Leaderboard

I didn't think I would experience any jelousy because my family knows I have struggled with my weight all of my life. Unfortunately, I ran into it two weeks ago. I have an older sister and a younger sister and when we were younger, they were always thin and I wasn't. They used to tease me so bad and it hurt. Now, they are overweight too. I didn't know how much they weighed but I knew we were all close. My oldest sister came to see me last week and brought me some clothes she said she couldn't wear anymore. She's lost 40 lbs, she claims and I could tell she had lost some. I was so happy she was losing too because I know how hard it is. Long story short, I have lost 53 lbs and was feeling so good about that until she got here. When I opened the bag of clothes she wanted me to have, I found that they were a size 22 and size 20. I told her they were too big but I apprecited it. She kept telling me they were too big for her too and said that she was wearing a size 18. Which is what I am wearing. I just wanted to cry because as I looked at her I kept thinking that if I were still that big that I didn't feel it and my heart was just sad. I felt like I had been working out all of this time and I still looked so big too if we were wearing the same size. I know we carry our weight differently. Mine is in my butt and hips and hers is around the middle but I didn't see any way we were wearing the same size. She never said how much she weighed but I just kept saying no way. Then I did something sneaky. (I know and I felt bad) but when she went to the store, I went into the room she was staying in and I looked through her suitcase to see what size pants she was wearing. I felt really bad about doing it but I found out she was wearing a size 24 and not 18. The thing that hurt my feelings was that she had to lie about it. I just don't understand that. She knew where I started at 263 lbs. She also knows how much I have struggled to get this off, even with the band. In all honesty, I am losing weight for vanity reasons and because I have felt bad about myself and the way I have felt I looked and I was sick of it. I am also getting older and I have not had any health problems and I don't want any associated with being over weight. I am at a point in my life where I have been through so many bad things that I want to feel better and look better and have a better self esteem. As crappy as that may be, it's the truth. I slipped on a pair of 16 jeans today and they wouldn't button, but I got them up and buttoned is just my next goal. I am seeing my legs look better and I'm making little muscles in my arms and jelousy, or no jelousy, I'm getting this off this time. I've carried all of my emotional hurt in my body for too long and at 40 years of age, I've discovered that people are going to like me or not and it has very little to do with my weight.

Why? Another weight-loss gimmick.

A lie does not become anything other than a lie when you call it a joke.

And I agree with this entirely, well said! I always tell people that I've got a lapband becuase I'd hate anyone to think that I'm some superwoman with amazing willpower whilst they're miserable failures. There IS an answer to obesity and I dont want to hide it or keep it secret, I want to share my experience and my journey to help others. If you want to keep it private, that's your choice, but why make stupid jokes about it? How can you know when you say that to someone whether cancer has touched their lives?

Not funny and immature to say the least. How about putting on your bigboy or girl undies and tell the truth...Its not that hard to celebrate weight loss. As losing a parent and two Grandparents to Cancer its hard not to be upset.

I just wrote you a long reply that got eaten by the computer when I tried to backspace to fix a typo. The short version is, I am very sorry you are feeling the way you are right now. You are not alone in your feelings. My ex left me for a woman he'd known a week when I was 7 months pregnant with our 4th child; it was devastating. It's so hard to see someone we love going on in their lives without us. It sounds like your ex is an abusive, manipulative jerk, and I assure you his true self will be revealed to whatever women he's charming at the moment. Sadly, some of them will probably be so weak they will allow his mistreatment. I am SO proud of you for getting yourself out of that situation. My suggestion is to make a list of about 10 things that you can do rather than eat when the urge to emotional eat strikes you. Then commit to doing one of those activities for a minimum of 20 minutes before you allow yourself to eat anything. By that time, you'll either be distracted and not want to eat any more, or you'll know you're really hungry and you can make better choices about what you eat. I've been doing this myself since my pre-op diet started, because I was so hungry and hating going without food. It's helped me differentiate between real hunger and head hunger. Once you have some fill in your band, you will have the negative consequences of overeating to help keep you from doing it, too. But it's still important to learn coping skills to deal with the hurts/stresses in our lives.

So you've had the guts and strength to leave an abuser and now you are abusing yourself? Come on! You are worth more than that! You can do this. Perhaps therapy would help. I'm in therapy and it has helped me a ton. If you can't afford therapy, how about an Overeaters Anonymous or food Addicts Anonymous group (if you identify as such). You should start building a good support system. Again, you are worth more than you are giving yourself. You deserve the life you want. We all do!

I am so sorry to hear about your divorce. Even if you wanted the divorce it still must be very painful. I can still eat an awful lot of food too. But I'm trying really hard not to. Do you have a good therapist to talk to? I can't stress how important it was for me to get a therapist and talk to her about my binge eating disorder. Don't beat yourself up, just do better tomorrow. That's all we can do. Try to have more good days than bad. Hugs to you!

You're losing more than 1 lbs a week so you're completely on track for healthy and normal weight loss. While that's not comforting - you are losing. And if you've stopped losing then you need to review what you're doing. Getting another surgery may not help if you're over eating or eating horrible food. A lot of people who get more invasive stomach altering surgeries end up gaining all the weight back - and more - and stretch their new stomach to a larger size. Just keep at what you're doing, monitor your calories closely using something like The Daily Plate and your activity using something like the FitBit ($99 / free website with tracking, tracks your sleep, your activity level, your steps, mileage, and food) and see where the discrepancy is. Since you're doing this for 3 more months make the best of those three months and write down every single thing you eat and the amount (measure it). And invest $99 in a FitBit and track your activity effortlessly so you can see how much you're really moving every day (you may be shocked). You need a caloric deficiency of 500 calories per day (either by less food than your height/weight needs) or by burning via activity to lose 1 lbs / week. Chances are, at your weight, you need around 2,400 calories to maintain your weight (with no increase in activity). So drop your calories to 1,400 / day (a comfortable amount) and walk at least 5,000 steps a day (it's an achievable goal for most people - whereas 10,000 steps can put some people off initially) and you'll see movement.

Men often don't know how to word things. He may have simply been saying that you are looking looser (this is a good thing, it means you're losing weight) and oddly, that extra skin can make someone look like they are gaining weight because the skin isn't tight. Working out with weights will help bring your skin in and fill you out with muscle instead of fat. YOU may want to go apologize to him for jumping to conclusions and tell him that it hurt when he made those comments because YOU interpreted them negatively and didn't take the time to ask him what it is he was seeing that seemed different. You are too close to how you look to see what others can - he was simply being honest, regardless of how you chose to take it. Instead of being insulted you could have said, "Really? I'm looking flabby? I hadn't noticed since I look at myself everyday, but that's good! That means I'm losing more weight! You're probably right that it's time for me to step up my workouts to try to pull some of this old skin back in." Instead, you chose to be insulted and chose to take it out on him. Had you been positive, and if he really meant it as an insult, that would have made him rethink what he said to word it better or to not say it again. Being negative and overreacting in response just makes the situation worse. No one can make you say or do or feel anything - they can only present you with a stimulus, it's up to you to respond. The second you go on the defense, you've already lost.