Konnichiwa from Washington :3

[Moonie]

Hi hi everyone! My name is Shasta, I am 24 years old and I'm from Washington state. If all goes well, I will be starting college for the first time in January 2012 and will be going for a BA in Accounting. I have a deep love and passion for Japan that started with watching Sailor Moon as a kid. I have always loved to draw, but finding Anime and Manga really set me off to get serious with it. I also love to write and I hope to get a book published eventually. I love video games of all kinds, from MMORPGs to FPS games. I prefer to game on my PC but I also love console games when I get the chance. I am also long-winded, so bare with me!

The battle for my health and my weight has been raging since I was fairly young. My mother told me I used to grow a little wider and wider, and just about the point when she would think there was a problem I would grow vertically and would look alright. However, I stopped growing up so much, stopping at 5'4", and just kept gaining weight. I know I had my father and other family members encouraging me to have incredibly bad eating habits and to not listen to my mother when she would try to get me to eat better and exercise. I have never been able to break those habits.

Depression has done a lot to keep me demotivated. Things kept going wrong, like learning everything was a lie to cover up my father's drug addictions and affairs, my parents' ugly divorce, family deaths, flunking out of high school, being morbidly overweight, having no friends, not getting to go to college, unable to get a job, heartbreak, and too many regrets and mistakes to mention. I contemplated suicide more times than I really want to admit. I won't pretend that my life was the absolute worst, but I was fairly sheltered as a child so I couldn't handle it when the proverbial shit hit the fan in high school. I escaped into the internet to find friends, some of which I still have after ten years, but at the same time I ran from my reality. My already poor health was just gone from then on out.

I don't really know what I weigh and I'm terrified to step on the scale. The last time was a few years ago and I was hovering around 280 pounds. I hate how I look and I hate how I feel 95% of the time. I am always tired because I can't sleep well, I'm often in pain, and I almost always feel like utter crap.

Finding the motivation has always been a challenge, but lately I have an amazing source of hope and inspiration. After so much heartbreak and loneliness, I managed to find love and I am engaged to the most amazing man I have ever met. I really hope this is the real thing and that it will last...I could use a little good in my life. He has been through his own share of hell, going through some things I could never begin to imagine and even coming close to permanently giving up, and yet he continues to move forward with a strength and determination I have never seen before. He is never satisfied with what he has done and always expects more of himself, no matter how far past his breaking point he's been pushed. He has been an incredible source of inspiration to me since the day we first met.

He never tells me I'm anything but beautiful, and that's done a lot for my self-confidence. However, we have plans for the future to start a family, and both of us are concerned that my weight and my health could pose some serious problems. We both want me to be healthy and to live through having children, something that my own mother barely managed to do when she was pregnant with me. If this isn't motivation, then I don't know what is.

I want to be healthy and live a good, long life.

I want to live to see my children someday.

I want to not worry about finding clothes that fit me.

I want to be somebody my fiance can be truly proud to have by his side.

I want to be comfortable in my own skin.

I'm still putting together my game plan and my goals and everything, but I'm really excited about the things I have read on Nerd Fitness. I'm dedicated to getting on the Paleo diet and starting a good exercise routine. I'm really happy to be joining this community of motivated individuals. Here's to the future!

[ETFnerd]

welcome to the nerd asylum!

[ebm1224]

welcome to the community! that is an amazing path you have already traveled and kudos to you for getting through it. there is light at the end of the tunnel!

your goals sound awesome but while the temptation to go paleo is pretty strong (so many people here have had great successes with it), i would recommend against it for you right now. full disclosure, i am not paleo but am currently reading "the paleo solution" to decide whether it is right for me. i say that you should not because it sounds like you are just taking hte first steps toward health and paleo is likely a little harsh for you right now...it'll be too much at once.

what do i recommend? find an online calorie counter (i sometimes use sparkpeople.com - also a truly inspirational site) and start logging what you eat each day. this will tell you where you are now. after a week or so, look at your diet in terms of positives and negatives. what are the easiest changes you can make? can you cut out some of the sweet or other junk food? can you sub oatmeal for sugary cereal? can you add more fruits and veggies? can you reduce fast food consumption? even these small changes can make a difference and i'm sure you'll start seeing some results fairly quickly.

oh, and find a scale you can use to find out where you are. weigh yourself no more than once a week though...always at the same time (ideally, first thing in the morning after using bathroom). weight isn't the ultimate indicator of health by any means but, if you want to know if your changes are working, you need to have a way to measure.

sorry, i know this is alot. feel free to friend me on here if you'd like and we can chat. i'm also 5 ft4 and did the non-traditional college thing so maybe we have some stuff in common

welcome again - glad you're here!

[Moonie]

what do i recommend? find an online calorie counter (i sometimes use sparkpeople.com - also a truly inspirational site) and start logging what you eat each day. this will tell you where you are now. after a week or so, look at your diet in terms of positives and negatives. what are the easiest changes you can make? can you cut out some of the sweet or other junk food? can you sub oatmeal for sugary cereal? can you add more fruits and veggies? can you reduce fast food consumption? even these small changes can make a difference and i'm sure you'll start seeing some results fairly quickly.

Thank you so much for your kind reply.

From what I have read and looked into, the Paleo diet really sounds like something I could do and would enjoy. My current diet basically consists of things that are completely non-Paleo. I would say 90% of my diet includes pasta, rice, loads of random processed/instant junk food, and fast food that I eat every night or every other night. I am expecting to have a hard time adjusting, but I am sick of how awful I feel with my current diet and want to change. I was planning to at least have one day a week, or maybe one meal every few days, that would be my non-Paleo meal time so I wouldn't go crazy at first, and maybe more often if I find it really hard. I just don't want to cut myself so much slack that it's too easy to switch back to a bad diet. I know myself and I'll take advantage if I think I can get away with it.

I have a good friend who was on the Paleo diet (not knowing it was called that, though) and he tells me that he felt awful for the first few days and then he felt better than he had in his whole life. His exercising only included a walk or two around the block every day, and he still lost an incredible amount of weight in a short period of time. He showed me pictures of him and his daughter together both before the diet and a month or two into the diet, and the difference was shocking.

We have a scale but it needs new batteries, and I'm not sure it even works. I never liked it, anyway, because if you put even the tiniest bit of weight extra on one foot your weight reading jumps around horribly. I'll see about getting a new scale and I'll find a tape-measure to record down my current body measurements. I bought a notebook just to record this stuff down and to keep recipes and other things, and I've already started writing in it quite a bit.

I'm not going to just brush aside what you recommend, but I am just ready to make a change. I am done with how I've been living. I have that friend and a few others and my fiance to cheer me on, and I'll do my best to be involved in this community to help keep me accountable.

I would love to chat sometime. I would be so grateful to have a friend here. Thank you so much.

[ETFnerd]

Hi Shasta. It seems like you've been through a lot already at a young age. After reading your post last night, I wanted to spend a little time thinking about the things you said. I have to say that I am so impressed that you got through what you did and are so engaged in finding your road to happiness. Everyone moves forward creating their own path to living a fulfilling and happy life. There are a lot of possibilities, constraints, adversity and relationships to navigate. During a time that should have been carefree, you had adversity that at times must be overwhelming, but I want you to be proud of yourself for making it to where you are today.

During your times of adversity, you describe that others that you loved and relied upon really let you down. They were responsible for providing you with love, stability, security, etc. Sometimes those who are charged with providing you these things drop the ball for whatever reason. Whether it was intentional or for reasons beyong their control, it doesn't matter. There are basic things that young people need, and some of these are sometimes lacking. In spite of all this, it appears that you turned out to be a smart (I see your plans), beautiful (I see your picture), loving (I read your story) and hopeful person.

Give yourself credit for what you've been able to accomplish to be where you are. Those here and I look forward to providing any fitness advice we can think of as well as encouragement in your journey, but I wanted to add one thing. I see that people that you relied on have let you down in the past. The people we love and our relationships add great richness, meaning and happiness in our lives. But each person needs to reflect and work on their personal path to happiness while reconciling how it meshes with the road that our loved ones are on.

I am so happy for you that you have found someone you love. Keep in mind that everyone has flaws so you cannot rely on other people for your happiness. You have to rely primarily on yourself. If someone really loves you, they will support your priorities, hopes and aspirations. And if they fall short in some respect, you have to know how to rely on yourself to reach your end-goal of happiness.

It looks like you are building your toolset for your road to happiness. I feel priviledged to be able to participate in and observe your journey. Figth hard for the happiness you deserve, and get up with true grit every time you have a setback. You will succeed if you refuse to accept a setback as permanent.

[Elastigirl]

Welcome! It is nice to see a fellow Washingtonian here-there are a few others on the board from WA.

On the going Paleo/not going Paleo discussion. It actually helped me to go Paleo, once I ditched grains I found it easier to say no more often to sugar, and potato chips and all the other temptations. That said, whichever method you use to help you acheive health, remember that it is a process. I know for me I had a lifetime of bad habits. eating because I'm bored, or depressed or whatever. So, I need to change my habits. And I'm making progress. But for every four steps forward, their may be two back. The important thing is when I make a bad decision, dust the crumbs off your shirt and move forward. People on this board are great encouragers.

Good luck on your new life as you begin college and weight loss, you will be awesome.