I'm back.

Once again I am on the weight loss wagon but this time I am trying to do it so that I can win and not necessarily by "the program". I have decided to not eat sweets and to eat a Healthy Choice Dinner or the equalivance. Always before I had so much taken from me at once such as no sweets, breads, starches, etc. I am drinking water and unsweetened iced tea and only one Diet Coke a day. Somedays not even one. I have been overweight since I was five. I can honestly say that it is just now starting to effect me. My BMI is now 51 and I really want to be able to go on vacation and be able to walk. I have a lot of other health problems that I know would improve with the weight loss. Thanks for being there. Dixie

Good luck to you. It's not easy to beat this problem, especially if we have eating disorders with issues behind them. I'm a compulsive overeater, and I have binge eating disorder, too. I've been overweight since I was around 21. My family considered me overweight from the time of 11-1/2, but I disagree with them, since my pictures show me looking normal weight, and going through the changes of puberty. Even the kids at school didn't make fun of me for being overweight, only my family. They helped destroy my body image, so I thought of myself as being fat when I really wasn't. I decided not to have wls because I felt it was too risky. Now my new insurance company won't pay for it , anyway, so it's just as well. I am going to Overeater's Anonymous, and following a food plan of theirs. It doesn't seem like a diet to me, and that is just as well, since I can't diet any more, anyway. I am doing small changes to combat my compulsive overeating behavior. Denise Phares

Hi Denise, I appreciate your reply to my post. I have never really felt what being normal was. There were a few years in my late teens, early twenties that I was close--size 16. I was granted an early retirement from teaching after 25 years and my eating was in celebration mode to the addition of about 80 pounds in the last three years. I am now in a mode that I want to loose the weight because I have had heart surgery for a congenital birth defect. I now also have a pacemaker. I cannot do the walking like I used to do. I am looking forward to reading your homepage and keeping in touch. One day at a time. Dixie

Hi Dixie, Welcome! and good luck. I believe starting out with small changes can have a huge positive impact on losing and maintaining weight loss. Even now as I am struggling with my program, I find there are some things that I have changed for good. No longer drinking cokes, don't eat at fast food joints, and exercise 3 times a week. These things seem like habit now. Just curious, when I read your profile the pysch doctor said you were not a ideal canadiate. How could they possiblely know that? Ann