I need your support

[moonraingirl]

So here I am, on a diet again. I've been overweight or obese for 90% of my life. As a young child (0-4 years ) I naturally ate a lot less food than other kids of my age but I was healthy and grew normally.
At the age 5 I was sent to kindergarten where the teachers forced me to eat even though I cried that I can't eat anymore. When persuasion didn't help, they abused me and the whole class psychologically. No kid from my class was allowed to leave the table and play until I ate everything. So the whole class was staring at me and hating me. That's when I learned not to listen to my natural feeling of having enough food. We had 3 meals a day in the kindergarten and it lasted for 2 years.

As you can imagine, when I went to school, I was already overweight which led to my bullying. And how did I solve that? Yes, by overeating. My parents at the time sold sweets and I would naturally eat a lot of them. I was terribly hungry in the afternoon because I was ashamed to eat at school.

At the same time, I started dieting since age 8. My mother asked my doctor for help several times but he wouldn't do anything. He just kept repeating that I need to exercise more. So I invented my own diets as such a young girl without knowing anything about nutrition. These periods of overeating and starvation totally destroyed my metabolism.

I managed to lose quite a lot of weight couple of times but always gained back. I had my thyroid and blood tested but all numbers are fine. It is just impossible for me to keep a normal weight even when I exercise and eat 100% according to the recommendations and counting not only calories, but also keeping correct macro ratio. I know so much about healthy eating that I could be a dietitian As you can imagine, when it doesn't work for me, I start eating normally again (which is not much more compared to others, I only eat slightly more than 2000 calories during weekends-I've already told you I like baking, during week its less than 2000. I almost never drink sodas and buy sweets occasionally).

Now I've been doing some research and it looks like I have insulin resistance and the only solution for me is low carb ketogenic diet. I've been trying it since last Wednesday/Thursday and I've already lost some water weight, my jeans are looser. This is a much better result than when I do "healthy nutrition" and I'm not hungry.

I feel quite emotional writing this. Please keep me in your thoughts. I need to solve this as it makes me miserable all my life.

[Bychan Wulf]

You learned about your insulin resistance from a doctor or from your own research? I didn't understand that part very well....
Anyway, do you think you could give up the salt? If retaining water is your problem then you should probably see a cardiologist, just to be sure and most of them recommend giving up the salt. Salt keeps the water from being eliminated.

Either way, I wish you lots of strength and luck to deal with his.

PS: birth controll pills also have this effect; their composition makes the body retain water.

[moonraingirl]

Thank you for your support

It's from my own research. I've got all symptoms.
It's not recommended to give up salt in ketosis because it's a diuretic diet and you lose a lot of water and minerals. You can read number 4 here https://authoritynutrition.com/5-most-c ... -mistakes/

I ate normal amount of salt this week and the weight loss worked for me.
Yep, this lifestyle is quite confusing because it negates everything that is usually recommended that's why I was careful before trying it. It sounds pretty extreme and I'm not an extreme type of person. So I looked for reliable sources which say it is safe and very beneficial if done correctly. It was in fact invented by doctors as a treatment for children.

[Bychan Wulf]

I wasn't impling you should do both; I am not familiar with the effects of a low carb diet.
Anyway, I still think you should ask a nutritionist or a diabetologist for advice....there is nothing to lose

[SnowCat]

You said that your thyroid numbers are fine, but just being in range doesn't mean that they're optimal. Research and patient experience has shown that "normal" lab values often leave patients with hypothyroid symptoms. Some of what you say, also sounds like possible PCOS. I wish you the best in your efforts.

Snow

[moonraingirl]

Yep, I know I should. I'm quite stubborn and anxious about it though. I was at the doctor's and he was like everything is OK, thyroid, no elevated sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure. He was surprised by the results because he was expecting worse. So just the same old recommendation. Eat healthy and exercise a lot.

I know I have a sick relationship with food, too.

I'll try this for a while and will see how it goes and how I feel. It's supposed to be good for the brain function and mood, which are also reasons why I crave food. I'm not interested in doing something that would harm me so I will definitely be careful

[moonraingirl]

Thank you Snow I'll research that. And maybe go to the doc although I'm panically scared of it. I don't fear needles or blood. I'm terrified of doctors (although none of them was ever mean to me so I don't know why I have that phobia) and of the sterile environment. So it may take a while until I find courage to go there again.

[Bychan Wulf]

Try a private practice....it can be expensive, but at least they have a more friendly environment.
And, (as you already know, I am quite stubborn too ) ask a nutritionist about that. You can write an email to one. Different types of diet create different reactions in different bodies. That's why the progress should be followed by someone who, well, does that as a job

PS: sorry for being such a pain in the back abou it

[moonraingirl]

I know you mean well, Wulfie and thank you for that You're a true friend. Maybe I will go to a private doctor. But it has to "ripen" in me. I know I'm being irrational and silly. I will have to go there but I need to process it psychologically first. You know, like an alcoholic or a drug addict before they are ready for therapy. I don't know if that makes sense :p

[Shannon]

Hey I can certainly relate to your story in a few ways...I was an overweight child and other than some minor unintended emotional neglect, I swear being an obese child has practically ruined my life lol...That's an exaggeration and I'm more of an optimist so more appropriately; I'd say it contributed to almost every aspect of my developement and is still haunting to this day. I am a 26 year old female.
By age 10 I was already well over 100 lbs and not very tall. I lived with my mom who has always been low-income and then with my dad from age 12 and on. Because of the fact that we were poor; I was chunky and didn't have very nice clothing so of course I was picked on and never had anybody to talk about it..Because of the internet/computer boom of its time; I had an internet addiction from a very young age (still do!) and parents were always to preoccupied or exausted to argue with me to get out and move.
The bullying ruined my self-esteem, i had few friends and in turn became socially under-developed. I wasn't very healthy so I didn't do that great in school and always felt sstupid...In middle school I decided to not take anybodys crap anymore after losing a decent amount of weight and decided to get overly mean towards anybody that looked at me the wrong way..i found I was able to make friends by becoming the class clown but all of that led to 5 years of getting locker up, going to girls homes, drinking, drugs, etc..
Maintaining a good weight was like a roller coaster ride and by age 17 I was at largest 5 foot 3 and 212 lbs. After that I managed to lose 70 lbs and by 19 I was right around 140 lbs and felt amazing.
Almost 7 years later I stay between 150-160 and have had 1 child. Weight isn't as big of an issue but my social and mental health still suffer...I'm an extrovert who likes to talk a lot and I have severe social anxiety. Because of this, I have to deal with it on a daily basis...The amount of paranoia that I have involving interactions could definitely be hypervigilant. I constantly think people are watching me, judging me, talking about me, etc..I get verbally hostile at inappropriate times and it's really hard to deal with because in the moment, i am borderline delusional...
Anyway I'm sorry that I got so far off track but I blame a lot of it on my own childhood obesity.
How active are you and it wasn't really clear as to whether or not you're currently a big eater or not. At one point you wrote that you eat about 2000 cals a day on average and in another spot, wrote that you had a love affair with food. 2000 cals is really not all that bad in terms of daily caloric consumption. Maybe actual calorie counting, excercise, and journaling for a couple of weeks would help in terms of identifying whether there's an underlying health problem or not because I'm sure you know that if you burn more than you take in, it should result in weight loss. Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck!

Shannon

[Shannon]

This was from a little less than three years ago. I don't have a lot of "full body shots" because I'm more bottom heavy and even though I'm not obese anymore, I'm still very self-concious. I'm typically always about this size though.

[TwilightDancer]

I know how frustrating the weight struggle can be.

I was anorexic when I was 16.
Recovering from my eating disorder meant packing on the pounds which lead to quite a few relapses.
I struggled with being overweight for years until I made the decision to go vegan in October of last year before my 26th birthday. I have since been counting calories and have lost over 40 pounds. I'm not where I want to be but I'm closer than I was 6 months ago.

Now that you're losing weight don't rush yourself. It's going to take time. There were weeks I was so frustrated with a 1 pound loss I would tear up. Take your time and listen to your body. I still have cheat days where I go over my calories, but I don't sweat it as much because I know I will get back on track. Listen to your body's signals as best you can. Stick with it. Meditation can really help with this. Have some one on one time with yourself. Maybe at the end of each week you can look back and reflect on which days were better and why. Learn from your mistakes. Use them to make better choices.

The weight will come off in time.
Best of luck to you!

[moonraingirl]

Hi Shannon, thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry you had to go through this. I can totally understand your issues with social interactions. It' s so sad that obese children are left alone without professional help. It really ruins your life on all levels, not only physical. I hope that your problems will improve over time. It's tough...Please feel free to vent in this thread if you want to. It would be supportive if more members with similar problem shared their stories here.
BTW you look like a healthy woman now. Great job of keeping the same weight for a few years.

Twilight Dancer, thanks for telling us about your struggle. Anorexia is really a serious problem as well. I'm so proud of you for losing weight in a healthy and ethical way now. Wish you good luck on your journey. Let us know how you are doing over time. Plateaus can be so frustrating but you know you're on the right path!

My problem is that I eat quite well most of the time but I do overeat when in stress or when I'm tired. It is something to reward me when I think I did something well. My metabolism is not able to process this and stores all excess calories immediately. Luckily, 99% of my food is cooked at home or in the restaurant (traditional cusine) from scratch because it is not common here to eat processed/instant food on a regular basis. That's good. But I know that the large majority of my calories comes from carbs. I just can't live without bread, pasta, potatoes and rice. Also fruit.

I did food journaling for a whole year when I lost weight. Every single day, everything. I was quite good at targeting recommended numbers and ratios.
But as soon as I returned to the uni, I kept numbers of calories in range, however I started eating mainly rolls, baguettes and similar. I started gaining weight slowly despite still counting calories but eating more carbs than protein and fat. Then a terrible period in my life came and I just went to my original weight, put 20kg back. I was in huge amount of stress and depression, suffered from insomnia. At first it was my mother's illness and then stress at work (teaching) which drained me and I seriously thought I would collapse one day. I went for months without weekends because I had to attend weekend teaching training in another town. At night, I had nightmares about school and still stressed by them, I would go to school where the nightmares became real. I ate normally at that time during week days, but I also looked forward to weekends because they meant eating something special to reward myself for surviving.

I tried getting back to journaling on sparkpeople that helped me last time. But I didn' t get the same results. It doesn't seem to work now. And I'm just so annoyed by traditional diet... I feel sick just thinking about going through it again. I can't explain it. It's something I've done many times in the past, only to get back in no time...It's so frustrating.

I noticed by trial and error that my main problem are carbs. I saw I tend to gain weight from them and not from protein or fat. That's why I want to reduce them this time and see what happens. Just to try something different, something that I'm not programmed to succeed and fail immediately. And what doesn't seem to work anymore. When I read about yoyo effect connected to traditional diets and comparison with low carb, it just makes sense to me. It explains why traditional eating is so difficult for obese people and how low carb/ keto can be more effective in the long run.

I feel psychologically better now. I have the strength to fight. And I will have to solve the "reward" aspect of food in my head.

[TwilightDancer]

For counting calories I use the myfitnesspal app. It's my favorite because you can literally just scan the barcode and type in how many servings you're having.

If you did want to try keeping a food journal, I'd suggest that. Even if you didn't want to count calories, it could be useful to look back at the end of the week and see exactly what you ate on your best days and try to recreate more days like that.

Just a thought. Figured I'd throw it out there in case you were interested.

[moonraingirl]

Thank you TD, it's nice of you to think of me.

In my area, it is not very common to eat instant pre-cooked meals from the shop regularly.

99% of my food is cooked at home from simple ingredients.

So I don't have anything to scan into that app if it only supports American brands of instant meals But I will definitely have a look at it and compare to sparkpeople that I use currently.

Or can I scan things such as dairy, meat or certain veggies and fruits that are packed with a code? I mean can i scan the code and enter nutritional info myself to use it later?