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Having No Luck at all with Weight Loss

Comments (1)
answered 12:44 PM EST, Sat July 30, 2011
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I’m 18 years old, 5.8 feet tall and weigh about 280 pounds. I have always been heavy, and actually my mom and dad are pretty big too and I’ve never really been able lose much weight.

Lately though, I have been making a real effort to get healthier. I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years about a year ago and since then I haven’t had so much as a date and I am pretty sure that it is my looks that are the problem. But even though I have been trying to get out and exercise and to eat less, I am having no luck at all with weight loss.

I think I may have some sort of eating problem. My family has always been a bit weird with food. Now, even though I’ll go for a fast walk for a half an hour and really watch what I eat all day, I almost always wreck things and all the good work I did with a huge pig out at night.

Not every night but a lot of times I’ll get back from school and I’ll just be replaying some conversation or whatever in my head and getting myself all pissed off or upset and then before I know it I’ve eaten like a whole large pizza and a box of cookies. It almost seems like I go into some sort of trance, I mean not really, but that my mind kind of turns off when I get upset and I don’t think about the fact that I am really tired of being the fat guy and that I am working really hard to lose weight…I just get focused on the food and eating the food and I don’t feel or think much of anything else while I’m doing that.

And then afterwards I feel like garbage. I feel guilty and I feel pathetic and since I’m such a loser anyway I might as well have that quart of ice cream.

How can I stop acting like this? I want my life to be better and I am willing to eat healthier and exercise, but how can I ever lose weight if I can’t control myself whenever I feel stressed out?

William Anderson Says...

You sound like me when I younger. It's a difficult problem that very few people know how to solve while everyone has an opinion about what you should do, as if they knew. Most of those who think they know it all don’t.

If you've read my profile and gone to my website and blog, you know that our problem is kind of like an addiction and there are no quick fixes. However, the problem is solvable and you are in a good position to learn the right way to deal with it instead of getting messed up with all the gimmicks out there. If you read my book, you'll get a complete idea of what has to be done to solve it.

I've read your letter about what you are going through and you need to know you are not alone. There are a lot of us who have had this, so even though it is tortuous, you are not weird because of it. In fact, among us, you’re kind of normal. Being normal is OK, but suffering is not. You will be able to change this.

Commit yourself to learning more about your problem and how to solve it and start reading. Don't beat yourself up when you eat badly. Be kind to yourself. Learn what you need to know and do. It will get better. 

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Page last updated Jul 18, 2016

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