My name is happily3verafter22 and JESNOW on Inkitt. I've published at least twenty-one chapters on both Wattpad and Inkitt and have yet to get any readers. How do I go about getting readers? Is it because they are romance stories and there are a lot of romance stories on both sites?
I really need help with getting them out there more.
Chapter One: Broken
There was no reason for me to go on. I swung one leg over the Henry Avenue Bridge railing, then the other, staring down into the dark void below. I was seconds away from letting go when a voice shattered the quiet.
"What are you doing?!"
I had been so drowning in my own thoughts that I hadn't heard him pull his car over or sprint toward me.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" I yelled back, refusing to look at him.
"It looks like you're about to make the biggest mistake of your life."
"Look, this isn't Titanic," I snapped, my voice shaking. "You're not going to save me. I've made up my mind, and I'm going over. There's nothing you can do to stop me."
"Well, then I guess I don't have a choice."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tearing off his jacket.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"If you think I won't dive in after you, you're deeply mistaken," he said, kicking off his boots. "I used to be a lifeguard."
"I'll just come back another day and finish it!" I cried out. "Save yourself the trouble and just keep driving."
"Look, I know life is a shitshow. But it can't be so bad that you'd leave behind everyone who cares about you."
"I don't have anyone anymore."
"I'm sure that's not true."
"It is true!"
"No parents? No siblings? No friends?"
"They'd be better off without me."
"Bullshit," he said flatly.
"The most important person in my world left me," I choked out, the tears finally spilling over. "I can't breathe through the pain anymore."
"And you think ending your life makes it better? It just transfers the pain to everyone else."
"What am I supposed to do?" I sobbed, clutching the frozen metal of the railing. "I loved him so much."
"You keep going. Just like the rest of us. I'm not going to lie and say it's easy, but if you just keep moving forward, you won't always feel like this. One day, you're going to look back on this ledge and think, what the fuck was I thinking?"
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Because I lost someone, too," he confessed, his voice dropping to a softer, raw register. "She left me for someone else. It wrecked me. And yeah, some days still completely suck, but I found a way through."
"How?"
"I started swimming again. At first, it was brutal. But the more I swam, the more I learned to pour all that anger and heartbreak into the water. I just let it go."
"I'm not a swimmer," I whispered.
"Then find what works for you. There has to be something you love."
"I used to write."
"Then write. Bleed onto the page. I'm not saying you're going to write a bestseller, but you might just write the best thing you've ever created if you put all this pain into it."
"I've tried," I admitted, staring down at the water. "Nothing comes out. It's just empty."
"Then try harder."
"I can't."
"You can."
I finally turned my head and looked at him. He was standing there in the cold, shoes off, extending an open hand toward me.
I closed my eyes, squeezed out one last tear, and reached back for the ledge.
I'm on day 19 of doing OMAD and I am feeling intense hunger and cravings for fast food. I've lost 23lbs so far and I just feel so down that I'm not stronger with this. I don't want to give in because then that means I'm a failure and I want to succeed for once in my life with weight loss.
I am 317.2lbs down from 340.2lbs. I want to be at or near 118lbs one day but I feel like I will never get there with how weak I am when it comes to food.
When does it get better? I don't want to stop doing OMAD because it's working tremendously but today was the first day where I almost gave into eating another meal and not just any meal but fast food.
I know there is nothing wrong with eating fast food, but I have an addiction to it. I am a food addict and I'm almost in tears as I write this.
I need help because I'm caving in.
I'm not sure if I am going to completely give up on fast food just yet, but I haven't really craved it for these past two weeks on my journey at least not after the first few days.
I'm really thinking about giving up fast food for good. I already have decided to not drink anymore or use edibles to cope with my stress. But I know not drinking alcohol anymore or doing edibles is much easier to give up than something I've had in my life since I was a child.
I rarely took a drink. Like once in a blue moon or did edibles that often either. But fast food has been something I have never in my life thought about ever giving up because for one, it's tasty, two it's convenient and three it's cheaper (well it used to be anyways).
I will be honest in saying I do eat frozen dinners but I make sure that they are low in sodium as much as possible.
Like I eat the Evol meals or Marie Callender's meals on weekdays and cook on weekends because I have more time to cook.
Eventually I will probably meal prep and just eat cooked meals on weekdays as well but it's convenient for me to do frozen meals right now. I know frozen meals is not as good as making my own food and some people might even say is just as bad as fast food, but I think I'm really taking the right steps towards eating completely healthier.
For reference, I'm single 34f that has lost 20lbs in these 2 weeks (first time ever losing that much that fast btw) who has a roommate that eats out but I have overcome that. I felt like a vampire resisting drinking human blood lol while she ate Jersey Mike's sub the other night in front of me but it's getting easier each day.
I know there are going to be challenging times where fast food might be an issue like when I start to date again but that's a long time from now and they would just have to understand my lifestyle change if I do permanently give it up.
So what's your thoughts on this? Realistic or batshit crazy? Lol
I thought getting back with my ex would complete me when all along it was me that needed to complete me. While I would love to get back with him because I feel he is the love of my life, I am absolutely positively falling in love with myself.
I needed to go through this breakup to truly understand that before I can truly love someone else, it has to be me first. Loving the skin that I'm in.
And I'm choosing me first. No more begging for someone to love me. I'm so locked in in loving myself and taking better care of myself.
Just wanted to express this and hope this was the right place to do so! Thanks for reading!
This is the most I've ever lost in less than 2 weeks. I am honestly flabbergasted but excited and will definitely make this a lifelong thing because it's the most successful I've been in losing the weight and I honestly feel so much better and amazing.
I know majority of this is water weight but my back pain is gone so I can probably start walking which I am excited about!
For reference I am a 5'4 34f weighing now 319.4lbs. Down from 340.2lbs.
Let's go OMAD!!!
I'm on day 12 and today is the first time I'm not craving fast food as much or as hungry.
I'm down 19lbs and I'm feeling a lot better physically. My back pain is gone and I can stand in the shower for longer now without the pain. Was at 340.2lbs and now at 320.8lbs.
I'm wondering also will the hunger pangs become nonexistent the longer I do OMAD because I had a skinny friend who never seemed to get hungry. She had to remember to eat usually from getting a headache.
I'm not saying I want to be like her, but I wouldn't mind the food noise disappearing naturally. I know a lot of people are taking GLP-1s to kill it but OMAD seems to be working for me so far.
Also are there any of you who have been doing this for years because I think I could really stick to this long term.
Oh and I'm a 5'4 34F for reference.
So I am currently 323.8lbs. Down from 340.2lbs. I started on April 18th. Eating frozen meals during the week and cooking a bit on weekends.
I'm not exactly sure, but going from my highest weight 340 to 323 in 10 days, I thought I would have loss a bit more.
I know the majority of the loss is just water weight and I know it's going to slow down from here on out. But I see some people on different social medias say how they lost a bit more in a week because of being a larger size.
Maybe it's because I'm not exercising. I couldn't because of my back pain. But now that it's gone, I can maybe start doing some walking. I just don't want to overwhelm myself with doing too much. But I know walking would be good for me.
But anyhoo, too fast or a bit slow?
Most of it I know is water weight but I know I should still feel excited about the loss. I feel I don't know if I should be losing a bit more for my size. I'm currently 323.8lbs down from 340.2lbs.
I stopped doordashing fast food and just get healthy frozen meals now. Maybe I need to switch to whole foods, but I just find the frozen dinners more convenient and way less time consuming and easy to maintain.
But I know the frozen meals even the healthy ones have lots of sodium in them so that could be why the progress isn't more.
Or maybe I am doing just fine.
I know 17lbs is 5% of my weight loss which is good. I'm almost there.
So in your opinion am I going at a good pace for my size? I know its going to slow down tremendously because so far it's just been water weight really. I don't see any changes with my body as of yet but I do feel a lot better already. No more back pain.