Very well said! Welcome home

What a powerful post Kathleen, and so true! We all have to save ourselves. The strength has to come from within. Sometimes it can be something external that sparks it, but we have to fan the flames ourselves.

But having friends to share the journey can also help you stay the course, so coming faithfully to a place like this one can be a key factor.

Kathleen, thank you for that post. I'm going to print it and read it every time my resolve weakens. One day at a time I can do this, and when I fail I will remember that is just a slip, its not an excuse to give up the fight. I've been alone in this struggle for so long its just worn me down. To have found this place with people who not only understand, but share the same struggles I do, that is HUGE! So yeah, today I can take the steps I need to take to succeed: eat healthy low carb food, drink water, get a little exercise and deal with my emotions. I want to thank each one of you for the encouragement.

You're very welcome.

Congratulations on the 2 pound loss! That must have been exciting to see the scale going in the right direction.

A few hints if you're interested?

• food for the mind as well as the body; I try to spend a little time on here daily learning something new while I get my water in
• start a journal so folks can swing by, say hi, offer encouragement; leave pebbles in the path so other wanderers can follow through the moonlight someday
• short-term goals give us a lot of reasons to celebrate, and help with the sense of futility that can come when we start out with a lot of weight to lose. I keep looking at goals a few pounds away: the next BMI category, the next percentile down, going from one `decade' to the next, etc. If I'd started out thinking, "One down, ninety-nine to go, you can do this, c'mon, it'll only take a couple of years . . . ", that would not have motivated me to make the changes I needed to make, and to sustain them long enough to be habit.

My last suggestion is the hardest one, but I still recommend it: document the pain. Pay careful attention (I know that hurts--I wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't worth it) to what your life is like right now. Everything that hurts, every way in which your life and dreams and hope are impeded. Every frustration and slight and sitting by the sidelines while others dance. Take measurements. Write them down with the date.

Because we forget. We get through the obesity with a healthy dose of denial--that's survival. But when things get better, we forget where we came from.

I never forgot a friend saying this many years ago: "The first 20 pounds, nobody notices. The second 20, everybody notices." I think it took more than that for me to get much external feedback, so it's a good thing I wasn't depending upon that. But being able to *run* up the stairs? That was huge. Clothes that were too tight being too loose? Not needing to lean on a grocery cart to get through a shopping expedition? Noticing how much smaller the store has gotten when I have to go from one end to the other? *Jumping* out of bed in the morning? Those are the little things that kept me putting one foot in front of the other. We have to renew this all the time, find more reasons to celebrate.

This is a good place to get that reinforcement and support.

Journal the pain? I don't know if there are enough journals to hold it all, or if I could ever write it all down. But I can try. I will come here every day, I have been doing that for the past 6 months. It was just recently that I had the courage to make myself known. I wanted to lie about my weight, but I decided if this is going to work I have to be honest, and this just might be the one place where I can do that.

I want all the things you listed as making this worth it. I can't run up the stairs, I plod up them. I can't even run across the room, I hobble. I hurt from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I'm so ashamed of how I look I don't go anywhere that I don't absolutely have to. I'm a hermit by nature, content to be alone, but to be totally isolated was never something I set out to do, it just happened.

I will set short term goals. I look at the big picture and it does overwhelm me, so I will focus on getting to 250 lbs instead of getting to 150. I can't believe I'm admitting this stuff to anyone, much less on an online forum. I haven't been to the doctor in years because I'm too ashamed to go. I made an appointment in February for an annual physical. I'm not sure I will keep that appointment, but at least I made it. That's on baby step in the right direction.

Yesterday I took it one step at a time and I had a really good day. Today is a new day and I will take this day one step at a time as well. One step, one day at a time. That's all I can do.

You can do it AnniMin! Sometimes it surprises us what we tell each other on this forum but the others here understand what you're dealing with. One day at a time--that's how to do it!

This could have been me writing this a month or so ago! I dont know if what I have to say will help but let me give it a try.

I get the pain part....all of use who are in this club understand it in one way or another through our own life experiences...letting go of the pain isnt easy, you have to work through it an I dont have the answer for exactly how to do that one, for each of us its a different process but like finding LC you will find what works for you cause you have got to ditch the pain, you deserve to let it go and to find your own brand of happy!

Stand up and make yourself know...I too lurked and lurked because I was ashamed that I had done LC in the past and had gained it all back. But I have discovered that there isnt anything that is taboo on this board and nothing that can be said that is shameful or not understood by someone here..we've all "been there, done that" and are happy to help in any way we can. I suppose its a bit like being an alcoholic, if your not one, you dont understand.

My mistakes in the past have been trying to get skinny...lose 190 lbs etc. And I have failed miserably. This time around though I decided I was going to focus on one day, 1 lb, 1 meal etc. And wow, it works...I can do anything for 5 minutes, then 1 hour and one day, one week! It may seem silly but baby steps works!

I to had such horrible body pain I was living on OTC pain meds, Tylenol etc..I could walk around a store without having to sit down my back hurt so bad. Getting sugar and refined flour out of my body has made an amazing difference...I believe I was having an inflammation problem due to the sugars and it was effecting all my joints, I can now walk down my stairs without holding on to the wall and going one step at a time...stick with it,,,I promise you will some start to lose some of the pain.

I also totally get the doctor thing too as well as not going out in public..My husband travels alot and he wants my son and I to fly up to meet him sometimes for a long weekend etc and I make excuses not to go because I know I cant fit in an airplane seat. Well baby...I am done with that kind of life as well.....I am not a super social person but I am a worthwhile person, someone of merit and intelligence and I deserve to see the world if I so chose to.....

I know I rambled a bit but I wanted you to know that you are not alone, you are not isolated and that you can do this, you are a valuable, caring, superb human being who deserves to finally step away from pain, isolation, and to find happiness and health.

Please let us know how your doing and how we can take the journey with you,,,one baby step at a time.

AnniMin,

Snagged this from over in the `Best of' Forum: it's been floating around here for awhile, and I thought you might want to read this and the `stumblin' in' thread I bumped. Lots of food for thought.

I also want to say that your pain is your best indicator for success. You're not fooling around. That's a good sign. And how much it hurts to look? That's good, too. Reality is our friend. Reality will tell you the truth, no matter how little we want to hear it. Embrace that pain. It's your lifeline.

JAnn, Saucywench and Kathleen, thank you for these posts. Saucy, I am like you about flying. I want to go see my grandchildren but flying is so humiliating that I come up with excuses not to do it. Kathleen, that apology to my body post is very powerful and deeply moving. Its amazing that so many people share the same thoughts I do about being overweight. The way your emotions get the best of you and you comfort yourself with food. The humiliation, the fear, the anxiety, the depression, the sadness, the anger. We all have that in common, don't we? And the only way to deal with those issues is to open up and admit the problem and then change my behavior because what I've done all my life isn't working anymore. Its killing me. So now its time to get serious about eating right and giving my body the nourishment it needs. You guys are amazing the way you are so kind and compassionate towards a stranger like me. Now I want to get well so I can offer the same kindness and understanding to someone else. I'm on my way and this time there's no going back!

And the funny thing is that we have it at *all* different weights! I mean I recall one young woman posting on this boards that she was so depressed about how *fat* she had become that she had become a hermit and refused to go out with her friends in the evenings anymore - because she weighed 129 pounds instead of her desired goal of 117!

I mean from someone who was hovering on the brink of 300 pounds at the time I could not even fathom feeling like that at 129 pounds. Yet clearly her pain was very real to her.

If only there were some way to transplant feelings of self-worth. As we TDCers work our way downward we find ourselves at new weights that are big milestones for us and that make us feel so much better about ourselves - even though someone else may just be starting out at a similar weight, and feeling so bummed.

Take me. I'm shorter than you are (5'7") and heavier (270 lbs) and yet I'm feeling pretty *good* about myself these days! I think it's because I have crossed a huge barrier of 100 pounds lost. I look in the mirror these days and see a whole new me, so I feel good about myself, happy to go out in public. I feel good about the clothes I'm wearing. Yet I bet the you actually look better than I do!

When I was in my early 20s I weighed 160 pounds, and my mother and youngest sister were constantly on my case about how *fat* I was, and my mom was constantly telling me I could never have a "normal" life as long as I let myself be so fat. And so, in my mind, I *was* abnormal. I was pretty much a hermit. If I did go out with friends I pretty much kept my head down and tried to slink into the background so as not to show my awful fat self more than I had to. And naturally the guys all ignored me and I never had any dates, but I figured I never would, and had essentially resigned myself to a life of celibacy due to my fatness.

And then I met a guy in a non-social setting, at work, where I had to talk to him normally and not slink into a corner, and he asked me *out*. I was dumbfounded. I thought there had to be some mistake. So we went out and had a great time. It didn't last long. He was from out of town and was just in my area on business for a couple weeks, and there was nothing strong enough to keep a long-distance thing going. But it changed my whole attitude! A guy had asked me *out*. Maybe I wasn't totally hideous.

Well after that you know what? Guys began asking me out all the time, including some very cute guys! Including one drop-dead gorgeous guy whose former SO had been a fashion model who had appeared on the cover of Vogue. But I was still 160 pounds, exactly the same me who had been totally invisible to guys for a few years. The only difference was my attitude!

So here's to attitude. I wish we could all have attitude infusions. There is probably not one person here who is not depressed over being at a weight that someone else here would be thrilled to be at! If we could all just truly feel, deep down, that we are *great* no matter what the scale says, I think it could really help us all today, and into the future to help us reach our goals.

Debbie, you are so right, attitude IS everything. I could kick myself in the butt for going on a pity party. What a self indulgant twit to think I have it so bad when there are lots of people worse off then I am. But that Montoya post by Kathleen, it just got too me. It expressed exactly what I was feeling and in a very poignant way. I didn't know there was a place where I could go and cry and people would actually understand my pain. That kind of support is worth its *weight* in gold!

I was the fat hideous person in my family. I was the only girl in a family of 5 children. All 4 of my brothers were tall, handsome and very popular with the girls. My mother was a high school homecoming queen who never stopped reigning. My dad was a WWII pilot/hero kind of guy. And then there was me, overweight as a kid, shy, introverted, insecure. I used to get ridiculed because I had an "inferiority complex". I didn't even know what that meant, but I knew it was bad. I knew I was bad, a disappointment to my family. My mother used to say "its a shame (you're fat) because you have a pretty face". All I ever wanted to do was hide, and here I am almost 60 years old and I'm still hiding!

All that happened a million years ago, but the effects remain with me to this day. Most of the time I'm ok, I do pretty well in the attitude department, but sometimes these emotions just come out of nowhere and literaly bite me in the ass.

After sharing with you guys and thinking (a LOT) about what you've said in these posts, I am ready to get on with it. No more wallowing. No more kicking myelf. No more beating myself to a pulp. If I don't lose an ounce by eating low carb I still want to eat healthy and get well physically. Its not just about the weight for me, its about getting strong and healthy even if I am overweight. You got it right, Debbie, when you said no one will do this for me. I have to fan the flames and keep up the momentum. We all have to do that or we'll sink right back into despair. I can't even tell you how much it helps to finally have a safe place where I can be honest about this stuff. You guys are an amazing bunch of people.

Hee! Thanks for that.

And welcome back, and good luck!

I'm going to lick my life's wounds with big thick steaks and wonderful seafood fried and dipped in clarified butter and whatnot, all zero carb. It's like having your cake and eating it too! I can binge on that stuff all I want! Carbohydrate binges are horrible!

Very true. Binging on LC food may prevent weight loss, and even cause weight gain. But you usually don't feel nasty and horrible after, as you would on a carb binge.

That's one of my fave movies! I can nearly recite half of it. I cracked up with your post!

Welcome back!