Hi everyone.

As most of you, I've been here for a while and I have decided to make a diary today to help me stay on track. The motivation you are giving to eachother and all the support are amazing! I just couldn't help hopping on board when I found it, so here I am now with my story!

I am 18 and currently right under the obese borderline on the BMI chart. I was always chubby but it was never this serious. I would say that the point of no return for me was when I came back home after finishing my foreign exchange student experience and stepped on my scale. When I saw those 80kgs staring at me I felt like someone slapped me right across my face. In a period of a year I spent away from home I have gained about 15 kilograms! You would think that would really motivate me to change my lifestyle and start losing those pounds wouldn't you? Well, I guess not. I continued eating because I was sad, and I was sad because I ate and it all trapped me in a vicious cycle that was dragging me down further more. On one rainy day I woke up and stepped on the scale. 85.3kilograms. I was always on the heavy side and on a diet for as long as I could remember, but never this big. I felt crushed.

Generally I am a very happy person. Seeing me without a smile on my face or not randomly bursting into song means that something is seriously wrong.
Being pressured with the weight I was carrying I felt sadder than ever before. Smiling and singing were the last things on my mind. I did the last things that would ever be on my mind -- I gave up. I thought that this is stronger that me and that I cannot beat it.

Two months ago I went to get medically checked up and they found all these things wrong with me connected with my weight gain and that was a harsh wake up call for me. I couldn't go on a diet right away because I was taking medication for some of the gastrointestinary problems they've detected but things definately changed in my mind.

I decided it is time to take charge of my life.

I decided to fight.

So here I am now, fighting with the weight that made me a prisoner of my own body. This time my resolution to lose weight is actually coming true. I am doing it and I am not stopping no matter what. No more excuses, no more failures. I am stronger than this and I can win it.

People on this board and their stories are so inspiring to me. When I see their successes it makes me so much more motivated to work harder to achieve my own. I hope that, one day not to long from now, a newbie on here can read my story and feel inspired as well.

I will work hard to make it happen.

I love you all and wish you a good loss today!

p.s. One of the favorite writers of mine said something that really impacted me, so I wanted to share it with you:

heh,
I was surfing through this site and I came upon this thread and .. WE MEET AGAIN! ^^
Wow, your stories intense. I'm happy for you.. that you have decided to take this on and change your life. I'm proud of you and I bet you're proud of yourself aswell ^^
With the attitude you have now, you will reach your goal.
I love the quote, and.. I'm rooting for you
- Maya <3

Congratulations on your weight loss so far! I firmly believe you have to lose the weight in your mind before you can lose it from your body. It sounds like you are highly motivated, and generally quite a positive person, so I think you can do this with no trouble!! Hard work, yes; but that is just part of taking responsibility for ourselves.

Hope this finds you smiling once again, gaining confidence as you continue on your journey!

Best wishes to you,
ABBA

Thank you so much! You're both lovely :-)

Today was a good day so far, and I hope I will make it through the evening without any majot set-backs as that is usually the hardest part of the day for me. I was really sad to see that I gained a kilogram and something back over the weekend but I guess I had to somehow expect that since I was not eating as healthly as I should have. Ah those apple-cinnamon muffins! Who could resist them? Oh well. I will have to work twice as hard to burn that off.

I am not updating my ticker until I see a lower number on the scale than the last time I updated it.

Lets see what I had to eat today:

Breakfast:
1 toast
1 egg
Glass of grapefruit-orange juice

Snack: 2 Kbars -- I usually have only one, so the other one means minus weight loss points for me! And as I just couldn't help putting this little piggy looking at me from the right in this post, I think this would be an appropriate moment.



So adorable!

Lunch:
Vegetable Soup
Chicken
Green salad

Dinner:
Apple
Activia

Today I:
Walked for 30mins, slow pace with a friend;
Climbed 4 stories;
and I plan on doing aerobic exercise+dance later this evening for about 15-30mins.


I am going through a terrible cold. I can hardly breathe. Lets hope I will feel better tomorrow as I have loads of school work for this week!

Love you all.

My quote for today, that helps me push successfully through the times when I am thinking wheter to reach for that second piece of chocolate or not is:


And that is so true!

Hi! Thank you for your wonderful quotes..and I'm so glad you've decided to take care of yourself we can do this!!

Ah thanks Jilzy! Yes we can!!!

I have a question for anyone reading this:

Is it unrealistic to set a 5kg weight loss per month goal? 5kgs = 11lbs.

Update!
I managed to get through the evening excellently with taking another 15+min walk with my dog and I am doing aerobics/dance right now, so everything is going great! I can't wait until I drop that extra kilogram I gained over the weekend. It makes such a difference even though it just 2lbs. I just feel so much heavier than before.

A realistic goal is 1 percent of your body weight a week... so 11lbs might be a lot or it might be just right...

Hey there maleficent.

Thank you for the info. It is most definately useful. I will use it to calculate the approximate weight loss goal that I should set.

So I did it and it says that I should be losing 1.74 lbs per week, which equals to 8lbs per month. Lets make it understandable to me -- .79 kg per week or 3.16 per month. I might have overestimated my weight loss when putting 5 kgs as my montly goal. I thought that since I managed to lose that much during the first month I can keep it up like that in the future, but I've also read that the first kilograms are the easiest to drop because it is mostly water that goes away and a little percent of fat. I only lost 1 kilogram during the first two weeks of February so I might lower my weight loss to the number above stated. Lets first see how this evolve from here.

So far today was good. I decided to update my ticker with the weight gain. It's part of the deal right? So... I really can't wait to take what I gained off! Like, seriously! A few muffins over the weekend and some peanuts can make a week ahead so much more stresfull that it could have been.

Today I had:
Breakfast:
1 egg
1 toast
1 glass of grapefruit-orange juice

Snack:
1 Kbar

Lunch:
Vegetable Soup
Chicken Breasts (1 piece)
Green Salad

This blogging of my intake makes me feel like I am eating the same things everyday! It's not as it seems people! :-)
I am also taking Multivitamin supplements and a vitamin E one.

For the rest of the day I plan to have lots of water, an apple and Activia.

Activities:
15+ mins medium pace walk
Climbed 4 stories
In plan: Another walk, dance&aerobics; probably skipping the elevator again:-)


Today I just had to put this little fellow somewhere in here, as I have been watching him in amusement for the past 5minutes.

Ok, so honestly tonight was not as good as yesterday but I made it through and tomorrow is a new day. I tried some old clothes that stopped fitting as the scale numbers went up and it felt so good to be back in those lovely jeans again! I love my old jeans! I still can't wear them out because when I button them I have rolls sticking on the sides (where is that piggy smiley when you need it:-)) but I am highly motivated to get those off as soon as possible!

Nothing tastes as good as fit feels. That always comes to my mind when writing things like these.

Good news: I weighed and I have lost .7kgs from that weekend-weight-gain. Just .5kg more! Can't wait to see a lower number on the scale!

Good night everyone.

Hi Skim! Took me a while, but I finally found your diary.

To hear you talk about those muffins, one might think you ate a whole dozen of them. It couldn't have been that bad! Weight fluctuation happens to everyone, and I know I had problems with clothing weight when I was getting started. The difference between pants and shorts was bigger than I would have thought. If you want consistent numbers, just do your weigh-in in your bra and panties. Be sure you do it first thing in the morning before you eat/drink anything, too. And try not to weigh yourself more than once a week. I know it might sound silly but I can tell you from personal experience that I dropped two pounds from Thu to Sun (Sun being my normal weigh-in day) last week. I was so discouraged on Thu, and then Sun hit and I was like... holy cow! I've sworn off mid-week weighing now.

Anyway, just wanted to stop in and say hi and lend a little encouragement. Keep up the good work and have faith in yourself. You can do it!

Hello my beautiful weight-losers!

Thank you for your support Squeak! I always wanted to ask you how did you choose your nickname? I love it! It's so fresh and original! :-) Thank you for the tips also.

I try to weight with as less as clothes possible in the morning and at night, but I do it at least a few more times during the day. I just see the scale and hop on, wanting to see how am I doing. I know this might be contra-productive, but it's working for me so far. Should I really only weight once a week? It sounds impossible to me right now, being so scale-opsessed as I am. I just fear that if I do it only once a week I might feel lighter after a few days, think I lost more than I actually did, and allow myself to slip away from the track just enough to regain what I lost. What do you think? What works better for you?

I have lowered my mini goal seeing that I might have overdone it with the first one. I am always so optimistic :-) Lets try to stay real with this one -- 3-3.5kgs a month should be fine. My new mini goal is 76.5kg. I think I am plateauing right now as I just can't get under 79kgs. I am trying harder than before but I just feel like I am not trying hard enough as I still catch myself having things I shouldn't have, like chocolate for example. I have lowered my intake in those, that is for sure, but I feel like I should cut them out completely if I really want to succed. Maybe I am being to stern with this.

So! Today I had:

Breakfast:
2 egg yolks
1 piece of toast
1 glass of grapefruit juice

Lunch:
Pasta with cheese and tomato sauce (small serving)

Snack:
4 pieces of chocolate ~ 250-300 kcal
Kbar

Dinner:
Piece of meat
Pickled Cucumbers

Activities:
Medium pace 30+mins walk
Climbed four stories
Aerobics&Dance 15+mins

I did poorly today since me and my friend studied biology the whole day at her house after school, and trust me -- you do not even notice how many chocolate you had after doing genetics for hours :-) I also had to try her "famous" pasta so I had just a little of it. I love her and how I almost get poisoned everytime I eat her cooking. :-)

I love you all, have a good night.

Everything sounds great but let me warn you, don't weigh yourself everyday...its a bad habit and in the end could cripple your diet....once a week, same time, with same clothes is perfect..it may be fun now to weigh 3 times a day but soon you will get discouraged because you don't always lose weight every week.

That was really well said. Thank you Trevor!

Hi there!!

I just wanted to say I don't think weighing yourself everyday is THAT bad as long as you don't let it get to you. You have to understand that some days are definitely going to be higher than others bc there are so many factors that affect the number on the scale other than actually gaining fat.

I weigh myself every morning first thing and write it down. At the end of the week I average all seven weigh-ins and come up with a number. I do that each week and compare the averages to assess whether I've lost weight or not. I think this is a more accurate method than only weighing weekly, and it allows you to see patterns better such as if you retain water after eating lots of salty foods the day before, if the time of the month affects your weight at all, etc.

Whatever works best for you though is the key. Up until recently I'd weigh myself every Thursday morning and that was it. That worked well too, but I prefer doing it every day and averaging the numbers weekly.

Good luck though! You can definitely do this. It might seem like it'll take forever, but time goes by fast!! Before you know it months will have passed and you will be so happy that you put in the effort that you did.