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110orbust
New Member
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Posted: 23 August 2005 05:58 am |
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A Reminder -- I'm sixteen years of age, and I have to rely on everyone else around me for anything since I am not allowed to get a job or drive or do anything. It's terrible. I'm 200 pounds, and 5 foot 3. My BMI is 35.4.
Currently I am staying with my great-aunt for a few days and taking care of her. She is constantly telling me how fat I am and how I need to lose weight. She gives me terrible advice that works on no one. She tells me to go up and down my driveway once, which in her mind is terrific exercise (5 minutes of walking at an old lady speed because she gets offended when I walk at anything above 2 mph.) She made a dinner tonight that she pressured me to eat which was a total of 731 calories, which is insane for anyone who is dieting and trying to stick to 1,200-1,500 calories. When I told her I wanted to take a walk down the street for 30 minutes at 5:00 p.m., she told me it was too dark to go walking.
My mother is practically an anorexic diabetic. She's not diabetic from being obese but rather from some disease she had as a child. She's very tiny with the most perfect body. She's 50 years old and looks like she could be 30. She constantly is pressuring me to lose weight yet she only buys fattening foods. All my mother eats is a slice of toast with a slice of cheese on top for each meal, which I reason to be around 230 calories. She's an exercise fanatic who tells me I'm fat, but does not want me to lose weight because she has some terrible desire to be more attractive than anyone else in the family. She gets horrible diabetic reactions from eating so little and exericsing so much. I bought a shirt from American Eagle, and my mother liked it so much, she bought one for herself. Now she wants to wear them together, so we'll match, but it makes me so self-conscious because she looks so much better in hers. She's taller than me, thinner than me, and prettier than me.
My step-father tells me I'm fat, my other aunts tell me I'm fat, my school psychologist tells me I'm fat, my peers tell me I'm fat, my therapists tell me I'm fat. But none of them want to help me.
What do you guys do about these negative people who work so hard at causing you to not lose weight?
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Chocoholic
Senior Member
| Joined: | 29 April 2005 |
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| Posts: | 341 |
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Posted: 23 August 2005 06:56 am |
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Wow. Well I never had a situation as difficult as the one you describe, but I do understand the helplessness of trying to lose weight when you are dependent on others. I am just starting my 2nd year of college (moved in today!) so all through high school I had to deal with it. My mom doesn't have a problem with food--her favourite foods are vegetables and she actually forgets to eat meals sometimes (I spend every moment daydreaming about food, so that's a foreign concept to me!) so she just didn't understand my problem. I am not excessively overweight, I just want to lose 10-20 lb (and more than that to control my eating habits instead of letting them control me), and she thinks I am fine just the way I am so she (and all my other relatives) pressure me to eat.
I wish I had some advice to give you, but the truth is I didn't have much success until I moved out. I gained almost 10 lb during this summer when I was home... it is really hard. Hang in there though, it CAN be done. I lost some last summer but it took a herculean effort and a lot of sneaking meals so I could say I had already eaten, etc. Also I had just gotten my drivers licence so I would offer to go to the store, and then buy low-cal stuff for me. I just had to tell myself that no matter what, I would NOT eat over my calorie limit.
If you ARE pushed to eat a certain food, portion size can really cut down on calories. Try your great-aunt's pie or whatever, but get half the serving you normally would. Another trick that I use a lot with dessert-pushing grandparents is "I'm full now, but I'll get some later." They usually forget about it by the time "later" arrives!
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aicirt78
Senior Member
| Joined: | 18 July 2005 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 190 |
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Posted: 23 August 2005 05:39 pm |
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Welcome to our fun little forum!!! This reply will be in regards to this post and the other one.
I wish I had this magical spell that you could use to make yourself happy. I know it feels like a catch 22, I am overweight because I am depressed, but because I am depressed I am too depressed to do anything about it... or I try and feel like I am not getting anywhere so I become more depressed!!! What is a girl to do?? Then there is the whole family thing... it must not be easy, if fact it must be very difficult to have to deal with that. I know you said you are staying with your aunt right now, how long will you be doing that? Could you take a walk when it is earlier so she can't use the "it is too dark" line on you again? Could you have done some type of exercise in the house (like try to think of exercises you had to do in PE while you are in school)? I like what the post above said about taking a smaller portion. Do you try to say to your aunt, "with all due respect, I would love to eat what you made but even your, yourself says that I am fat and need to lose weight so I think I will pass on this?". When you are living with your mom is she willing to buy healthy food and some exercise DVDs? I know it is hard to have all this negative energy directed at you. The only advise I can give you is to try to tune the out, for every negative thing they say about you, you should name a positive thing about you (you HAVE to find positive things about yourself, like I used to think I have small wrists and feet:)), tell them out right "you are not being very supportive", and try to find support from somewhere else (like here). If you need help on how to start to drop the pounds you can read the FAQ on this sight or look at other's post for advise people have given them. Now, go look at yourself in the mirror and say "I am beautiful and I deserve to be good to myself and my body". Let us know if you have any questions or if you just need to gain some support. I also would highly recommend starting a weight loss diary. You can then vent all your feelings and ups/downs with your journey!
Good luck, Tricia
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Corina
Distinguished Member
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Posted: 23 August 2005 08:51 pm |
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I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND what you mean. Most of my life I've lived with a very Obese Grandmother (more than a hundred pounds overweight) and every day she baked cookies, cake, pies and what not. Then for dinner she would prepare this giant meal. Huge servings of everything, a big salad, a large proportion of spaghetti (filled up the entire plate), maybe fruit with whipped-cream, bread rolls with butter, and then the desert! It was crazy! (Oh! Did I forget to mention the buttered corn?) Also, I was living with my mother who struggled from being overweight as well. My mom always told me not to eat grandma's food because it's so fattening.
But, Grandma viewed dinner time as a way to visit with each other. I'm sure a meal like that would consist most of the calories you need in a day. People just don't realize that you need smaller proportions at meal time, and the calories add up fast!
Well because I was young, I ate whatever my Grandma or Mom made. And as a child I was overweight. Chubby. Not obese though.
Then before my freshman year of high school I decided that I wanted to lose weight to get a guy. I quit eating grandma's food. And whenever she asked me if I wanted to eat I'd just say I already ate. My diet wasn't a very healthy one, I just had Special K cereal for breakfast, soup for dinner, and Special K for dinner. And fruits throughout the day. I guess its an OK diet, but not necessarily because you don't get all of the required nutrients you need in a day.
I exercised about 45 minutes a day. It was easy for me to lose the weight because it was summer-time and I had most of the day off.
Well... this is where things go bad. I lost a lot of weight (about 30lbs in 6 months), I was in great shape, and I looked healthy. BUT my Grandma was saying that I was getting to skinny... and I didn't need to worry about my weight. Blah blah blah. So this obviously sunk into my head (even though I wasn't too skinny I was just right for my height) and I started eating fatening again. I didn't think I would gain all the weight back and PLUS some! Well, I did. It's three years later, and I'm making another attempt to lose the weight.
My Grandma knows I'm trying to lose weight. And she's being a little better about not forcing me to eat her stuff. She lets me cook and eat something before they eat. But, she does still have a habit of asking me if I want
more food. Like more fruits or vegetables when I already had enough and have met the daily requirement. This is where I say a firm "no." Just eating a few extra things beyond your calorie limit really adds up.
Anyways... some advice that seems to be working for me:
1. Set your alarm in the morning to get up before any one else does and exercise-go for a walk, ride your bike, tear out exercises from magazines and do those in your room, do crunches... or any type of exercise that is convient for you, if you have your own TV, ask if you can buy an exercise video on Amazon (it's cheaper). If your with friends, see if they wan to go swimming, and stay in the water most of the day, do breast strokes, or splash and have fun! Play volleyball... Or have a water fight at home with water baloons and water guns. Run and chase each other. Just keep your body MOVING. But of course, start small, don't expect to do all of these things at once.
2. Other ways to keep your body moving:
-When walking to a bathroom take the longest route
-Offer to carry in the groceries
-Offer to clean (cleaning burns a lot of calories) even if you don't like to do it, you'll make your parents happy, and maybe they'll give you more freedom
-Offer to cut the grass with a hand mower if you guys have one (that really burns calories)
-Offer to help with yard work
-Use stairs whenever possible
3. I definitely agree with Tricia about portion control. If you can, ask if you can serve your own portions. And eat half or a quarter of what every one else is eating. Say no to desert. Eat fruit & veggies as snacks. This way you won't overeat at dinner. And... no more butter on your bread or vegetables. It's bad for you and adds on more calories than you need.
4. Ask if you can take a dance class, or any other type of exercise class that you're interested in. If you want to learn how to swim better or something, ask if you can take swimming lessons. This way you'll have fun at it, and you won't want to miss it because your parents or you are paying for it.
5. Just learning to move your body more and being more active will help you lose weight. You might not be able to control what's on the dinner plate but you can control what you do with your body.
Hope this helps. I'll post more if I can think of any.
-Corina
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Corina
Distinguished Member
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Posted: 23 August 2005 09:05 pm |
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OH! And check out my diary. Maybe that will give you some inspiration. It's Corina's Modeling Contest diary.
And Tricia's diary is even more motivational, her's is TJ's Diary.
-Corina
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