Getting over a hump

Hello all, I'm new here.  I'm 24 years old and have a chronic condition that requires me to take a number of medications, many of which slow my metabolism, increase my appetite, decrease my energy, and mess with my cholesterol and lipid levels.  It isn't really an option to not be on these medications, but over the past six or seven years I've put on a LOT of weight -- the medication, college, life.  I was also anorexic as a teenager, and spent a lot of time in the hospital for that when I was young.  Now I'm determined to lose the weight and do it healthfully, but I've been eating right, exercising like a madwoman, and drinking water and green tea until I can barely stand it any more since about November, and with almost no weight loss.  (I should say that due to the past eating disorder I do not own a scale, so I'm going on purely how my pants fit.)  I'm not sure I could really eat less or exercise more at this point, but I'm desperate for some real results here.  Does anyone have any safe ideas for boosting metabolism and shedding some of that weight a little more quickly?  Thank you!

[Barb135]

Hi there.  Welcome to the community.  

There are quite a few of us who have various medical issues to deal with, so we are familiar with your situation, if not the exact same meds, etc.  

You don't say WHAT you eat - a lot of times when we think we are "eating right", we really aren't doing ourselves many favors.  The first thing I would suggest is that you set up a food journal to keep track of what you are eating along with the amounts and nutritional value, with calories.  There are several web sites that let you do that - spark people and live strong are 2.  

Having been anorexic, I know that you are going to have to maybe do things a bit differently.  The first thing you need to do is figure out how many calories you need daily to maintain your current weight - based on weight (in your case, a close estimate?), height, age, etc.  You can also do this calculation on the either of the 2 websites mentioned above.  

As far as eating - you should eat several mini meals throughout the day and make sure that you get both protein and fiber with each meal since they take longer for your body to break down, will keep you feeling fuller longer and won't make your blood sugar spike.  In addition, try changing things around a bit - vary your calories up or down by a hundred or so.  Make sure you eat enough calories because if you don't, your body will hold on to fat because it thinks you are starving.  

I also don't know what type of exercise you do, but you can try to changing that around as well.  If you do the same things in the same order every day, your body gets used to it and it gets to the point where your body knows what to expect and it's no longer a challenge.  It would be a good idea to set up the weight and exercise trackers here on MedHelp to keep track of that - umm, forgot that you don't have a scale, so the weight tracker won't help you.  I love that idea - maybe I'll get rid of my scale too!!   Not owning a scale, might actually be a good thing - I think some of us weigh too often and put too much stock into the numbers.  

I hope these suggestions will help you get started and I know that some of our other members will chime in as well, with lots of other ideas.  Also, feel free to read through previous posts as there are a lot of good ideas and suggestions, as well as links to exercises, etc.  

Good luck.  Again, welcome and hope to see you around a lot.  

[Ranaesheart]

First, welcome to MedHelp and the WL&D community.  We're so pleased to have you here and congratulate you sharing your journey and posting your question.

Can see you've already met Barb who is a wealth of knowledge.  Would encourage you to implement both the weight and exercise trackers.  You need not record your weight if it is a trigger for your previous bulimia, however, there is a place to record your measurements, which is a good indicator as to the changes happening with your body.

Medications for other conditions can indeed affect our appetite and energy levels.  That said, there are some things we can do.  For instance, if your appetite is soaring, learning how to "shut it down" with some protein or high fibered foods can help us get over that hurdle.  In addition, if that urge to eat is too strong, learning the foods that you can eat in a larger quantity with fewer calories also helps.  For protein, you may wish to try a small chicken breast, some deli-sliced turkey, a bowl of cereal with milk or a small serving of rice and beans.  For those foods that you can eat a lot of, may I suggest Campbell's Select soups (Italian wedding soup or chicken noodle or pasta), salad with all the great "fillers" such as radishes, celery, carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, green onions, green peppers?  Paul Neuman's low calorie dressings add a lot of flavor with very few calories .. just shake it up with the salad in a large container with a lid to coat each leaf.

Barb is exactly right on mixing up the exercise.  Log it into your exercise tracker to track your progress and be sure you're changing the many styles of exercise.  Hope you'll follow here in the community as well as we try to offer various exercise each week that "mix it up".  

Here is a link to an article on plateaus .. it explains how to break through a plateau with either food and/or exercise variances.  http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/40803

Very best wishes and please consider your regular participation in the community.  We'd love to have you .. and hope you'll share your journey with us.

[Techno55]

Hello.  I've never had an eating disorder, and I'm a dude, so maybe I'm out of turn trying to offer advice here, but here's my two cents in case you are interested :)

I am also 24 years old and recently started working out and eating right.  I'm not particularly out of shape, in fact many people would say I'm in very good physical condition (as a result of a physically demanding job that I do, which I outlined in another post).  Regardless, I have a spare tire that I want to lose so I started with the health stuff at the beginning of the year (I started by quitting smoking, I smoked like a chimney).

But I never really set any particular goal for myself in it.  I never said I was gonna lose X amount of pounds or X pant sizes or anything like that.  Simply improving my lifestyle is what I made my goal, and I started slowly; first with the smoking, then I made an effort to eat less junk (not stopping with the junk, just eating less; switched to diet soda, would eat half a bag of chips instead of the whole thing, etc) eventually started to eat healthier all together, slowly started to work out muscles that had not seen action in awhile :).

But none of it was a means to an end, I did all of that for the sake of doing it.  That way I never felt like I was on a treadmill going nowhere, or not seeing results or anything like that.  I don't own a scale either (simply because my last one broke and I didn't bother getting another) but it doesn't matter to me what my weight is.  What matters is how I live and how I feel.

That way, there is no goal to fall short of.  Also, there is no point where you say 'Well, I'm here, and I can relax now.' which I think is a trap that many people fall into and end up losing all the ground they've gained.

But ya know, I've been at it for about two months now, and already I feel so much better than I used to, and even get the occasional compliment on how I look.  Unfortunately there is no way to healthily lose tons of weight in a week or two.  But you can make some simple changes to your lifestyle and, more importantly, your outlook on life, that will make you feel 1000x better.  I feel like I've been rambling a bit but I hope you see what I'm trying to say...basically that being healthy doesn't have to be drudgery, you shouldn't try to race to the end, but enjoy the way there.