Hello, I am Maxine, a middle aged woman who has always fought her weight, sometimes successfully but mostly not as I have ended up with triple digits to lose. I was a chubby child and growing up in the 60’s and 70’s that was a very rare sight. My family, while not dirt poor was always short of funds and our diet consisted of highly processed carbs with sugar added for flavoring. Protein was only served as a condiment at the evening meal! My siblings were slim eating that diet, but I was not. All of us were active, we walked everywhere, playing outside all day long, no TV because there was very poor reception where we lived and only one channel, lol! No fast food restaurants either. At six years old I was already somewhat overweight and continued to slowly gain ending up about 30 pounds overweight all thru high school (and almost no one else was). Looking back now it is easy to see I was carb sensitive. Thru an intense exercise program and constantly starving myself I managed to keep my weight somewhere between normal and just a little chubby till my early thirties. Then I totally lost control of my weight when an injury sidelined me made that exercise regime impossible to continue. I started gaining and then dieting and then gaining even more back so ending up fatter than ever. I know that a low carb WOL is the only way I can reclaim an energetic and lighter body as low fat, high carb surely did not work for me. I’m glad to meet you all!

Welcome Maxine - glad you found us here...

I was a "normal" child until I turned 8 then ate my way up to 235 by the time I was 16.

You're among friends....

Julie

Julie, thanks for the welcome. I do believe this will be a great hangout as visting here will inspire me. Congratulations on your success!

I also grew up with "normal-sized" siblings who ate like pigs.

Welcome!

Hi Maxine and welcome! You're already making progress, and I think you'll find a lot of support here.

Hi Maxine and welcome to TDC.

Thank you all for the welcome! I'm going with the thought that reading the forums will help keep my resolve strong and my focus on seeing results in girth reduction and sane food choices.

Gee, Maxine, I could have written that! In fact, until you said you were about 30 pounds overweight at the end of high school I hadn't thought about the fact that I was only 20 pounds overweight then. I always seemed to be so huge.

Welcome to TDC.

Liz, I always thought I was huge back then too, but looking back at photos from that era, actually I was just curvy with a bit of a tummy and heavier thighs than most. I remember wearing a Junior size 11 when most of the other girls wore a 5 or 7. And sizes back then were smaller than they are now. I would love to look like that now, my how perceptions change with time.

That sounds like me. I also wore a size 11 in high school, but I was in pretty good shape because I exercised all the time, but of course I thought I was huge because all my friends wore a 5 or 7; I even had one friend who wore a 0!! No wonder I thought I was huge! Looking back at pictures of me, I actually looked great.

Welcome, Maxine, to the TDC!

We're all here to support and encourage each other on this WOL.