When is a good time to give up weight loss

I admit ,Its too hard and too demanding to keep going on like this.  Working out to the point of passing out and still not losing any weight. I think that I am doing everything right. I bike everywhere, cut down on bread and pasta, eat a load of fruits and vegetables to the point that I am sick of them.

This has been going on for too long, almost 9 years, and I am getting tired. Everywhere I look online, its always never give up, keep going and you will get to your goal. Its this is not happening for me and I see fitness as torture and punishment for eating.

Its not that I am not healthy, that is not the case at all. Been through lots of tests to ensure my health. I am very conscieince of being healthy, its just the scale is not cooperating. Also, when people see health, they see thin, and thats all that is seem. No one claims health to an overweight person. Something must be wrong with them or they are lying to themselves is the answer for those people. They don't have the will power to be thin.

I was never fat in my life until I got sick. My period was stopped for 9 months on danazol and ever since then, my body has been storing fat like there is no tommorow. Its been hell trying to lose it.

I not usually down on myself when it comes to my weight, only when I go to the gym and exercise. I have realized I am not happy there. To be honnest, I hate it. In order to lose weight, you must starve and be uncomfortable for months on end. I want to be thin again before I got sick. If I had known that I would become fat from the meds, I would have taken the pain from mentral cramps instread of the pain of hatnig myself for years on end.

This is just pure emotion talking but it has alot to do with it. Reason being my exercising, the body has to be in pain, unconfortable and defeated. That is the only way the body will change. No one likes to experince pain and that is what the body is going through. That's why people give up. That's why i want to give up. I have been exercising for 2 months straight, starving and all I got was a 6 pound weight loss. That is rubbish

Has anyone else given up?

I gave up many times over the course of 20 years.  I'd lose, then gain it back many times over to the point where I hit 400 pounds.  But then I had this epiphany moment and made that big change that we seem to hear a lot about on CC.....  I stopped dieting, and made a lifestyle change.  Something in my head just snapped, and food and exercise no longer became the enemy.

It sounds like you found yourself in that mode of 'this is torture', which is the death nell for many diet and/or fitness routines.  You need to find that balance of calories in/calories out that is right and comfortable for you.  Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it seems.

I wish I could tell you what the answer is for success, but it's different for each of us.

Have you taken time to sit down with a nutritionist and a fitness coach?  Without having you write a book, it's hard to tell why you've not had much success.

Bummer.

I have done the nutritionist and a trainer. Basicly it is eat like a bird and push yourself until you cannot anymore. I have a training session last week, and my legs hurt for a week. And like an idiot, I still went to the gym. Granted, lifting wieghts feels great and all, but if its not helping me to lose weight, then its pointless. I 'don't want to feel great, I want to be thin. That is the goal, but its not coming and I'm tired.

If I had eaten myself fat, I wouldn't feel so bad.

Jondo,

I have not given up and I don't think you should either. You say you hate going to the gym so find something you like. If you don't enjoy a workout then you are not going to give it your all. The key is to find something you enjoy and change it up occasionally. A good workout should make you come alive and feel refreshed. You should not feel bad - tired yes - but not bad or depressed. Find a workout buddy, go dancing, play a sport - it doesn't have to be mindless hours on the treadmill.

You are very lucky in the fact that you have been skinny and you know what it is like - go with that feeling and picture yourself looking like that again while you workout. Think positive thoughts.  Hell, take a picture with you to the gym and put it on the equipment to look at! Don't worry what others think.

I have been overweight since age 6 and it wasn't until I got to 260 pounds that I realized I was killing myself. So for me, I had to accept the fact that I had to change; I am not on a diet and this is not a temporary thing. This is for the rest of my life. This is an emotional battle just as much as it is a physical battle and you must be brutally honest with yourself.

Good luck!

There is a difference. I never had to work to be thin.I played sports ad biked everywhere because I liked to. That was my thing. I was always moving around. It wasn't exercise, it was getting around place to place and enjoying myself.

Now, its all work to get back to being thin. I still bike but only because I have no cash to take the bus and I joined a gym becuase that was the way everyone was losing weight. Now "fun"is a chore and exercise is painful.As for sports, I had injured my knee years ago due to a freak knee jerk, so now I can't run for very long without it hurting.

Yes these are all excuses. Get off your ass and get to the gym. I have done so and now I'm miserable. Am I supposed to feel this way until I am thin? Must I be self effacing until the scale cooperates?

Can you share with us your stats and how much you are eating?

HT: 6'1

WT: 244

Eating maybe 1800 calories a day. I dont count them. I eat mostly fruit and vegetables and cut down eating bread and pasta replacing it with quinoa.

I have a beer now and again and I drink juice very seldom.

Well, I recommend counting. That means measuring (and even weighing) your food, to figure out how much you are actually eating. People are notorious for not realizing how many calories are in the foods that they eat, and on the flip side, if you are just focusing on eating as little as possible, the result can be undereating.

Yeah, it's a bit annoying to have to count everything you eat, but it can't be more frustrating that what you have been dealing with up til now.

Also, use the tools on here and make sure that you know an appropriate calorie target. You can also use the calculator at www.phord.com/cc, since those activity levels can be easier to translate.

I also would start counting, but if you've been dieting for 9 years and are very active, I would take time off from restricting yourself of calories...you're body is used to being on lower cals and you probably need to switch it up.

Weigh and measure your food. I know you eat mostly fruits, but that can add up too.

Start recording what you eat. I heard that food is 80% of successful weightloss. And from my experience, the people that can't figure out why they didn't lose weight are the ones that don't count the cals/measure and weigh.

I workout 5days a week or so, MEASURE everything, work full-time, basically have a PT job as a property manager...I can find the time to count, so can you (tip: forget the weekends).

Good luck. Don't give up, just switch it up.

The other posters were right on, especially about counting. I would like to add that losing 6 pounds in 2 months is really not that awful. A year of that, and you will be down to 208. Give it another year, and you could be at 172. Unfortunately, losing weight can be a slow process for some of us (myself included).

Another thing is make sure you are getting enough fat and protein in your diet. I personally would never feel satisfied eating mainly fruits and veggies.

I also think you should go back and take a look at kaufmkk's profile and her gallery. If that doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will. She's amazing.

A year? All that work to lose the weight I want in  a 2 year when othes do that in 6 months? That's way too long. and fustrating. Who would be satisfied with that? With the amount of work that I am putting in I would like moreof a drop.

Losing weight too fast is bad for your body.  If the end result is thin, then what's important is that you get there, not how long it took.

Try swimming, it's a full body workout with no impact on joints.  Helps all muscle groups, breathing, and stamina.

You mentioned your period has stopped due to a drug you were/are taking. Is it possible your estrogen level is low? I read a thread on here a few weeks ago where peri-menopausal women were not able to lose weight due to low hormone levels. This is something you may want to look into and it could kickstart your weight loss again.

Original Post by jondoefatso:

A year? All that work to lose the weight I want in  a 2 year when othes do that in 6 months? That's way too long. and fustrating. Who would be satisfied with that? With the amount of work that I am putting in I would like moreof a drop.

 

So it takes a year!  Or 2 years!  So what?  Yeah, it's work, but it's not worth the investment?  I've been at it for 7 months, and I expect to be at it at least another year, or more, before I reach my goal weight.  I think you just need to resign yourself to the idea that it's not going to happen over night.  ACCURATE portion control is the key.  I was AMAZED to discover how much I was eating before I started counting calories and weighing my food.  So do it right, and be patient.  You'll get there.  Good luck! 

I'd look into the hormone thing as well - this shoudl NOT be torture! If it were torture I would not have lasted a day! You obviously have a TON of will power to continue pushing yourself even feeling like you were in hell.

I can see why you are so frustrated! I would be too! OMG. I never feel like I'm starving. I don't hate my workouts (even though I don't much like to get up at 530am). I know this is something I'll have to continue my whole life, so I am not going to do something I can't keep doing without being miserable.

I'd really start counting the calories. You may not be eating enough and your body has been in starvation all this time.

I DEFINITELY do not eat like a bird! Is there a way that we could see the make up of what you're eating? Carbs vs Protien vs fats? From the limited info, i feel you aren't getting enough fats and protien - only a guess tho.

I really feel for you and I hope you don't give up. I think you can do it but if it is THAT difficult, I also think there are other factors at play.

How long did it take you to gain the weight? Weight gain is almost always faster than weight loss, especially if it was precipitated by medication. If it took you a year to gain the weight (I read another post of yours that said that), it's perfectly reasonable to take at least a year to lose it.

But attitude is everything - if you feel like you have to starve yourself and kill yourself at the gym to lose weight, you won't be able to sustain it. Have you read the Calorie Count diet - it's linked in one of the stickied threads at the top of the Weight Loss forum. Maybe understanding what the principles are will help you feel more in control of your weight.

Original Post by jondoefatso:

A year? All that work to lose the weight I want in a 2 year when othes do that in 6 months? That's way too long. and fustrating. Who would be satisfied with that? With the amount of work that I am putting in I would like moreof a drop.

 

We play the cards we're dealt. I would like to be naturally slim, but I'm not and never have been. While we're at it, I also wish I was born rich, but I didn't get a choice for that either.

If for some reason it turns out that your body isn't going to drop more than 3 lbs/month, you can either put in the work and be slim in two years, or do nothing and be the same weight you are now (or maybe even heavier).

In the meantime, try some of the things the previous posters suggested: measuring your food and counting calories, eating enough protein and good fats to feel satisfied, switching up your workout, or even spending some time eating at maintenance level.

Original Post by jondoefatso:

A year? All that work to lose the weight I want in  a 2 year when othes do that in 6 months? That's way too long. and fustrating. Who would be satisfied with that? With the amount of work that I am putting in I would like moreof a drop.

 

Me!  I would totally be satisfied to lose the 40 lbs I want to lose in a year.  I've been overweight my whole life, and I'm 32.  What's one more year?  Really?  I've been at this for 5 months now, and I've lost a grand total of 12.5 lbs.  That's an average of 2.5 lbs a month, and I lost about 5 lbs of that in the first  3 and a half months.  It's only been in the last month and a half that my weight loss has started to pick up, although I suspect from my measurements that I was losing fat even while I wasn't losing much weight. 

The point is that this isn't a race.  The story of the tortoise and the hare had a valid point.  I watched my mother and my sister lose weight quickly (without excercise, by the way), and I was jealous, especially since my sister and I were on weight watchers at around the same time, and I was losing next to nothing then.  I'm not jealous anymore because they both gained their weight back.  I've come to realize that you can't think of it as a diet.  You can't make changes in your life that you're not happy with and you can't sustain because one day you're going to decide that you don't want to be unhappy and go back to your old ways.  Starving yourself doesn't work.  You can't live the rest of your life being hungry.

For years and years I thought that I just couldn't lose weight.  I'd thought that I tried everything.  But as it turns out, there are very few diets out there that simply tell you to count calories.  It's like they assume people are all afraid of a little label reading and simple addition.  Finding this website was a godsend for me.  And while there are certainly situations in which it's difficult to count every calorie you put in your mouth, for the majority of the time, I find it pretty effortless.  I'm going to echo everyone else who said to start counting.  You've come to this website for help, so try using the tools that it offers.

Original Post by jondoefatso:

I have done the nutritionist and a trainer. Basicly it is eat like a bird and push yourself until you cannot anymore.

 Oh my - no wonder you are frustrated.  That is not a healthy lifestyle and it is not one you HAVE to follow.  I think this is the source of every problem you have.  You dont have to eat like a bird or work until you burn out.

Remember Franklin?  "everything in moderation".

It turns out he was right.