No clothes fit me anymore. I'm tired of being fat

Well, how much longer are you willing to feel like that? No one is gonna take that first step for you.

And woah, go easy on the having wasted your teenage years! Your best years havent come yet.

I know how you feel. I've felt and still feel the same way. What is a lot different for me, is that I took 30 years to realize I needed to change. And today, I feel much better than when I started. I feel like going out, comb my hair, trim my beard and brush my teeth, put on good clothes and perfume, and actually talking to people instead of avoiding any sort of human contact. I can't really say I've ever felt this good, ever.

Just don't be like me and waste your 20's wishing and dreaming for better, because it will not happen unless you take that first step.

Please be gentle with yourself. We see you. We see your pain.

What can we do to help you?

I'm afraid I can't give any really practical advice, but I see you, and want to let you know that I've been in a similar situation and it got better.

What you write seems totally relatable to my teenage self - I used to think similarly.

What I understand since then is that life isn't as black-and-white as it might seem, and that not everything is connected to your weight. It seems that because of your weight you've collected a shitload of self-loathing and disgust for yourself over the past years, and feel that since you look the way you do, you're not lovable and not worthy of having friends or getting romatically involved with people. Between the lines of what you're writing I get this "I'm fat and so I don't deserve better than that"-vibe.

On the other hand you seem to imagine that your life - and all aspects of your life - would suddenly be so much easier if only you lost weight, as I being thinner was some kind of miracle cure for all your issues.

I believe that non of this is true:

There's so much more to you than your weight, and you deserve feeling good about yourself, being confident and enjoying others company no matter your weight. While I understand that being overweight can suck for several reasons, there's always more about you that makes you you than just your appearance: your character, the way you connect with the people you love, your interests and skills, your taste in music, your dreams and so much more aspects of what make you you.

On the other hand I'm afraid that even if a fairy appeared to you and granted you your wish to be thinner, you wouldn't live happily after ever ... or at least, not all of your problems would dissolve. When I lost weight in my 20ies, I at some point realized that I still treated myself shitty, had a very low self-esteem and had this deeply engrained feeling of never being able to find a romantic partner because nobody would want me anyway. I slowly realized that what had kept me from being happy had not been my weight but my attitude towards myself and the fact that I had hated myself.

I'm not saying this to discourage you from making changes. If you want to lose weight because you want to be healthier, more active or want your clothes to fit better, that's perfectly fine. I just want to warn you from having unrealistic expectations. Losing weight can have many benefits, but being thinner will not automatically change everything for the better.

Ah, and one more thing: No idea where this idea, that your school years and teens are the best time of your life, comes from, but for a lot of people this simply isn't true. Adult life is so much better in many ways. So don't worry about missing out on something.

All the best to you!

I felt exactly like this when I was young, never pretty/thin/good enough for anyone. It’s a really hard place to feel stuck in! Please know that it’s not the truth at all, you matter and deserve all the good things! The first thing you have to do is start treating yourself like someone you love. Even if you don’t feel that at first in time you will! Be kind and gentle to yourself because beating yourself up hasn’t worked up to this point so it’s time to try something else. Start small, take a walk even when you don’t feel like it. Small steps in the right direction. Dance, just move however it makes you happy to move! Switch out some of the foods you are eating with healthier options and drink a lot of water! If you don’t like water you can add crystal light or other water enhancers and get at least 80oz a day, I started with 40, and now drink comfortably about 120-160 a day and it’s done wonders for my skin, hair and weight loss efforts. Get a water bottle you really like and keep it with you all the time. Making small changes and celebrating them has gotten me from obese most of my life to now being just 5lbs from a healthy body weight! Those small changes can form into habits and snowball into a whole new mindset and life if you keep going! You can do it and you deserve to do it!

Turn this into a positive. All the shame won’t help you be better tomorrow.

It is a significant moment when you are honest with yourself and decide enough is enough.

Maybe take a deep look at your past attempts to lose weight. Is there a common denominator there? Can you try to pinpoint why you can’t stick with it for more than a week?

What are you doing to try and change? The mistake most people make is trying to change everything at once. Don’t try to go from fast food every day to cooking a full meal from scratch every day; start with healthy convenience foods like steam-in-bag vegetables. Don’t go from no exercise to an hour in the gym every day, start with going for a 10-20 minute walk every day. Stuff like that. If you’re counting calories you might be at too steep a deficit.

Can you see a dietician about the binge eating?

It took me until my mid 30s to start losing weight, having been obese throughout most of my life, and only after restarting aged 42 am I approaching a healthy weight. I wish I'd managed it earlier, but I don't feel like I've "wasted" half my life, and you certainly haven't wasted any of yours. We're all in here doing the best we can, and the pandemic has messed with everyone's mental health (along with everything else).

That 30kg you've gained over 2 years - you can lose it over two years too. Less than that if you're really keen. You can't expect to turn around all your habits overnight and have complete self control, but you can start working on it now. Expect to have a bunch of setbacks that feel like failures, but try to learn from them so that you're better able to avoid them in the future.

Make a commitment to yourself, start building a plan, keep asking questions and venting here - you'll get there in the end.