Look out 2018. I’m coming for ya.

Yes! This is where I am at bouncing between body positivity and self consciousness/self-loathing.

Karen, have you looked at the Autoimmune Diet protocols out there to help stave off the autoimmunity issues? Food you are eating might not be nourishing you but causing autoimmune responses and cellular inflammation that are making it impossible for you to lose weight.
Dr Amy Myers has an Autoimmune Protocol book – she recommends a 4 or 6 week period where you pull anything that might be causing you harm out of your diet, then you can challenge & reintroduce to see if those items are problematic.
After being 150 lbs overweight for decades, I finally found a doctor who listened to me. I started by pulling major inflammatory foods out of my diet, and got inflammation/autoimmune responses under control, and I’m finally losing weight for the first time in a long time.

I have regained all of my weight and I’m struggling. I want that free feeling back! Thanks for affirming the struggle and highlighting the most important reason of all for losing fat – regaining the ability to focus on living and using our time on this earth for better things.

Wow thank you for writing this…you expressed perfectly the way I think and feel every day of my life.

Umm…you are not too old! I’m 34 now, I was 31-32 when I lost my 50lbs (see comment above) and I’d been through many, many ups and downs with dieting. I can tell you something that worked for me, although I don’t know if it’ll work for you. The year before I tried to lose any weight, I decided to get moving. Working purely on the exercise. Most people try to work on diet and exercise at the same time but for me every time I tried to do that it fell apart, it was too much to try to change everything in my life all at once. So I didn’t. For a whole year I didn’t try to change anything in my diet at all. But I worked my butt off at exercising. I won’t go into the details, because there are a lot of details, but at the end of the year I was exercising 4-6 times a week for 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 hours and loving it. It became part of my life that I didn’t have to work on, something that I missed if I didn’t get to do it. And it took a year to get there. And I didn’t lose any weight. But I got a lot more toned and lost inches. It also built my confidence a lot, because I’d finally made a really positive change to my health that had stuck. It was after that that I started to work with a nutritionist and really made changes to my eating and lost the 50lbs. But for me it was so much easier because I already had the exercise part down. There’s no one way to get there, but that’s what helped me. I’m still only halfway there though.

I think lots of people would agree with me when I say being 32 isn’t going to hold you back. You are much more powerful than you realize.

Andie, first, thank you so much for all you share!! You get it and we love you for that :-) Jannabelle, you truly are not alone…often feel that way. I didn’t used to until I started asking questions of: why does my body refuse to only give up 30 pounds when I am eating right, working out 3x a week with a personal trainer, and doing a cardio-belly dance class 2x a week? What is wrong with me, what I am doing wrong? Why are others so successful?

The worst though is was when I started having issues working out…after 4 years of working out with a trainer and doing the belly dance class, my arms started fatiguing, got to the point it dangerous to myself–laying on a swiss ball doing arm presses and nearly dropping a 30 pound weight on my face because my arms gave out or in belly dance class almost passing out from having my arms in position after 10 minutes….that was devastating, I loved working out!

But that is not the worst of it–seeking medical attention because all of a sudden my biceps, triceps, pecs, traps, and sternomastoids would fatigue out for no reason–that was the most demoralizing!! I mean felt like I had worked out for 2 days kinda fatigue. Washing my hair, getting dressed, pushing a grocery cart, loading/unloading the washer, and good grief just mowing the yard left me bad off for a couple days…but the doctors didn’t take me seriously, that my calorie count was 800-1200/daily (of course, occasionally out for dinner it’s higher, or the times where I’m not especially hungry or am too busy and don’t eat) and I had been working out for 4 or 5 years. They ignored the fact that when I showed them food journals, my worst eating flaw was either not eating enough or not including enough protein in my diet. They said lose weight, then all will be ok. They judged me as unworthy of their expertise because I obviously have no self control and chose to do this to myself. In their heads I sat on my ass and gorged myself as I watched tv. No way could they consider working out or the fact that I walk a lot on terrain that is hilly, rocky, unpaved….

The doctors had a large role in changing my psyche about myself. Got fed up and changed primary care at the urging of my ob-gyn (which they were the ONLY ones who insisted there was more going on and told me I deserved appropriate medical care). My first visit, he and I had a heart to heart and everything came out that I was tired of being judged and not worthy of basic health care. He was shocked with my forwardness and assessment of medical professionals. And, he got teary eyed with me when I said I did not choose this body. Of course, he is not perfect, but he is receptive if I feel he’s getting a little judgey or dismissive I can tell him how he made me feel.

As it turns out, fat was not the cause of my arms–I have an autoimmune disease or a couple. That’s a whole nother ball type of demoralization to learn your body attacks itself in such a manner. The anxiety of being judged for being fat because, obviously I there could not be anything invisible going on since i am fat and chose to be lazy…the having to hide it because people don’t understand what they can’t see. The anxiety of flares or triggers and just having to suck it up….

I have days where due to a culmination of things, I just hate my body for betraying me in such a manner. I have had self-depreciating moments where I stood in front of a mirror naked with a Sharpie and drawn weight loss via lipo suction lines to sculpt. And moments wishing to be able to turn back time even just to the 90s where I still had my old self perception. I have had crys of frustration remembering how things used to be and how I now feel about my body betraying me like this–this is not my life, and I really don’t like whom evers life I am muddling through!! Sometimes I am just so tired of all of this baggage.

What I wouldn’t give to have freedom from fat–it truly does affect things in so unexpected ways! I miss feeling how I used to feel about myself and I hate circumstances and people that have encroached on that! I generally try to eat well–all of my produce comes direct from farm, and is organic. That challenges me to plan meals based on crops–kinda fun actually. (Tonight I am having garlic scape-Egyptian Walking Onion-basil pesto over yellow squash and zucchini and peppers with a salad that includes butter lettuce, raspberries, cabbage and preserved limes. Ok, yes and I see my flaw in that dinner–no protein, so will have to add some toasted walnuts in there…) I have bought myself a Cubii–an under the desk elliptical, that is set on 7 and depending on what is happening at work I do 1-4 miles at 80-180 RPM which means I roughly burn 100 calories per mile. The fat thinking is a major work in progress!!! (Would be so much easier if the fat weren’t really there…)

Andie, I love your blogs! I didn’t realize what was going to come out– You and Janebelle touched me and thank you both for that