Welcome New "Losers!"

[Trying4Thin]

Hi everyone!
I am so psyched that so many of you are joining our little loser family. I cant keep up with all of you; so I am devoting an entire thread to being the "Newbie Welcome Wagon." I hope you all like our little corner of the world. I know I have loved it since joining early last year. You will learn a lot, make a ton of new friends, and maybe discover a little something new about yourself that you never knew before. I encourage each and every one of you to start a journal for accountability (either online or at home). Share as much or as little as you feel comfortable with. I am eager to get to know each and every one of you. If you have a question, comment, good joke, or you are in need of an extra ear or shoulder for support..this is the place to find it.

Enjoy!
~Carrie

[toulouse]

Hi all,
For the first time in my 34 years of life, I'm glad to offer my personnal experience as a proof that loosing weight can be easy and fun. "easy" depends on many factors. I used to weight 328 lbs and I now 215. I have lost more than 110 pounds by doing the simplest thing: long and fast walks. I had this great opportunity to live for more than 2 years in Toulouse, FRANCE as a Canadian. It took me one year to start facing the facts. My father came to visit me in France and felt sorry for me, the way I was walking with hard breath, and couldn't help to lend a tear a two. He told me that he had stopped smoking for weeks now and I was soo proud of him that I challenged him: "if you keep your promise NEVER to smoke anymore, I'll keep mine and start loosing weight". Very cheerful news for him, he gladly agreed. So we made a pack and it took me months to start facing my promise : I remember watching episodes of LOST with ... of course : 6 bars of chocolate , peanuts and chocolate milk.... AFTER a supersized BigMac at Mcdonald's (YES ! Imagine McDonald's In France !!!). How can you resist the food (alias the emotion) while watching such a great and THRILLING show ? :-)

Later, I went to a medical center (june 26th), a routine check required for the work permit and though I had exagerate all these months and I'd pay the price with a 340 maybe 350 something pounds. Relief was I when I realized my weight was 146 Kilo (precisely 321.2 pounds). I can't imagine how anybody would be relief with such a weight but I was ! And not because I have worked hard on my weight. So I started to do some biking to work during this summer for 20 to 25 minutes each way. Now , some of you know that you start loosing fat after 25 minutes. So basically, I was only loosing water but improving my cardio. Thanks to God, my bike got stolen twice (someone was really trying to tell me something...).
The second time, I was so furious that I decided to start walking. No way they can steel my legs !

So I decide to walk to work, which took at first exactly 1 hour and 5 minutes (fast pace, or at least the fastest I could walk). Then 50 minutes.
From that moment, combining the fact that I've written down every day my weight on mornings - a little obsessive should you say- I have lost a tremendous amount of weight: 59 pounds in 4 months.

I would just like to encourage all of you who decide to lose weight by walking. Fast walks are amazinly great for your body. Get yourself a mp3 player and play the music that makes you want to dance, to run, to jump and use that as a focus to keep walking to work. Also, more importantly : buy a good pair of shoes. Don't be cheap if you can pay one. Hill, no hill, you will lose weight: my itinirary to work was on a complete flat level.

Now, this been said, anybody knows how these guys in "The biggest looser" are able to maintain their skin from falling ? Have they all got operation ?
I really need some help on that area. Especially on the upper body (chest and bellow). Thank for your advise and for reading.

ps: I've couldn't picked up a better nickname : Toulouse came from an inside jock from my father and my uncles saying as a slogan : "at Toulouse , there's nothing *to lose*".
I can think of tons of jokes to make: they were WRONG : I was the biggest loser there ! :-)
"To live in Toulouse is to lose it all"
"I lived in Toulouse to loose the fat" and so on.

[Missy]

First of all, congratulations of losing so much weight. You should be VERY proud of how far you've come and all that you've accomplished. It's definately a very rewarding experience to go through.

I'm not too sure if the members on the BL show have had surgeries or not, but I have heard that while working out you should incorporate some kind of weight training along with the cardio...so that where you lose your fat, you put muscle in it's place which helps with the sagging.

Make sure you are getting your water too...it will help with skin elasticity and can help your skin snap back into place.

I haven't lost all my weight yet, so it's hard to say whether I'll require surgery or not when I'm finished. I know I'm probably going to look into breast implants due to losing a lot of mine....and possibly a tummy tuck depending on how much I can do on my own.

I'm sure there's others on this forum who can offer some advice as well. Good luck

[macaulie4]

Hi my name is Dawn, I'm 34 yrs old and a stay at home mom. I have a 4 year old little girl who is my everything. I have been married for almost six years. I have been over weight my whole life. I would like to start losing weight for different reasons. One reason is just to be healthy,2nd is too be happy with myself. I have suffered from depression, where I eat to feel better. Yet never really feeling better so I eat some more. I grew up in a house where junk food was the norm, it was your reward for doing something good. So I never really learned to eat right. All through school I was the fat kid that was a good friend, but never good enough hang out with unless they needed something. You know the type can never say no. Even day I can never say no, so I never learned how to put myself first. I joined the biggest loser club about a month and a half ago. I haven't really given it my all yet. Right now I'm on a trip to help my brother through some personal matters. I hope in a couple of weeks when I get home I can give this life change a good shot. I'm at the point now where I'm very unhappy and I cry alot. The thought of losing weight scares me to death. I don't know why but when I think about how nice it will be to be thinner, it scares me. But dying young scares me too, not being here for my daughter. I look at all the information out there about this life change and I feel so over whelmed by everything. I have so much weight to lose, I feel so hopeless. I would appreicate and help and support you can please give me. And I offer support to anyone who needs it, and friendship. Thank you

Dawn

[Missy]

Welcome to the forums Dawn...I look forward to getting to know more about you. You should keep a journal in the journal section that way it's easier for us to keep up with you. Good to have you here

[stucam1872]

I find The Biggest Loser an inspiration and wish to somehow purchase all previous episodes to watch as they are fantastic and help me immeasurably with my goals.

Please can you help me track the back catalogue of previous series or pass on information of where to get these DVDs of past shows

Thanks for your help

Stuart Cameron

[Trying4Thin]

Good luck with that!

NBC doesn't rebroadcast the show or sell it on DVD can you believe that??? My only suggestion for you is to try to find torrents online. Or check on EBay to see if some smart person taped them and put them up for sale. I really wish they would sell entire seasons and I am sure other people do as well. You would think that they would sell them because so many people follow the show and look to it for inspiration.

Good luck,
~Carrie

[muppet]

You can watch the Australian version on youtube. I am watching The Biggest Loser Australia 1. I'm not sure how many season's Australia have done, but I think they are all on there.
It's a little different. Of course, they use metric measurements, so it's all in kilos. I kilogram is 2.2 pounds, just to help you out.
Bob and Jillian are there, so if you don't mind the accent , a different host, and the use of the metric system, give it a try! But I'm warning you, once you start, it's hard to stop. Oh, just one more episode.....
It's a little different format -- I think it might be on more than once a week over there. So you have to watch 2 or 3 episodes to get to an elimination, but it doesn't take as long, since there are no commercials.
Have fun!