I'm Alex, 28 years old, currently on a long journey across the Balckans. Last year I straggled with severe depression and psychosis. I was on medications that made me eat a lot. Over a few months I gained extra 20 kg, from 52kg to 72kg with only 1.60 m of hight.
Yesterday I found the NHS 12 week program and today I succeeded in eating only about 800kl and I plan to eat the same tomorrow only to prepare myself for the habitual 1400 kl a day.
My goal is to go back to my 52 kg in one year.
I'm not ready to exercise yet, but my days are full of activities such as walking, caring a heavy backpack and gardening.
I'm too shy to share it with my friends and I hope this community will help me to keep on track.
To add I've started mindful mediation a few weeks ago and it helps me a lot with the acceptance of my state of body.
Best regard and fingers crossed.
Written by
Wild-Strawberry
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Good luck to you on your journey! We'll be here for you.
Wellcome! I think that this is the best place to start!!! I've found great support here and the 12 week (or more) program makes SO much sense....so much more than any other diet. It teaches you how to eat, and the amounts. Good luck!!
This is an amazing forum to be part of. Many of people on here have different areas of concern but we are all trying to get to, or maintain, our desired weight. As you get to know us, and share experiences with us, you will find what a super supportive bunch we are, and that we don't pass judgements.
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Have a look at the NHS 12-week plan; many people have had success with it. Also use the BMI checker to find your target calories, it's important to eat enough. This can be a major turning point, realising you can eat anything as long as the calories are accounted for and are within your personal limit.
Don't forget to take your starting measurements and a 'before' picture, as they can be very motivating on days that the scales refuse to co-operate; that happens to me quite regularly!
The forum also has group weigh-ins every day, just choose which day you wish to weigh, join the post for that day and weigh in once per week. The Daily Diary is a very useful thread where we post our planned menu for the day, including calories if you count them, any exercise you have planned and any tips that you can share. The posts can always be found in the Events section on the 'home' page.
If you just want to chat, to say hello, or share any news or struggles then look out for the What's Happening Today thread. There are many other challenges to get involved with, just choose to do what you are comfortable with and feel free to join as many, or as few as you wish.
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I wish you well as you get started with a new lifestyle.
This is a friendly and very supportive place and you'll have lots of companions with you on your weight loss journey!
As a fellow "shortie" (and I am just 144cm!) I can tell you that we have our work cut out, as each additional 500g we carry makes such a huge difference - but the same can be said about losing weight!
There are many of us here who have some sort of barrier to losing weight easily - but the great thing is, it's entirely possible without any exercise whatsoever! In fact, successful weight loss is achieved about 80% through diet and only 20% exercise. I suppose you could say that those of us who are unable to exercise, or whose exercise ability is compromised in some way just have to give it an additional 20%!
I started my weight loss journey at 14 stone (89kg) - 5 and a half years ago. I was 49 years old and had been trying to lose weight all of my life since the age of 9.
I started my journey at the end of February 2012, and managed to lose 4.5 stone (28.5kg) in 2 and a half years through calorie counting and logging/weighing all of my food.
Then re-gained some, lost some again and have now managed to more or less maintain for the past 6 months.
BUT... ideally I would love to drop another stone and maintain there.
I have a disability which makes exercise difficult, but the one thing that I realise very early on in my journey was that I was just eating FAR TOO MUCH! I was a short, middle aged, sedentary female and I was eating the same as 5ft 9" (175cm) active man (my now husband!).
No wonder I was piling on the weight!
Here are a few of my past posts which I hope you will find helpful and inspiring. I won't try and tell you that my journey was easy - and you'll see that there were many blips along the way, but 5 years down the line, I feel about 20 years younger than I did when I was lugging around 4 stone more.
Please do pop back to the forums and share your journey with us - we are here for you, day and night and happy to share your success or support you when you need it.
The best of luck to you. I suspect that when you are successful in your aim you just might find yourself in the same situation as my wife does. My wife got fed up with being over weight and joined a slimming club which has helped her to get to her target weight. She only has one problem and that is what she refers to as a floppy tummy and floppy bits that hang from the under side of the top of her arms. She has been told that the only way to deal with them is surgery and I feel that is over kill. So, can anyone offer a solution because if one does exist it will make a lot of people with floppy bits and pieces happy.
I lost 4.5 stone (aged 50) and had a tummy tuck and breast reduction as was left with a lot of flappy skin! Arms are ok. I think a lot has to do with genetics, but also our physical shape - which we're not in control of - as well as age - the older we get, the less elastic our skin
Mine was practical (surgery) rather than me being vain. I have a disability and was unable to keep the area below my belly "apron" clean!
I only lost about 6lb in weight... most of it was skin. There wasn't much fat left!
Hi Wild-Strawberry and welcome! By now you will probably already see what a great community this is! Those who stay and come in regularly to the group seem to all agree that this is the best support we have found for losing the weight in a safe and happy way.
To begin with I ruled out exercise. I just wanted to get my food under some kind of control first. A few weeks later I upped my activity just a bit, running up the stairs in work and walking home a couple of days a week. Eventually exercise became something I WANTED to incorporate and I am now a few weeks into the couch-to-5k programme and enjoying it. What I am trying to say is.. if you dont want to exercise just yet that is perfectly fine, I lost without it. And you might find it just creeps in naturally.
I hope you will stay with us and find success. You sound unhappy with your current situation, and maybe you will find the support you need to make a positive change!
Good luck and hope to see you in Daily Diary and the weigh ins!
Hi there, one thing you need to do is make sure you are even eating enough calories. Check this out on the NHS bmi calculator as by not eating enough your body thinks you are starving it and turns what your eating into body fat and this weighs more than eating the extra calories does so it stops you from losing weight and sometimes puts weight on instead. I made this mistake for years so please don't make this mistake as well. I only found this info out on here though and many people make this same mistake themselves. Good luck with your journey.
Hi Alex, good to hear from you, and to let you know, you are not alone. I know it can be easy to say, but hang on in there matee. There is a saying that goes like this.
Rome wasn't build in a day, meaning, anything we set out to do, will take both time, and sacrifice. Life is a struggle, and at times life happens, we will fall, and mess up things, and ourself, but remember we are only failures if we do not get up, dust the dirt of ourselves, and carry on.
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