DESPERATELY needing an answer! RANT RANT

I know you folks have been so patient with my whining... but...  I'm so frustrated right now that I could just pull my hair out! I've been working this sooooooooooo hard.. I've put in more effort than I've ever put into anything because I'm desperate to be a human being again.. to get back to work, to WALK... I've been dieting faithfully for 5 weeks.. .and logging every morsel for the past 5 days.  I've been exercising... even increasing it as I go... really working it.  I KNOW I am eating less and moving tons more than I was...  God I'm working it... Again... again....  yesterday I was 298 and change... I got on the scale this morning and it read 306... I got on again thinking it was a mistake... 306.....    I SCREAMED!!  Yes it's a new scale. I've never wanted anything so badly in my whole life and I'm doing the right things.  Oh GOD KNOWS I'm doing the right things.....  I feel so cursed! For 306 lbs I can eat whatever I want.. I don't have to skimp.  For 306 lbs I can lay around on my fat A** and do nothing... I don't have to cause myself so much pain.  Is it wrong to want to see something to give me hope?  I just can't accept this.. I can't accept knowing I'm going to be like this and worse for the rest of my life.  Is this how my brother hit 600lbs? I have TRIED to keep a decent attitude.  I've been reveling in my newfound energy and trying to use it to get ahead.. but I'm going backwards.. and THEN some! What am I doing wrong.. someone tell me.  Is it the coffee.. could coffee be putting weight on me .. the sugar free creamer?  My blood sugar numbers have been more controlled than they have been in years...   On top of this.. NO DOCTOR believes me.  Whenever I've dieted hard in the past and had this problem, and tell them,  they tell me I'm not being honest.  Oh c'mon!  At 300 freakin' pounds what am I gonna lie about!  I'd feel more validated if I was eating veal parm for breakfast!   I have witnesses I should bring to the doctor.. my family.. but he'll think they're lying too.... I can't believe that I feel like I need witnesses like a criminal.  I'll stick to it again today.  I really will, but I'm so afraid of gaining even more weight and I don't know how to stop it.  God help me cause I can't anymore.  In 5 weeks of dieting, I gained weight.. maybe I should break out the lasagne and see if I lose.  :(  VERY frustrated here.... 

Oh this must be so frustrating.  You have every right to rant, get cranky, and get it out of your system.  I know when I gain or only lose a little after working my plan so diligently, I get frustrated. What does your old scale say?  They could be calibrated differently. There is no way you ate so many calories that you would gain 8 lbs.  I know it's frustrating when the scale fluctuates, but you need to give yourself a break. If you are truly worried about your eating plan, you might want to consider logging it on here and we can see what you are eating and make suggestions if you would like.  One question I would have is if you are eating enough calories.  If you eat too few calories and exercise like crazy your body will go into starvation mode and hold onto every pound it can.  Just a thought. Have you taken your measurements yet?  Sometimes it seems like we aren't losing weight and the scale stays the same, but we indeed lose inches. Let us know how we can help, and we will certainly try. Melinda

Thank you so much for replying.  My family is sick to death of me and I think they just want me to drop dead already. This morning I had 2 pieces of turkey with 2 slices of tomato in the middle.  I weighed the turkey and it was 3 oz.   I'm very afraid to have lunch.  If I get really hungry I'll do the same.  I've been logging everything on fitday for 5 days to see if I'm eating too much and I'm at around 1000 - 1200...   I think about 1300 was my worst day of pigging out and I was so full that I was disgusted.  I feel like all I'm doing is eating and I'm obsessed with it.  At first I was eating the nutrisystem, but my blood sugar wa****ting 250 - 300.. and even though they claim it's good for type II diabetics, those numbers are unacceptable to me.  I don't even wanna just spike to 200.  So now I'm using what I know... and I have been very involved in nutrition and bodybuilding in the past.  I've been resisting the urge to do a liquid fast because I keep thinking that's one of the reasons I got this big to begin with. Ok.. scales.  I thought the other one was flakey, so I took the suggestion to get a new one... this one is cool.. .has memory and measures bmi but I don't understand the water weight thing yet.  I did weigh on the old one this morning as well that was even higher.. 308.  I laughed it off and went to the new one... and almost died when I saw 306. I believe I'm taking in enough of calories... I think it's just too much for my body.  How the he** can aI boost this metabolism!   Frustrated isn't the word...  it doesn't describe how rattled I am right now.  I could be doing this for the rest of my life and not see any change....  the thought of that is .............more than my mind can bear... I mean.. I have no freakin' life as it is! Ok... i'm going to go have 2 slices of turkey with 2 slices of tomato in between.. .I'm still trying!  I just don't know why.  In the past, I've completely given up when this has happened....  I'm trying not to .. but I don't want to keep gaining either.. yanno?

I agree with everything Melinda said.  There could be other reasons too.  You could be dealing with hormonal issues (have you been tested?)  If you aren't eating enough it will definitely work against you.   If you're exercising a lot, you need to feed your body enough  to handle that. Also, have you considered finding another doctor?  It might not be a bad idea to start fresh with someone new.  If you keep a food/activity journal and bring it with you I think you will have enough credibility where they should believe you no matter what.  A doctor should be able to see that something is not right and investigate that.  Stress can cause weight gain b/c of chemicals released in the body that make it hold on to fat.  I know that I am very sensitive to stress and I have to really focus a lot of energy on dealing with just that. Sometimes you just need to take a day off and do something totally fun (non food related) and not think about it.  I find that sometimes I get so consumed by this whole weight thing that I make things harder for myself.  Remember, you have to give yourself a break.  You're doing something for you and it will work when you get the right formula working for you.

Yes.. I've been working on finding another doctor for a while now.  I moved to SC about a year ago and ever since I've had to go back to Florida every three months because I'm having a difficult time finding a doctor in this area.   I wanna have some fun.. really.. I just don't know how/where here.  In florida I'd be swimming in the gulf  and having friends from church over and we'd whip out our guitars and make a night of it.  I guess that's another reason why I need to lose this weight .. there's more to life than cooking, cleaning laundry  and tending tomatoes and I need to get better PHYSICALLY so I can get out there.  I'm so DYING to get back to work!  I like to "be the job".. yanno? My doc did tell me about the stress.. and I was under a lot of stress in my business at the time.  I have a standing rx for a low dose of xanax but I really think all these medications interfere with my weight loss attempts so .... yikes.. I kinda like....try not to take certain meds.  I know the steroids were wreaking havoc on weight loss attempts.  It didn't take long for me to ditch those.. lemme tell ya!  lol

You're absolutely right about stepping back and having some fun..  I'm gonna talk the kids into picking up a volleyball net.  I have all this land and we could really be having a lot of fun with it.

Thank you!!

 

hey where in SC are you? i just moved down here in july. i'm so over this 100 degree weather. and it has been extremely difficult to find resources here. it was like 3 weeks of drama just to find a trainer. i'll probably post something about my drama later today....

I'm near Aiken....  I'm not familiar with the area at all yet.. I've been staying in the house like a hermit crab except for doc appointments.. then it'****tin' the highway for florida. Ummm.... I'm only about 30 minutes away from Augusta, GA.  Does that help?

I'm confused.  You say 5 weeks of dieting but only logged your food for 5 days.  Have you been working on it 5 days or 5 weeks?  In 5 days, you can't expect a hell of a lot.  It is going to take you *years*.  It isn't a quick fix. A couple other comments: As mentioned above, changing scales will make a difference.  If you are feeling better and your body is changing and you are sticking to your plan, stop sweating what the scale says.  The whole point is to feel better right?  Weigh in less often. Stop saying it's a diet.  Diets are temporary and temporary will not get you where you want to go.  You must change the way you eat and exercise, permanently.

It's really simple.....  and not confusing at all. I started dieting seriously 5 weeks ago...   When I wasn't making a headway, I  posted here and folks suggested that I go to the daily plate or fit day to log my food intake.  I thought that was a great idea because I could be going through portion distortion.. .not realizing how much I was eating.  So for the past 5 days I've been logging in every morsel.  It doesn't mean I wasn't trying before...  it means that I took the advice of more experienced folks and decided to use a food log as a tool. Folks here suggested I purchase a new scale... and since mine is well over 20 years old.. I thought THAT to be a good idea too.   It is a diet.  I'm not trying to offend you or anyone else with my use of the word "diet".   Different people have different foods on their diet.  My diet consists of more proteins and lower calories.  Years ago I ate a bodybuilders diet... and that was so much food that people who don't know weight lifting couldn't understand the word "diet" when they saw how much and how often I ate.  I used the verb to describe an effort to change my eating patterns...  I never said I wanted to be thin overnight.... you're seriously misunderstanding me.  It's perfectly normal to see SOMETHING come off in the first week.. even if it's simply excess fluid.. .so no.. I don't think I'm asking for something unreasonable.  Now .. take that to the 5 week mark and see a weight gain.. I don't think I'm feeling something abnormal. Yea.. the point is to feel better.. but any woman will tell you that it's more than that!  At this weight, I don't feel like a woman.. there' s nothing feminine about me at all, and I don't want to look/feel like  a man.  I was born a woman and I'd like to look/feel my own gender.  Sometimes it's not enough to just color my hair and paint my nails and put on makeup.. in fact, it makes me feel worse to even just do that at this weight.. almost like I don't have a right.. I'd like to be able to dress nice, wear heels (dare I say).  No.. I'll never get back into the leather that's still hanging in my closet, but at least a pair of jeans!  I don't think there's anything wrong with me because I want to look better as well as feel better.. and I won't let ANYONE make me feel badly about it either.. I'm well aware that this change needs to be permanent.  But I don't want to make a change that's going to make it WORSE so I'm trying to get it right NOW... not when I hit 400 lbs because I'm doing something wrong.  Again..  that's my reason for seeking information from folks who might have been just where I am now.  Trust me.. no matter what you say to me, you can't make me feel any worse than I already do!

okay nothing you are doing is going to make your situation worse! you are making healthy choices and that will pay off if you keep it up. i know you say 5 weeks, but i have to agree with bert. i would start your counting from the 5 days when you started monitoring. not to say you were not trying before those 5 days but research after research study has told us that we eat totally differently when we know we have to write it down. that's just the way it is. and like you said, you posted here because you were not making the progress you wanted to in those 5 weeks and 5 days is not enough time to make a turnaround and major weight loss. if you have been eating healthy all along, you're not going to see the large weight loss that some people see their first week on a "diet". those lbs are water weight and if you've been doing this for weeks, you won't have that.  2 lbs a week is what you should aim for. it takes time for your body to catch up. if you do the exercise, food monitoring and continue to seek support for another month and see no progress, i would say its time to get a complete medical/nutritional/fitness evaluation. have you met with a nutritionist to determine what an appropriate calorie level for you is?  if you are 300 lbs, you can most likely eat more than 1100 calories a day and probably need to in order to lose weight, especially since you say you are working out.

if you are going to use the scale, which we know is not the best measure of success, you really need to try and shift the way you look at it. my scale (literally) gave me 8 different weights on saturday morning - just getting on and off and on and off. yes i am obsessive. obviously i did not lose 2 lbs in the 5 seconds between weighings. i have just become sort of numb to it because we know they are unreliable and fluctuate a tons depending on time of the month, time of the day, how much water you drank, if you went to the bathroom before or after, if you went to church or not, if you are wearing socks or not, how you stand on the actual scale platform etc etc etc. you know rationally and logically that there is no way you gained 5 lbs or whatever in a day. it is impossible - sometimes we need to just stop and reality check it. have you taken measurements? unfortunately, NONE of this is an exact science. lord knows it would be a heck of a lot easier if it was. but there is just a ton of information that we just don't know about how the human body works. yes its totally frustrating, but all you can do is keep up with what you're doing. eventually, it will start moving (unless there is a medical/hormonal issue). the mind/body connection is also really unestimated. when i went to the DFC the first time when i was 280, i had a bad attitude and didn't want to be there at all. even in a totally structured environment where you only get the food you plan, eat 1500 cals and work out for an hour a day, i was not reliably losing weight. i would lose 4 lbs, gain 2, lose 1, gain .5 etc. i got a better attitude towards the end and it immediately made a difference in the scale. why? who knows. i (only) lost 14 lbs in 8 weeks, which was not much considering where i started and the environement i was in.  i know you are feeling crappy right now. you are not abnormal for feeling the way you do. its human nature to get frustrated when you're putting a lot of energy into something and seemingly not getting any results. your options are to give up, eat what you want, get unhealthier. or keep doing what you are doing now - making better choices and making small changes in your lifestyle. now is that really much of a choice? just hang in there. its a bumpy ride and truthfully, you'll be on the coaster for the rest of your life. you just have to learn how to deal with those bumps and confusion without getting knocked off track.  just take it one day at a time, one meal at a time, one hour at a time. it can be done. and i'm confident that you can do it.