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Mel - mel00 - Mel has lost more than 160 pounds so far! She is a member of our forums and and inspiration to us all! Read more about her journey below. I have been overweight most of my life. Through my growing up years people would talk to my mum right in front of me and say “she’s a big girl” or “she’s quite solid isn’t she?” Although at this point I wasn’t overweight, I soon became that way. During high school I started getting bigger, and the weight piled on when I started my first job. There were always lots of diets occurring at our house, as my mom and sister both struggled with their weight. I remember starting many diets myself, and even at an early age my mum not believing that I would stick to them. At this stage my mom had lost a lot of weight with Weight Watchers (about 110 pounds) and she said she would pay for me to join with my sister. I did well the first week, but lost interest after that and dropped out after a few weeks. I must have attempted hundreds of other diets over the next few years, but still the weight kept piling on. I can’t think of one particular trigger for the weight gain. I had my fair share of ups and downs in my life, but nothing particularly significant. Part of it was that I loved food, but I also loved the way food made me feel (and still do!). I once consulted a surgeon about having my stomach stapled (as it was called back then), but never went through with it (thankfully.) About 10 years ago I planned to go travelling overseas so I thought it would be a good time to try and lose weight again. I had reached an all time of 273 pounds. I lost 70 pounds, but was still a long way off my goal weight. I tried a well-known fad diet, which I thought was amazing but on reflection I realise that it really was just that, a fad, and had no foundation for healthy weight loss, and was also not sustainable. At the time I also became vegan (no animal products of any kind, including dairy, eggs, honey etc) which I’m sure contributed to the weight loss, after all, if you cut out two of the five food groups from your diet, you’re bound to lose weight! I travelled around India for 5 months and then arrived in the UK where I promptly met Duncan who later became my husband. So much for the single lifestyle in London!!!! Three factors contributed to me putting the weight back on, the first being that I had stopped being so active. This coupled with the fact that I had deprived myself for the past year, so I started eating dairy products and eggs again (as if to make up for the previous year) as well as the fact that Duncan also loved food. Fortunately for him, he is active physically, he knows when to stop (ie: when he’s full!) and he doesn’t eat for comfort or for the sake of it. I really tried to keep up with the huge amounts of food he would eat at a mealtime, but also snacked all day, which he didn’t. The weight started piling back on and I couldn’t seem to stop it, no matter how hard I tried. I particularly remember feeling quite desperate about the lack of control I had during this period. About two months before I was due to return to Australia, I thought I would give it another go and lost 50 pounds, but I was still way above the weight I was when I left Australia and I was extremely embarrassed. I felt that people were really disappointed in me and I truly felt that my life had amounted to nothing because of my weight. I know this wasn’t true, but it is the physical self that people see, and it is one way that we seem to measure success in our society. The embarrassment didn’t stop me piling on more weight, though. Duncan didn’t say much, he never commented on what I was eating, but from time to time he did express concern about my health. I also knew deep down it was affecting our relationship, I didn’t feel attractive and I never wanted to do anything that required any physical effort. We bought bikes in England and I rode mine once! When back in Australia he suggested we buy some, I felt sick at the thought of all that exercise. After all, even basic day-to-day tasks were an effort, let alone voluntary exercise! When we moved to a small country town for work, I attempted to lose weight again. I lost about 50 pounds, and promptly fell pregnant (to my total amazement as I thought with my weight as high as it was that this would be impossible). I actually only put on about 10 pounds when I was pregnant, and told myself that I’d give myself 6 weeks to get into the swing of things with the baby and then I’d get back into it. It actually took 18 months!! By this time I was bigger than I’d ever been, and felt desperate about my situation. At 341 pounds I found it difficult to do things that other people take for granted, like fit behind the steering wheel of the car, find clothes to fit and just normal day to day activities like housework and the like. At the end of each day you would find me lying on the sofa in front of the TV eating whatever I could get my hands on. My health was also starting to suffer. Friends always commented on how heavy my breathing was, I got a lot of fungal-type skin infections in uncomfortable places (too much information here, I know!) and the slightest exertion really got my heart rate up. Sometimes when I was lying in bed on my back I would feel like I was being suffocated. But the worst thing of all was I felt that people were always looking at me. It’s hard to be anonymous and fade into the background when you weigh 341 pounds. When a friend suggested I join WW, I gave it some thought but decided I couldn’t afford it and would “do it myself”. The pattern over the next few months was start a diet on Monday, feel deprived by Tuesday and give up the diet and make up for what I hadn’t eaten on the previous two days on Wednesday! When another friend mentioned that she was going to join, I knew that although I couldn’t really afford to join, I couldn’t afford not to either. I was extremely nervous before my first meeting, I even rang WW to check that the scale would “accommodate” me. I only scraped in by the skin of me teeth in that respect without the added embarrassment of them having to use a scale adjustor. Our scale at home had been broken for some time (funnily enough broken by my small two-year-old son and not me!) and I felt nauseous when I realised how much I actually weighed. Many questions were going around in my head like “how did I let this happen?”, “how am I ever going to lose 187 pounds?” etc etc. At this first meeting the leader set me a 10% goal which somehow seemed to make it achievable and she also made the comment to the whole group “think about where you’ll be in six months time with WW or where you’ll be without it”. The thought of where I might me in six months going the way I was going was too much to contemplate. I thought I knew a lot about weight loss and healthy diets, especially being a vegetarian, but during the first week I was so inspired by how much and what I could eat that I didn’t have too hard a time sticking to it. I did find that for the first week my body seemed to be going through a state of some kind of withdrawal, either from the huge amounts of fat or the carbohydrates that I had been eating (for example 4 pieces of thick melted cheese on toast for a snack), and I also suffered headaches and irritability. This only lasted a week or so and the fact that I was actually enjoying what I was eating and not feeling deprived made up for this. The first week I didn’t do any exercise, I just felt the need to get myself into a routine food wise. I lost 8.3 pounds that week and this really spurred me on, but I still felt pretty overwhelmed at the task that lay ahead of me. During my first week or so, I was searching the web for weight loss success stories, as I really felt the need to see for myself it could be done. I certainly saw that when I stumbled across Getting2Goal. I sat staring at the computer for about half an hour on that day, totally amazed. This woman had lost a huge amount of weight, looked fantastic, and now she was inspiring other people. I had found the proof that it could be done! I checked back into the site every few days; at this stage there was no message forum, and just checking out Kim’s before and now photos really helped to keep me inspired. Somehow I managed to keep going those first few weeks, and somehow, in a very short time I managed to begin enjoying the journey. I began exercising every second day for 30 minutes, then for 45 minutes, and now I exercise for, on average 2 hours per day. I fit my day around my exercise, and get up early so as not to disturb my family life too much. I can honestly say now that I enjoy exercise and the way it makes me feel, something I never thought I would say. I have learnt new things each and everyday, such as alternative cooking methods and I truly believe I am making lifestyle changes that are here to stay. One important lesson that I have learned is NEVER to let myself feel deprived, as this is when I give in to temptation. I make sure I have treats each and every day, and this has really helped keep me going. My family and friends are all totally amazed, not just about how much weight I have lost (161 pounds to date), but the fact that I seem to have found the whole thing relatively easy. I would never say that it has been easy, but I wanted this thing so badly, and believed that I could do this for myself, and I have. Every pound that I have lost, I have been responsible for losing. I did this!! Yes, I have had a huge amount of support and encouragement along the way, but ultimately I am responsible. For those of you out there who don’t believe that you can do it, BELIEVE, because you are worth it, and you can do this for yourself. Today is actually one year to the day since I joined Weight Watchers and I never dreamed my life could change so much in the course of a year. I live life to the full, I feel great, and I don’t think I look too bad either! But the ultimate reward for me is knowing that I will be around for many years to enjoy my son, and he won’t have to endure any of the pain associated with my weight. I know that I still have a long road ahead of me. I still want to lose around 25 pounds, and it’s likely that I will need surgery to deal with all that loose skin I’ve got hanging around, probably towards the end of the year. I know it doesn’t end there, though. The next step will be maintaining my weight, and that will take the rest of my life. I am feeling positive that I can do it, but I will just take one day at a time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kim and my fellow goal getters for their ongoing support. I have been a stranger to the forums at times, but I always know when I need that extra bit of support, it’s the place to be. I wish you all well on your own journeys, believe you can make it, and you will! Oh and P.S.! Weight Watchers have asked me to work for them, just collecting money and stamping cards, but it’s a start! ~ Mel To email Mel: finley@vic.ozland.net.au •  Back  •