Hey All,

I'm really stuck in a rut here. My weight has fluctuated so much over the past 5 years I can't even put a finger on what the hell I'm supposed to weigh and have no idea what a normal eating pattern is. I'm either binging or starving.

I started dieting at about 16-17 years old, did atkins for 10 months. Pretty much lived off red meat patties from costco the entire time, got pretty fuggin sick doing so. That got me from 350 to 180. Once I couldn't take the pain any more I went up to about 220 and since then I've been bouncing between 220 to 200 pounds.

Had one stint where I got back to 180 last year and blew up to 240 after that diet, holy sh*t that was hell, I couldn't stop eating, I was scared to stop!! I felt unsafe if I didn't have food right next to me. . . . .

Earlier this year I got myself down to 205 from january to april (from that 240 I shot up to). I'm pretty much back at 210/215 though and I'm really @ a loss as to what the hell I should invest my time in now. Any type of diet gets me kinna scared, I certainly don't trust myself when it comes to diet as I always take looks over health when I get the chance. I tend to relate any type of physical distress as something wrong with my diet as well which can cause some over eating. So say I get a bad kramp I can at times get the feeling I'm not eating enough, ect. (KETO Diet = MAD kramps, holy sh*t)

I'm in OA, have a sponser, trying to adjust to the carb addicts diet but I need you guys to help me make sure I'm eating enogh until I get to a nutritionist (this coming Friday). I'm doing the one carb meal a day thing to bring some balance to my body and also control cravings. How many carbs should I be taking in that one meal? Also, how should I structure my other meals during the day as far as fats go (2 to 3 other meals). I won't eat 6 meals a day and I won't eat carbs all throughout the day either. I can deal with feeling tired but I get horrible blood sugar swings when eating carbs throughout the day which I just can't deal with.

Any advice would be great, I'm really trying to put my health into consideration @ this point and while I'm VERY discouraged about being stuck overweight (bad body composition) I think I have to let it go for a while in order to break this obsession with diet.

My first guess -- there might be some psychological or relational stuff going on. Hopefully OA is helping to address that. I think most of us here know more about the nutritional and fitness side of things, but health is related to the whole person. Those kind of drastic changes in body composition make me wonder if othere are other health issues.

That being said -- my biggest piece of advice, I think, is to keep a journal. Write down everything that goes into your mouth. Don't try to change anything, yet. Just write it all down and figure out the calorie content. Make a graph to show how many calories you are getting each day. This process will give you a good education about the calorie content of the foods you eat (that's what happened to me). Do this for several months. After a while, try to set a good bullseye for your daily calorie intake (not too high, not too low). Try to keep you daily calorie intake pretty much the same every day.

I'm not sure if this is helpful -- I hope it is.