Hi all,

I am a 36 year bloke from Cheltenham, always been “podgy” from my teenage years onwards, but over the last few years I’ve struggled with depression that has seen me turn to ordering takeaway pizza, or eating cheese like its going out of fashion, as some sort of pleasure mechanism in my life.

In June 2014 I weighed 28 stone and started a 1500 calorie lifestyle change that saw me down to 19 stone by Christmas that year.

I cycled 7 miles a day to work and back 5 days a week, went to the gym 3 days a week (spin classes/weight lifting in the evenings, and swimming in the mornings), I “learnt” to jog, then started doing Parkruns each Saturday morning and life was great! I even completed a local offroad duathlon, as well as my first ever mud run (still so proud of that).

Then Christmas came along and I wasn’t ready for how much bad food would be put in front of my over that week and I buckled and feel off the wagon big time. I’ve never managed to get the buzz back that I had for all the exercise I used to do, and 2 years later I am typing this out at 24.5 stone.

My Mum bought me the BSD book as a desperate attempt to reignite the passion I used to have for fitness, nutrition and weight loss, and I have been struggling to complete a full week for the last 2 weeks.

I started the 800 calorie diet 2 weeks ago….well….I started if off on the Sunday (7th) but was still eating takeaway pizzas every night until the Thursday morning. I fasted until my Friday evening meal, fasted all day Saturday in a desperate attempt to fool the weighing scales, weighed myself on the Sunday morning and had gone down from 25st 2lb to 24st 6lb! The joys of initial water weight loss 🙂

Today is “partial” week 2. I’ve only had 2 hiccups this week so hopefully can report back a few more pounds down off my current weight.

My depression has only really affected my weight since 2014. I don’t mention it for sympathy, I’m just a very open and honest person. It causes me to eat around my emotions and for that I have been going to a local Overeaters Anonymous meeting for the past 4 weeks to see if I can find ways of dealing with the more emotional side of me and my food.

Next weekend is payday and I will be joining a local gym then. No swimming this time as I’m going to join one of the cheaper gyms, but lots of spin classes, pilates and resistance training 🙂

I am a vegetarian and have been since I was 3. I love Quorn and get my protein from that as well as quark (love that stuff!) and unflavoured protein powder (which helps at the gym too).

When I went though this a few years ago I researched long and hard about nutrition, gym workout science, and intermittent fasting. I am very passionate about proper understanding of nutrition and Michael’s book hit so many happy notes with me. I am also very passionate about intermittent fasting and have followed a 16 hour fasting routine everyday since (eating from 12:30pm till 8:30pm).

Sorry for the essay but it helps me when I type out about my situation, it makes me process it and understand where I am rather than attempting to ignore it blindly.

Thanks 🙂

welcome c0sie – you will find other vegies here, not me, semi veg, but there are others. I think you have done wonderfully well so far, and you will get to the time you do not miss the pizzas, heck who am I kidding? Of course you will but other things will taste wonderful after a short while. I just had beans and chickpeas and salad for dinner and it was absolutely delicious.

I am sure you will enjoy the forum and get a lot of support from it. On all fronts

All the best
Ruth

Hey c0sie,

Never apologies for writing an ‘essay’ 🙂 It is sooo interesting to read other people’s thoughts and feelings and experiences and for me personally, its great to read someone else’s story who also struggles with emotional overeating.

I would never talk about that with my friends or family so openly, because i feel ashamed and judged, judged a lot actually. So its awesome to meet others here who don’t need to hide what they really think and feel, and instead, inspire each other and support each other when we need that pep talk.

Someone lovely called Antigone gave me some advice just before which is, rather than reach for the food that you know you shouldn’t, reach for this forum instead!! Post here and read other posts and know that You Can Do This.

Doing it perfectly isn’t the point. just Doing it is the point 🙂

GemGem

@ruthdownunder
Thanks for the welcome Ruth!
When I eat all this healthy nutritious stuff I love it – I’ve had the most amazing tasting omelette today, a little baked sweet potato, lots of salad – all if which tasted a million times better than any takeaway pizza I could ever order, or any bag of cheesy chips I’ve had before!
Yet I still feel compelled at times to go back to eating that rubbish! :S
Fingers crossed for the future – this forum has a nice positive vibe to it and I’m hoping ill fit right in :)’

@gemgem
Thanks for the welcome 🙂
I’m very open about most things – I think that after so many years of being very obviously obese that I have realised that to succeed I need to not worry about other peoples opinions of me. If I was worried about what people thought about me I would never have gotten my fat ass onto a push bike and cycled past so many strangers to work each day!
As I said above to Ruth, this forum has a really positive vibe to it – I like that, something to spur me on, and hopefully in return I’ll be able to inspire someone to put back to the community 🙂

Welcome Cosie,good to meet you and read yr story so far!
like so many,myself included, you have experienced ups n downs,.but isnt the human spirit wonderful thatyou will try again..and getting up and trying again is so much more important than any previous falling over!
Theres an awful lot of support on here so browse the forums..lots of helpful knowledge too
Wishing you well and looking forward to hearing how you get on X

Welcome cOsie ,all the best from Oz. I am into Day 3 and all is good so far, we are all here for the same reasons and that is our strength .