I am fed up

I start university in September and I am excited about it but on the inside I feel useless. I want to lose weight but I don’t have an active lifestyle or friends and I just keep binge eating and it’s making me sad I don’t know what else to do.

Hey, there! First of all, congrats on going to University. Second of all, you are definitely not useless. You really care about yourself and are willing to put in the work. I don't know if you are expecting any tips. Because I myself have some experience with weightloss and developing an active life. So I don't want to end up giving any unsolicited advice. All I can say is that the love for food is the hardest part of a fitness journey. I am a huge food lover myself. When I gained 30 pounds, my dad started cooking healthy balanced meals for me, which helped shed the 30 pounds off. Now he isn't there all that often to do it anymore, so I cook for myself. It was pretty hard at first to come up with a balanced plate, but eventually I got the hang of it.

Awwww. Why don't you stay and chat with New Girl (lovely reply, missus!)? My two-pennethworth is this: You're self-medicating. When you eat you experience a Dopamine rush (yup, you have a whole drugs factory in your head)... which is great for emotional pain-killing. But your method of administering it has too many downsides. Other ways to produce and release dopamine, include: Dancing to your favourite dance music - or any intense exercise that makes you sweat. The dopamine release is much stronger and longer-lasting, and the side effect is beneficial. Your guilt after eating, you see, brings you down again, exacerbating the need to eat AGAIN...vicious cycle. Whereas, your self-esteem boost from using a healthy Dopamine On Switch, creates a positive, incremental cycle. Also, trying and masttering new skills (like proper cooking...which, btw, will make you extra popular at uni, particularly when it's time to move out of digs and into flat-sharing!) Also, you need to take B-Complex vitamins (all the Bs), or if you can only afford the one or two together, B6 and B12 in that order of priority. A proper, scientific study (finally) has confirmed what Vit B Complex customers have known for years (it's just no-one had proven it with a study before now). They are great for depression and anxiety. Even if you're not deficient of them! But you probably are....a heck of a lot of people are, too, thanks to the prolonged stress of the last 3 years (depletes your Bs and interferes with absorption). A healthfood store will advise you on which brand and doseage, and they aren't normally that expensive (or didn't used to be...scuse pun). If they are, you'll have to google for the foodstuffs with the highest B6 and 12 content...meaning, we're back to proper cookery. Bloody good solitary hobby, though, cooking, especially if you have your fave music or radio station playing (and then you can dance as well!). The other bonus is something all cooks and mothers complain of: cooking proper, turns down your appetite! You'll only be able to manage a tiny portion. Anyway, get really good at it and, as I say, you'll just have to shout "I've just made a lasagne, who wants some?" down the halls and they'll all be rushing out! LOL TRUST ME ON THAT. Pot Noodles and McDs/BKings, etc., grow very dull, very quickly when you have to eat them night after night. They all miss cooking "like mum did". (Obviously, they'd have to chip in with the cost if it became a regular thing.) Hope that helps?

So that's your project: limbering up *now* while you still have time, for whatever ice-breaker or pack role amongst your uni posse-to-be, so that you'll be perfect on the day and take instant top billing. Granted, it'll be "cupboard love" at first. But as you get to know all your 'customers', and they you, friendships will inevitably form with enough of them. Win-Win.

Hi there guys is anyone here having problems with drugs or struggling with any sort of addiction if so get back to me

Yeah, I am! They're getting REALLY expensive! Why - what are you offering? (*rolls around on floor at own joke and sticks tongue out*)

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