Well, I've been signed up to this forum a week, I've had my first weigh in, and so far I'm more than seven pounds down (including the weight I lost before I found this place). It doesn't seem like much in the great scheme of things - the 'great scheme' being 195 extra pounds amassed over 45 years of weight problems.
I'm not sure what you're meant to do with these diaries but there's no way I'm going to be writing down everything I eat. Having to account to others for my food intake is, for me at least, part of the problem - though I recognise that for many it can be part of the solution.
I'm here because I'm 45 and went on my first diet aged four. My mum was 19, single and I grew up with her, her sisters and my brilliantly tolerant grandparents in West London in the sixties. I suspect if they hadn't allowed my mother to do so much of the 'bringing up', I might have turned out differently, but my mother is a headstrong person and so am I. She has always believed she can make people be as she wants them to be (for their own good, naturally), by sheer force of will. Fortunately, she only ever had one child, though her younger sister, my aunt, (who is approaching her sixties) still hides in the garden to have a cigarette whenever my mother visits her in her own home.
Enough history for now, anyway. Suffice it to say that while for many people with anorexia, starving gives them a great feeling of power and control - damaging as it is - for me, stuffing my face has always had much the same effect, which makes losing weight a rather tricky thing to do. How do you stop slowly killing yourself with food, when dieting makes you feel humiliated bullied and weak - and you rather like the taste of chocolate, too?
The reason I'm here is because I want to lose weight, but I don't want to join anything like Weight Watchers or Slimmer's World, or try narrow and punitive diets. I don't need to get into a particular dress by a certain time - my husband has put up with me for 12 years, a couple more won't do any harm - and I really need the companionship without having to follow any too-fast rules. I've already been given the most fantastically hands-off diet I've ever seen by a forum member (Thanks Margaret/Omega!) and I'm just going to see where sensible food, no out-and-out forbidden foods and regular exercise can get me. I'm hoping it'll be a long but satisfying journey.
Okay. That's it. Wake up at the back if you're still there - I'm going for a walk now...
I'm not sure what you're meant to do with these diaries but there's no way I'm going to be writing down everything I eat. Having to account to others for my food intake is, for me at least, part of the problem - though I recognise that for many it can be part of the solution.
I'm here because I'm 45 and went on my first diet aged four. My mum was 19, single and I grew up with her, her sisters and my brilliantly tolerant grandparents in West London in the sixties. I suspect if they hadn't allowed my mother to do so much of the 'bringing up', I might have turned out differently, but my mother is a headstrong person and so am I. She has always believed she can make people be as she wants them to be (for their own good, naturally), by sheer force of will. Fortunately, she only ever had one child, though her younger sister, my aunt, (who is approaching her sixties) still hides in the garden to have a cigarette whenever my mother visits her in her own home.
Enough history for now, anyway. Suffice it to say that while for many people with anorexia, starving gives them a great feeling of power and control - damaging as it is - for me, stuffing my face has always had much the same effect, which makes losing weight a rather tricky thing to do. How do you stop slowly killing yourself with food, when dieting makes you feel humiliated bullied and weak - and you rather like the taste of chocolate, too?
The reason I'm here is because I want to lose weight, but I don't want to join anything like Weight Watchers or Slimmer's World, or try narrow and punitive diets. I don't need to get into a particular dress by a certain time - my husband has put up with me for 12 years, a couple more won't do any harm - and I really need the companionship without having to follow any too-fast rules. I've already been given the most fantastically hands-off diet I've ever seen by a forum member (Thanks Margaret/Omega!) and I'm just going to see where sensible food, no out-and-out forbidden foods and regular exercise can get me. I'm hoping it'll be a long but satisfying journey.
Okay. That's it. Wake up at the back if you're still there - I'm going for a walk now...
Welcome aboard - I like your introductory...it is honestly quite amazing what changes can take place when you just start making healthier choices and introducing change a little bit at a time
Congrats on being down while away
and sharing with hubby - these are all great steps - you are gaining hte knowledge you need and using it 
). Thanks for the information about the BMI of 30 - I wondered at what point I'd become merely overweight. Being overweight seems a strange thing to aspire to, but I do!