Re: honest possibilities (mouseclick or anyone with experience)

Hi, thanks for being up front about your emotional relationship with food. First of all your weight and height, you work out at about BMI 32.3 which is considered obese, and ideally your weight could be anything down to 120 and still be fine, so there's plenty there to lose in order to be healthy and fit.

HOWEVER, I am one of the few here who has had success with fasting for weight loss, and recently stopped blindly advising anyone "go on you can do it", because a lot of them seemed not to do it, and ended up giving up early, binging, trying again and getting generally miserable about it.

Having said that, at least you are open and honest about it, and are aware of the problem, and you generally seem to be positive.

I would say for safety reasons, have a look at the FAQ above and ESPECIALLY the eating disorder question, and try some of the questionnaires referred to in there. Please heed the warnings in that particular FAQ. Then if you are happy to proceed, go for it!

BUT, from my own experiences, fasting doesn't heal any emotions and can sometimes bring them on stronger. So the danger is that you would lose the weight and put it all back on of you went back to your old ways. I haven't looked in detail at your old posts, but I did pick up that you have been here for around 4 years and fasting for that time (didn't look how many times) and about a year you mentioned that you tend to go on crazy fast/binge cycles and gained over 20 lbs in the course of a year.

If you do fast, make sure you do it right, eat well before, break it properly, and refeed on good healthy food.

Oh and also try and think of it as a lifestyle change, I notice you did a May target some time back, but presumably something went wrong there because here you are again. Fasting should not be used to control weight as compensation for overeating, the secret is to eat healthily after you have reached your desired weight, and perhaps take more exercise.

So in summary, I think fasting can possibly help (you know your own circumstances better than I do) but I don't think it will sort out any emotional issues with food, and it may result in you gaining even more weight at the end so please be careful and make sure this is tackled early.

As far as driving is concerned, I was fine after 21 days. But I guess it's down to the individual.

If you decide to proceed, I wish you luck :)