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A search on the net for "atkins support" resulted in my finding an online support group.
I was not really looking for support. I was merely looking for information. The website I grew to affectionately refer to
as the blue board would quickly become far more than a source of information.
It was still early into the journey for me but I had already had some success. It seemed
to be working. For a while I just lurked this support group but it wasn't long before I would cautiously make my first post.
It wasn't long after that I began to open up. I had found my shoulder to cry on. I had found my ear to listen. These were
kindred souls. They would soon become my strength and at times my motivation. They were a source of accountability. They were
my friends.
If you are thinking of beginning your own weight loss journey, then I cannot express to you
strongly enough just how important it is to have a support group. Friends and family may love you but unless they have experienced
the pain of obesity, they can not and do not fully understand. They can empathise, but they cannot truly understand. It has
been documented over and over again that those with a strong support mechanism do better than those without. This is fact.
Don't go it alone. You are deserving of help from others and they are deserving of help from you.
If Atkins is your plan, then trust me, this group is well worth your investigation...
Below are two of my earliest and most significant posts I made to the blue board. I do not know where I'd be without the friends I made there.
Several of the other pages in this journal, and more in the future, will also be directly
from the message board of my support group.
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Hello
my name is Deafheaven and I'm a carbaholic. Well actually I'm a self-hater. Well actually my carbaholic
problem led to me being a self-hater (or was it the other way around?).
You may have noticed that I do not put my weight/present/goal
at the bottom of my post. That's by design. Before beginning this wol I was....400 lbs. That's not easy to say (or write).
It's shameful. It's disgraceful. Don't tell me it's not because it is. I am ashamed of doing this to myself...and to my family.
So I don't put it on my posts because I don't want to be reminded of it. When I get below 300, I may reconsider.
I
don't weigh myself. I don't have to. There is no reason to. This is my wol. This is my world. This is my reality. My success
is measured by each day that goes by that I have not sabotauged my own existence.
Understand that for me, I had hit
rock bottom. Someone very very dear to me no longer wanted me in their life and what followed was 2 years of more self loathing
and weight gain. It went on until the point where I just had to do this or die. Those were the options folks. To die the way
I was....would not have been good. I am best categorized as an atheist but obviously I don't really know what is going to
happen when I pass from this worldly existence. I do know that to stand in front of the pearly gates the way I was, would
have been shameful. Some thundering voice from out of some mystical light, surrounded by lucious white clouds...."What did
you do with your life?" "Nothing Lord. I did nothing." Not pretty is it.
This is why I am so committed to this. I am
ready to never eat sugar or flour againl NEVER. Do you understand what I am saying? Do you understand how low I had to get
to be able to say that? And if I die tomorrow, at least I can say, however late in my life it came (I'm almost 41), that I
have gotten off this dirty pot hole ridden path and found my salvation. There I was on the side of the road, when some wonderful
people stopped their little peace sign, flower pedal van to pick up this sorry looking wayward soul. Thank you all.
I've
pretty much always been overweight. It has affected every aspect of my life. My family, my friends, my relationships, my work,
my clothes, my self esteem. I am thinking that as I continue on my journey, regaining...hell...obtaining...my self esteem,
will prove more difficult than losing the weight.
When my friends ask me out for a cup of coffee....they do not know
that I don't go because of those tiny booths they have in coffee shops. You want to go to a midway or carnival....no rides
for me...can't risk it. Over to your house...what kind of seating you got? Who else will be there? Can't put myself in an
embarassing situation. Shopping in a mall, looking for clothes, flying in an airplane, going to school.....I could go on and
on and on. What a waste.
I'm a smart, articulate, wonderful, caring, romantic gentleman. Or so I have been told...many
times. It doesn't change the way I feel about myself. I went through that period of just hating society. What right do they
have to pass judgment on me? How dare they judge me on my appearance. Screw em. Well guess what....the jokes on me. Their
taunts were just road signs to my life. Signs pointing to the on ramp. Signs I have ignored for far too long, resulting in
my becoming nothing more than a tourist in life, completely lost in my surroundings. Finally, one day, I just ran out of gas.
So I am here for the long haul. I share this because I know that there are others out there just like me. And because
posts like this help to keep me honest. Keep me on track. People like this....people like this....
...nothing I can
say is appropriate thanks enough for their kindness, love and support.
I'm not looking for any kind words. Please don't
post how wonderful I am. That would only make this so completely self-serving.
I just want you to realize that you
are not alone, just as I am not alone. I need and want your support and I hope you need and want mine. If you haven't hit
rock bottom yet, then don't. It's not worth it. Change your life now...whatever age you are at...whatever weight you are at.
Hell...we'll trade the van in for a bus.
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Time goes on. It’s quite a formidable enemy isn’t it? I want a better job but
I haven’t the time to go to school and get the education needed. I want to learn to play the piano but it takes years
of practice to learn a musical instrument. I want to lose weight but I can’t stick to a diet for a prolonged period
of time and it's going to take so long to lose the weight.
How did I let it get this bad? If only I’d taken control
when I weighed 180...
200...
250...
300...
400...
It’s hopeless.
I’ve wasted so much time.
Time. It hangs
above me like the sword of Damacles, ready to remove my troubled head from my worthless bloated body. It is ubiquitous. Omnipresent.
Whether the home team has won or lost in its pursuit of fleeting glory, time marches on. Whether our sons and daughters have
achieved written acceptance from the hallowed halls of academia or lie broken and defeated in drug induced hazes upon cold
and uncaring city streets, the sands continue to fall.
Whether we have been happy.
Whether we have been sad.
We
tend to dwell upon moments already deceased. Moments that cannot be undone. We should not look behind us with melancholy,
frantically grasping at strands long since dissolved. That is not time that we see...it is history. It is our history. And
as always with history it should be remembered so that we do not repeat our callous self-destructive acts. But look ahead.
There is our time yet to be. There are our blank pages.
If you have lived 20 years of miserable existence, where
is the sense in making it 21? Or 22? Or 40. Or even 20 years and 1 day? You cannot undo history....but you can MAKE history
... if you’ll take the time.
If you have undertaken this new way of life but find yourself constantly slipping
into destructive historical patterns, then you need to ask yourself why. Why don’t you feel you deserve better? I once
read “kill a man and you’ve killed a man ... kill yourself and you’ve killed all men”. And that is
exactly what you are doing. Eliminating the world by eliminating yourself. Suicide is cowardly. Oh, and it IS suicide. Whether
you place the proverbial handgun against your sweating temple or do the dastardly deed one carb filled spoonful at a time.
I
am not a seer. I cannot tell you how many chapters have yet to be penned. Nor can I promise that they will not be filled with
some of the most painful parables of your existence. In fact, I can promise more pain and more tears. Sadness is inevitable.
It is a symptom of life.
All the more reason to write as many joyous tales as you can. But reading a book is easier
than writing a book.
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