A Fat Girl's Ramblings

C

Canadian

New member
Hello!

As my profile says, I'm 5'4 and 218 lbs. My long term goal is to weigh 144 (because according to the BMI chart, that's the point at which I can say "HA! I'm no longer overweight!")

I practically wrote a whole novel as my introductory post, so I'm going to break it down into a few smaller posts so I won't accost readers with a giant scary wall of text...
 
My problems are pretty typical, I'd say:


1.) I'm a total couch potato.

I'm currently tackling the Couch to 5K program to attempt to remedy this. I try to fit a bit of walking in here and there too, but something like C25K is perfect for me because it's structured and the podcasts I've been listening to make it very simple to follow. I'm looking at it as my own personal challenge to actually stick with something for 9 whole weeks!


2.) I eat all the wrong things at all the wrong times.

Since I've been in university, I've had pretty awful eating habits. I try to be "good" and starve myself all day, only to cave in and eat tons of junk in the evening. I also keep strange hours...I like to stay up late (as you can see by this post) and sleep late. I'm in the habit of rushing out the door to the university without breakfast/lunch. Not good, I know.
 
What I'm willing to do:

- Limit my favourite junk foods (pizza, coke, chocolate)
- Watch portion sizes and be conscious of calories
- Drink more water
- Devote time to exercising regularly (the great thing about being back at university is my schedule is wide open)


What I'm not willing to do:

- Get onto a "normal" schedule (I like to stay up late and sleep late)
- Stop drinking (I'll cut back and only use diet drinks as mixers...fair compromise?)


I suppose that doesn't speak well to my commitment to weight loss, but I may as well be completely honest. I'm in my last year of university, and I guess it'd be fair to say I'm panicking a bit. I love being a student and am dreading having to join the real world, become a contributing member of society and do the 9-5 thing. (Oh boo hoo, suck it up, princess, right?) Anyway, since this is my last year, I want to enjoy it. And for me, staying up half the night is enjoyable, as is occasionally making a drunken fool of myself. I think/hope I can work with that.
 
Hey Canadian,
Welcome to the forum! I'm a student too! Used to be super skinny untill I fell into the whole eating-pizza-everynight and no sleeping and too much partying pattern! I gained the freshers 15 plus 5 more! Its horrible!!

Offcourse you can drink and party!!! =) Drink gin and tonic, clear alcohols are better than fattenin beer and stuff!! Plus I swear to you, partying and everything is gonna be so much more fun once you've started to loose weight. You are gonna feel the transformation and you will see it with your own eyes. We all fall of the wagon once or more, we trip, but we get up! Thats the beauty of the game! I'm sure you'll be fine! :)

Good luck on your journey!!
 
Hello from a fellow Canadian!

Glad you've decided to join us. This forum can be a great place to help you reach your goals.

I have a few suggestions:

Start by reading the stickies on the various parts of this site. They are packed with useful information.

The key do weight loss is dietary control. If you want to lose that excess fat you have to be firm. I suggest trying out a free online calorie counter/tracker programme like FitDay. It can help you find a good caloric target based on your age, height, weight etc, and then track what you are eating so you can learn how to eat better.

Limit the alcohol. You say you don't want to, but alcohol is calorie-rich, and those calories are as empty as any soda.

Start eating as healthily as possible. Drop the junk food as much as possible and start eating whole grains, and lots of vegetables and fruit. Eat real food.

When I started this new lifestyle (and it is a completely new lifestyle you want - you don't want to fall into the trap of losing weight and then going back to your old habits), I stopped eating stuff like chips and soda completely. The only pizza I now eat is that which I make myself (including making my own dough) - that way I have total control and my pizzas have only a fraction of the calories and fat of commercial pizza, and they taste much, much better. Just an example.

If you really want to change, you have to understand that your old habits will have to change too.

Drinking water (lots of water) is good. Exercise is good.

Your sleep patterns don't really matter, except that you do need to make sure you get enough sleep.

I wish you success in reaching your goals.
 
Thanks for the advice, Cord the Seeker. As much as I might not want to hear some of it, I know you're right! I know weight loss isn't rocket science, I just have problems with motivation. The thought of changing absolutely everything forever (ok, exaggeration, yes, but still) makes me kind of resentful. Strange, maybe, but true. My thoughts are if I do most things right and a few things wrong, I should still see results, albeit a bit slower. More importantly, I'll hopefully not get as frustrated and give up, or give into other temptations as readily. :)

sanjana88 said:
Hey Canadian,
Welcome to the forum! I'm a student too! Used to be super skinny untill I fell into the whole eating-pizza-everynight and no sleeping and too much partying pattern! I gained the freshers 15 plus 5 more! Its horrible!!

Offcourse you can drink and party!!! =) Drink gin and tonic, clear alcohols are better than fattenin beer and stuff!! Plus I swear to you, partying and everything is gonna be so much more fun once you've started to loose weight. You are gonna feel the transformation and you will see it with your own eyes. We all fall of the wagon once or more, we trip, but we get up! Thats the beauty of the game! I'm sure you'll be fine! :)

Good luck on your journey!!
Click to expand...

I've always been fat, but I've gone from being just chubby to obese since high school. I swore the freshmen 15 wouldn't happen to me, but even though I didn't gain it all at once, it crept on. When I finished undergrad I lost about 25 lbs in a very unhealthy way, but I've sinced gained back that and more. Emotional eating sucks!

Lucky for me I'm not a huge fan of beer or wine...I'm more of a vodka girl. :) And I for sure believe it when you say everything will be more fun once I lose weight. My weight definitely brings me down (kind of a vicious cycle, really!)

Good luck to you as well!
 
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Aww my weight really brings me down too! Imagine what it feels like to NOT fit into ANY of your jeans!! I wore summer dresses the whole summer lol, refuseeeee to buy new pants! You will be amazed by how much weight you can loose, HEALTHILY by not starving your ass! Because once you make life style changes, and instill in your brain that food that does not nourish your body in anyway equals crap then you will think so differently. I think the best way to loose weight is some form of exersize, be it 30mins of walking or an hour of intense running. No matter how little or big your workout was, it was something you did for yourself. And you will see the amaaaaaaaaaaazing benefits of supressed apetite and lesser urge to eat crap once you do some form of exersize. Eat and eat lots, but eat healthy. I know how bad eating healthy sounds esp when you've been eating the usual unhealthy student 'diet', that i'm oh-so-familiar with! But you can change! Hec, if I can, then so can you!

So my advice-----> GET EXERSIZING! and DONT STARVE OR DO FAD DIETS!! (they suckk!). Remember dont be impatient with weight loss, the slower it comes off, the harder it is to gain back! Thats what my mom says anyway lol! She got super fat after she gave birth and now shes damnnnnn skinny again with six packs lol (YES MY MOMMA HAS SIX PACKS), and it took years of exersize and eating well! No fad dieting atall!

GOODLUCK!
 
Hello fellow Canadian!! ^_^
I don't know how many times I started eating healthy but would allow myself to drink whatever alcohol I wanted, whenever I wanted (and it was always a lot at the time). And even now, I drink way less in general but still want to have fun! I'm in my last year of university too. And the drinking thing is really difficult. Just last night my boyfriend and I went to his friend's place where everyone was drinking and getting ready to go out to the bar. And yes, I didn't drink a thing (helped that I was driving!) and instead I went home while everyone, including my boyfriend went out to the bar. Oh and it was also really nice sitting alone on the couch while they all did "jagerbombs" in the dining room. I wanted a jagerbomb, dammit!
That was -incredibly- frustrating for me to say the least.
But this isn't about me!! O_O really! ^^;;
I'm just trying to say I understand! I think!
Here's a thread I posted last night about alcohol:
http://weight-loss.fitness.com/topic/34699-alcohol-how-does-work-you.html

I guess my only advice to you might be to try and drink less often? Even just a little bit less would help, I'm sure!

Anyways, congrats on starting a journal! I'll try to keep checking back ^_^
 
sanjana88 said:
Aww my weight really brings me down too! Imagine what it feels like to NOT fit into ANY of your jeans!! I wore summer dresses the whole summer lol, refuseeeee to buy new pants! You will be amazed by how much weight you can loose, HEALTHILY by not starving your ass! Because once you make life style changes, and instill in your brain that food that does not nourish your body in anyway equals crap then you will think so differently. I think the best way to loose weight is some form of exersize, be it 30mins of walking or an hour of intense running. No matter how little or big your workout was, it was something you did for yourself. And you will see the amaaaaaaaaaaazing benefits of supressed apetite and lesser urge to eat crap once you do some form of exersize. Eat and eat lots, but eat healthy. I know how bad eating healthy sounds esp when you've been eating the usual unhealthy student 'diet', that i'm oh-so-familiar with! But you can change! Hec, if I can, then so can you!

So my advice-----> GET EXERSIZING! and DONT STARVE OR DO FAD DIETS!! (they suckk!). Remember dont be impatient with weight loss, the slower it comes off, the harder it is to gain back! Thats what my mom says anyway lol! She got super fat after she gave birth and now shes damnnnnn skinny again with six packs lol (YES MY MOMMA HAS SIX PACKS), and it took years of exersize and eating well! No fad dieting atall!

GOODLUCK!
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That's what I intend to do. :) I've heard what your mom says about losing weight slowly to keep it off, too. I think once I start to see results it will encourage me to keep going. I know I didn't gain this weight overnight so I'm not going to lose it overnight - it's just difficult to be patient when I want results NOW, lol!

meilinrei said:
Hello fellow Canadian!! ^_^
I don't know how many times I started eating healthy but would allow myself to drink whatever alcohol I wanted, whenever I wanted (and it was always a lot at the time). And even now, I drink way less in general but still want to have fun! I'm in my last year of university too. And the drinking thing is really difficult. Just last night my boyfriend and I went to his friend's place where everyone was drinking and getting ready to go out to the bar. And yes, I didn't drink a thing (helped that I was driving!) and instead I went home while everyone, including my boyfriend went out to the bar. Oh and it was also really nice sitting alone on the couch while they all did "jagerbombs" in the dining room. I wanted a jagerbomb, dammit!
That was -incredibly- frustrating for me to say the least.
But this isn't about me!! O_O really! ^^;;
I'm just trying to say I understand! I think!
Here's a thread I posted last night about alcohol:
http://weight-loss.fitness.com/topic/34699-alcohol-how-does-work-you.html

I guess my only advice to you might be to try and drink less often? Even just a little bit less would help, I'm sure!

Anyways, congrats on starting a journal! I'll try to keep checking back ^_^
Click to expand...

Aww, that doesn't sound like fun at all. I tend to get really annoyed by drunk people unless I'm drunk as well!

Thank you for linking me to your thread. I see someone there mentioned what I was thinking - when I drink I'm just going to try to make room for those extra calories in my diet. If I only drink once or twice a month, it won't be so bad. I could easily give up alcohol entirely - and I expect I will next year, at least for the most part. It's just that at this stage, I don't want to!!

May I ask what you've decided to do re. drinking?
 
Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable, eh? ^_^
For myself, I am trying to make it 21 days being "really good" because I heard that's how long it takes to make or break a habit. So I'm hoping by then healthy food choices and drinking less will be more... natural?
Then I want to add in "cheat" (treat, free, etc) meals once a week and maybe the same for alcohol but once a month? I'm not too sure yet, and I'm pretty flexible 'cause things change! Like last night me and friends went out to Moxie's so I kind of added in a "cheat" meal a bit earlier than planned... ^_^; but what can ya do, right?
 
Hi and welcome.

I'll second what Cord said - you are going to have to make some changes if you want to see results. :) I've copied your original posts and will respond to some specific items.


1.) I'm a total couch potato.
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The C25k program is great - I'm following it myself. One thing that I've done is repeat a couple of the weeks if I've felt that I'm not up to moving on. I did week 2 twice, and I did week 5 for ... um, nearly 4 weeks I think. I'm on week 7 now. Don't feel like you're tied to the exact number of days of the program.

Add in some weight training or body weight training. When you lose weight, you lose fat AND MUSCLE. You want to avoid losing muscle as much as possible and the way to do that is eat more protein and work the muscles. You don't have to have access to a gym to do so - although I'm sure at school you have one. Things like squats, lunges, pushups, dips, presses, etc., will help. And you can always buy a set of inexpensive weights to help.

I try to be "good" and starve myself all day, only to cave in and eat tons of junk
Click to expand...
Starving yourself all day is not "good" in any sense of the word. In fact if there was one truly horribly rotten bad thing you could do while on a diet, going all day without food is probably the #1. Your body needs to be nourished. If you go all day without eating, you're going to create exactly the situation you did: when you do have access to food, you binge and shovel junk like there's no tomorrow. The best thing you can do for yourself is eat as regularly as possible and NOT starve.

I like to stay up late (as you can see by this post) and sleep late. I'm in the habit of rushing out the door to the university without breakfast/lunch. Not good, I know.
Click to expand...
There's nothing wrong with keeping odd hours. I'm naturally a night owl and when I used to work from home, I often slept until 11, worked through the afternoon, took a long break in the evening, and then worked again from 10 p.m. until about 2 or 3 a.m. when I went to sleep. Keeping odd hours should have nothing to do with eating healthily. You can still eat something when you wake up, eat something a few hours later, and so forth. So what if you're having "breakfast" at noon and dinner at 10:30 p.m.?

You must get in the habit of eating something in the morning. If you are one of those people who rushes around like crazy in the morning, then prepare something the night before. Or fix something fast and portable that you can take out the door with you. A serving of peanut butter spread on a whole grain english muffin, a boiled egg sliced over a piece of whole grain toast, heck even a turkey sandwich ... you need that morning meal.

As far as your "willing to do" and "not willing to do list" ... I think it's good that you know what your limits are. Too many people go into dieting thinking "I'm going to change my whole life" and then when they can't, they give up. AT least you are being honest with yourself right up front and I think that gives you a better and more realistic view of what you can accomplish.

That said, check out my post about free days here: http://weight-loss.fitness.com/nutrition/33510-losing-weight-free-days.html

I personally believe in living my life and enjoying it. Yes, it means I don't lose weight as fast as I could, but I'd rather be healthy and happy, than miserable and give up and stay fat. :)

Hope all of this gives you something to work with and help.
 
meilinrei said:
Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable, eh? ^_^
For myself, I am trying to make it 21 days being "really good" because I heard that's how long it takes to make or break a habit. So I'm hoping by then healthy food choices and drinking less will be more... natural?
Then I want to add in "cheat" (treat, free, etc) meals once a week and maybe the same for alcohol but once a month? I'm not too sure yet, and I'm pretty flexible 'cause things change! Like last night me and friends went out to Moxie's so I kind of added in a "cheat" meal a bit earlier than planned... ^_^; but what can ya do, right?
Click to expand...

I think some flexibility is good. It's all too easy to be too rigid and then get frustrated and give up when unforseen circumstances pop up (or at least that's what I've found). I'm very interested to find out how your experience with breaking/making habits goes! :)

KaraCooks said:
The C25k program is great - I'm following it myself. One thing that I've done is repeat a couple of the weeks if I've felt that I'm not up to moving on. I did week 2 twice, and I did week 5 for ... um, nearly 4 weeks I think. I'm on week 7 now. Don't feel like you're tied to the exact number of days of the program.
Click to expand...

Good to know - thanks! I'm supposed to be on week 2, but I think I might skip to week 4 or 5 and stay there until I feel I've mastered it. I like to make my workouts count, and while I'm enjoying the program so far, I feel like I could be pushing myself a lot harder.


KaraCooks said:
Starving yourself all day is not "good" in any sense of the word. In fact if there was one truly horribly rotten bad thing you could do while on a diet, going all day without food is probably the #1. Your body needs to be nourished. If you go all day without eating, you're going to create exactly the situation you did: when you do have access to food, you binge and shovel junk like there's no tomorrow. The best thing you can do for yourself is eat as regularly as possible and NOT starve.
Click to expand...

I'm well aware. ;) I think I posted earlier that losing weight isn't rocket science, and I truly believe that. My problem isn't that I don't know how to lose weight - it's just a lack of motivation. I start out excited to lose weight, and then lose steam until I just fall off the wagon completely. I don't mean this as an excuse at all because it's not, but it's been a tough few years, and I've often used food as a comfort. Even though I know it's not healthy, I guess on some level starving myself served as some small justification of the binging that I knew would inevitably follow.

KaraCooks said:
Keeping odd hours should have nothing to do with eating healthily. You can still eat something when you wake up, eat something a few hours later, and so forth. So what if you're having "breakfast" at noon and dinner at 10:30 p.m.?
Click to expand...

I guess I could have worded that better. What I meant was I sleep as late as I possibly can, and then rush off to wherever I have to be without eating "breakfast." I didn't mean to imply that staying up late = weight gain...just that I don't have much of a routine and thus, I tend to not eat at very regular intervals. Hope that clears it up! (I tend to never be hungry when I first wake up no matter what time it is, but I'm going to make an effort to have a little something regardless, even if it's only a glass of juice).

Thanks for your insight, and good luck!
 
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I tried week 4 of C25K last night. It was manageable and today I can feel the burn in my legs (good pain, though...not the kind I get when I forget to stretch before/after!) Today I'm going to try week 5. I know the idea is to rest a day in between, but I'm feeling all motivated right now and have lots of free time on the weekends, so I figure why not.

Now I just need to get onboard with the eating. My biggest problem is I eat lightly all day and then overeat and/or eat the wrong things in the evenings. I don't think I need to be eating a whole lot more during the day (unless I decide to increase my exercise a lot down the road). I don't count calories really closely, but I try to estimate, and I consider anywhere between 1200-1600 a decent day. I should probably just tolerate being hungry for a few days until my stomach shrinks, and then everything will be fine.

I slept late again today, but made sure to eat an orange as soon as I got up. I've set some homemade vegetable soup out of the freezer...I'm hoping that maybe if I plan my meals out in advance a bit I'll be less likely to have those moments of weakness that lead to me eating half a bag of doritos for a "meal!"
 
I forgot to mention: I like to set mini-goals for myself. I find that the amount of weight I need to lose is overwhelming, and it's tough to keep that final goal in sight. I weigh 218 right now; I want to weigh 210 by the end of September.

If I lose 10 lbs/month each month thereafter, that will put me at or near my goal weight by the end of April. I picked 10 lbs because it's reasonable, achievable, and hey, it makes for easy math! ;) If I can lose more than that each month...well, obviously I'd be open to that, too! :D

So anyway, yes. 8 lbs by the end of September. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
Mini-goals are an excellent way to keep motivated. Nothig breeds success like success. Breaking it down into manageable chunks makes it seem less daunting.

I like to set 90-day goals, and I also set some interim weight targets, too. They happen to coincide with my 90-day goals, so that make sit easy for me. :)
 
I agree, Cord - great idea. :)

Tonight I tried day 1, week 5 of C25K. It's circuits of 5 minutes of jogging followed by 3 minutes of walking. (I think? I don't pay super close attention; I just download the podcasts and change my pace when the guy says to!) I think in total it's 15 minutes of jogging and something like 13 or 16 minutes of walking.

By the time I got around to doing it, I'd lost my motivation. I begrudgingly did it anyway, and about 2/3 of the way through, I was really happy that I had. I don't know if that's the chemicals or just me being proud of myself, haha.

I think I'm going to have to stay put at day 1, week 5 for a while. It's not that I'm exhausted and out of breath or anything, but my calves/shins bother. Maybe I need different shoes? I'm hoping that if I keep this up, gradually my body will get conditoned and the pain will reduce. I'll give it another go tomorrow after class and errand-running and see what happens.

I did great with the water-drinking today. I didn't overeat, although I'm hungry and thinking about food now! I'm going to try to resist the temptation...or at least not go crazy if I do decide to have something!
 
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Bit of a bad day. Feeling kind of slighted by a friend and now all I want to do tonight is lounge around eating chocolate and watching movies. Knowing that I'm going to weigh myself in the morning will hopefully keep me from doing too much damage. It also helps that I don't keep much junk food in the house anymore!

I just watched a sneak peek of Grey's Anatomy on perezhilton.com and now I'm psyched for my shows to start (Grey's, Private Practice and House). My rule is going to be that I can only watch those 3 shows if I'm simultaneously working out. It's sad that I have to play these silly mind games with myself...I just hope it will help!
 
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I'm not even down 1 full pound. The scale says 217.6 this morning...I think. My new digital scale is frustrating me because it doesn't seem to be working quite right. When I set it on the floor it always reads a number instead of 0.00 - and a different number each time, at that! So 217.6 is my best guess, but I'll have to confirm it on my mom's good old non-digital scale when I visit this weekend.

Maybe the lack of progress will re-motivate me...although I'll admit, I'm disappointed. I've done okay re. diet and exercise, but I could do a lot better (especially where late night eating is concerned). This is the time when I should be making the most progress because I have the most free time, the weather is warm (I always want to eat in the winter) and I'm the heaviest. Once I get busy writing 75 page papers and frantically studying to learn the material I haven't been reading (oops), it will be a bit more challenging to stay on top of the weight loss thing.

Hopefully next week will be better.
 
I'm still at it, more or less. I've had some slip ups with food lately and haven't been running as often as I should. I don't have an excuse. It's just the same old reasons: emotional eating, indifference, etc. I'm still hoping to be at 210 lbs by the end of September (which is a loss of about 8 lbs). I don't know if that's an attainable goal now that I've strayed from my plan, but we'll see!

I hope everyone is well.
 
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