Sebastiane's Weight Loss Success

AKA "Eldar" on Weight Loss Resources

Weight Loss History

I’ve always self limited to lose weight, cutting foods out of my diet because they were ‘bad’. After a month of no chocolate I’d be back eating loads of it!

This has lead to a yo-yoing pattern tied in with an eating disorder mentality of starving my body and then bingeing.

I became Vegan for two years in an effort to regulate my diet and try to eat healthier foods. In this period the weight dropped off but it wasn’t sustainable in the long term as I missed some foods and there was always a temptation. I wasn’t doing it for ethical reasons and when I returned to eating all types of food the weight crept back on.

Have you lost weight before and regained the weight?

Several times. At my heaviest I was over 15 stone and at my lowest I’ve been under 10 stone and ill due to the starving of my body that it took to get down that low. I have hovered around 12-13 stone on several occasions.

How being overweight has affected you…

My moods and self representation are often tied into my size and I feel I can take on the world when I like the reflection in the mirror.

As a teenager, I was always the largest in my group of friends and quite alone with my feelings. This gave me a lower self-confidence than others and I always linked my size with the problem. This led me into eating more for comfort. A big circle that only becomes worse. A low self confidence lead to some bad personal relationships where I just got larger and less confident, making the problem worse. Looking back at photos sometimes I don’t look that bad or that big, but you can only live in the moment you are in and I wasn’t happy with myself or the world because of my size.

This turned into another type of eating problem and the last time I reached a weight this low, although at a healthy BMI, I was ill with an eating disorder and had to starve my body to achieve it. This was just as destructive to my self confidence and mind as being larger was.

By loosing weight sensibly I have gained a confidence in myself and now realise that someone else’s opinion (if it really is their opinion or just what you believe they think!) shouldn’t matter, you need to have a good opinion of yourself. (BTW this took several years of yo-yo’ing to sink in. It’s still sinking in!)

I am now proud of how strong and healthy I have become and being slimmer is a side result of eating healthier for my body. It’s enough to not worry so much about the bits that still wobble a bit! A ‘bad hair day’ now is a chance to wear a hat rather than an ‘I’m fat and ugly day’.

Motivation to Lose Weight

I have always said that I ‘feel uncomfortable in my own skin’. I want to find a place where I feel comfortable. Where I can smile at the reflection in the mirror even if it isn’t ‘perfect’. Where I can like being ‘me’ without my size or body playing a part.

My career choices as a Technician in the arts has lead to a demanding and fairly physical job. I feel better and more able to sustain my energy levels when I eat healthier. I have used raised activity levels as an excuse to eat more in the past. I now know thanks to WLR what sort of foods I can eat in abundance and what I have to keep an eye on.

Discovering Weight Loss Resources

Last year I was aware that I was slowly creeping up in size and weight. Trying to buy jeans at Christmas and finding that I had gone up another size was very depressing. I decided to try and look into the nutrition of what I was eating rather than to simply diet/ cut out foods again.

I did an Internet search and several places came up that would count my calories and show me the nutritional data of food. WLR was the simplest to use and the friendliest. WLR also seemed the most down to earth site –used by real people in the same situations as me, who I have got to know on the message boards.

How Weight Loss Resources Helps

One of the first things I found was that it wasn’t so much that I was eating the wrong things, just that I was eating them too often. By filling EVERYTHING into the food diary I discovered my portion sizes of even healthy food were far too big. I now pay attention to how often I eat ‘treat’ food, and how much of it I eat. One slice of cake that I enjoy is better than half a cake I didn’t even notice I had eaten. I also had a diet based mainly on carbs, cutting down on pasta, bread and potatoes has made a huge difference to both my waistline and my energy levels.

The exercise diary is also great. Seeing how many calories I can earn extra for putting in some effort. I now exercise everyday and enjoy it. My job is active and I am starting to enjoy that for once.

The Best of Weight Loss Resources

The message boards are fantastic for either support on a bad day – or sharing a good day. I have learnt a lot from other people’s experiences of similar issues that I have.

I use the food diary to keep track of how much I am eating and how much I should be allowing myself – especially on portion sizes.

Alcohol calories amazed me at how high they can be and I often calculate what I am drinking before I go out to the pub. This makes sure it all fits into my allowance and helps with the tipsy lack of willpower!

Sebastiane's Tips for Losing Weight

Vegetables and fruit should be your best friend. I find that if I aim to get at least 10 portions a day then I fill up my body with good stuff and still leave room for treating myself to something. I have taken the lessons learnt from being vegan and applied it to a diet that limits nothing.

Put simply - I eat whatever I want. I now just question myself first ‘do I really want it…’. The answer is often no.

Be honest with yourself and plan ahead to avoid eating things you didn’t really mean to. I had to include EVERYTHING I ate down to the stolen mouthful of my fiancé’s cake, finishing the bottle of wine or the extra chips eaten while serving up dinner. This meant I had a history of what I ate and where I was going over on calories, it can be surprising. I tend to eat perfectly sensibly, except for all the little bits extra which do add up.

And you CAN achieve what you are aiming for.

It took a while for the weight to get on your body so it won’t disappear overnight or even in a few weeks. I have tried to look at loosing weight sensibly as a learning experience rather than a diet.

Now I am at maintenance weight I’ve found it’s not easy to stay here but I have learnt the lessons of why I put on weight as I was loosing it. I’ve yo-yo’ed around enough. I want to be slim for life and this may mean always keeping an eye on what I eat and what the scales say –but it’s worth it to be happy within myself.

Sebastiane's Vital Statistics

	Before	Now
Weight	10st 6lb	10st