Calling all *Curvacious* women!!

brandy, i've been there. if you know that your FI loves you for YOU, not what you look like, you're ahead of the game. that love will translate into him being there for you and helping you regain a healthy weight, and more importantly, a healthy mind ... one that allows you to love yourself again.

you have had a really very significant gain if there has only been a year and a half between a size 12 and a 20. i too have had very large gains in very short time, but not quite as rapid as yours. you may want to see your doctor just to be sure there isn't a somewhat serious health issue (i.e. thyroid problems, diabetes) or even a drug side effect that is causing such rapid gain. while there, you could also discuss a nutritional/exercise plan that may work better for your lifestyle.

as for dieting ... we all fall off the wagon. going out of town and cheating once or twice shouldn't make you pack it up altogether. don't beat yourself up over it ... just start back up again. lord knows the stresses of planning a wedding can cause us all to overeat once in awhile. we're only human.

and please, if thoughts of picking up your old bulimic ways have been crossing your mind, PLEASE consider counseling. your FI loves you and i'm sure wants you to be healthy inside and out. don't sabotage the long, happy future you could have with the man you love.

Thanks so much ladies. I guess I should specify that I felt sick more in the figurative sense of the word...just looking at those photos did me in....I guess it didn't help that yellow isn't my most flattering color. I don't have any plans of making myself sick again, that was a really really scary point in my life, but I was shocked when I realized that the person in those photos was me.

On a brighter note, I went in to the doctor this morning....I haven't gained as much weight as I thought, which is a relief, but I seem to be packing it on in my hips and thighs, which does explain the DRASTIC change in size of clothing for me.

I'm waiting on my partner in crime to arrive at my house, and we're going to get our memberships at 24 hour renewed...my birthday gift to myself. The way that I'm choosing to look at this is that I have nothing to lose...the only thing that I can do now is to improve myself. I don't expect to be a size 2, but getting back to the point where I can be comfortable in my body again is the ultimate goal. I know that FI will love me no matter what the scale says, but to be honest with you all, I'm not comfortable with the way that I am now. My body doesn't feel like it belongs to me. That probably makes no sense whatsoever, but I don't feel like I'm me with the way that I am at this point. I have nobody to blame but myself, I allowed things to get out of control and sort of quit taking care of my body, so now I just have to suck it up and get back to work.

I know I can do this. I've lost the weight once before, and successfully kept it off for nearly ten years before this little incident, and I can do it again. I'm just afraid of losing control of my body (my mother was morbidly obese until she had gastric bypass surgery about 5 years ago). To kickstart my weightloss I'll be doing a 2 week rotation of the cardiac diet. It works great (it's typically what they will put people on before they undergo gastric bypass), and it'll get my metabolism going again. I'll keep you ladies posted, because I WILL be losing 20lbs before Halloween....2.5lbs per week should be totally doable.

The doctor just advised me to cut out all the junk in my diet. I'm not much of an eater in the junk food department as it is, but I was always very active, so with the switch in jobs (I was at Hyatt for over a year working second shift at a desk), along with the fact that I haven't been as active as I was has caused the sudden weight gain.

The cardiac diet is a 3 day diet that uses the chemical composition of foods to boost your metabolism. It's very controlled, and you have to follow the thing to a t in order to get results, but I've used it before (I had to lose my last 5 pounds to fit into a ball gown that was a size too small for sorority formal) and it's great. I'm posting the link below if anybody wants to join me in my 3 day stint. I'm starting it tomorrow morning....just got done shopping for everything that I'll need!

Cardiac Diet Menu - See the actual daily schedule of meals.

Just wanted to thank you ladies again for all your support! It's so hard to talk about these things when all of my friends are a size 2.

brandynd - I'm so glad you got some things worked out with the doctor!! I hear ya about the size 2 friend thing! lol You gotta love them, but sometimes you just hate 'em!

haha yeah, it's like where can i get me some fat, ugly friends?!?!

hush your mouth, stephanie, you're beautiful!