Hi newbie

[xdianex]

Hey just wanted to say hi.... new to dieting but feel over the past year that I’ve put loads on! I have an underactive thyroid so find it hard to loose weight...... plus it zaps my energy! Any tips or advice would be welcomed 🙂

Di

[Pineapple27]

Hi and welcome xdianex 🙂👋🏻

There are many of us on this Forum who have additional barriers to losing our weight - whether it's age, the side-effects of medication, thyroid problems, disability, illness.... it just means that we will have to put in that little more effort to counting calories and keeping an eye on portion sizes as we are likely to need less calories because of our inability to burn additional calories through huge amount of exercise....

I have a disability that I was born with (shortening of all four limbs as a result of the drug Thalidomide my mum took when pregnant with me). As a result my mobility is minimal - and was further reduced following a serious head on car crash in 2002 when I broke my ankle. I went on to have ny ankle joint fused and am still in constant pain with it.

I started my weight loss journey at 14 stone - 5 and a half years ago. I am just 4ft 9" tall and so was classed clinically obese.


I was 49 years old and had been trying to lose weight all of my life since the age of 9. My disability makes exercise difficult (I am very sedentary and use a wheelchair outside of the house).

The one thing that I realised 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" active man (my now husband!). No wonder I was piling on the weight!

I started my journey at the end of February 2012, and managed to lose 4.5 stone 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 at around 10 stone. Still considered "over weight".

Ideally I would love to drop another stone to 9 stone and maintain there.

My weight loss journey has been long, but I am still learning new tips and tricks to help me along the way and what's more, still enjoying the challenge! I would say that my behaviour around food has changed massively - I have learned to respect food, to "break" it's control over me, and to be able to modify how I behave with food. Just because food is within sight doesn't mean I have to eat it! I don't see eating the way I do as meaning that I am missing out any more - in fact I am now able to enjoy my life and have regained the ability to do things that I struggled to do or even found impossible to do!

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.

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

[xdianex in reply to Pineapple27]

Thanks Pineapple27 truly inspirational and I shall have a look at your journey 🙂 x

[jopo]

Welcome Di

You've come to a great place.

Loads of advice here from everyone but the best tip from me and just the most important thing someone said to me at the start of my journey was "don't diet just ditch the junk and eat real food".

You need to find a new lifestyle if the old one is making you unhealthy.

Wishing you well xdianex xx

[xdianex in reply to jopo]

Thanks jopo, yeah I need to change my lifestyle was getting very lazy come the end of last year and started getting takeout a lot! I also started a new job last year which is very non active so the two together have helped me pile the pounds on.

[jopo]

I bought a Fitbit last year and it helped me enormously in losing 4 stone.

When the clocks went back I lost a bit of motivation for walking but we're on the up now.

Good luck x

[Wadestreet]

Welcome!! Just what jopo message in the nut shell. I am going to apply that to becoming healthier in my life. Keep us posted in how your doing and best wishes.