500lbs+ Looking for Tips and Friends

Greetings, 

Am new here so thought I would make a post and put myself out there. Am really rather the type that hides inside all the time. Don't have any friends where I live and only two or three really good friends online. Am hoping if maybe I make friends that live around in my area, St Louis, Mo, that maybe I can get lured out for some kind of social gathering. Not so sure I can handle large gatherings. I have bad anxiety when around people but if I just force myself to do it and keep doing it maybe it wont be so scary for me anymore and help me to lose weight by getting more movement. There is not tons of movement I can do. A flight of stairs is super hard on me but have to do them every day to get from my bedroom to the living room. As well I don't get very far walking with my walker. My back gets really stressed out, I have all kinds of weight related issues with it even my spine being compressed. 

The steps I have done is trying to pick healthier foods and writing down everything I eat. Really need to learn how to count calories better. If am able to get on disability and some medical insurance I hope to maybe start CMWL a really cool program I found online after tons of searching. Weight loss surgery I was turned down for due to my emotional eating behavior but that's ok. I think this other program could be better for me. After all it would suck if I did the surgery and only ended up gaining all the weight back because I slipped into old ways. With this program it will help me learn to live better. I hope I don't have to wait too much longer to try and get into it.  Trying to get on disability and some kind of health insurance is so hard. 

Any-whoo-ha, any ideas on stuff I could do now to help? I was at 561lbs but when I went to my medical testing for disability I weighed 547lbs so what am doing is helping a little bit it seems. Also would love to make more friends even if your not in the St Louis area, online friends are always nice to have. 

Hi Nadine, sounds as if you are off to a good start to have begun losing!!  Tracking your food is definitely a good thing; I started using My Fitness Pal over a year ago to track food and exercise.  Then my son and daughter-in-law gave me a FitBit which syncs with MFP so that simplifies it some.  You can add recipes to MFP and so forth to make it more user-friendly, but mainly remember to really be careful to use exact measurement / dry and liquid / in order for it to be accurate...and you can add friends on the site as well as peruse their forums. 

My niece had RNY surgery last January and was able to do so thru Medicaid or Medicare, not sure which.  She was unemployed at the time, so that may be an option for you if you decide to pursue WLS.

Best of luck to you, and in the words of Winston Churchill, never surrender, never give up! 

Hi Nadine, welcome

From what I have seen on various forums and different weight loss groups I've been in, the more a person has to loose, the faster it comes off at first with even minimal changes. it can do A LOT for confidence and motivation seeing those initial losses.

when you log your food, I'd check out if there's a pie chart or a bar graph where you can see the patterns in your eating. what is something that can be worked on first- are the carbs out of control, the sugar, or eating relative fine overall but too much volume? pick one aspect, and replace or reduce.

typically this works well for a while, and when your weight comes down, it gets more fine tuned and a little more effort is required.

as for WLS- emotional eating could indeed sabotage it, which is why its good to work with a therapist in tandem with any weight loss attempts, but especially surgery. I'm not sure what options you may have under "Obama care" but I have heard coverage is subsidized for low and no income individuals.

me, I am going to mexico for my surgery, next month $4600. I took a loan from my 401k, worth it.

I sent you a friend request on here  best of luck- stay positive, look at all your options, and don't give up!

Hi my name is Krystal and I totally understand where you're coming from I weigh 365 and I am NOT interested in going for weight loss surgery I really want to do it the natural way so for me I just started I'm only 6 days in today. I am cuting my portion I just made my plate like I always make it and I just take half of it away put it in a Tupperware and save the other half for lunch for the next day. That and also I cut all added sugar. I pretty much decided that the Paleo diet it just looks more appealing to me personally. I also started doing 20 minutes a day just walking around my neighborhood brisk just my regular walk no extensive power walking none of that just walking my normal pace for 20 minutes straight without stopping and that's all I could do, now being the size that I am my back really bothered me quite a bit and so I can only do 20 minutes, but I'm there with you if you need a friend, I'm here if you need an ear I'm here and I sent you a friend request so we'll see and we'll talk later good luck and congratulations on deciding to change your life.

Hi Nadine!  Would love to be your friend.  I live in OK!

Hi Nadine! I can so relate to your post. I had rny and after 6 years started gaining the weight back. WLS is a great tool but it is only the start of a lifelong journey of weight and health management. I can help you with an awesome program that I have used to take off the regain. Sometimes I believe that if I had done this program before wls, I would not have had it! Message me...I would love to share!

Kristi

Hi Kristi!

Can you share the program you used to lose the regain with me?

Thanks,

Layla

Hi Nadine

I notice that you keep track of what you eat by writing it down. That is great what you measure you can improve. You have stairs you have to climb, start keeping track how many times you use them throughout the day and aim to increase that. As you get better at that you can add other movements, and eventually start building an exercise routine.

hiIm sorry I dont live anywhere near you but I do understand where youre coming from. I never weighed over 500 pounds but I weighed over 400 pounds, so I understand mobility issues in a way maybe a lot of other women here will not. I also suffer from a lot of anxiety so I understand that 2.

I highly encourage you to look into something called Mindfulness. The basic premise is to stop fighting anxiety and go with the flow of it, in doing so the attacks become more and more manageable. Your theory that if you force yourself to go out will make it easier is dead on!
its soooo hard to do when youre embarrassed about how you look and moving hurts, believe me I know.

The great news about being so heavy now is that minimal effort is going to reap huge rewards. You do NOT have to get up and do an hour workout video lol you can hold some soup cans in your hands and stay sitting on your butt and move your arms around and your legs around to music in the privacy of your home.
Its fun! and as long as you're breathing heavier and sweating you're doing amazing things for your body and you will notice changed, quickly.

I was really intimidated at learning how to count calories when I first started im terrible with maths and thought it was gonna be a hugely complicated drama, but it turned out when I calmed down and stopped being so damn scared to try, it wasnt bad at all.

I use fitday.com to track everything I eat in their food log and it tells you how many calories everything has. As long as you eat less calories than you were before, youll lose weight.

another great thing about being as heavy as you are is youll still be able to enjoy a couple good meals a day and still lose weight, so you can do this I promise you can and its not as scary or as painful as you think.

far far far less painful than being 500 pounds.

I'm not a doctor, so Im not able to give medical advise and what Im about to say may be totally wrong, so you might hafta check with a doctor that its safe but I know if I were over 500 pounds right now, I would use fitday to help me keep track and try not to eat more than 1500 calories a day.

youre gonna have to re-train your brain to see portions of food differently so that you can feel satisfied and enjoy a normal plate of food (this is not has hard as you think)
1500 calories is a lot of food (currently I eat 900 a day and i feel fine so you can def do 1500)

honestly, if you limit your calories and dance around to music every day youre going to see huge difference really fast

|good luck!!!