What do you feel like health wise if your 18/19/20 stone?

[Kpbffyjjgfi]

I'm so ashamed of myself. I've been very overweight for the past 10 years. Previous to that always slim. A mixture of sedentery life style, anxiety, depression, comfort eating and binge eating.
I am now 19 stone and I'm only 5 ft 4 inch tall. Size 24 UK clothing. I have put 2 stones on since before Xmas and I am really feeling the difference. (I'm intending to lose weight but easier said than done) I feel very unhealthy, tired, unfit.

I carry my weight evenly all over but particularly my stomach. I'm struggling with day to day life now as my weight is impacting the way my body can move.
I've started snoring at night very badly and possibly have sleep apnoea. I don't know.
I suffer from palpitations and shortness of breath. I suffer from aching muscles at the slightest exertion. Pain in my feet, knees.
I've started to get hair loss, irregular menstrual cycle, dry wrinkly skin, my teeth are becoming weak.

I've had a bad back for years. I have prolapsed discs. 2 years ago I was kneeling down in the garden and my leg cramped up. After that I couldn't feel my foot and leg. After scans and seeing a neurologist, it was found I have severed my sciatic nerve. Nothing can be done and no feeling in leg is permanent. On top of awful back pain.
A few months ago, I was doing stretches that help my back and I felt something pinch in my left side under my ribs. Since then it feels like I've got a tennis ball stuck under my rib cage and at night it is absolutely killing me when I lie on it. I also feel like it's effecting my breathing. Doctors not interested. I'm scared there's something very wrong or another trapped nerve. I literally feel like my entire body is failing me and its all because of me!!
I have been extremely lucky so far that I am not diabetic, heart disease, stroke etc but its only a matter of time. I'm only mid 30s.
Why doesn't all I have written scare me enough to stop eating? What is wrong with me?

Oh @Kpbffyjjgfi I get how you're feeling. It makes everything harder, is constantly on your mind and takes over your whole life.

At my heaviest I was so depressed. I didn't want to go out - even getting dressed was exhausting. My hips and back hurt like hell, my skin was awful, my health suffered.

I'm not at my heaviest now, but I'm still overweight. I have been making very slow progress, but it's progress. I started with one small change, and added things slowly as I adjusted to the last. I still have bad days (bad week this week - lots of Easter chocolate), but I don't throw in the towel completely because of that, which is what I would have done before.

I started with having restricted eating windows - not calorie counting, but eating only between 10am and 8pm. Then I decided on one chocolate bar a day (used to be several).

The best thing I did was get a Fitbit. I am so much more active now. Even though I'm still overweight, I'm managing more steps than I ever have and do regular cardio workouts. The pain has improved so much.

Maybe just make one or two small changes for a week or two to begin with?

Good luck. I know how crap this feels.

I know exaxtly where you are coming from OP, it's been the biggest battle of my life and I will always struggle with the issues I have around food and binging. At my heaviest I was very nearly 21 stone, and when I think about it the only way I can describe myself was I was ill. So tired, grumpy, sad, my knees hurt getting off the settee and I couldn't go up the stairs without getting out of breath. I got to a point where I jist didn't want to live that way anymore, but it took me a long time to get there.

I really do believe that weightloss is only really succesful when you are in the right frame of mind, you have to have that light bulb moment and then it suddenly all makes sense and you just get on with it, but I have never lasted more than 2 weeks on a diet without this lightbulb moment.

Unlike the previous OP I completely went all in and started low carbing which was basically doing a 180 on the diet I did have. It was tough but it broke the sugar addiction I had. But really what Huggybear16 said is sound advice, take it small, manageable steps at a time so you're not all of a sudden depriving yourself. And absolutely second the advice of get moving even if its just a short walk if you can manage it. I am strangely competitive with my Garmin and beating my record for how many steps I do each day, and the only person I compete against is myself 😂

Hugs @Kpbffyjjgfi, there is nothing wrong with you.

I don't know what you've done in the past, but I agree with PP it's much harder to lose weight if you're feeling bad about yourself - of course you end up in a vicious cycle! Have you had treatment for your anxiety and depression? And any counselling.

I don't know if this will help at all by I recently read the book "Feel Great, Lose Weight" by Rangan Chatterjee. He's a GP who looked at lifestyle factors for helping his patients. The book is a bit cringy in a way - so many cheesy photos. But it's also very supportive and compassionate. He starts off by talking about how society is structured to encourage us to eat, and to encourage us to eat food which is bad for us (he calls it blissy food). Anyway the point to all that is that it's not something to be ashamed of.

After this he goes through some changes we can make to our lifestyle to help us to lose weight. It includes changing our diet, but his emphasis is on making sustainable changes. It might not be what you want, but equally it might be something that you find reassuring. I just thought I'd mention it anyway (though I am a bit obsessed with that book).