New to group and need help with accountability!
I am new to this group and to Cafe Mom. I have been overweight for several years now and am really struggling to get motivated to lose weight. I plan on starting in the morning on a diet and exercising...Any one who can help me or relate to me I would really appreciate it!! I have nine kids and I don't know when or where I am supposed to find the time to eat right and exercise!! I also go to school at night...I have the desire to lose weight and be healthy for my family, but I tend to eat emotionally... It is very hard to be in this position!
I don't think I am as busy as you since I only have 2 kids and am not in school or working. But I do understand emotional eating. I put on about 30 pounds while struggling with depression and trying to get the right meds for it and then I was put on a medication for the bipolar that made me gain around 50 pounds. I went from around 150 to 230. I've been on a different bipolar medication and finally on the right antidepressants and have been for a little over a year now and in that time I have lost around 30 pounds. At 5'8" and carrying my weight as I do I don't look too bad for being around 200 pounds but I wanna take the rest off, even if I don't get back down to a size 6 I would like to be slimmer again. I am having a hard time with an actual weight loss plan and accountability.
since permanent weight loss needs to be a lifestyle change I am not going too crazy with the dietary changes, I am trying to make changes that my husband and I can actually live with and stick to. And I'm also trying to be reasonable and not get too carried away with the goals cause I know not being able to stick with something will make me feel bad and cause the emotional eating which is totally defeating the purpose of a weight loss plan lol. My husband and I want to work on portion control and adding in healthier meals I've been making sure to use low fat or no fat versions of things when we can. And we eliminated sugar sodas from our diet, I just buy the ones sweetened with splenda, the diet rite stuff is great for the kids cause it also has no caffeine. we try not to drink much soda but its unreasonable for us to say we're not gonna have any at all.
I decided this weekend I would buy a scale since I don't currently own one and I would choose a day and weigh myself that same day each week. If figured if I gave myself even that small level of accountability it would help me make better choices through the week in eating and exercising. Like I coulda taken my daughter for a walk today but I got lazy about it and skipped it, and I think I woulda done it if I had to be getting on a scale in a few days lol. Anyways I'm sorry I'll stop rambling here, those were just some of my thoughts on it lol
Thank you for replying. I was pretty thin also (145) at 5'7" and then I had a roll over accident, shattered two vertebra in my neck and underwent several surgeries. I have since lost 3" in height and am weighing in at 210. I am also bipolar so I understand that aspect too. My husband is very supportive but wants me to lose weight because it will improve my health so much. I am just struggling to not overeat. There has been a lot going on with my kids and I tend to get really depressed and eat. However, there are aerobics classes offered at my church M-F and I just need to get up and go!!
Thank you so very much for your reply. Let me know how you are doing and I will do the same!
Courtney
My husband and I both eat from stress and depression so I know how that goes, and we both need to lose around 50 pounds, he may actually have more to drop than that. Its something I really want for our health, my son is even starting to have a few pounds to lose so we really need to make some changes and nip this in the bud before we have too much to worry about. We live in Wisconsin and with winter coming its going to be harder to get out to exercise so that will provide some extra challenges. I love how I feel when I exercise its just a matter of getting off my butt and doing it lol. Maybe if we keep each other posted on how we are doing it will help keep us both motivated in this task and by summer we'll both be all thin and hot again lol
I know you can do it, I know we both can. Its something we know we need to do for our health and to help us feel happier about ourselves. That first step of really seriously getting started on the working out will be hard but once we get going it will get better. I mean of course there will be set backs at times but we have supportive husbands to help and we can help encourage each other too
Hey :-) Mind if I join. I could use a group to talk about weight loss stuff.
2 years ago, over the course of a year, I made my way down from 175lbs to 130... I was happy there.. then got pregnant with twins and shot right back up to 175 ;-)
Now my girls are 6 months old and I'm down to around 155lbs.. I want to keep making slow steady progress in the DOWN direction.. ideally to hit around 130 again (and then hopefully to stay there!!)
I've been losing weight super slowly.. and I'm ok with that as long as it keeps going down.. but it's hard to even keep that up because I'm hungry all of the time, I'm stressed out, the girls keep me busy, and I hardly have the energy to do any workouts because I barely sleep :-P
The best thing I seem to be able to do is keep up with portion control and try to curb the snacking. I'm all out of halloween candy now.. so I'm trying to re-set my plan and re-commit and all that jazz :-)
Starting today I'm committing to less take-out food and more healthy home-cooked meals :-) I think talking to other people who are trying to lose weight will help me keep my mind on that.
I've been a part of other online weight loss groups before (back when I was losing weight af ew years ago) and the way it worked best was just.. free-form. Everyone posted "as needed" :-) kindof just like an on-going group therapy session!
That sounda fine by me, free form works, I have borderline personality disorder along with the bipolar so I can't handle too much structure anyways. My weight has been coming off slowly too, but they say its healthier that way. Portion control seems to be a huge thing, I know we wanna work on that too, I have to keep telling myself not to fill the bowl or plate and that I can always go back for seconds if needed, otreven that I don't have to finish whats on my plate if I am full. I hear ya with the tired, my meds make me really tired and then I have been sick so that isn't helping any. Hopefully your girls will start sleeping more at night soon so you can get some rest.
How did everyone do over the weekend? :-)
I think I managed to eat better than I usually do... We had some coupons for free boston market meals, so I had some macaroni & cheese as a side dish.. but I think that was the worst thing that I ate! and it was the only time we got take out .. so... not too shabby.
We also had salads with dinner both last night and tonight.. which is something we've been neglecting lately.
We went to the grocery store tonight and got some fresh veggies and I'm going to try to make some good healthy crock pot meals this week.. maybe some kind of vegetable soup. Got some ground turkey too, for chilli. Cooking at home is one of the best things I can do for my diet goals.. because I cook with healthy ingredients most of the time, it's just when I go out or buy pre-made food that things get really bad around here!
As for exercise.. no big strides there except that the weather was gorgeous today, so we took the girls for a nice long walk. I used to be such a jock.. but I know it'll take me a while before I get back into that. I'm just sooo tired... I wasn't sleeping well while pregnant.. and I sure haven't been sleeping well over these 6 months since the girls were born. It feels like such a workout just to live through a day! So.. diet is where my hopes for weight loss lie until we get the girls sleeping through the night reliably and I'm done breastfeeding!
Hope that everyone else had a healthy weekend! :-)
I've been trying to watch my portions, and I road 16 miles on my mom's exercise bike today while I was over there. I plan to ride her bike every time I am there, its a really nice bike its very quiet and its in the living room so I can visit with them while exercising. I bought my scale today and I'm probably gonna weigh myself tomorrow and take my measurements and then keep up with doing that every Monday. I figure if I have to step on the scale once a week I will make better choices during the week. I'm working on the home cooked meals thing too and trying to cook healthy so we can eat healthy.
Exercising when Sick.
- courtny5
on Nov. 10, 2009 at 5:03 PM