BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Desperately need advice

I feel like i'm just fighting a losing uphill battle with my weight. It just goes back and forth always... I lose 20 lbs.. and then gain 10 back! I wish I could stick to something that's more consistent! I really need to lose 30 lbs by the end of this year or til mid January. I have a wedding coming up that I am in and i'd like to look good.. but also feel good about myself. because at this rate.. my self-esteem is not all there! Any guidance/suggestions would be so very appreciated

30 pounds in only two weeks is NOT healthy or loving to your body.

My suggestion: Find a local gym that has a two - week trial membership and take it. Make a point of going every day, whether or not you feel like it. Just go. And when you're there, decide what would be the most fun & loving to your body. Could be using the eliptical trainer, could be taking a fitness assessment on muscle building resistance machines, could be taking a fun step or yoga class. Just go and do it for the love of your body.

Other suggestions: Drink lots of water. Anytime you'd go for a coffee, or beer, or soda, drink a glass of water first.

Anytime you're craving potato chips - start with a big bowl of crunchy fresh veggies (dipped in soy sauce, if you're a salt-lover, like me.)

And finally, if you're most concerned with losing inches before a wedding, and don't mind spending a few bucks... Try the "mummy" method. Check with spas in your area - they probably have it. It works like this: You get wrapped up in a bunch of special bandages, doused with a special liquid designed to reduce toxins in your body. To increase the effects of "shrinkage" they offer low-impact exercise equipment. I've never had it done m'self, but they say you can temporarily shrink 6 inches for 6 days off of your waist.

And not-related to the wedding you want to look good for - Join the Discovery Health National Body Challenge. They go from Jan 1 until March - and offer tips, support, and even a free pass to a Bally's Fitness closest to you. Mine is a 30 minute drive away, but I did it one year and I was very proud of myself for going 3 days a week and being good to my body.

Do things for your body in love, and your weight will naturally correct itself. (Just not overnight.)

I had a friend years ago who was desperately trying to lose weight and she was starving herself and exercising like a maniac (she was bicycling over 2 HOURS a day!) and she was still gaining weight... ballooning up, and it was making her feel very emotional, discouraged and frankly, she was getting a bit nutty! I don't know what you are doing, but what i recommended to her was that she ate more food, not less, but better food for her and to eat every few hours so she didn't get cravings for ice cream, etc. And also for her to keep exercising... but not as much. It worked like magic... she ate more, exercised less, and began losing weight steadily and has been of a reasonable weight ever since! (years now... and she lost more than 60 pounds) Even more importantly, she felt more emotionally stable within just a few days because she was eating for HEALTH rather than specifically to lose weight. I know it sounds nutty, but your body needs frequent food to maintain it's metabolism, so it can burn off the extra calories.

The general rules are:

1. Eat a moderate amount of GOOD food every 3 or 4 hours and DO NOT SKIP EATING! We're talking vegetables (particularly leafy greens), whole fruits, beans, whole grains (not white!), nuts, lean meats and lean dairy in moderation. Avoid sugar, processed foods (eat it as nature made it or cook it yourself), white flour, and reduce your salt. Sugar in particular stimulates appetite beyond our needs, so diets that reduce calories but don't reduce sugar are generally trouble. If you eat good food every few hours, though, you'll notice a sharp drop in your cravings for sugar and junk food. YOU SHOULD NOT LET YOURSELF GO HUNGRY. Hunger is your body's message to you that you need healthy food. If you push beyond that, that's when you'll make bad food choices. Just watch your behavior and you'll see this is true.

Recently i heard some good advice... Use a 7" salad plate when you can...half your plate should be veggies or fruit, 1/4 can be a high fiber starch, and 1/4 lean protein. That's roughly the right proportions.

2. Walk or bicycle for at least 30 minutes a day, or aerobics for 20 minutes, or jump roping or jumping jacks for ten minutes. You can break it up if you wish.

3. Do resistance training (like lifting weights, plies, push ups) for 6 - 10 minutes a day, or 15 - 20 minutes every other day. You don't have to use heavy weights or do a gym... you can use home gym equipment or improvise with cans of soup or whatever. Do about 3 different exercises a day and rotate through them in the week so you aren't using the same muscles each day.

4. Drink plenty of water. Break your habit of soda or diet soda if you drink either, as well as juice and any drinks with corn syrup.

In general, find healthy habits you can live with for a LIFETIME, because they will serve you far better than depriving yourself for short terms, because it's natural if we deprive ourselves to then want to indulge. That's what starts the yo-yoing. It's better to make little changes you can do permanently than big changes you can only stand for a short time.

It may take you a while to improve your eating and exercise habits so BE PATIENT AND LOVING TO YOURSELF. You will be beautiful at the wedding no matter what your weight. 20 pounds by mid January would be a terrible strain and hard to achieve. I think your best bet is as i've descibed, but please tell yourself now that you are a great person no matter what your weight at the wedding.

There is a diet book that is very effective and outlines similarly to what i described: Michael Thurmond's 6-day Body Makeover. He also has a 12-Day Body Shaping Miracle. Despite the diet-hooplah, his strategy is intended for good for health, and there is no dangerous advice in his books.

Unfortunately, because of false information taught to us in grade school health classes and by some of the diet industry even today, many of us believe that:

calories eaten minus calories burned in exercise = determines whether our weight increases or decreases.

But this is UNTRUE.

The truth is, there are many more factors that affect how much we weigh in addition to calories eaten and how much you exercise.

For instance, in several studies they have found that if one person eats 1600 calories a day divided into 5 meals evenly spaced a day, and other person eats 1600 calories a day in one meal for supper, that the first person (who ate many meals) will lose significantly more weight. WHY? because eating frequent small meals increases the rate at which you burn calories.

Also... lets say we have two people eating 1600 calories each, but one of them eats: A sweet pastry for breakfast with juice, a burger for lunch, chips, a "diet" cookie packet in the afternoon, drinks diet soda throughout the day, and has a slice or two of pizza for dinner and a "diet" dessert... and the other person has an omelet with veggies for breakfast, drinks water throughout the day instead of diet soda, has soup and salad for lunch, almonds, berries, and a low sugar yogurt for snacks, chili for supper with a huge side of veggies, and a baked apple with only a little sugar for dessert... keep in mind these people ate the same number of calories... the second person will lose more weight. WHY? Because they are ingesting a lot more fiber and have a more even glycemic index. The other person has too many empty calories, not enough fiber, high sugar (the juice and white breads) and not enough veggies or water.

There are other factors that go into how much you weigh, also. Some of it has to do with exercise. Building muscles are important because your muscles burn calories even when they are at rest, so a person with more muscle mass burns more calories and has a higher metabolism. Research is going on now to find effective ways of doing aerobic activity.

Water is important (not soda!) because your body needs it to remove fat from your body and to make you feel good so you can continue your eating plan.

Having enough calcium, vitamin C, and chromium also give you advantages in maintaining a good weight over people who don't get enough of these nutrients.

And there are more factors.

I don't know that anyone reading this is doing this but i think it bears underscoring... severely restricting calories may not even work for losing weight and it can seriously hurt your health. I truly believe that if you focus on HEALTH rather than weight, you'll lose weight more permanently and i think very often people actually lose more weight if they eat more... provided they are switching to a healthier diet.

i agree about setting a smaller goal! You're only going to set yourself up for failure..plus you definitely do need to be smart about it for the sake of your health.
I can totally relate to you're probelm though as I just gave birth and went from feeling like a glowing princess beforehand to huge and exhausted afterwards. A friend of mine told me recently about a show she thinks I should watch called �How To Look Good Naked". Apparently it's all about improving how you feel about yourself just as you are. Might be worth checking out? It has Carson from Queer eye too so in addition to the good health/body image tips i'm sure it will be quite funny too

How are you doing, Madame Peachy?

I've been thinking of you. Are you doing okay?

best wishes.

Bellamia..i saw a bunch of commercials for that show recently. Lifetime is seriously going to suck me in� there are almost no other channels that have shows I look forward to but this show looks very good! The first one is on this friday night at 9 i think so i'll add it to the Friday night list of TV to watch.

Tyra Banks does a lot of interesting shows about body image on her talk show, "Tyra."

ah that is true hollyelise. I forgot about Tyra. Well, i'm glad that Tyra and lifetime both focus on important issues with real people instead of most of the trashy tv that is out there currently.

Tyra impressed me the other month with one of her programs. She conducted an experiment where she took women of different sizes and shapes, put them before mirrors, and asked them to talk about their own bodies. That was hard for many of the women. Then she pulled their words out of what they said about themselves, things like "fat pig," "too skinny," etc. and put one per sign for each of the women. Then the women met each other for the first time, and had to choose which label went to which person. There was even more to it than this, but suddenly i thought, "Tyra is really a journalist. And a good one." We tend to think of her as a supermodel or a women's talk show host... but she's really quite brilliant, and she knows how to get to the bottom of things. She has her own opinions and expresses them, but she generally presents the facts in an unbiased, hard-hitting manner. I have more respect for her than a lot of so-called "journalists."