I let myself go

two years ago, I lost 80 pounds.

last year, I was under stress and emotionally tired so I relapsed. I went from 142 to 195 pounds. 

I started again in Jan of this year and went from 195 to 153. 

In May, I stopped working out. then in June, I started to binge. Now I am 199. :(( 

I have gained 46 pounds in 3 month and half. 

I am tired AND sad. I know what I have to do but I don't do it. I don't know why I just want to eat and eat. I can easily eat 4-6 bananas in one setting and yes I do that everyday. not to mention the daily ice cream and tons of bread I eat. 

I won't go into details about what is going on in my life. it is just too much and I have failed to control my anxiety in ways other than food. I just eat and eat. 

I appreciate any word of encouragement from you guys. thanks in advance. 

 

safina-

Please don't feel bad, this kind of situation happens to a lot of us, including myself! I got chunky around 15 years old and lost a ton of weight a couple years later & was a size 3 (from 17 years old to about 21), but I did it in an unhealthy way.

I gained the weight back plus more & was 214 pounds when I joined CC. I got down to 183, but I lost my job in May and it has lead to depression & gaining back 13 of those lost pounds. Some days I don't even get out of bed. Thank God for my wonderful husband!

Just know that we are all here to deal with weight issues in a healthy manner & that you have people that understand what you are going through. Feel free to message me if you need a kind word or listening ear. We CAN get/do better!

In the title of your post you use the word 'let'.... and that's the past tense.   You can stay locked into the behaviour of the past OR... you can opt to do something completely different going forward.   That's the beauty of being a free-thinking human being, there's always a choice.

Whatever else is going on in your life it doesn't necessarily have to affect what you eat.  And however stressed you are, it doesn't mean you can't go for a walk around the block or take some other form of exercise.  In fact it would probably help.  So don't make excuses for doing nothing.... that's important.

A good place to start would be to draw a line under the past and decide that it doesn't apply any more.   Then actively set out how the future is going to look in terms of the next day.  By working no further than the day ahead you can keep things small and do-able.  You can be specific about what's going to happen.   You can make small changes rather than grand gestures.    When you say 'I know what I have to do'... I think you're painting too big a picture and that you have a mental image of punishing workouts combined with some nasty diet regime.  You're not getting started because it's not an appealing picture....

If all you mapped out for tomorrow was something like.  "I will have a nice breakfast of oatmeal and a yoghurt,  I will go for a walk at lunchtime & will throw the rest of the tub of ice-cream in the bin"... even if you made no other changes, that would be a significant improvement on where you are right now.  The following day you'd build on that.

You're fully capable of making the change once you stop wallowing in self-pity and turn 'wishing' into 'acting'.  Good luck

 

I ate like 7 pieces of bread today

I know and understand the feeling...when you are anxious or sad or disappointed...and even though you are not really hungry,you just eat and eat..I do that,too..

But...

You gotta say : stop.This is it.

and you can start over again...trust me...the journey of losing weight can be so much fun and can encourage you itself to have a much funner life...and while you see the number on the scale going down every couple of days...and when you look in the mirror and you see how hot you look...trust me...it is very much worth it

You did it once before and YOU can do it again...

Have faith...and work on it...enjoy your time...relax...take care of yourself...

Good luck

p.s.I am getting back on track starting from now...

 

Today is a new day. Start by getting rid of the unhealthy items in your home or do better portion control, like instead of even purchasing the half gallon of ice cream get the pint size. You can't eat whats not there. Also something that helped me today is when I was hungry and I really wanted to eat everything from the vending machine, instead I had some soup I brought. Now I seriously talk to myself and say you are not hungry any more drink some water and get back to work (or on CC). Encouraging other also helps the encourager.

A similar thing happened to me. I lost a deal of weight (30lbs) but when the time came for me to leave for college in a whole new city I began to stress eat. Ice cream, huge costco chocolate muffincakes... Whatever I could get my hand on.

I gained the freshman15 before I even left.

 

Now that I'm out here I've done a complete revamp. I stopped buying all the foods that I knew I couldn't control myself around (except peanut butter, but having that jar there seems to keep me on track. A little bit every day as opposed to a whole jar in one sitting).
Is it possible for you to do that? Make a list of your trigger foods and throw out whatever you have left of them, and try to avoid buying them for a while, until you feel ready to incorporate them into your diet (start with only having three bananas in the house and try to make them last).

After 2 weeks of having foods around that I know are healthy, like, and wont overeat on, and I'm down 3 pounds already.

safina, clearly food and weight are big issues for you. why dont you stop pising your body off by continuously restricting. everytime you go down you go back up and back down and back up.

clearly u are not resolving your emotional issues. so why dont you stop dieting for a while. get away from the obsession with food and get some real life psychological support.

you've been posting here for ages about your struggles and seem to be making no progress

Thanks everybody for the support. It means a lot to me.

Fidget84: I don't know what to tell you. Clearly, everybody comes to this website because weight and food are big issues for him/her???

yes, I know that I have been posting here for ages and making no progress. it really hurts that you say that to me but at least I know that I am trying. I will fall into depression if I don't try simply because I don't want to stay fat for the rest of my life.

I already stopped dieting for a while and had a long break. Unfortunately, it didn't work out well and I am back to 200.

 

im not saying you are a failure - but i am saying that the support of the cyber world doesnt seem to be helping and i think that furthering your focus on food is seriously impeding you.

i didnt say it to hurt you. but molly coddling you, seriously will do you no favours

Going to talk to a counselor/therapist might be a good idea to use in conjunction with CC (I'm not saying safina specifically, in general). Imo, most people need one, for a variety of reasons. Actually, I'm looking for one myself to deal with the depression from losing my job. This is not a perfect world and many things happen, especially in childhood that need to be addressed and worked through. It's sad that there is a stigma associated with seeing a counselor/therapist.

"I know what I have to do but I don't do it." <-That has been my problem for the past couple of months.  I've fallen into a very lazy type rut. I've barely been working out lately, and it's definitely beginning to depress me. I feel like no matter what I do, I always end up falling off track as far as exercise goes(and the junk food hasn't helped either).

I know what I need is a major kick in the butt! Someone needs to light a fire under my a** and unfortunately that someone ultimately has to be me.

I too have pretty bad anxiety, but food doesn't help comfort me, so I can't relate to you on that. For me, keeping my mind occupied with things that don't trigger my anxiety  helps. I'm pretty much just distracting myself. So if I start getting anxious I'll play solitaire, sudoku, and paint.
I'll be painting a lot with all this swine flu crazyness going around ;)

So, my advice is to not get defeated, and to not give up. You'll get there eventually, even if getting yourself sorted out emotionally is what you need to do first.

 

I don't know that I have any solid advice but I can try for encouragement. I can't tell you how often I struggle with overeating as a result of my anxiety and depression. While I've (for the moment) gotten in controlled enough to maintain a steady weight for almost a year (not very long in comparison with an entire lifetime) I struggle with binge-eating, emotional eating, distraction eating - whatever you want to label it - on a near-daily basis, and it is enormously frustrating. I've gained, lost, re-gained between thirty and seventy pounds in a matter of months countless times. I don't know exactly what your situation is, and as another person that understands just how crippling (and sometimes nebulous) anxiety can be, I will not presume to tell you how to handle this. I have found counseling (not specifically with regard to nutrition, but we do touch frequently on food issues) to be immensely helpful, but there have been long periods throughout my life where that has not been an option for various reasons.

It can be so frustrating (massive understatement) to feel like you spend your entire life combating the same issue repeatedly, both with regard to mental and physical health. I'm really not one for motivational talks, but I do hope that you will hang in there, know that you aren't alone, and that if you can manage to keep steering in the right direction, things will eventually get easier again. Progress is slow when you're dealing with issues like anxiety and it sounds like you have quite a deal going on in your personal life - be gentle with yourself and remember that it will most likely take some time (more than we'd like) to sort this all out!

 

I've been in the same rut although I think I've only put back on about 10-20lbs...I refuse to check but my clothes are midway back to size 8s and 10s instead of the 4s and 6s I was enjoying and would like to get back to enjoying.  Add a chocolate bar daily plus not counting calories I've been treating myself poorly.  Not because I don't love myself but more because I just let myself get distracted by a lot of other easier things.  Guess what, the chocolate bars didn't change anything and I'm still going enjoy them from time to time again but I'll try to limit it to one a week.

I keep making tries at getting back to doing what I know I should do and actually enjoy when I'm doing it right.  I still backslide, but it's gone from a 6 month break in serious exercise to a 2 month break to 2 weeks the last time.  So now I just have to suck it up for about 3 weeks if I really work hard or drag it out to 6 weeks if I'm slacking and then at least maintain the physical with 2-3 times a week and I'll be back to losing slowly.  If I fall off my exercise routine again, I'll just try to pick it up again sooner rather than later.

We all go through phases, for some reason I'm more motivated at the moment (last 2 days anyway), so I'm going to roll with it and try to take advantage of it.

Original Post by fidget84:

im not saying you are a failure - but i am saying that the support of the cyber world doesnt seem to be helping and i think that furthering your focus on food is seriously impeding you.

i didnt say it to hurt you. but molly coddling you, seriously will do you no favours

LOL I like how you say it. Molly coddling?? where in my post you see that I request that?? :) I said I need a word of encouragement. and FYI, last time I tried to lose weight, what really helped me is the support I got from CC and my friends here. Thanks to Gi-Jane, smwhipple and all the people who helped me. 

sometimes, the opposite is true. in real life, people don't usually get the support that they need. I find that I usually get the support from CC. when I look at people in my real life, I only find people who get jealous once I lose a few pounds. 

and you know, I am obessessed with food because being overweight is a major problem in my life. I even don't want to start applying for my Phd program because I know I was unhappy in my masters program classes being around skinny girls and I was the fat one. this is just an example. 

anyway, I do agree with you that obsession with food all the time is not a healthy thing and I need to find some real life support. 

Hope your date went well. :)

 

Original Post by jblarghp:

 

So, my advice is to not get defeated, and to not give up. You'll get there eventually, even if getting yourself sorted out emotionally is what you need to do first.

 

This is so true. I remember I was happy when I lost 80 pounds. I really had a happy life at that time. 

Well, I need to get myself sorted out emotionally but how can I do that?? I don't know. 

How's your apartment search going?  That will be a major stress relief once you're situated, hopefully someplace without obnoxious people.

I hear ya cluckin big chicken. I can't tell you how many times I've been there, but more than 100 for sure. I just pulled myself out of a simmilar situation and still feel like I'm white knuckling it a bit. It looks like everyone has a lot of advice for you which in itself might kind of be overwhelming. All I can say is, don't beat yourself up cause that's just going to compound your frustration. The fact that you wrote the post means that you're still alive and kicking. Maybe try and just take a tiny step see how that feels and if you can take another. That's a whole lot easier than thinking oh **** I've got to pull this whole thing together and fast. Hang in there :)

Good for you, Sara that you are going back to exercise. thanks for the support. I have been looking for an apt since Aug 14th, it has been a month now and it is really stressful.

I am afraid of the move but I know this is exactly what I need to do.

Acid reflux is really killing me and I can't sleep properly because of it.

OMG, I eat too much bread and nuts and icecream everyday. I really did let myself go SO BAD.

I am so sad. How can I turn this the other way around? there is no mental energy to start again. really.

For me, sometimes things just click into place.  The apartment hunting is going to be stressful, mostly because it's unknown.  You don't know what your new living situation is going to be although it will at least be different from your current one.  You may have to accept a less than ideal situation in terms of neighborhood or housemates to meet what you can afford and what is available while you continue looking for a better situation.  For now, you're afraid because you don't have the breadth of experience to tell you that sometimes it's only okay and you can move and change it on your terms.

You do have the experience of being much lighter which will help you when you're ready to focus on your weight more. Until you're really ready you'll be continually saying the ice cream you're eating today doesn't matter so much in the scheme of things and neither does the skipped workout and it's true, but it's all the ice cream and junk you eat over the entire month that does matter as well as how many workouts you get in overall that do matter when it comes to weight loss.

In the overall scheme of things, a few extra pounds doesn't really matter so much, so don't beat yourself up over it.  You can lose them once you're really able to focus on diet and exercise, tying up your living situation really is much more important imo.

I think it is everything in my life, Sara. Not just the living situation. but the living situation made it worse actually.

too funny that I don't care about my co-workers say behind my back about my weight gain. well, I care that my boss treats me like **** these days. but I do  care about what the regulars at my gym will say when I come back.

 

Nah, they'll  be too far into themselves to do more than say hi and wish you luck...if anything you'll be giving them some extra motivation to try not to slack even though it's only human.