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!

@MamaMaryPants Yup, I definitely get enough water in a day. I usually easily breeze by the 100 oz mark by the end of the day, especially in winter.

And in winter, I eat a lot of soups, too! Progresso makes these light soups that I take to work with me - usually between 80 and 120 calories per serving! And Bear Creek dried soups are really good, too. I weighed a whole bag and then took out enough for 1 or 2 servings, then put the rest in a zip lock bag for next time, since a bag makes 8 servings. That's the bad thing about being single - figuring out how to adapt recipes to a one or two person serving to keep from having a ton of left overs!

RunaMarti wrote: »

@bmeadows380 What’s the sodium percentage in those soups. My body bloats forever with higher levels of sodium. Been noticing that. I ate only from home for a week... and dropped almost 10 pounds. But I get lonely... there’s a place I go to where I get a tons of free meals because of their loyalty plan... before I get to my table, they have my special order in the oven... lots of the staff come by my table to ask about the latest book I am reading... it feels “homey” so I go... I have no relationships with friends and family... so I get desperate sometimes... 😥 Kind of pathetic, but it is what it is. I love soups, but the sodium level I usually see on the labels in so high!

@RunaMarti

As @MamaMaryPants said, some are better than others. I went to Progresso's website and did a quick review, and most of them are running between the mid 400's to the mid 600's per serving on sodium, which makes an entire can (2 servings per can) in the ballpark of the 900's to the 1300's total sodium. A few are little higher.

https://www.progresso.com/products/#4

So yeah, better than a regular can of cambel's, which usually run 900 for 1 serving or over 1800 for a can, but still not as good as you can get homemade soup down to. But for convenience food, the calories and sodium of the progresso's are better than others I've tried!

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: 291.1 lbs 2/6/19
Total loss: -83.9 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: *sigh* and the downward slide continues.....a gain of 2 pounds in 2 weeks, but I'm not surprised by this - I actually expected worse. Last week, I was out of town for work, which included a lot of sitting while traveling and at meetings, and eating out for all three meals. And while I tried to behave, its more of trying to contain the damage with little chance of actually remaining within limits. Then last weekend was my sister's birthday, and she wanted lasagna. My mom makes wonderful lasagna, but its EXTREMELY calorie dense as she piles on the meat and cheese, so this weekend was a blowout completely

On a positive note, I've managed to stop my daily stop at Arby's for a turkey slide with no cheese that I had been finding myself doing a lot of, and I've been much more successful in making myself stick to unsweet tea instead of half cut like I had slipped back into doing. That turkey slider was only 160 calories, but I need to make myself hold those calories for something better for me.

I haven't completely given up, but I'm still greatly discouraged and disheartened. The drive to snack is horrible, and my ability to remain to a single portion is pretty non-existent. I can't have any kind of snack food or even something that can be used as a snack food, because I can't get myself to stay to a single portion. I don't care if its dried fruit, canned fruit, croutons, chocolate chips, rice cakes, lunch meat - I can be very creative when my mind has that desire to eat! And it's in my mind, I know it is. I'm also fighting a mental battle with myself when it comes to eating period - I eat a serving, and even when I'm full, I have a compelling drive to continue eating, even though I know I'm not really hungry.

I hope to talk to my doctor about this when I see her in 3 weeks. She has me on Welbutrin that is supposed to actually decrease appetite, but it's not working at all - for appetite or depression either one. I had agreed to try it when I was discussing with her the possibility of trying out contrave. I'll have to see if she has any ideas on curbing that mental drive because I don't have much willpower to defend against it, and its undercutting all my efforts and just feeding into my depression. Guilt is consuming me from many fronts, but especially because I'm regaining and even though one part of my mind is screaming at me to get it under control, I can't figure out how to actually do that. I'm apparently very weak-willed, which is no excuse, I know.

Meanwhile, I'm gearing up to try yet another idea next week to see if I can get myself back under control. I know the Daniel Fast, which is set up for 3 weeks without meat, caffeine, processed foods, animal products, or dairy, is really supposed to be a religious method of drawing closer to God, and while I certainly need that as well, I'm hoping that perhaps it can help me primarily with the diet. since its' only 3 weeks, I think I'll have an easier time keeping to it. We'll see, anyway!