Congratulations on your loss, that's wonderful!  Boy have I needed to
talk to you, you've no idea.  Thanks so much for replying.  I've lurked
here a few times and read people who needed to lose fifty pounds or so,
or those of seemingly small stature in whom a loss of twenty or thirty
pounds was a big deal.  Currently I need to lose two hundred and it's
not a battle anymore, it's war.

May I ask, how do you approach exercise?  I bought a yoga tape designed
specifically for heavy people and it's a challenge.  The thought of
doing it more than a couple times a week depresses me because it's so
overwhelming.  Then there's walking, which totally wears me out, and
afterward I don't want to do anything but sleep for three hours.  (I'm
ashamed to be telling all this on myself but what can you do.  When a
person needs help, they need help, and it isn't happening if I'm not
asking.)  There's swimming but it takes a week to get over the laughter,
constant staring and half-whispered jibes I get from showing up at a
public pool.  (I happen to think my bathing suit is very appropriate and
cute, by the way. I think it's me that's causing the problem.)

So exercise is also a big challenge.  Truthfully I begin to think maybe
I'm taking on too much.  I've been sedentary for so long, maybe it'd be
better to begin with exercise I can do while sitting down, or using the
back of a chair for support.  Any thoughts?

Hi teachrmama.  Those "just for today" slides are the worst and
currently they've landed me in a bad spot.  At the beginning of the year
I lost 40+ lbs, felt a little better and it was a huge ego boost.  Then
my health went bad and the fear and stress that put on me resulted in my
falling back on old habits to try and cope, which was eating to relieve
stress.  That's the biggie for me.  I've been doing that since I was a
child.

I gained back approximately half of what I lost and now I'm locked in
this struggle with two sides of myself - the good me and the weak me.
The good me lasts until the afternoon and keeps my intake down and
sensible.  When the afternoon and a little fatigue roll around the weak
me starts screaming and eats too much.  The weak me also doesn't want to
exercise at all, but I can pretty well gag her on that if I have to.

I swear, I've never served in the armed forces but I can imagine what it
feels like to be on the front line.  I feel like I'm there every single
day.  I tell myself I'm going to go out and do this thing, that the time
is now and give myself these wonderful speeches and self-support, but in
the afternoon (for the last week at least) it always ends in some
measure of failure.  I thought I would be doing this thing day by day,
but now it seems I'm going to be fighting these bad habits minute by minute.