Sorry... This is a little lengthy...

Hi, I'm a 21 year old college student.

I've always been a little on the chubby side growing up. My mother was overweight, and always said I was cursed with the same shitty metabolism she was. We always ate healthy and I was a fairly active kid, but her and I both had difficulty keeping wieght off.

At age 16 I was in a car accident. I was T-boned on the drivers side buy a drunk driver. My left leg was... in short... crushed. Over the course of the next 4 years I had 6 surgeries. 7 of the bones in my foot and calf had metal pins or bars surgically grafted to them, several of my ligaments had lengths removed and reattached via metal anchors to my bones. There is a lot more details than that, but the gist of it is... walking was out of the question for much of the 4 years, and when I could walk it was quite painful. Also, the shortened ligaments and tendons made bending my knee and foot in certain ways impossible.

I took to playing a lot of videogames, and ended up rarely leaving my house if it didn't involve school or doctors. Needless to say, I gained A LOT of weight. Thanks to physical therapy and some personal motivation, I am now able to be much more active. Walking for extended periods of time still causes a lot of pain... But the only way to get rid of the pain is to strengthen my leg, which requires toughing through the pain and exercising it.

Now for the body details. At the middle of January I was 220lbs, 5'3", and wearing a size 18 (womens) in jeans. This weekend I weighed in at 195lbs and am comfortably wearing a size 16.

This welcome weight loss sort of came about by accident. I transferred to a very large college campus that requires much more walking. It forces me to tough through the pain in my foot and get some much needed exercise on a daily basis.

So I am here for advice. Without even really trying I managed to drop 2 jean sizes. I'm convinced that with effort I can make it back to what I was as a freshman in high school, and maybe even beyond that. The problem is, I have NO idea where to begin. There is so much conflicting information about what to avoid when it comes to food, diet pills, herbal diet supplements, and not to mention what exercises to do.

My current goal is to fit into my size 12 jeans from high school. But I think if I can make it to size 12... Going beyond that is certainly an option.

I hope I didn't bore you with my ridiculously long post. I tried to keep it brief. But thats me in a nutshell.

Hi OhOhitsmagic
Well done on your weightloss so far. Try and keep up with your diary and take it one day at a time. I find this website is great for keeping track of my weightloss and it gives me great motivation. Read the stickys and take the advice. I dont count calories but I do watch what I eat. I changed to low fat milk, sweeteners in tea and wholemeal bread and cut out the usual crap. It depends on what you like and normally eat. Keep up the walking. Would swimming be a possible exercise it would also take pressure off your leg.
Good luck with your goal. I am looking forward to following your diary.

Hi there! (my response will be twice as long haha!)

I'm so sorry to hear about your accident, but I'm glad that you came through it alive! I lost a friend to an accident similar to yours.

As for your weight situation, you and I are actually in a very similar position. I am around the same weight as you, give or take a few pounds, and the same pants size, though I'm a few inches taller

I've dropped 20 pounds up to this point, but last year I dropped 30 in two and a half months when I tried a new eating style...but then I moved in with a baker and the constant cakes and cookies shot me back up! I lack will-power around some foods, but I'm firmly back on the wagon.

Exercise is important to really shape you up, but at this point, you can do a lot of your weightloss with food. Just because you were born with a slow metabolism doesn't mean it has to stay slow. If you eat the right kinds of foods at the right time of day, in smaller portions and more frequently, you will help your metabolism work faster and longer.

This is the way that I was taught to think about my body:
The body can't read your mind, it can only react to the signals that you give it. Think about our anscestors who didn't have air conditioning, or heat, or grocery stores. In the winter, in order to keep warm, they would eat large meals of as much fatty food as possible to pack on weight. In the spring/summer, they would be constantly on the move, hunting and building and walking everywhere. During these times, they would eat small meals usually of protien continually through out the day. As a result, their bodies would shed the winter pounds and tone right up.

Now in today's society, the condition of our food has become much more fatty and processed, and our portion sizes (especially in north america) have tripled in size. When we consume these huge three meals that contain much fattier protien, tons of carbs, and loads of calories, our bodies think that we are putting on weight for the winter. If you switch to eating five or six small meals during the course of the day, not only will you be less likely to crave but your body will understand that it's time to shed the stored fat. However, if you just start skipping meals and/or eating little to no carbs and calories, your body will think that it is going to starve because it doesn't know when its next full meal is coming and will cling to those fat cells like super glue.

The next thing to remember about carbs is that you only need them during the day, not in the evening. The purpose of carbs is to give you energy to get through the day, but by dinner time, you'll be going to bed in a few hours, so you don't need them. Eat lean protien and vegetables for your dinner, carbs vegetables and protien for your lunch, and something like cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, then have healthy snacks every two or three hours in between (ie: yogurt cups, raw veggies, nuts and rasins, etc), and citrus is one of the few things that can be digested over night, so eating that half an hour or so before you go to bed will stimulate your metabolism to work over the evening as well.

That's some food for thought, it will definitely help you shed some pounds without even adding in excercise (though exercise definitely helps!). This type of eating and thinking is what got me that 30 pound drop in two and a half months. If you decide to give it a try, keep me posted on how you do! I can provide you with some examples of the meals I was eating at that time as well if you'd like.

Best of luck on your journey...may we both hit that size 12 or less soon!

welcome!! good luck!