My story

[Ashley868]

My name is Ashley, I am twenty three years old, and I've been struggling with weight for the past few years. When I was younger I used to be really thin, and then when I was fifteen, I started to gain weight. It was hard for me at first, because I used to always be known as the skinny one. I went from 110 pounds to 165. I made my first mistake when I was teenager and started to starve myself, and it's something I've been struggling with since then. It's off and on basically, and I really want to get out of it. I was fine for a while because when I moved out of my mothers, I lost weight and went down to 140. Then this year I moved to the city and went down to 130. Then I started to hang out with really skinny people and I started to starve myself again, and gained weight because I would go days without eating and then I would binge. So now I am 140, I gained 10 pounds from all that. Now I live with roommates and I've made a few friends at my new job. They all noticed I was eating. My room mates don't pressure me but my work friends do. So I had to start eating at work or else listen to them complain to me, or deal with them offering me food.
I live down the street from a gym and decided to sign up for it. Ever since I feel I can eat without that guilty feeling. Then I decided to sign up for a personal trainer and now I have to eat because I feel constantly hungry because she works me hard. However, she gave me a list of foods to eat and it's healthy food so I don't feel as guilty eating as I did before. Although I do kind of worried I will start to starve myself again because as I said earlier it's something I've been doing off and on since I started gaining weight when I was fifteen. I hate when it happens because I knoew that starving myself does not help, and if I do lose anything it's either water weight or muscles, and if I do lose fat, it will come back when I eat again. It's just that it's a vicious cycle that coimes and goes.
I'm just hoping that since I am working with a personal trainer I'll get thin and I won't get in the the mind set that I need to starve myself. I'm just hoping my new friends will also always be there for me because they encourage me to eat. There is this one guy at work that always congratulates me when I eat at break and lunch and I don't admit it, but it feels good when he does that.

I'm really hoping that this is going to be something that helps for me. I'm not too overweight right now, I'm 5'4 and 140 to 145 (I'm 145 now because it's my time of the month and I always gain five pounds until it's over) and I have a belly and big thighs. I want to slim them all down. I have 36 sessions with the personal trainer, I just had my fourth. I'm hoping I'll start to see results soon.

 

[Superstar922]

Yeah...don't starve yourself.

I tried to do that for two weeks eating only one meal a day. I lost weight, yes, but (obviously) I did not stick with it. It's all about eating sensibly. Think of food as fuel in a car--you only need enough to sustain, but don't go to the point of gluttony (<--this is what I need to practice). Starving yourself would only piss your body off and it will kick your ass in the end, because you are depriving yourself of a basic, natural, human instinct. That's like trying to stop yourself from breathing--nothing good can come from that!

But I so understand where you're coming from with co-workers pressuring you to eat--they're called food pushers and my supervisor is the biggest one of them all. But it's not their fault, I shouldn't accept the food she offers, but I hate that she even puts the thought in my head. Anyway, i have to work on ignoring her.

But good luck with your efforts! And you've already made a big step signing up for this forum.

Stick with it!

 

[KaraCooks]

Hi and welcome.

The first thing I'd suggest is registering for a free account on or and starting to log your food. This will let you see how many calories you're eating and how your nutrition levels are breaking down. Once you know that, you'll be able to see more clearly where you can make adjustments, cut back, change your nutrition, etc.

I think that for you, logging what you eat and seeing how the calories and nutrition works might help you to move away from that all-or-nothing mindset. Learning about proper eating, instead of relying on lists from other people will really help you.

Good luck with your training and your committment to healthy eating.