Ready to try this without surgery. Any pointers?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post! 

I am 23 years old and currently a size 26 (I don't weigh myself). This is the largest I have ever been and I can't stand it anymore. I have tried to find surgeons to work with my insurance (limited coverage) and no luck. It's been 2-3 years now and I'm just emotionally exhausted from trying!

To make this short..

I would really appreciate stories and advice on how to get started. What your regimen is? How did you start making changes? How do you handle the struggles? How often do you work out? What keeps you motivated?

I'm young and I'd like to enjoy part of my 20's being completely confident and self loving. So any advice is appreciated thank you very much :)

 February 12, 2010

Dear Tashibaby:

I go to Overeaters Anonymous.  It's a spiritual program for people who have problems with their eating.  I eat 5-6 meals a day of healthy food.  I also exercise several times a week.  I've gone from 241.5 pounds (on November 18) to 219 pounds as of today.  I'll give you the website so you can look up meetings for yourself:  www.oa.org

Denise Phares/Highpow

Well I've known about OA for awhile but I'm going to check out a meeting tomorrow. I know I can't do this alone, even in several ways I feel alone but I feel like it would be a good start for me.

Thank you for the replies, they've helped. Hopefully I can start to change my life!

For me how I started making changes was I started making small changes. I stopped drinking diet soda and started drinking water. I was already a member of curves I just hadn't been in forever so I started going back and made sure I always went at least 3 -5 days a week with 5 being what I tried for every week.  Now I always get 5 days in at curves because I currently am working there.  For me it's very hard to handle the struggles but it has gotten easier over time. My body seems to have adjusted to eating smaller amounts of food.  For me I didn't elimated any foods from my diets with the exception of all sodas and I very rarely eat out (I do not like hte amount of sodium in most foods that you get from restaurants).  Other then that I allow myself whatever I want but all within moderation of course.

What keeps me motivated is knowing I am getting myself healthy. Also as you loose weight and start seeing your hard work pay off that is a huge motivation.



Johnita

I've lost 148 pounds in 15 months. First I read The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell to see what healthy people eat and then I found Dr. John McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss - he has a book but I found his website first. http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=11  I made a complete change of my diet quickly although I know others do it slowly. I don't eat processed food anymore and got over my addiction to this kind of food - and addiction it was. I changed the food I buy, how I cook, my recipes-total overhaul. I have another 50 pounds to lose. To have to lose 200 pounds is shocking and painful but it also felt overwhelming. I broke it down into tiny little goals, some weight based and some non-scale victories. I celebrate every 10 pounds, every change in clothing size and what ever else I could find. Usually my celebration was to just let the warmth of success wash over me to feel good about myself. Some celebrations were bigger rewards such as getting tickets to a special show when I lost 100 pounds. It was also frustrating at the beginning because you have to lose a lot of weight before you change clothing sizes or people notice, so look within yourself to feel the success because you won't get it from others early on. You can also track your exercise and again set baby goals for improvement there.

My current goals are to get to 150 pounds lost (just 2 more pounds to lose), to drop into size 14 clothes (probably another 10 pounds), to shop in the regular department (I'm halfway there). I'm close to having my BMI in the overweight category. You can see I have lots of small goals.

You can do it. The biggest tip I can give you is don't get caught up in the negativity if you fall off the diet wagon, immediately dust yourself off and get back on. The worst is to say to yourself that you fell off so you might as well continue eating badly.

Skylar

I was going to get surgery....was approved by insurance and almost there....but then I opted out.  See, losing and maintaining weight witht he surgery is no easier than doing it by diet alone...in fact, I think its even harder.  And if you are overweight because of a food addiction or because you eat to relieve stress, the surgery wont help you, unless you work through those eomtional issues first.
I knew a woman who had the surgery, but was obese because she was depressed and ate all the time to confort herself, and even after surgery, she still shoved down cheesteaks and such.  It wont fix that problem.

I lost a few pounds since dieting last month, and trust me, its hard to motivate yourself at first.  But after the first trip to the gym, you feel so accomplished and proud of yourself by it that you kinda lose the desire to cheat. 
Also, find a workout that INTERESTS you.  For me, plain old gym stuff was blah so I took up bellydancing classes.  I was a professional dancer back in the day but weight gain halted it, so going back to that helped immensely.  It melts fat away, is fun, and makes you feel beuatiful while doing it.  And dont think that you have to be a thin belly baring girl because you dont.  There are some 300 pounders in my class and one even lost 100 pounds in 6 months doing bellydance.
Just a suggestion.

Also, you have to be mentally ready.  Thats why so many diet attempts fail...because your just not ready yet. Im there now where I feel ready and I know this will be the last diet Ill ever have to do.

Just keep telling yourself, summer is almost here....do I want to spend another summer wishing I was thinner and being miserable seeing girls wearing those cute lil outfits?  Time is going to pass by whether you lose weight or not.  Youll be glad you did it.

Hi Tashi,
First let me congratulate you for taking the first step....deciding to take control and get healthy.

Kudos to you for doing it while you are young.....believe me it is easier and better for you do it now instead of waiting till your 50 (like me).  It's easier to lose weight in your 20;s...please note, I am not saying it will be easy to do it, I'm just encouraging you to do it now when it is easier (gets harder as you get older).  Plus and this is a big plus.....your skin has a much better chance for retracting nicely so you may not need much if any plastic surgery at all.  Trust me as someone who has spent the last year and half having plastic surgery and recovering from surgery I wi****ook control way back in my 20's so I didn't have to deal with all this now.

ANYHOW....the biggest reason I encourage you do it now, besides the obvious of getting healthy is so you don't miss out on all life has to offer.  I missed out on doing/experiencing so many thins because of my weight......It would be WONDERFUL if you could enjoy it all and live your life to it's fullest.

I have my whole weight lose story blogged in my profile.  It outlines the basics of my plan, the exercise schedule I kept, etc etc.......I'm not sure but I think you might have to be a friend to see it.   If you can't see it let me now and I'll try to figure it out.  Someone else told me they had trouble seeing it but then others have no problem wit it.

Best wishes to you on you journey....
TTFN
Ruth