The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Carrie]

Ok, it’s time to get down to business.

I see many of my friends here struggling - at one stage or another of falling off the program and climbing back on (myself included).

We're like little weary grade schooler's sent off to our first day of school with bright new clothes, shiny new shoes, a new book bag, new pencils and erasers - and now we're stumbling blindly off the bus trying to make it home - our clothing soiled and torn, our shoes scuffed and making our feet sore, our book bag..... well we can't find it, and the school bully snapped our pencils in half and ate our erasers. What started out as an enthusiastic adventure of exciting proportions has become a humiliating, tiresome gauntlet that we only seek respite from. Dare I say the bloom is off the 'MF diet rose' for many of us?

I’m wishing for a magic wand to wave and bestow upon everyone all the fortitude to make it through to their goal weights without any further obstacles. To restore that euphoria of the initial weight plummet........ my friends, the wand is not forthcoming. Why, why WHY do we hit these roadblocks???

Personally, I think I have little mental landmines in my head – I’m rolling along just fine, sticking to my diet without a lot of trouble, and then BLAMO next thing I know I’m hanging by a thread, or worse yet veer madly off course.

And so I think about it.

I think part of me is afraid, and perhaps even does not want me to lose weight. I think change is scary. I think my fat is my protection from the nasty things of the world. I think I miss eating the way I used to. I think it’s just so much easier to eat whatever I want. I think those few moments of blissful eating are heavenly. I think it’s fun to go out with my friends and eat and drink and party. I think take out food is a lot more interesting than drinking my 450th shake. I think being thin for the first time in more than a decade will be scary. I think I ate a cheeseburger by mistake so I may as well eat a bag of chips and a bag of candy too. I think I can’t be a thin person. I think I’m stuck being fat. I think I cannot even imagine being a normal weight. I think being fat is just my burden to carry through this life. I think my stretch marks are more visible now. I think I’d be scared to go through life without my security blanket of fat. I think I feel bad. I think I’ll never make it, I’ll never lose the rest of this weight. I think I just can't. I think …………………..

And I think about it……………..

I think I feel better about myself than I have in years because I have worked hard and lost 43 pounds. I think I have surprised myself – I’ve never been this successful before. I think I’m PROUD of myself. I think I walk tall and proud now. I think I like putting on clothes I haven't been able to wear for years. I think I’ve learned that eating doesn’t fix my problems. I think it’s important to keep trying, even when I screw up – ESPECIALLY when I screw up. I think I’ll wear my size 18 pants to work tomorrow. I think that if I’ve come this far, I can go the rest of the way. I think my self esteem has improved drastically in the last 4 ½ months. I think that I only have a prescribed period of time to get through – there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I think if losing 43 pounds feels this good, losing 50 and 75 and 100 will feel WAY BETTER. I think it’s important to ignore the scary bad stuff and think about the good stuff. I think I want to think this way more, and the other way less. I think I want to lose more weight MORE than I want to stay this weight. I think I can do this. I think I will get to my goal. I think……….

I think a positive attitude is a key to success.

What do you think?

Carrie

[Sylvia]

I think a good attitude helps.

After the excitement of beginning the program wears off, and at least for me, the weight loss slows down, it is easy to slip. Let's face it, eating like this is boring. It seems like it will take forever.

I don't take any comfort in being fat. I actually still think of myself as a thin person (obviously in denial here) but I know I don't have any issues that losing weight will cause me to face.

When those moments of despair set in, those times when I feel I can't see this through, that this will never end, I try to remember again all of the reasons I'm doing this. Yes, there are the normal concerns about long term health impact, but if I'm honest, that is not my primary motivator. I want to feel good about the way I look. I want to wear sleeveless tops. I want to wear shorts in public with confidence. I want to wear a bathing suit comfortably without an insane urge to cover up immediately upon exiting the water. I want people to look at me and think I look good and not that I WOULD look good if I lost some weight. I want my kids to learn to eat properly and to not have the same weight issues I've dealt with. When they get to the age where they care about such things, I don't want them to be embarrassed by their fat mom. I want to feel comfortable going to my husband's work outings or seeing people I haven't seen in a while without them thinking I'm fat or how badly I've let myself go.

So whenever I feel my enthusiasm and commitment waning, I run through that list - and believe me, it gets longer - and force myself to keep focused on the end game. No matter how long it takes to finish this it will be a short time in relative terms. I try to think about it day to day rather than month to month.

Sorry for the ramble, but it feels good to write this.

Sylvia

[Simmshe]

More rambling .

I agree, I think a good, positive attitude is a key to success. I also think that busting through emotional blocks, trampling fear, and being fully willing to be uncomfortable, for many of us, is a must. Behind most self-sabotage, or sabotage, period, can be found the ugly face of fear. I'm facing fear myself now, head on. I have to admit, I'm terrified of being slim--it represents, both literally and symbolically, so many things to me that it is terrifying to face the prospect. I never even realized it to this extent until last week, when I fell off the MF wagon that I had just climbed aboard. But I realize that I have to be willing to be uncomfortable and just acknowledge that, yes, I have fear about being smaller, and yes, I am uncomfortable with not being able to turn to food as a comfort, and to keep on going. We never achieve goals if we insist on staying in our comfort zones.

I'm one of those people who has lived such a sub-par life (thanks to being imprisoned by my emotions and girth), and have been 260lbs+ (as high as 385lbs five years ago) since I was 14 years old, that when things feel good and I'm actually feeling, dare I say joy, that something terrible is going to happen. And then there is fear's sister, self-doubt, who can talk us out of doing anything. Self-doubt would fill me with thoughts like: "who do I think I am to actually believe that I can actually do this and be successful and experience bliss--as if I deserve it." So, for sure--positive thinking is a must and we have to rout out faulty thinking where it stands. And it is haaaarrd when a person has been accustomed to a way of thinking and talking to themselves for years and years to change their ingrained thought process. But we can do it, with vigilance and reinforcement, we can do it.

So we stumble and we fall, and we get back up ... and we stumble and fall some more, and we get back up and brush off the dirt. And hopefully, as we go through this process, we come back a little wiser, a little stronger, a little kinder to ourselves and accept that we are works in progress and we will "get it" one day .

[Jeanette]

These are GREAT posts!! This weight loss thing is much more mental than physical. I think we forget that sometimes.

[Carrie]

Sylvia and Simmshe - you guys are great! Reading your posts was like adding all of your reasons to lose weight to my list of reasons and giving me a big burst of 'can do' attitude!

Jeanette is right, this is a mental 'game' we're playing here.

I wish I had Sylvia's confidence about getting to goal weight. I guess it's that - I haven't been thin in SO LONG, that partly I can't imagine ever getting there, but also, I don't know who I'll be when I get there. My fat is who I am, it's what I think about, it's what keeps me from doing some things, and makes me do others, and I'm not sure who the heck I'll be without it. It's like an identity crisis. So there's a constant battle to overcome the fear and discomfort, and reassert that I want to lose weight MORE than I want to stay where I am right now. Dang it, I want to wear a sleeveless shirt too!

I so-o-o-o relate to fighting the battle with fear and self-doubt. Some days they give it a rest, but others they're on me with a vengeance. The key is to take one small eensy success (like making it through day one of medifast) and building on it, bit by bit.

I am very saddened by how negative I was about myself before. I realize I have 'talked trash' to myself for years and years. Beating myself down with all that nasty stuff we say when we look in the mirror. I would NEVER, NEVER say that stuff to another person, and yet I was doing it to myself. No one can foster achievement in such a cesspit of negativity. And it's miraculous to begin to see that I don't have to live that way. That I can actually turn it around and change it.

One day at a time, girls, we're gonna get there!
Carrie

[Lois]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the honesty and wisdom in your posts...

The other day I was feeling sorta "stuck" and uninspired, so I took out the "Success in a Shaker Jar" booklet and started to read. One of the things it said that was SO simple but hit me between the eyes was..."losing weight is HARD"

I mean, whatever made me think it should be EASY, right?

MF is easier than other plans in that we don't have to deal with food choices, calories, fat grams, etc....but it's STILL NOT EASY TO LOSE WEIGHT! I sat there sort of laughing at myself for being so....dense! Of COURSE losing weight is gonna be hard (otherwise I would have been thin a long time ago!!!!)

So...I told myself to get a grip and get on with it

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.....

hugs,

Lois