-8PM. My house is winding down from its busy day, and if it is a good night the baby is in bed. It is around this time every night that my eating goes out of control. I am like a starving vacuum... eating everything in sight! I struggle so hard to control myself at this time.

I am considering gastric bypass as an option. Any realistic and helpful thoughts/suggestions?

My goals:
1. I have been overweight my entire life... I think the last time my weight began with a 1 was in elementary school. I would like my weight to consistently start with a 1, even if it is 199 I would be happy.

2. I would like to be able to go to any store in the mall and by something, so I would like to wear a size L/XL rather than a 2-3X.

3. I would like to be able to chase/play with my son. I want to have the energy and stamina to teach him to love sports and to help him learn healthy physical habits.

4. I want to beat my 7PM demon and show myself that I am as strong as I think i am!

Thank you for the support... I know I need it.

Replies

  • feel_the_love
    feel_the_love Posts: 56
    Congratulations on the new baby! :smile: I wish you luck on your weight loss journey :flowerforyou:
  • onurd
    onurd Posts: 18 Member
    Hello
    I can relate to your 7pm demon or I should say it used to be me. I don’t know about you but I was very ignorant when it came to calories and healthy eating. This site was an eye opener for me. People are very supportive. I see there are people out there just like me forcing them self to get off the couch and move. It really motivates me. I think you are going to have to make up your mind up change your habits to healthier ones. No more dieting. Read the success stories. You can do this. Wishing you the best of luck
  • fastbelly
    fastbelly Posts: 727 Member
    Hi Angela,

    Welcome to MFP!
    I've read your post and I too thought dieting was hard, I had tried it before and never managed to stick to it... somehow it always felt like deprivation. I was depriving myself of my lovely food, my comfort, my friend, my companion...

    My father died of lung cancer in 2007, I was a smoker back then and kept smoking until earlier this year despite this.

    Earlier this year though, I had a "vision" I looked inside my mind and said to myself... are you that weak that you can't control your life? You can't control your habits?
    I've always prided myself of always being in control about everything, everywhere, but I couldn't control my own self destruction?

    That day back in late February I've made a decision to change my life 180 degrees. I decided that I deserved better, and I deserved to live a healthy and fulfilling life in all areas, and this time I wasn't giving up no matter what was thrown at me. I set the 1st of March as the last day I'd ever smoke and exactly at midnight on the 1st of March I lit up my last cigarette. I haven't smoked since. Yes the first times were hard, yes there were temptations thrown at me constantly, at work, the coffee breaks between meetings, my mother's partner, etc, etc, but I've cleared each hurdle and I'm happy to report that I no longer feel the need for a cigarette.

    After quitting I've given myself about a month to deal with the withdrawal but then I knew I'd need to do something about the eating and diet part of my life to get things rolling for a steady weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. In May I started logging daily to MFP and logging all my calories religiously every day. I've added exercise slowly to my life, first slow walks, steadily increasing the distance and pace to the point where I've ran for 20 minutes non stop last week for the first time since probably high school's PE classes.

    I was over 300lbs, I had high blood pressure (I haven't taken a pill for this in over a month), I was constantly tired, I had no energy, I had no stamina, I had no endurance...

    But that day back in late February I had made the decision to change my life, and I've made the commitment to stick with it no matter what, so no matter how much my muscles hurt, I'm out there, no matter how hard I push, I'm out there, no matter how much it rains, I'm out there.

    In regards to food, for me diets always meant starving. I'd go for the you can eat everything type of diets because I didn't want to give up certain foods and would end up starving. This time I've made the commitment to change my diet, I'm not dieting, I'll eat anything and everything providing I have enough calories. In fact I just had a small chocolate chip muffin. But the bulk of my nutrition at the moment has changed dramatically. My food intake consists probably of about 70% vegetables, 10% fruit, 10% whole grains & 10% animal products... and you know what?
    I've never felt better in my life! I have more energy then ever, I exercise almost daily, I'm constantly increasing my exercise, I'm never hungry, my skin looks and feels better and to top it all off I've lost over 65lbs.

    The first question on most people's mouths when they see my weight loss is what diet are you on?!
    My reply is always, I'm not on a diet, I've changed my eating habits and incorporated healthy eating and regular exercise on my daily routine, this is not a diet that I will stop when I get to my desired weight or something like that, this is something that will remain with me forever! It's not a diet, its a lifestyle!
    Back to the start of the post and the deprivation feeling that has lead me to failure so many times before, by making this a life choice, you no longer feel deprived, by the contrary, you feel empowered and happy for living your new life from day 1.

    So no matter what you do and what approach you take, make sure you're smiling through it, make sure you're happy and not feeling deprived of anything. Make the choices you want and live what is best for you and those who love and depend on you from day 1.

    Is it easy? Well, that depends from person to person, but I can guarantee you something, there's a lot of harder things in life. If only you focus the power of your mind on your goals, you'll see the hurdles start to fall really fast.

    So, get out from the computer and start walking, do what you can, if its only 5 minutes, that will be 5 minutes more then if you stay on the sofa... do 5 today and 6 tomorrow, set a goal to do 10 by the end of the week... and keep going.

    Good Luck and sorry for the very long post but I wanted to show you from my experience that if I can do it, so can you!!!
This discussion has been closed.

Categories