I feel a little better this morning; I stepped on the scale and was down 2 lbs from yesterday's weight, so apparently, I was retaining water yesterday. Still higher than I'd like and higher than my lowest weight, but just seeing that second number back as a "7" instead of an "8" made a world of difference to me!

Congratulations on the accomplishment, @RunaMarti ! You have an interesting medal there! lol The new tennis shoes are nice! Hope they break in easy and give you the support you need without pain!

thankfully, my problems at my job have not gotten me quite to that point yet. I'm not having any side effects from the Wellbutrin other than mild insomnia, but it seems that its apparently not doing anything other than helping me be more alert during the day. I do seriously wish I could quit my job, but unfortunately, I'm single and I have bills to pay, so there is no backup plan in place. I cannot afford to move again, not that I really want to, anyway as I'm finally back home where I want to stay, but this is a rural area with old fashioned folks still in charge who like it rural, which means economic development gets stifled and so there aren't a whole lot of opportunities here for other jobs. In fact, one of hte better employers in the area has recently announced its closing its facility here and relocating the jobs to other centers in a bid to centralize their operations, so 130 people are losing their jobs. The companies announced they will be hiring 90 people to fill those positions in the other facilities, so at best, even if they were willing to relocate, that means 40 folks would be out of a job anyway. Nice, huh?

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Milestone: 260 lbs
Current Weight: 277.8 lbs 11/29/18
Loss this week: -1.8 lbs
Total loss: -97.2 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: okay, this I think I might be able to count as actual loss, finally! This week, I decided to try something different to hopefully jump-start myself again. I've decided to do a version of intermittent fasting 2 days a week. On Tuesday and today, I am cutting my calories down to between 500 and 800. The rest of the week, I'm hoping to have my normal 1500. I'm rather hopeful, considering I saw what I think is a legitimate loss. I was able to hold myself to 800 calories on Tuesday, and yesterday, stayed to 1600. Today has been a little more difficult but I powered through it and am a little hungry, but not ravenous. I'm hoping this will help me get my appetite back under control, and so far, so good! The proof will be if I can register another loss next week; I think if I see my weight drop back below 275, I can say this is working for now.

Course, when I complete on the low calorie days, MFP gripes at me for eating too little lol

@cnavarro002 well, its been bumpy. Thursday ended up not being a fast day, though I did stay within my 1500 limit. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, though, were over because I was out of town. I was doing a lot of walking, but I have no idea what the net effect was. The scale read 285 this morning, but since I was doing a lot of eating out this weekend, I know that's water weight (it is impossible to gain 8 lbs in 3 days), so I'm back on track today, and we'll see if I can drop the excess water by Thursday to get a true reading. I've made today one of my fast days for this week, with breakfast being a hardboiled egg, 1/2 cup almond milk and 1/2 cup cashew milk. I'm getting ready to heat a can of soup for lunch, and I have a yogurt planned for this afternoon. I haven't decided what dinner will be yet!

@cnavarro002

cnavarro002 wrote: »

@bmeadows380 that darn water weight gets us every time! The thing is we know it is water weight, but it is still such a downer! Keeping my fingers crossed for thursday!

I know! water weight is just evil! And it takes me so long to get it back off, too - sometimes over a week! I was down a little today from yesterday, but I don't think I'm going to have it all gone by Thursday to get a true reading, so I'll just have to keep forging ahead. I ended up having pizza yesterday for dinner, but I held myself to 2 pieces and loaded up on salad, so while I didn't meet my staying under 800 calories for the day goal, I did keep it to right above 1000, so I was well under my 1500 limit (and MFP didn't gripe at me when I completed my diary, either, lol)

So far, I'm on track to be right at or slightly under 1500, and I am finding that it is a little easier to keep myself to a lower calorie level, if I fight through the day before to remain below.

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Milestone: 260 lbs
Current Weight: 289.9 lbs 1/11/19
Loss this week: -- lbs
Total loss: -85.1 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: I don't know; I just - I don't know. My greatest fear is becoming reality, and after losing 100 lbs in 2017, I've stalled and have started regaining, and nothing I do to try to halt the process is working to stop it. I regained 15 lbs in 2018, which is completely unacceptable. I just want to pull my hair out; one little voice inside is screaming at the rest of me to stop, get this under control, but I can't figure out what changed or why I suddenly cannot lose any more weight at all. I told myself it was just a plateau, but its been ongoing for a year now. I've had my hormones checked out, and the last bloodwork said my thyroid levels were back to where they should be. I sought some help with the depression, but the meds which were supposed to also help with weight loss and are in fact half of the contrave formula have done nothing for me at all - they didn't curb my appetite one whit. I cannot seem to limit myself to 1500 calories no matter how hard I try, and I am ALWAYS. HUNGRY. A true portion size does not fill me at all. I've tried focusing on increasing fiber, lowering carbs, increasing fruit and vegetable intake, trying to get more protein, trying to fast, so many sorts of things and none of it is sticking or working. If I allow myself to eat breakfast first thing, I find myself wanting to snack all day long. If I limit breakfast and make myself wait until 10 am to eat it, then the snacking urges during the daytime are better, but nothing has helped the snacking urges of an evening.

I'm always tired and I always feel foggy brained. It can't be due to not eating enough because as I stated before, I've not been able to limit myself to the 1500 calories, and routinely go above, much closer to maintenance. Its been over a year since I lost any statistically significant weight, and have actually gained, so it cant' be that my body needs to recover from the massive weight loss from 2017; it should have had ample time.

Its all I can do to get myself to go to work and do the bare basics to keep my house going; I hate regular exercise, having never found something that was enjoyable and instead, the whole process is painful, exhausting, and leaving me drained, and I can't get a routine set, especially as I'm always so tired of an evening, that I can't win the self-control battle to force myself to exercise. And forget trying to do it before work; I am NOT a morning person, so getting out of bed at 5:30 AM just to get ready for work is a huge battle with myself; there is no way on this earth I would be able to drag myself out an hour earlier just to make myself exercise - I've been there, tried that, and failed miserably.

*sigh* I don't know what the problem is, and while I'm not giving up, I can't seem to figure out how to lose my downhill slide, let alone regain the lost ground. I"m having the same problem with work - I hate my job, I go home each evening feeling depressed, unfulfilled, and like a failure, but I feel stuck in a pit with no way out. I don't know what to do about it and have no resources available to be able to figure it out. I can't afford to go back to school either traditional or online, and none of the programs I see interest me, anyway. I'm afraid I am burnt out emotionally and mentally, but have no idea what to do about it. I'm single and must have an income to meet my needs and financial obligations, and can't think of any other way to do that in the area I live in. I can't afford to move again - this last move pushed me to the line and I can't afford any more debt; furthermore, I don't WANT to move anyway. I'm happy to be home back in southern WV, in the small town I grew up in; the problem is, while the rural life is good for my soul, its lousy for my work life......

@cnavarro002 Thank you for the kind response!

On the sleep front - I average probably between 5 & 6 a night; not enough, I know, but nothing difference than I've ever really gotten. I play catch up on the weekends. I was sleeping this much back when I was losing weight, too, so nothing has changed on that front. I had a sleep study done, back before I lost the weight, and had only very mild, borderline apnea; the weight loss I have experienced should have taken care of that.

The sad part is, that my drive to eat gets very creative when it comes to snacks. It's not that I'm craving unhealthy chips, candy, etc - I just can't seem to find satiety with what I'm eating, and I'll over eat on the healthy snacks. All I can figure is that when I started losing weight, I was eating around 2200 a day because of what I weighed when I started; at that level, I could eat and feel full and feel like I had plenty of options and room in a day's time. However, as I lose weight, the number of calories I can have and still continue losing weight has to drop, which is why I'm now trying to stay around 1500 a day. However, that 1500 gets used up so very fast during the day, and leaves me still hungry.

It is amazing how creative I can be when it comes to snacks. I don't keep any chips or cookies, try not to keep bananas or higher calorie fruits, but I seem to still myself driven to find something to snack on, whether it be saltine crackers or even just a slice of bread from the freezer. I would love to snack on cheese, but again, a serving size of cheese is still around 100 calories, and one serving size doesn't even come close to satisfying me. I keep lunch meat which does help some and is at least lower calorie, but trying to stay to 1 serving size of an evening tend to end up being a futile exercise in trying to have self control.

I have no idea why I was able to lose weight in 2017; I have no idea what clicked on during that year that had me able to stick to a diet plan. Whatever it was, it has apparently clicked back off. This has happened before: in late 2011, I started calorie counting and managed to keep it up for about 10 months, losing up to 90 lbs that time. I had tried before, but that time it seemed to stick. BUT in 2012, I hit a plateau, like now, and then over the next year, slowly began gaining the weight back. For the next 5 years, I tried time and time again to calorie count or find something that would get me back to the point where I was losing weight again, but each effort was a failure, until january 2017 when I tried once again, and this time, for no reason I can tell, it stuck.

However, I seem to repeating history because whatever it is that clicks on, clicks back off, and I can't figure out what the difference is that makes that attempt succeed for a while when all the others fail, and when I'm doing the exact same thing each time!

Anyway, I do appreciate your prayers - I need all the help I can get! I'm not quitting, but its just so frustrating to not be able to get back to where I was before, and especially terrifying that I'm going to see that scale tip back over 300 lbs again, when I need to get it below 200! I still refuse to have bariatric surgery - I've watched my sister in law, brother, and cousin deal with theirs and yeah, the weight loss is amazing, but I'm not willing to do that to myself or deal with the things they dealt with to achieve that weight. I don't want to do things to my body that can't be undone.

@runamarti ah, girl, cynicism seems to be my mindset most days lol I try to tell myself I'm being a realist, but too often, I do slide over that edge into pure cynicism.

But you know, cynicism does have its place - especially today when all these scams are going on all the time. When you are cynical, you are less likely to get caught up in one, right? I try to tell myself that anyway lol

Hugs back to you! Having others who are sympathetic does go a hugely long way in making me feel better, anyway. Less isolated and helps in pushing back that nagging voice in my head once in a while!

@mellykay88 congratulations! Wonderful NSVs and weight loss this year!