New here :) Need some desperate help!

Hello everyone.

I am male, 24 years old. Recently, over the past 4 years I have not been controlling my eating habits very well... at all actually.

Lets start at the beginning.
When I was about 16, I usually ate alot of food. Especially when it came to takeaways etc. Fill the plate, then eat til its clean sort of thing. But that was maybe once or twice a month. Being active, I was a normal looking lad.

I worked out quite a bit after I was 16. I had a great 6 pack coming through when I was 20, I weighed around 12 - 13 stone. I am 5 foot 11 by the way.

Historically, my family are not of any "obese" nature or anything like that, infact, they all have high metabolic rates to the point that no body is a "pear" or has a "beer belly" etc. Just normal looking...

My metabolism is not naturally high, when eating the right stuff it works just fine and I can lose weight pretty quickly. For example, a few years ago when I was around 13 stone and less, I lost a stone of weight in around 5 weeks just working and eating the right things, very little excersise.

I ranked up the exercise some more, but also added more pasta to my diet, and protien.
I gained about a stone and a half of muscle in about a year and a half, but also gained a small amount of fat aswell.

Now, by the time I was 22 - 23 I started to stop working out. And then this is where it all started to go wrong..
My sleeping habits were terrible, sleep at 2am, wake at 12pm...

It went on until now and now I am 15 and a half stone. And all that gained is pure fat. I have like 4% bodyfat around my arms and calves to the point of seeing veins popping through.
But I have about 30 - 40 percent fat around my mid-rif area. I can literally pinch about 5 inches of fat from my stomach..

I have gained six inches in about two years, and all because of over-eating.
I had the odd eating binge, but recently I have doubled that to almost 4 - 5 times a week.

Eating crisps for example, one person would eat one packet a day. I would eat 9 or 10 packets in one sitting and never eat them again, and then move onto the next food group until full circle...


Basically, I wanted today to return to my old diet - fruit, tuna pasta, chicken and potatoes and vegetables. I really like that stuff! Getting down the gym, however, has been a no-go area.
I was a member of my local JJB gym, but because of how bad I feel about myself - and when the place starts filling up with members - I just want to leave and go for a walk.

I know all the ins and outs about dieting and working out etc. But the main problem is addressing my problem. I feel ok about it now because I had already eaten a large meal today.
I had cereal at 6:30 am this morning (I am back in work now!) but after 12pm I have the day to myself.

I am going back to work in ten mins, and will be walking around the store feeling like crap... Ideally I would walk, literally, across the street to the gym. But I feel so low about myself, the fat from the food like 2 weeks ago has crept on and everything is just going wrong.

I am tubby in places which shouldn't be tubby! I mean.. I have back fat and I am not obese!!
My body is holding the fat quite well, people always say to me "you look awesome, why do you want to lose weight?" but this is because of my body-shape. I don't just gain fat on my stomach, I gain it gradually all round.

just look "bigger" all round than I did before, but this removes all the tonation that I once had.
My chest size used to be a 46 inches of muscle! But now its 52 inches, no tonation... My neck size is one inch thicker... you get the picture.

My jeans size used to be a 34, now I am a 40!! My butt got bigger, it used to be tiny! Now it is like the centrepiece of my body alot of jeans don't look right, when I wear shirts which droop down - I look like a frumpy triangle.

Basically, my bodyshape has gotten bigger, droopier... im 24 and feel like a 40 year old.


I basically find it near impossible to eat properly for even 5 days in a row, I end up pacing up and down the flat looking for food ideas. I end up standing there for 10 minutes saying "shall I have bread with this or not? bread? no bread?.... " I end up settling for the extra bread and then feeling lousy afterwards.

Constantly feeling bloated, an absolute guilty feeling inside. I used to be a DJ and play in a band also, but I have removed myself from the stage and being active like that because of the weight I have gained.

I keep telling myself "im not settling for being this size, so I will wait until I am thinner to get back up there". And its been 3 years now. Falling into this pit.
My future, as I see it, will be ending up being like a 40 year old man and just getting balder and fatter.

I really don't want this, but then I can't seem to motivate myself or have that passion to get it all right and the dedication. If I had a friend in the same position as me, I could meet with them and work out as a work-out buddy. Aiming to beat goals and things like that, but there is nobody around. All my friends that I used to work out with are either really fit or really fat!

Some of my friends play professional sports for local teams, some just sit at computers all day. I like alot of different hobbies.. however, taking control over certain hobbies - such as watching films etc.. takes priorety over my health.

I need to get back on the horse!! I need some motivation!! Which is why I am on here for some desperate conversation and help.

If there is anyone in the Llanelli area in Wales that wants to go to a gym but are having the same problems as me, that would be fantastic to arrange a gym session! But seeming as this is unrealistic, I suppose just some advice, stories, and just some plain old chatting will do me some good - bring back the passion of FEELING good and eating normally!

I'm 24 too and also ventured on a huge fitness regime during my late teens. I stopped exercising for a period of about 6 months but didn't like what was happening to my body and so I got back into it, but not as much as I was doing previously. So, perhaps you are trying too hard to emulate your past; and are finding it difficult to accept that you are aging.

After the early 20s, we no longer grow and we simply don't have the get-up-and-go attitude that we had when we were younger. I struggled with this fact for ages too recently but I have accepted that trying to look like I did when I was 18/19 is not going to happen. I've aged: My shoulders are broader, there is more fat on my face, and I look more tired. These things happen but it seems to have bothered you so much.

You can get back into exercising, but don't feel that you have to overdo it. Perhaps, go to the gym on Wednesday, and then again on Saturday.

Kevin.