Weight Issue

LegacyUser

All my childhood life I have been overweight. I am now 21 years old and 19st 7lbs....I have been dieting all my life but getting no where and I am now at a point in my life where I just simply don't know what to do.

I feel that this is impacting greatly on my social life as I simply don't go out anymore, and i believe that my weight is impacting on my mood as I have recently been diagnosed with depression.

Does anyone know what I should do?

I have been eating healthily and doing some exercise and I don't know why I'm not shifting the pounds!

Dudess

Join Weightwatchers/Unislim? You'll have a support network there and there are incentives to motivate you, such as the weigh-ins and rewards. If you do, best of luck - it's not easy, but it's doable.

what2do

I'm no expert but for some interesting reading if you go to Rec -Food and Drink - Diet and Nuitrion - Food Diary there are some posts there that are both informative and inspirational as you read the weight some of the posters there have lost and how they have done it in a healthy manner

Happy reading and hope you find it helpful!

Miss Fluff

+1 what Dudess says. I also think any slimming programme has to be done in conjunction with a good exercise programme too. How much exercise are you currently doing?

You should also think about keeping a food diary and posting everything you eat here as you'll soon see where you are overindulging or making bad choices

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1010

ztoical

You should speak with your doctor before going to Weight Watchers if your depression is in anyway connected with your weight issues they can't allow you to join. You don't need to be throwing up or starving yourself to have eating issues and the WW program is not designed to help people who are dealing with eating disorders.

Your depression may be unrelated to your weight issues but you should check with your doctor.

dazey82

Sometimes, even with healthy eating, portion control can be a problem. I used to go through phases of healthy eating and exercise, but in hindsight I realise that I was still eating too much. Last May I joined Weight Watchers. To date I've lost 7 stone 3 and a half pounds. I couldn't recommend it enough!

Dudess

ztoical wrote: »

You should speak with your doctor before going to Weight Watchers if your depression is in anyway connected with your weight issues they can't allow you to join. You don't need to be throwing up or starving yourself to have eating issues and the WW program is not designed to help people who are dealing with eating disorders.

Your depression may be unrelated to your weight issues but you should check with your doctor.

It doesn't seem like an eating disorder though - just unhappiness and self confidence issues, which could be greatly alleviated via healthy weight loss and positive encouragement.

dazey82 wrote: »

Sometimes, even with healthy eating, portion control can be a problem. I used to go through phases of healthy eating and exercise, but in hindsight I realise that I was still eating too much. Last May I joined Weight Watchers. To date I've lost 7 stone 3 and a half pounds. I couldn't recommend it enough!

Wow! Well done!

kjl

When you say you have been eating health and exercising what do you mean by that?

I hear this time and again, but the truth is you are obviously not working out hard enough. You could lose all the weight in 7 months, I know it sounds insane but it's true.

The main reason people are overweight is psychological, you see yourself as this big person, it depresses you, you turn to food. Its not the answer.

Here is how I would do it if I needed to lose that much weight.

get a proper exercise bike, and set it up in your TV room, get rid of your seat. Every night you should be cycling for about an hour or two.

Next, get to the gym, you need to build a little muscle, building muscle helps burn calories faster, dont worry you wont get bulky, in fact people work out for years to get big muscles. You should work out you arms, back, chest, legs and core, you should do this 3 times a week. I would recommend getting a trainer.

check your diet,
you should eat 6 small meals the first three should consist of carbohydrates such the last should be protien and vegetable only, drink 2 glasses of water with each meal.

AVOID
sugar, saturated fat and refined carbohydrates.

The hardest part is getting started, but start now, lose the weight. Imagine how amazing you would feel knowing that you will live past your 40's

miss5

You should consult your G.P. to ensure there are no underlying health problems.
Perhaps joining a club such as weight watchers would give you the motivation
and advice you need. Good Luck!

LegacyUser

Thank you all for your replies

I have prevously been in weight watchers and just completely lost interest because I have got no where. I was basically yo-yoing and getting nowhere.

I go for a 30 minute walk daily, I walk into college every morning, increased my water intake, keeping snacking to a minimal, eating three well balanced meals per day.

I keep a food diary and write everything down, to me it dosen't add up.

There are days, I will be honest when my mood is low that I could eat a packet of biscuits, but I don't see that as being the issue

I know my bloods are all fine and that, I have been to my Doctor and he has recommended a dietican.

oneintotwo

kjl wrote:

The main reason people are overweight is psychological,

You recognise that its' psychological and then go on to give her completely physical advice.

--

I feel for you as I was the same all my life. In the past month I've successfully transformed my diet and I'm losing weight, and I have no doubt that I'll keep going with it. What did it for me was to reconnect with food and learn to really love eating again.

What I realised is that our bodies are reflections of the choices we make and the conditioning of our eating habits. Weight is only a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. It is only a measurement of progress, not the final goal. Health and happiness are the final goals; the feeling of being more energetic and more alive are the goals.

I also realised that biological needs have the power to override conscious "willpower" - it makes sense in terms of evolution. If you have been dieting all your life you know what I’m talking about - have you ever had the sense of being trapped in your head watching yourself eating? Your body is highly evolved to inform you of its needs. You can ignore it for a while but your body won't allow you to starve it of the nutrients it needs.

Saying "I will eat this and this every day, and do cardio for whatever minutes" etc is pointless, it doesn't bring you any closer to having a healthy relationship with food. A "naturally healthy" friend told me that he only thinks about food when he's hungry, so anything that leads towards obsession with food is going in the wrong direction.
If you're eating crap foods and you don't eat much or veg, start buying organic stuff or growing your own. Vegetables are actually delicious when they haven't been filled with pesticides and transported thousands of miles.. Don't worry about getting a diet perfect, nobody gets it perfect, and if you let one mistake upset you it will just derail you completely.

I guess the fundamental point I'm making is this:
Right now you're conditioned to eat in a way that is not in accord with what your body is saying, and you need to begin reconditioning that.

Learn to listen to what your body is saying, it knows far better than you do what it needs. All it takes is that you start paying attention when you're eating (all forms of reconditioning are based on attention), to really taste the food and try new foods. It might seem that people eat more slowly than you, but really they are tasting more.

If you're interested in the mental and spiritual approach to weight loss I recommend "Transformational Weight Loss" by Charles Eisenstein and "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson.

El_Dangeroso

I recommend the book 'Potatoes not Prozac', it tackles depression and is also a weight loss diet.

Other than that a good fish oil supplement helps with mild depression, if it's more than mild please see a doctor.

+1 on the recommendation to come over to the nutrition and diet forum and start a food diary.

cafecolour

How well are you keeping with it, honestly? Have you been eating well and maintaining a food diary for a while, or do you do it for a week, get frustrated because you don't get results, and stop for a while?

I'd do more exercise, keep yourself active. Make sure you're doing something relatively strenuous - ie you should be sweating and breathing heavy during you walk, it shouldn't just be a stroll.

Maybe start with some light weight training as well - increasing muscle increases your metabolism.

tinkerbell

To lose weight you have to exercise and eat properly. You need to burn off more than you take in each day, to burn off 1lb of fat = 3,500 calorie deficit.

Even if you're keeping a diary, are you actually recording how many calories are in the foods you are eating? Regardless of eating good healthy balanced meals, you are probably eating too much, too much of healthy foods = weight gain too.

Get yourself over to the Fitness forum and also the Nutrition & Diet forum. Start recording all your food intake (calories etc) and exercising each day - you will soon see how the food you eat adds up vs. the exercise you are doing. You woud be very surprised at how much calories certain foods contain.

You don't need to starve yourself of anything either, you can still have a treat now and again, just keep it within your daily limit and you'll be fine.

username123

lostgirl10 wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies

I have prevously been in weight watchers and just completely lost interest because I have got no where. I was basically yo-yoing and getting nowhere.

I go for a 30 minute walk daily, I walk into college every morning, increased my water intake, keeping snacking to a minimal, eating three well balanced meals per day.

I keep a food diary and write everything down, to me it dosen't add up.

There are days, I will be honest when my mood is low that I could eat a packet of biscuits, but I don't see that as being the issue

I know my bloods are all fine and that, I have been to my Doctor and he has recommended a dietican.

What I have to ask you is this - what are your 3 well balanced meals a day, who suggested what constitutes a well balanced meal, do you know the calorific value of each meal, what are your portion sizes like? Why are you snacking between 3 well balanced meals a day?

On the exercise front, unless you are walking at great speed, wearing wrist weights and going for more than an hour at a time, then you wont be shifting any weight from it. Walking is 'gentle' exercise, a half hour walk daily is not strenuous exercise. Go swimming or cycling as well maybe?
Or take up a sport?

If I were you Id take the docs advice and see a dietician also.

Magenta

lostgirl10 wrote: »

All my childhood life I have been overweight. I am now 21 years old and 19st 7lbs....I have been dieting all my life but getting no where and I am now at a point in my life where I just simply don't know what to do.

The fact that you are dieting and exercising but not losing weight suggests that maybe you are either not exercising enough, or maybe you are eating the wrong foods. A lot of "diet" foods are full of sugar for example.
Thyroid problems can make it very difficult to lose weight so maybe get your doctor to check you out.

OMV

Hello OP. I hope that all the encouragement from these posts is helping in some way.For my part,I would really recommend weightwatchers. However, I know it may not work for everybody. A dietician could be a great help to youif you could arrange to see one. I know you may have already checked this out but could it be possible that you might have polycystic ovaries? They are quite common (very treatable) but having them can make it difficult to shift weight. It is probably something your GP would have checked anyway but just in case.
Good luck with everything and look after yourself

ztoical

Dudess wrote: »

It doesn't seem like an eating disorder though - just unhappiness and self confidence issues, which could be greatly alleviated via healthy weight loss and positive encouragement.

Your at risk of heading down the "if I'm thin I'll be happy" road with that thinking. The OP has stated they have been diagnosed with depression - they don't say what treatment they are getting for it and said treatment would effect any weight loss. Most people assume overweight people are depressed because they are overweight rather then overweight because they are depressed. OP focus on getting treatment for depression first, speaking from personal experience I spent years thinking all my depression was related to my weight and focused on that but it wasn't, I was overweight due to the depression and once I got the correct treatment for depression I found I started to shift weight and felt better without even realizing it.

LegacyUser

Alot of good sound advice here, thanks everyone.

My GP reckons that my depression is totally unrelated, more likely due to huge childhood issues, however a tendancy to turn to food when your down dosen't help!

Dietician at this stage I think is a priority, I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life and put myself into an early grave!

Regarding thyroid and other health problems, I have none! I have had them all checked, so thats rules out Which is a huge relief!

As for balanced meals I would eat like meat or chicken or Fish neither of which is cooked in oil or batter. Then have two or three piece of vegetables and yes I do snack, but who dosen't. I know I only do moderate exercise so maybe it's time to join the college gym!

username123

You need to be really honest with yourself about what you are eating daily, keep a food diary, write EVERYTHING down, dont let a morsel pass your lips without writing it down.

If the college gym is there to be joined then I definitely think you should join it. But dont join and do random stuff, get some proper advice about how best for YOU to work out, a good mix of cardio and/or weights - whatever is best for you.

You said in an earlier post that you could sometimes eat a whole packet of biscuits if your mood is low, so I suggest you try to retrain yourself to do something positive in that situation - like a strenuous work out - that will stop you from eating bad stuff and your mood will improve with the happy exercise endorphins - so a win win.

Its quite possible that what you think is eating healthily is not in fact eating healthily and this is where a dietician would really help you - its not enough to just eat a balanced diet and take some exercise, you need to be generating calorie deficits to shift the weight.

Ultimately I think you need to address your depression before or during your weight loss program as this is going to impact how seriously you follow a diet, if your depression takes over and you havent the heart or the will to be militant with yourself about food, you will then be guilty and upset with yourself and this will push you into a vicious cycle of more depression etc.....

Good luck.

Stheno

lostgirl10 wrote: »

As for balanced meals I would eat like meat or chicken or Fish neither of which is cooked in oil or batter. Then have two or three piece of vegetables and yes I do snack, but who dosen't. I know I only do moderate exercise so maybe it's time to join the college gym!

Those meals sound like dinners to me, I'd consider a balanced diet more something like having porridge/wholewheat cereal for breakfast with milk/fruit, then soup with bread, a small piece of cheese or yoghurt for lunch, then a meal of steamed/baked/grilled meat with veg on the side for dinner.

For snacks have fruit or nuts. I'd tend not to ever be hungry on that sort of diet. Exercise wise, you need to be at least feeling sweaty to be getting the benefit of it if you are not fit Also you need to factor in drinking of any kind (water excluded), tea/coffee/soft drinks/alcohol, they all contain sugar/calories, and need to be included to give you a good overall idea of your calorie intake

Snacks like biscuits/crisps etc are never going to help, they just pile on the pounds.

Go ahead and join the gym, it will be a help, and as another poster said, the high of exercising will take away some of the hunger pangs

..Summergirl..

Awww hun big (((hug))) i do feel your pain but you don't have to kill your life because of your weight. First of all i believe you're beautiful no matter what and don't let this funny feelings let you down. Second, sometimes if you're naturally a bit big from your childhood no matter what you do - you may find difficulties to loss significant weight. Try to join special club where you can meet same people and support each other, try to see dietitian she or he may help you to start personal diet and run some test to see why you're overweight. The other thing what you can do is - operation when on your stomach will be placed special ring, this operation is very expensive and very effective as well, but again sit down and think first; do you really need that? If you put minimum effort off cutting sweets, fast food, sweet drinks as such as cola, fanta, etc. Believe me in a few years you'll see result. And the main thing what i wanted to say is ''believe in yourself that you can do it''. It can be miracle when you believe

Good luck hun and don't feel so sad

littlefriend

dazey82 wrote: »

To date I've lost 7 stone 3 and a half pounds. I couldn't recommend it enough!

Wow, well done. That is an extraordinary achievement.

dazey82

littlefriend wrote: »

Wow, well done. That is an extraordinary achievement.

Thank you Best thing I've ever done. I never thought I'd be able to do it, OP, but I'm proof that it's achievable! I wish you lots of luck. You can definitely do this!

oneintotwo

lostgirl10 wrote: »

As for balanced meals I would eat like meat or chicken or Fish neither of which is cooked in oil or batter. Then have two or three piece of vegetables and yes I do snack, but who dosen't. I know I only do moderate exercise so maybe it's time to join the college gym!

OK, let's backtrack a minute because this is not the issue.

lostgirl wrote:

There are days, I will be honest when my mood is low that I could eat a packet of biscuits, but I don't see that as being the issue

This is. If you do the maths, a pack of biscuits is 800 calories on average for a 1500 calorie maintenance. If you had only one binge per week, it makes a difference of 12lbs per year (800*52/3500). This is what you need to take care of, and it's not about how well you eat all day, it's your general mental state, and it takes some form of personal growth to change that.

As I said, weight is a symptom, not the problem. Changing just your weight won't fix the problem, you probably won't believe me, I wouldn't have believed me, but it's the truth.

A lot of people are telling you that you need to be keeping food diaries and be honest with yourself yadda yadda yadda, but they've probably never been in the same predicament. It's not as simple as what you should do, but how you get to a state where you aren't that person waging war against food every day.

You can keep trying the same thing over and over again if it pleases you, but if you decide to give up on trying more of what doesn't work, please remember the books I mentioned in my last post. I wasted 15+ years banging my head off the wall thinking I just lacked this thing they called "willpower", and I wouldn't like to see you continue down that same road.

Hrududu

You need to start counting calories. I'd imagine that there are more calories in your meals than you think.

Work out how many calories you need to maintain you're current weight. You can find a calculator to do this online. You just enter your weight, height, and the excercise you do. It will return a number of cals per day that you need to eat to maintain this. So if this is say 2000 calories then take 500 from this. By eating 500 less than your maintenance calories you will lose 1 pound a week. This is how you can lose weight safely and steadily. Excercise for fitness. Any cardio you do will help but it won't burn as many calories as you think it would.

I know it's easier said than done but getting some structure in place will really help