OK. I realized I have been struggling with my extra weight for 16 years

[lavenderdiva]

What a depressing thought. 16 YEARS of not being happy with how I look. 16 years of not feeling good about myself. 16 years of having clothes in the closet, with tags still hanging, I might add, for when I lose weight, and can wear them. 16 years of not wearing pretty things, because they don't really carry pretty things in my size. At this weight, they think you lost any fashion sense.

I have now spent exactly one-third of my life hating the way I look. What a waste. How has the time flown by? It doesn't seem like 16 years. Most everyone in my life, with the exception of 2-3 people, have only known me as fat. They don't know that I ever had a great figure. Their only perception of me is as a heavy person.

My main problem is portion control, and at dinner time. I am really well-behaved all day, until dinner time. Then my portions just go berserk. I just have to get a handle on this thing. I am so sick that I have wasted one-third of my life, not enjoying the things I love and hating myself in the process.

Thank you for listening. I just had to get these thoughts out.

[Longhorn]

1. I know how you feel, lavenderdiva.

I've had very few years in my 30 years as an adult when I felt happy about how I looked -- all my issues also having to do with weight. I, too, can keep things under control during the day, only to find myself feeling "unfulfilled" in the evening.

I've decided that I need to have something filling as soon as I get home and give it time to work before I eat anything else. I don't exactly binge but I can graze all evening! My schedule doesn't allow me to eat much during the day, though I try not to go too long between snacks. I'm trying not to diet -- I wish I'd never gone on that first diet when I only had five pounds to lose. I feel like I've been on a diet my entire adult life with unsatisfactory results, in the long run. Because I was always eating something different than my family, I quit cooking and pretty much destroyed any "family dinner" tradition in our family.

I still have no interest in cooking -- I'll try now and then to get excited about a new crockpot or mixer or bread machine, but it doesn't take. My husband does what little cooking gets done in the house; we mostly live on frozen foods. I've tried stocking up on fruit and veggies, only to throw most of it away when it rots. We don't eat a lot of unhealthy foods like chips and cookies and I never eat fast food. My husband never worries about what he eats or how much and he's never had a weight problem, though his job is much more active than mine.

I keep thinking I should meet with a nutritionist who can design a healthy eating plan around the foods I like and help me ease into a better diet but I don't know where to begin. :shrug:

You're definitely not alone, Miss Diva! Thanks for sharing! :hi:

[Katherine Brengle]

2. If I may...

I completely feel your pain--especially when it comes to buying healthy food that ends up going bad in the fridge, about not knowing where to start, and about having a spouse who doesn't have to worry about what they eat!

Anyway, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I gained over 60 lbs. I wasn't really skinny before that, so I was definitely FAT. I didn't have the money for a nutritionist, or even a gym membership, so I just started buying Oxygen (the best of all women's fitness magazines, I promise) and doing a pilates video in my living room. I went on a clean diet and exercised 4-5 days a week for about 40 minutes, and I used the Oxygen forums to get advice and inspiration and stay focused, and I lost over 50 lbs (in less than a year), without stepping foot in a gym even.

Now I can afford the gym, which is nice, and I would suggest the gym for anyone who can afford it (over working out at home, which can be hard to get motivated for, even with the best intentions).

If you can afford a nutritionist, even just for a couple of visits, do it. If not, there are a lot of great resources out there.

Just please please please don't read those phony-ass "fitness" mags with movie stars on the covers for advice--Oxygen features fitness professionals as cover models, and never has crappy advice from supermodels or anything like that--none of that "use your own soup cans to tone those biceps!" articles either, ew...

(And get your husband on board--if getting fit and losing weight is really important to you, he should do his best to be supportive of that. But he can't do that if you don't ask him to :).)

[lady lib]

3. Maybe you "go berserk" at dinner time

because you're "really well-behaved all day." I'm definitely that way and I've paid the price over the past few years. I would skip meals or eat too little during the day and then have a large dinner and snacks every evening.

[Rainbowreflect]

4. I completely understand what you are saying.

I have been overweight, no, make that fat, for almost 20 years. I was actually kinda skinny in my late teens, early twenties.
I lost over 50 lbs a few years ago & have gained about half of it back. I planned on getting back on track in January, but due to a huge upheaval at work, family illness, 2 marriages of close friends ending, and a death in the family, taking care of myself is now on the back burner.
I started back to working out just this week, after hardly any exercise in months.
I know I have had the best luck in losing weight when it is less about losing weight and more about taking care of myself. When I concentrate on what I should eat, not what I shouldn't. And when I make time for me to exercise I feel so much better and I lose weight.
Maybe we can help each other. I know it's a life long struggle and I can use all the help I can get.