Motivate Me, Baby!

So here is my blurb. I have struggled with weight and weight loss my entire life. Being a binge eater and an emotional eater. I finally am trying to take control of it. I am on a journey from my highest weight of 198 and trying to get to 135. (currently at 188).

I am making this journey through healthy eating (trying to cut out high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, etc) and lots of excersize. I am hitting the gym about 5 days a week. Counting calories is my diet weapon of choice.. but i am really on a whole lifestyle change!

O-kay. First off I am a breastfeeding mom so weight loss is very slow moving for me. I DO NOT count calories. With 3 kids that is really just to much for me. I am watching my snacking. I love the 100 calorie snack packs. I do not do artifical sweetners except for gum. They make me sick if they are in anything else. I love to walk but do not need a pedometer since I have 3 & don't use those. I love to listen to my MP3 player while walking. If you need to know anything else feel freee to ask.

Hi all, looking forward to this swap..I'm just trying to get fit and lose a bit of weight. I'm getting a personal trainer next week to start off...and also try and eat alot healthier as well..

I never had a real problem with my weight until recently. Sure, I've been seeing a couple ounces at a time creep in as the years pass and my metabolism and lifestyle changes. I have spent a few years being frustrated with the weight-creep, and being even more frustrated with the lack of compassion that my friends, family, even my doctor! have been giving me in that regard. I did my best to modify my habits (with little to no external support) to keep it from getting out-of-hand, and had stabilized myself at around 160 lbs (which my doctor insisted wasn't a problem because it wasn't yet obese. I feel healthier at 130 to 145.)

And then I got injured. I tore my ACL completely when I fell while skiing. I tried to be good-natured about it, but despite that effort, my entire social network collapsed. Two relationships remain trusted--my husband is one of them, and a two-decade friend (who had recently gone through a foot reconstruction himself) was the other. My best friend and house-mate turned her back on me (made life more difficult, actually, by dropping the dog-walking responsibility into my lap when it took me fifteen minutes to reach my own kitchen.) Other friends who had claimed to be "family" didn't even send a get-well e-mail.

I was plunged from relatively athletic to absolutely sedentary. The injury occurred in February 5, 2006. The surgery wasn't performed until August 29, 2006. I lost all my stamina, almost all of my muscle-mass, all of my friends, most of my belief in myself, and just short of all my belief in others.

Two years later, I still feel pain every day, even when inactive. I still need to ice and elevate after exercize. My flexibility has returned, but my strength, fluidity, and stamina are still shot.

I gained thirty pounds in the first six months. Just prior to the injury, I'd gotten my weight down to 150 and was feeling very happy about it. With the loss of mobility, my weight shot up to 185. I have changed some of my eating habits to try to accommodate my decreased activity, and am currently stabilized at about 180.

I don't know what path I will take to drop the weight. I don't know if it can be exercize-focused (my preference) or if I will have to learn to count calories and obsess about nutrition. I've joined this group because I think that having a place to check in with others who are engaged with similar struggles might help me to succeed, or at least to come to a peaceful resolution.

(ps. I am allergic to aspartame and I strongly dislike artificial sweeteners.)

er... sorry about the novella. ;)

I need to drop at least 30 pnds in 28 weeks so that when my Husband comes home from being deployed. I hopefully can get pregnant. My weight is preventing me from having a period. I think 1 pnd a week is a great goal and I am already down 3 pnds. I don't have anything relating to losing weight so any type of present will be fine. All I have been doing is watching what I eat and making sure I get my butt up and moving around everyday. =) Let's reach our goals!

Okay... time for tha' Swap-Master's blurb!

Okay, so... I was enrolled in a performace and discipline dance academy at age 3. And remain'd there until I was 15 years old. By then I was dancing competatively and professionally for the academy and the pressure to look a -certain- way was excruciating.

Needless to say, my OCD fed on the emerging anorexia that seem'd to be stealing my dance-mates away from me at unnerving rates... and taking me over.

I've never shaken myself from the Anorexia diagnosis and am still plagued by it to this day. I have a HIGHLY distorted body image. Others look normal and beautiful to me... but somehow I can't see myself that way.

There was nearly a year I lived on nothing but 100 calories of veggies a day. Since then, I've upped my caloric intake, while supplimenting with vitamins and trying to follow CRON (Calorie Restriction, Optimal Nutriton) which means while I can't yet leave anorexia behind (which I doubt I'll ever do completely anyhow) I can make sure my restricted food provides as much of the approprate nutrients I can.

I'm proud to say that NOW, while I'm still caught in 'Rex's web, I am a FUNCTIONING anorexic. I am also a vegetarian.

I've also stopped working out 6 hours of my day, everyday... and instead am desperately trying to force myself to work out both in muscle building and healthy aerobic workouts... only THREE times a week.

My biggest thing... Is I'd like some support and understanding... or perhaps to give my partner a chance to learn more about the disease. Likewise I was ....ugh... blessed... with Interstitial Cystitis (a lifelong ulcerative disorder of a bladder... rather painful) but it limits my food even further. I suggest peeking into it and the HUGE lists that are a big NONO in my particular case... all on top of the Anorexic Hell.

I'm only 85 lbs as of now and 5'6"... I'm KNOW I'm skinny but can't see it. And I don't think I'll ever be pretty... but I know that for once, it would be nice to see myself as such.

I guess what I'm looking for is healthy support, ideas or recipes that are healthy and suit my dietary restrictions, and a reason to feel not beautiful... but pretty again. Inside and out.

I hate what the academy turn'd my life into and how it's effects have linger'd on years past my days there. I hate how I was train'd to hate myself if I wasn't perfect in the eyes of my dance professor, and I never was.

What you think I need of this blurb is what you make of it.

I neither want to gain nor lose weight... but promote a healthier (STILL) way of living my life like this and to garner a little support and spread awareness of my two diseases that affect my eating.Support and a reason to feel like a pretty girl, despite not seeing it for myself.

Really... if this merely educates others, I'm happy. But a kind word or a compliment would light up my day.

I'm relatively content with my weight, low though it may be, but I'd like to see myself as pretty for a change. I'd rather not recoil for my mirrors.

Maybe this isn't necessarily about getting in shape... but it IS about becoming healthier both physically and mentally! I hope that's alright with y'all.

Ooops sorry everyone, I forgot to post my store here.

2 yeas ago, I finished on of the toughest home workout systems P90X and felt better than I had in years. Somewhere over the months following that program, I lost my desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Because I was in excelent shape, it took a while for the effects of my bad eating and not working out to show up.

Now, I'm struggling to even think about working out. I own hundreds of workout videos, am a member of a slew of fitness sights, have more workout gear than any one person should own...but I still won't workout.

My eating is even worse...it ranges from not eating at all, to only eating a bag of something from our snack machine here at work.

I have high blood pressure and have even not been taking my meds the way I should. I've never be a salt sprinkler...matter of fact, I've had the same box of salt for over 3 years. I made a salad the other night and grabbed the salt and started sprinkling like no body's business.

I really need inspiration to get going, but I've got this mental block that seems to be keeping stuck.