What do I do now?

I really, really need some advice, and going to a nutritionist and
asking my doctor have not really helped. Please bear with me as this
might be a bit long. I'm female, 5' 8". Over the past year, I have
lost approximately 100 pounds. I've been at a size 12 and 165-170 lbs
for about the past three months. I monitor it very closely. This is
not loss from my highest weight of all (which was 320), but loss from
about 265. Morbid obesity runs very strongly in my dad's side of the
family, and I'm no exception. My father and my aunt both had surgery
and have achieved good results.

I did not have surgery. At one point I was set to do so, but a health
problem a few weeks out from the scheduled surgery prohibited it.

I was a fat kid, a moderate teenager, then just huge since I was about
22. I'm now 40. I tried *multiple* times to get the weight off and
no matter what kind of approach I took, *including exercise*, doctor's
supervision, yadda yadda, I *always* just STOPPED losing weight at the
same place -- 225-230. It wasn't a plateau, it was a dead stop.
Months with no progress. So I'd get frustrated and quit caring, and
of course put the weight right back on.

This time, I simply starved myself. For one to two week periods at a
time I would eat about 750 calories a day, then I'd take a "off" and
eat whatever I wanted. Yeah, I felt terrible; weak, sick, dizzy,
heart palpitations, the whole works. I didn't care -- I was simply at
the end of my rope and DETERMINED. And God help me, it's the only
thing that has *ever* worked.

Now I'm at a stage where my body is grossly out of proportion. I have
a huge amount of skin hanging around my belly, and there is still some
fat there, too. I have very large, muscular legs.

However, from my bra line upward, I look like a concentration camp
victim. Absolutely emaciated. My doctor recommended plastic surgery,
which I cannot afford. I'm afraid that any further dieting will be
very bad for me. I continue to work out with dedication, and I'm
determined not to gain the weight back, but I feel like a ridiculous
cartoon character with all this bulging crap around my midsection
while my sternum is clearly visible through my skin if you go inches
upward.

What the hell do I do now? I don't want to keep living like this. I
hate my body almost as much now as I did when I was huge. :-(

On Nov 17, 2:39 pm, River wrote:
I really, really need some advice, and going to a nutritionist and
asking my doctor have not really helped. Please bear with me as this
might be a bit long. I'm female, 5' 8". Over the past year, I have
lost approximately 100 pounds. I've been at a size 12 and 165-170 lbs
for about the past three months. I monitor it very closely. This is
not loss from my highest weight of all (which was 320), but loss from
about 265. Morbid obesity runs very strongly in my dad's side of the
family, and I'm no exception. My father and my aunt both had surgery
and have achieved good results.

I did not have surgery. At one point I was set to do so, but a health
problem a few weeks out from the scheduled surgery prohibited it.

I was a fat kid, a moderate teenager, then just huge since I was about
22. I'm now 40. I tried *multiple* times to get the weight off and
no matter what kind of approach I took, *including exercise*, doctor's
supervision, yadda yadda, I *always* just STOPPED losing weight at the
same place -- 225-230. It wasn't a plateau, it was a dead stop.
Months with no progress. So I'd get frustrated and quit caring, and
of course put the weight right back on.

This time, I simply starved myself. For one to two week periods at a
time I would eat about 750 calories a day, then I'd take a "off" and
eat whatever I wanted. Yeah, I felt terrible; weak, sick, dizzy,
heart palpitations, the whole works. I didn't care -- I was simply at
the end of my rope and DETERMINED. And God help me, it's the only
thing that has *ever* worked.

Now I'm at a stage where my body is grossly out of proportion. I have
a huge amount of skin hanging around my belly, and there is still some
fat there, too. I have very large, muscular legs.

However, from my bra line upward, I look like a concentration camp
victim. Absolutely emaciated. My doctor recommended plastic surgery,
which I cannot afford. I'm afraid that any further dieting will be
very bad for me. I continue to work out with dedication, and I'm
determined not to gain the weight back, but I feel like a ridiculous
cartoon character with all this bulging crap around my midsection
while my sternum is clearly visible through my skin if you go inches
upward.

What the hell do I do now? I don't want to keep living like this. I
hate my body almost as much now as I did when I was huge. :-(

Sorry about you weight problem. You know exercise isn't something you
"try". Exercise is a given, a constant, or at least it should be if
you want to lose weight and stay healthy.

I'm an atheist. Maybe it is your belief that has you stuck. In other
words, if you are praying to lose weight, but eating too much and not
exercising, god won't answer that prayer. (snicker).

I think you need to eat about 1200 calories a day, exercise and
eventually you will get down to an appropriate weight. It doesn't
matter very much if your family is fat. It works every time. I simply
do not believe you are counting calories correctly to begin with. 750
cal a day would be starvation and you would drop the weight very
rapidly.

Learn to count calories better. Sorry, but I know your calorie count
is off. dkw

On Nov 17, 6:31 pm, " wrote:
On Nov 17, 2:39 pm, River wrote:



I really, really need some advice, and going to a nutritionist and
asking my doctor have not really helped. Please bear with me as this
might be a bit long. I'm female, 5' 8". Over the past year, I have
lost approximately 100 pounds. I've been at a size 12 and 165-170 lbs
for about the past three months. I monitor it very closely. This is
not loss from my highest weight of all (which was 320), but loss from
about 265. Morbid obesity runs very strongly in my dad's side of the
family, and I'm no exception. My father and my aunt both had surgery
and have achieved good results.

I did not have surgery. At one point I was set to do so, but a health
problem a few weeks out from the scheduled surgery prohibited it.

I was a fat kid, a moderate teenager, then just huge since I was about
22. I'm now 40. I tried *multiple* times to get the weight off and
no matter what kind of approach I took, *including exercise*, doctor's
supervision, yadda yadda, I *always* just STOPPED losing weight at the
same place -- 225-230. It wasn't a plateau, it was a dead stop.
Months with no progress. So I'd get frustrated and quit caring, and
of course put the weight right back on.

This time, I simply starved myself. For one to two week periods at a
time I would eat about 750 calories a day, then I'd take a "off" and
eat whatever I wanted. Yeah, I felt terrible; weak, sick, dizzy,
heart palpitations, the whole works. I didn't care -- I was simply at
the end of my rope and DETERMINED. And God help me, it's the only
thing that has *ever* worked.

Now I'm at a stage where my body is grossly out of proportion. I have
a huge amount of skin hanging around my belly, and there is still some
fat there, too. I have very large, muscular legs.

However, from my bra line upward, I look like a concentration camp
victim. Absolutely emaciated. My doctor recommended plastic surgery,
which I cannot afford. I'm afraid that any further dieting will be
very bad for me. I continue to work out with dedication, and I'm
determined not to gain the weight back, but I feel like a ridiculous
cartoon character with all this bulging crap around my midsection
while my sternum is clearly visible through my skin if you go inches
upward.

What the hell do I do now? I don't want to keep living like this. I
hate my body almost as much now as I did when I was huge. :-(

Sorry about you weight problem. You know exercise isn't something you
"try". Exercise is a given, a constant, or at least it should be if
you want to lose weight and stay healthy.

I'm an atheist. Maybe it is your belief that has you stuck. In other
words, if you are praying to lose weight, but eating too much and not
exercising, god won't answer that prayer. (snicker).

I think you need to eat about 1200 calories a day, exercise and
eventually you will get down to an appropriate weight. It doesn't
matter very much if your family is fat. It works every time. I simply
do not believe you are counting calories correctly to begin with. 750
cal a day would be starvation and you would drop the weight very
rapidly.

Learn to count calories better. Sorry, but I know your calorie count
is off. dkw

I completely agree with dkw. Your story is very sad about your
relatives and also about your dissatisfaction with your body image.
But a size 12 is not such a bad place to be. Especially if you came
down from 320 pounds!!!!!! You really are wonderful to have made such
a great journey. TThat is truly a great feat! Have you looked at
clothes from Coldwater Creek or from the designer Tamotsu? I think
you are being too hard on yourself. The problem now is not to lose
more weight but to maintain the loss through the coming holiday season
which is a terrible monster with the cookies and the cake and the
meals. About the saggy baggy, good panty hose holds it all in and who
is complaining anyway? Go shoppin girl.

dkw, I appreciate that you took the time to respond. That said,
really your response is very cookie-cutter, I'm not sure why you felt
compelled to say you were an atheist ("God help me" is only an
expression, you know), and I wonder if you really read or believe the
things I've said. First, I *said* in my first post that I'm
exercising, as a person should and will continue to do so,
regardless. I also did this for the months and months I ate 1200-1400
calories and saw no progress downward from 230 lbs.

Just telling me to "learn to count calories better" is thus
extraordinarily unhelpful. I am an intelligent and educated person
and I know exactly what it is I did to get down to my current weight.

I'm now no longer "dieting," I'm only maintaining. All that the 1200
calorie per day "diet" that the whole world seems so stuck on has done
is keep me at 165-170lbs (it fluctuates a bit, as usual) for roughly
the past three months. That's the reason I ate so little in the first
place. NOTHING ELSE WORKED, and no one seems to be HEARING that.
Everyone assumes that if a diet fails, it must be because I wasn't
sticking to it. Well, bull****. I get very sick of hearing that when
I *AM* following the diet, and the weight refuses to budge.

Even my spouse is now afraid to have me lose anymore weight because
I'm already so thin from mid-abdomen up. I was so very heavy before
that I'm quite confused about what on me is fat, what is skin, what is
muscle, what just won't come off, what could be surgically removed (if
money grew on trees), and *why* I have such trouble losing weight in
the first place.

My doctor was also unhelpful, so maybe usenet is just the wrong place
to be looking for such answers. *sigh*

On Nov 17, 7:06 pm, honeybunch wrote:
I completely agree with dkw. Your story is very sad about your
relatives and also about your dissatisfaction with your body image.
But a size 12 is not such a bad place to be. Especially if you came
down from 320 pounds!!!!!! You really are wonderful to have made such
a great journey. TThat is truly a great feat! Have you looked at
clothes from Coldwater Creek or from the designer Tamotsu? I think
you are being too hard on yourself. The problem now is not to lose
more weight but to maintain the loss through the coming holiday season
which is a terrible monster with the cookies and the cake and the
meals. About the saggy baggy, good panty hose holds it all in and who
is complaining anyway? Go shoppin girl.

Honeybunch, you really made me smile. :-) Thank you for that. I do
already wear a bodysuit to try to hold in all the flab, and it's
successful in keeping it from actively jiggling, so it does help. I
do go shopping now and I enjoy buying clothes, which I never used to.
It's just that I *am* still so big in the stomach. (And the bat-flap
arms!, but that's another story. *g*)

Since I'm a minority religion, I don't have Christmas to worry about.
My work situation is such that I don't have that to worry about it
there either. I'm not tempted by the real sweets anyway, because I
know that after not eating any refined sugar for a year, I would
probably pass out if I did. LOL!

I appreciate your answer and I think you're very sweet. Maybe I am a
bit too hard on myself about body image, but it's just so strange to
look and feel the way I do now -- 1/3 rail-thin supermodel (yuck), 1/3
deflated sagging balloon, and 1/3 relatively normal. And still with a
"slightly" high BMI of 25 "point" something. I'm just frustrated and
confused. I know I look pretty much "normal" now from an outsider's
point of view -- but I sure don't feel normal. :P

But thank you.

River wrote:

My doctor was also unhelpful, so maybe usenet is just the wrong place
to be looking for such answers.

Usenet is a pretty terrible place to get medical advice (which is what I
think you really need), and I'm not sure it's much better for everything
else.

You can't diet or exercise excess skin away. That requires surgery. If
you have big hips and a small chest, there's likewise not a whole lot
diet and exercise can do to change that. You can alter things to a
certain extent, but it sounds like you've already done everything you
can. If you are so unhappy with your body that it's interfering with
our day to day life, you'd probably benefit from some therapy.

On Nov 17, 5:33 pm, River wrote:
dkw, I appreciate that you took the time to respond. That said,
really your response is very cookie-cutter, I'm not sure why you felt
compelled to say you were an atheist ("God help me" is only an
expression, you know), and I wonder if you really read or believe the
things I've said. First, I *said* in my first post that I'm
exercising, as a person should and will continue to do so,
regardless. I also did this for the months and months I ate 1200-1400
calories and saw no progress downward from 230 lbs.

Just telling me to "learn to count calories better" is thus
extraordinarily unhelpful. I am an intelligent and educated person
and I know exactly what it is I did to get down to my current weight.

I'm now no longer "dieting," I'm only maintaining. All that the 1200
calorie per day "diet" that the whole world seems so stuck on has done
is keep me at 165-170lbs (it fluctuates a bit, as usual) for roughly
the past three months. That's the reason I ate so little in the first
place. NOTHING ELSE WORKED, and no one seems to be HEARING that.
Everyone assumes that if a diet fails, it must be because I wasn't
sticking to it. Well, bull****. I get very sick of hearing that when
I *AM* following the diet, and the weight refuses to budge.

Even my spouse is now afraid to have me lose anymore weight because
I'm already so thin from mid-abdomen up. I was so very heavy before
that I'm quite confused about what on me is fat, what is skin, what is
muscle, what just won't come off, what could be surgically removed (if
money grew on trees), and *why* I have such trouble losing weight in
the first place.

My doctor was also unhelpful, so maybe usenet is just the wrong place
to be looking for such answers. *sigh*

Well, I'm in good shape, and not overweight although I used to be. I
don't pray, yet I have met my goals. If praying helps you stay
focused, go for it, but gods don't really have much to do with weight
loss, calorie intake and exercise. You DID not eat 1200 calories and
stay at 230. Learn to count calories better. 1200 calories for an
extended period of time with any moderate exercise would put you
around 150 pounds, and not anything close to 230 pounds. You were
eating perhaps twice that number of calories. Please do a little
research. This is very common where people like to think they are rare
exceptions that have the metabolism of a stone, but this is not being
honest with yourself. Remember if you are not diligent, especially
with fatty foods, you can ingest hundreds of calories in a couple of
bites. Therein probably lies your problem with understanding why the
weight did not come off.

If you are eating out, it is not hard to misjudge portion sizes or fat
contents for example. If I were serious about losing weight...and I
was, I measured carefully everything I ate and measured the calories
burned by exercise. My weight reduction occurred exactly as the
science of weight loss predicted. It's math, not some mystery or hit
and miss affair how weight is lost. Sorry to be blunt, but what did
you want to hear?...that you need to pray harder or try some other
kind of diet, or that you are some rare medical anomoly. I think not.
All diets work that limit calories and none work if you don't. dkw

On Nov 17, 2:39 pm, River wrote:
What the hell do I do now? I don't want to keep living like this. I
hate my body almost as much now as I did when I was huge. :-(

Telephone the 80's and tell yourself not to get fat?

I'm lucky; I have a few hardly visible stretch marks on my abdomen,
but otherwise nice, tight skin.

"River" wrote in message
...
I really, really need some advice, and going to a nutritionist and
asking my doctor have not really helped. Please bear with me as this
might be a bit long. I'm female, 5' 8". Over the past year, I have
lost approximately 100 pounds. I've been at a size 12 and 165-170 lbs
for about the past three months. I monitor it very closely. This is
not loss from my highest weight of all (which was 320), but loss from
about 265. Morbid obesity runs very strongly in my dad's side of the
family, and I'm no exception. My father and my aunt both had surgery
and have achieved good results.

I did not have surgery. At one point I was set to do so, but a health
problem a few weeks out from the scheduled surgery prohibited it.

I was a fat kid, a moderate teenager, then just huge since I was about
22. I'm now 40. I tried *multiple* times to get the weight off and
no matter what kind of approach I took, *including exercise*, doctor's
supervision, yadda yadda, I *always* just STOPPED losing weight at the
same place -- 225-230. It wasn't a plateau, it was a dead stop.
Months with no progress. So I'd get frustrated and quit caring, and
of course put the weight right back on.

This time, I simply starved myself. For one to two week periods at a
time I would eat about 750 calories a day, then I'd take a "off" and
eat whatever I wanted. Yeah, I felt terrible; weak, sick, dizzy,
heart palpitations, the whole works. I didn't care -- I was simply at
the end of my rope and DETERMINED. And God help me, it's the only
thing that has *ever* worked.

Now I'm at a stage where my body is grossly out of proportion. I have
a huge amount of skin hanging around my belly, and there is still some
fat there, too. I have very large, muscular legs.

However, from my bra line upward, I look like a concentration camp
victim. Absolutely emaciated. My doctor recommended plastic surgery,
which I cannot afford. I'm afraid that any further dieting will be
very bad for me. I continue to work out with dedication, and I'm
determined not to gain the weight back, but I feel like a ridiculous
cartoon character with all this bulging crap around my midsection
while my sternum is clearly visible through my skin if you go inches
upward.

What the hell do I do now? I don't want to keep living like this. I
hate my body almost as much now as I did when I was huge. :-(

My story is much like yours and we are the same age ... I have a lot of
extra skin and that skin is never going to go away unless I can get someone
to hack it off. I doubt that is going to happen.
When it really gets to me I have to tell myself "this" (being my body) is
better than "that" (my former huge body).
I have to tell myself that my life will be longer, better, fuller and more
interesting at my current weight. I have to tell myself that I am a better
parent at my current weight than I ever could have been at my former weight.
I have to tell myself that just because I don't have a great body ... it
doesn't mean that I'm not worthwile.
But, there are days when it is just hard to deal with. I understand.

Hi River,

I agree with what some of the others have said. You've done a
terrific job losing the weight that you have, and are certainly much
better off and healthier as a size 12 person (which, as Honeybunch
says, ain't bad :-) ). Further dieting won't help with the loose skin
thing, and you might indeed find that it will make you look thinner
than you like in the upper body.

My recommendation (just one person's opinion, of course) is that you
set a goal of maintaining your current weight for a year or so, eating
at a maintenance level and working on exercise to see if that can make
some improvement in your overall appearance. You haven't said
anything about what kinds of exercise you do, but I'd encourage weight
training. Adding some muscle in the upper body, for example, could
improve your proportions. Cardio might help take off a bit more of
the remaining fat, but if you're maintaining weight you should add a
few pounds of muscle while losing a few pounds of fat. After a year
of planned maintenance you can reevaluate and see how you feel about
things. And during this year, I'd also work on cultivating positive
feelings about your new body and your accomplishments! (Another
exercise recommendation: yoga can make you feel better about your body
and what it can do now that it couldn't before.)

For the record, I'm a 59-year-old woman who lost about 130 lbs. a few
years ago. I exercised quite a bit during the weight loss and
continue to do so. I was fortunate to be able to lose without going
to a starvation calorie level as you did. Maybe for these reasons, or
maybe just luck of the genetic draw, I ended up with pretty normal
proportions. I have some loose skin, but a lot less than most people
would expect in the circumstances, and it's not at all apparent when
I'm dressed. And, honestly, most women my age don't have the greatest
skin tone. I feel terrific about my body. I don't expect to look
like a 25-year-old, but I look darn good for almost 60 :-).

Chris
262/130s/130s