"Conscious Calorie Counting" ----- THAT is the number one thing that has helped lose weight. I do want to have a place where I can work out my thoughts and feelings and worries about grief, losing people, living life, how early childhood and family have shaped the way we think and feel about food and ourselves etc

In the year I have been a member of cc, so many things, good and bad, have happened. I have lost 3 people to death. I've been profoundly depressed and managed to find my way back from that. My mom thinks she may not be able to stay married to my (awesome) stepdad because in his grief over losing his daughter, he has pulled far away and pushed hard. We bought our first house. I had an incredibly rewarding 5 weeks of teaching middle school summer academy which reminded why I became a teacher in the first place and why I should appreciate my high schoolers. In short, cc along with life has made me feel introspective.

I was always a fat kid who loathed exercise even in the form of fun and who loved food like it was a person. Maybe even like a best friend or lover type person as food is always there to comfort you, never judges, and never says no. Food was a reward.

All that has changed. I jog almost every day. I eat right and drink water. I care how I look, how I feel, and how healthy I will be in the years to come. I stopped smoking. I try to help other people get fit and teach others about easy nutrition. For me, it was a total eye opener to consciously calculate the actual MATH of food and intake and exercise output, how the science of losing weight did not click for me until I found cc. NOW I GET IT.

I'd like this post to be a supportive group of ladies talking about how calorie counting and our lives, past, present, and future, has affected and is affecting how we make our journeys happen.

Join Me?

Yes. Great post.

I was reading recently about how we don't have to try and find the one and only perfect job, but we can make our decent job worth doing. And I've found it to be the same with CalorieCount. I joined because I felt I had to get healthier and lose the 12lbs that I'd put on in the first 6 months of grad school. That was all. But in the process, I've found opportunity to have meaningful discussions with strangers, learn more about myself (including how to exercise more effectively) and more about others. I've traded recipes, wedding dress ideas and complaints about supervisors and family. I even once posted in the middle of a horrible depression, and found support, comforters and a place to let it all out.

Basically, I think what we have here is a community. The discipline of having to log every day forces us to keep coming back, and in the process we interact, something we sometimes forget to do in day-to-day life. Community is a very relative term these days - we can walk past the same person every day without considering them part of our community, and we can live in different countries and find more commonalities than differences. I think to an extent calorie counters are people who want to have control over all aspects of their lives - for better, and also for worse. And one of the upsides of a site like this is that it lets us share our failures without having to give the impression to those who are physically around us that we might not have everything under control. It's amazing how inventive we humans are: as one form of community fragments, we construct another without even realising it, just because we need it.

So ladies (and men, although on the whole they tend to go about their weight loss more quietly), thank you for your support, sharing and even, dare I say it without looking soppy, love. As they say in my country, "Sharp!" (thank you/cool/good/nice/pointy object)

AMEN, sister! 

You said that beautifully.   I agree conpletely.   I have lost and gained hundreds of pounds in my lifetime, starting at like age 9 when I had a skinny girl at day care tell me I had a buffalo butt. 

Food and love were synonymous to me for a long time.  I attempted to use food to fill a hole inside myself ---   a hole of regret, of self loathing, of uncertainty.   It was one thing I could control ---  until it got control of me. 

I truly feel like the support, camraderie and LOVE I have gotten from my cc girls will allow this to be the final time I have to lose weight.   I will continue to use cc even when I am done because I NEED it.   I need to have a place of community, malaika!!! thank you for sharing and showing me I am not the only one.....    thanks for that.    come back and keep sharing, eh?   ( :

Hello pretty Oli! Just poking my head in here =) (I really do need to go back and read your journal entries).

I just wanted to say that I think this topic is fantastic and that I hope it will be a successful thread. You can count me in. This will be a short post because I need to get off the pc and go get ready.

Happy 4th

I don't know how much deep, thought provoking mind set I can put in here. I mean.... I know CC has done great things for me. The people and the system were my solution. I mean...I'm 18 years old. Of course I'm going to be on a computer every day! Logging calories? Blogs? Sure thing!

I remember thinking, "this is great...now if only it works..." And surprise of all surprises...it does. :) And it is still working.

I mean, I knew the mechanics of weight loss. Eat less, eat well, exercise more. But what the people on CC have taught me has coloured in (and somewhat outside!) the lines. If I hadn't heard some of my CC pals talking about running, I never would have stepped onto the treadmill. I'd still be glued to the elliptical. That change was the difference for me between a work out and a satisfying work out.

And that kind of accomplishment is the kind of thing people here get to share in:)

Uhm. Wow that was kinda weak.xD I'm sticking around to read more!

thanks to my cool friends, luna and ribear!   ( :    I look forward to hearing from the always insightful luna, and I thought you did a great job expressing something I hadn;t thought of, riley.  

I had the same thought, "yeah, this is nice, but it will never work...."  (like all the o0ther times I lost weight, I fiugred I would get bored and fed up with counting cals and go back to my old ways, but not this time.  it truly is the friends and the self reflection (and feedback to such) that has helped me break through some tough walls, both physical and mental. 

thanks for sharing, girls.  I think we all have a different but similar point of view and reading other peoples stories encourages me to keep writing mine!!!!!   xoxoxoxox

I just thought about it. I remember a time when veggies used to be public enemy number one. Especiallt tomatoes.

Times have changed. I am not the same fat girl I was. However I too often act like it. I think sometimes it takes too much energy to do the thing that will make you feel better longer. It is so much easier to buy a bag of chips.

Anyway on a lighter note. Got a manicure yesterday bright purple. Better than eating away at my anxiety (my brother is here for the week, my grandmother is a handfull...yada yada).

Thanks to Ollie tomorrow I will get back to running. I was a slacker but I have seen the light.

never mean to make anyone, esp you, feel bad, tamar ---   just love ya!  ( :    I love running so much and want to share with you.  you kept me going a million times, t ---- xoxoxoxox

I was luckily a kid who liked almost everything except the holy trinity of grossness --  green peppers (still hate em except on pizza), onions and tomatoes  (love those last 2 now).   

It is easier to buy $1 burritoes, hotdogs, chips, Little Debbies, fast food, the list goes on.....    I think one of my points of pride is that as an adult, I want to be better, healthier, fitter.....    if we ever have a kid (EEK), I want them to grow up in a house where everyone helps with the cooking and meals, where we all exercise some time in the day together -- I run, they bike, skate/board, whatever, where we talk about self image and food and how we feel without bottling anything up.     I want to be a healthy person.    ( :     how about you all?  were you like me --- was food a self reward for being a responsibile oldest kid with WAY too much on her physical AND metaphorical plates OR what?  

POST A PURPLE NAIL PIC!!!   : D  that made me grin!

I think one of my points of pride is that as an adult, I want to be better, healthier, fitter.....    if we ever have a kid (EEK), I want them to grow up in a house where everyone helps with the cooking and meals, where we all exercise some time in the day together -- I run, they bike, skate/board, whatever, where we talk about self image and food and how we feel without bottling anything up.     I want to be a healthy person.

That's exactly how I want to bring up my kids. My mom did a very good job of giving us a healthy body image and healthy habits (except maybe not enough exercise). We weren't allowed to own barbie dolls, and when we asked why she told us outright, "because it will make you think that it's normal to look like that, and then you won't like your own body when you get older." She gave us other toys instead. We didn't understand, but we believed her and respected her for reasoning with us even though we were still in preschool. And it worked! I had no body image issues until my 20s when popular culture eventually got to me. I saw my body as purely functional, and was proud of what it could do for me.

duplicite

just discovered this thread. some food for thought!

i think i will post my experiences later on (it is  2 am here now and i am just going to go to bed in about 15 minutes:)

Just a thought. I find that if I am in a good self esteem place. Doing lots of stuff for me and in a good head place. It is really easy to be "good". When I am in a crummy mood the only way to be good is to be accountable.

Here is to being good to ourselves.

Cheers,

T

i agree, but in my case it is slightly more complicated, because i tend to do unhealthy thins sucg as eating too much sometimes also when i am in a very good mood, ie in a mood to celebrate. 

thing is, after ages of thinking why on earth i am tending to overeat, i have realised that what actually helps me was not overanalyse, but "fake it till i make it". 

malaika --- talk about leaving you floating -- although I think no body image is better than Barbie image.   I bet that was interesting growing up....    I played with my brother -- He-Man and GI Joe.   ( :   I had one my Pretty Pony and mostly just books and a Big Wheel, so dolls were not much to me...  My sister had the Jem doll -- anyone remmeber her?  lol    

I truly want to be a good role model for the kids in my life whether it be kids I own or just the ones I keep at work ---  EXAMPLE:   I still call myself fat out loud to other people ,but I guess I am not obese so to speak any more.....    The girls would rib me and tell me I wasn;t and it didn;t drive home until one of the very quietest BOYS walked up to me in a lull while we did our morning cardio walk, and said, "you know......... you are not fat.     I wish you knew that.  I think you are pretty just like that."    WOW   *tear*

yay tamar made it!    I agree totally.  when I am in a good place, I do all the things I should because I know how good it will make me fele during and after and how it will all pay off in the end.   When I drink (to excess) or an depressed etc, the only way for me to "be good" is to be very CONSCIOUS of how I feel, what I eat, and what I make myself do (i.e. working out).     is that how everyone else is too????    when I am down, it is easy for me to regress to the past and eat and eat and eat and eat and just lay there, "woe is me...."

ka--  I think most of us either associate food with celebration/reward or punishment/denial.   Let's talk about that one........   I have a gazillion stories to illustrate, but I talk way too much.  Suffice it to say that my self-reward for taking FULL TIME care of 2 younger siblings every day after school while my mom worked her 2nd or 3rd job was an extra hot dog, sandwich, handful of chips, scoop of ice cream, etc.    I was the "adult" -- responsible for all, and that meant I deserved it.    (did I deserve making myself fat and miserable?)   food for thought

wow hat is a strong story with the boy! i bet he will be a nice man when he grows up.

reminded me of a funny mini-story from friday. i had a meeting with a work-related acquaintaince whom i see about once a year-we like each other, but in a sort of quiet, decent way, ie we are not really close friends and do not share much personal things, just find the other person pleasant. plus he is this quiet, introverted type. so he came to the cafe where i already sat, and the first thing he said (quite loudly for his ways): "WOW you lost a lot of w----" and then he stopped, as, being this quiet gentleman, he realised he maybe said something inappropriate, and looked at me this confused, almost scared look... "---eight!" added he quietly. It was so funny and nice i had to start laughing:-)) we had a nice conversation, he talked about how he has taken up running (he was always thin, so he did it to relax mentally and be more fit, and finds it great) plus we shared some stories about people we both knew, so the whole conversation was really pleasant:)))

this website really is great. i had a mini nap this afternoon and woke up just in time for dinner. i know there are, um, less ideal options, but seeing my email with all these reply notification, i opted for lettuce, horseradish sauce and egg whites (my lunch had quite a lot of cals so i do not have many calories left). i am at 1300 calories and actually not hungry at all now at 7.30 pm so i might either stay at it, or have that mango yogurt that sort of says "eat me":-)

 

You are all so incredibly insightful. Thank you for starting this thread, Olivia.

I battled a lot of demons growing up and was always the fat kid. Food truly was my comfort. I didn't have many true friends and never felt good enough in my sister's shadow, her very thin and pretty shadow. There was a lot of turmoil in my family, which left me with a lot of alone time and I spent it with food. By my freshman year in high school, I was probably over 200 pounds (i stopped looking). I got back to swimming and lost some weight, but really lost most of my weight my senior year by just not eating or purging when I did eat. But of course, I still wasn't happy. I think that's one of the big reasons why I majored in psychology in college. I had a lot of issues growing up that I never dealt with, so psych was a way for me to learn to deal with my own problems. I think it's helped me to relose all the weight i gained in college, and do it primarily the healthy way. I think it's so necessary to understand the psychological connection you have with food and make sure it's a healthy relationship. That's why I think this will be my last time doing this, because I know why it happened and I'm not going to let it happen again.

I hope we can all help each other realize why we do what we do and keep ourselves from going back to our old ways!

i, too, hope so! i know i am able to lose some kilos, the challenge is to lose it for good. i can see my relationship with food is changing, although i also see that sometimes, the cravings are stronger than the idea of sticking to the calorie "budget":-) coming back to this site and seeing interesting posts from people dealing with their food issues is making me more insightful though, and it is really inspiring to see people who were very obese becoming thin, healthy and happier.

AMEN --   it is hearing other people's, stories and insight that keep me going through the rough patches...   

good to see both of you here...   ka!  good for you on the uber-healthy supper and have the yogurt if you need it, girl  ( :    and I LOVE your story.  Nice guys say it so well sometimes.   ( ;

I wish I could say I'd never been there, kt, but you described me in a lot of ways as a high schooler, epsecially the thin sister part.  

I NEED this to be the last time I lose weight, so my determination is such that I will keep trucking along!!!   : D

HURRAY for change!

Hey everyone!

Oli, you asked what we associate food with. In all honesty, I just love eating. It's not that I see it as a reward or as an intricate part of celebration. I just love eating. I love shopping for food, preparing it, cooking it, and eating it... in abundance! I never gave much thought to it before. I just ate whatever and whenever I felt like.

I actually never considered that there was something wrong with my weight until I move to the U.S.  I knew I was one of the bigger girls in class but no one ever really pointed that out. As a kid, I remember we did lists for the prettiest or the smartest or whatever... never the skinniest or fattest. In all truth... the skinniest girls were often the ones who received the least male attention.

I think that the fact I never really thought much about food is one of the major reasons I struggle so much now. I'm not used to caring so much or more importantly having to care. Consequently, I go from being really focused and attentive to what I eat to not caring at all and eating whatever I want.

VERY INTERESTING< luna.....

In order for me to lose and get  fit, I had to stop buying easy food and LEARN to love the prepping and cooking and eating GOOD FOOD.  it is certainly more time consuming (and better in the long run) to eat my own homemade Chinese stir fry, spaghetti (squash), mexican than it is to reheat/thaw something premade and pre-friend, but the switch was a tough one.  from doughnuts and junk to fruit and salad.   YAY CHANGE!!

I love eating too, Luna. And I wouldn't want to give that up. Food is wonderful stuff, and it makes me happy. I have fairly healthy tastes (except when it comes to desserts) - I love lentils, seed bread, fruit and steamed/baked food, and I make things tasty with spices, not sugar or fat. I wouldn't trade all that enjoyment for a flatter stomach (we have similar body stats to each other - not actually overweight, just wanting to get a bit thinner). I mean, I would if it was making me unhealthy. But I also love exercising, so it balances out.

I particularly love cooking for others, and when I stayed on my own last year I had endless dinner parties. When my friends were busy, I had the neighbours over. The problem arose when I ate like those around me. I eat literally every 2 hours, but small amounts. My friends eat big, spread out meals. So I'd have a big meal with them and then be hungry 2 hours later. I'd invite friends to dinner; they'd invite me to a buttery restaurant in return, or for tea with cream cakes. It didn't help that it was a wine-farming town, and wine makes me hungrier.

The other time I gained weight suddenly was when I stayed with my aunt overseas after finishing high school. She'd put on about 60-100lbs with having children, and was used to being the kind of woman who gets chased after. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she sort of forced me to eat. She'd dish me too much food, and not listen to my protests. In my culture you don't throw away food (those 'starving children in Africa' are right there on your street corner), so once it was dished it had to be eaten. Then she'd dish me more even though I said I was full, because she "didn't want leftovers". I could have put my foot down and not eaten beyond how much I needed, but at 18 I was just too "nice" to make a fuss. Also, I'd never had to watch what I ate before (being a growing, active kid with healthy tastes).

I guess I'm healthy at heart, but easily influenced. What I'm hoping for is to reach an unconscious balance again, and go back to not thinking about my body or food at all, except to be healthy. I don't mind if I'm not super-skinny (my body seems to be resistant to looking like a famine-victim/model), as long as I'm healthy and my weight isn't steadily increasing OR wildly fluctuating. So what I need to be conscious of is not calories, but rather to be aware that my friends' lifestyles are not the same as my own.