Hello everyone.
I thought I'd like to keep a thread going of my own progress. I would have loved to have a blog with this site but it looks as though they are disabled. I really don't want to start another blog on another site, I just want somewhere, in a supportive environment where I can post updates/frustrations/setbacks/goal setting/motivation - and then keep coming back to it. Admin, if this isn't appropriate or if I'm posting in the wrong place, please let me know and feel free to delete.
In a quick nutshell, here is my story:
two pregnancies later...not happy in my skin, not quite healthy, not very confident and now I am really motivated to do something about it. No grand plans, just want to slowly and surely lose 20lb which will take me into my healthy weight range.
From there I will work out the next step. I have two kids and my body shows it. I want to be strong and fit and healthy - especially if I ever have another baby. I'm 10 lb down already and can't wait to be back in shape.
If you are curious about my motivation to start, I have posted a longer story in the intro section.
I love this featherweights section and it gives me loads of motivation to read about how you are all getting on. Welcome to anyone who stops by this thread and any help/tips/chit chat would be delightful!
First and foremost, I find it really difficult to concentrate on the positives that I have already achieved rather than the negatives and what I have yet to achieve. Instead of thinking 'I did pretty well today' or 'fantastic, my jeans from last year don't feel so tight' or '10lb down is a good start' - I will think 'I didn't do quite well enough today (so I may as well eat this piece of toast!)' or 'I can fit into the jeans,sure, but my belly still looks squidgy' or 'OMG I still have so much more to lose, I'm still so fat!'.
The danger in all of this is that it can go one of two ways - It motivates me to work harder or it leads to a selfpity sabotage where I eat too much!!! I'm not really a binge eater anymore but I can easily undo a good day with some chocolate if you know what I mean.
At the moment I'm trying super hard to keep my thoughts and my body image on the positive side and using that to try to push on. It's hard though, when you still don't like what you see much, even 10lbs lighter.
Tomorrow is my 4th fasting day on the 5:2 diet. I really hope it starts to move the scales downward. I feel like I need to see a bit of change...
So the scales say 143.0 this morning. It's my lowest weight since starting. That is a positive! It's also motivating seeing the Nov weigh in thread and seeing how my number has gone down just over the past couple of weeks.
Makes me think my goal of getting out of the 140's before we head off for San Francisco next Friday isn't COMPLETELY out of the question. Today is my 2nd fast day for the week so I can hope that tomorrow morning I might even make it to 142! The truth will be after the weekend though. My parents are coming to visit which means, generally, food based activities...
Friday, scales went down to 142, felt so good!
Unfortunately the weekend has been a little bit of a right off. I hate the feeling when your whole week of eating well seems to be ruined :-(
My parents were visiting to spend some time with my family before we go overseas to DH's family for Xmas - there was a lot of eating. I tried really hard to just enjoy the food and the company but it was hard.
Today weighted in at 144 which didn't really surprise me! Oh well.
Tomorrow is a fast day. It will be my third week of fasting 5:2. I hope it helps me feel back on track and a little less despondent.
Only five days to go until we fly to San Francisco. I am SOOOOOOOOOO excited about it all but very nervous that being in holiday mode, in a city with all these great places to explore, is going to make it really hard for me to control my eating. Maybe if I just try to maintain the fast days, maybe even do one extra....I just know what I'm like.....grrrr.....
I've heard so much about American food, so curious, especially the breakfasts. I love breakfast. Gosh, how am I going to cope!
ON a positive note, my mum noticed I'm losing weight and other people have talked to me about THEIR diets - something that hasn't happened before, which makes me wonder if they have picked up on the fact that I am trying to lose weight. Anyone ever noticed that?
Went to the gym today and plan to go as much as I can in the next week. I am going to miss that. Maybe I can go running aroung San.Fran?
well....wishing myself luck for tomorrow.
Well my last post was on the 1st dec! I'm still on my journey, I just had to pause this journal because we went on a huge overseas trip.
Actually, considering I was on holiday, it was over Christmas and we were visiting a cold climate - I think I did ok! Ok, I haven't lost any weight, and have fluctuated quite a bit during the more stressful moments. BUT, overall I haven't let my weight creep back up. This week I have been weighing consistently at 143 ish.
Last week was my first week getting back on the wagon after arriving back in Australia. Boy, getting back into it was REALLY hard and I felt very unmotivated and depressed. It was very hard last week to force myself to just begin again and to step back on the scales.
POSITIVES I have begun again. I am still nearly 10lb lighter than when I begun.
This does not need to be a quick fix. It's ok for it to be slow but consistent.
I still don't like myself too much and the way I look. I still have quite a bit to come off - 20lb to go.
I'm glad to be back on this site, getting motivation and staying accountable.
So this is week #2 of start #2. I'm on my first fasting day of the week.
Fasting seems to come to me a lot easier now than it did at the beginning. My biggest hurdle is not overeating on my feast days. It's really easy to make up those calories.
Hopefully now I'm keeping this journal again and weighing again I will find it easier.
Changes in my life: I've nearly stopped breastfeeding my daughter (down to one feed a day, to stop completely soon). I am really unsure of how this is going to affect my weight loss. Actually when I stopped feeding my son, my metabolism sped wight up and I lost 5lb really quickly. I'm not sure whether it will be the same this time.
Ok. Glad to have checked myself in.....wish me luck!
Hang in there! It's great that you maintained over the holidays. Welcome back--you're over a third of the way to your goal, and it sounds like you are doing well.
Thanks LCW!
Today I weighed in at 143.4 - yet again. I'm hoping that if I can stay healthy for the next couple of days then when I get to fast day #2 on Thursday it may make a difference on the scales.
Yesterday went pretty well - I think I exceeded my 500 cal fast day limit though. Not by much.
I know it's not good to dwell on the negatives but I've been putting a lot of thought into the things that hold me back. They are coming into focus quite clearly :
Biggest one: I treat myself with food. It's cheap and it's satisfying. This wouldn't be an issue if I didn't do it very often but really, I think I find an excuse to have a 'special treat' (like it's something I deserve) most days.
I think I have to fix my thinking on this one. I need to think of an alternative - maybe $5 in a jar for every pound lost??? then I can properly reward myself with new clothes or trip to movies or something??? Could work?
- I eat too much sugar. Not much to say about this one, I know I do!
So, If I was going to address those two issues. Here are some mini goals (starting small!)
FOR ONE DAY. TODAY. BABY STEPS.
-Every time I go to eat something as a 'reward' or a 'treat', I'm going to make a conscious decision NOT TO DO IT. If I make it through the day without treating myself to chocolate or similar, I'm going to put $1 in a jar.
If I can get through today, then I can do it again tomorrow.
-No sugary stuff today.
2 goals for the day, both completely attainable.
Other goal is to go to the gym - I love that one because it gives me a break from kids and home, it's easy!
This is the first time i read your posts since myself just joined a few weeks ago!
Welcome back!
I've been going trough similar, i lost some weigth last year but since xmas time i have been in maintance cause i was on vacation/visited relatives and blah blah, it was great! But now i wanna keep going on my weigth loss journey! Just started out again this month.
Im 5''3, want to lose 10 pounds so we have a post going on on the main featherweigths section if you ever wanna check it out and come chat with us ;-)
Thanks so much Nikolette, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has to start over. I guess I am very happy that despite much eating, no real harm was done. And I did enjoy my holiday!
I will definitely come and check out the main featherweight thread. I feel like maybe I'm right on the border of being a featherweight - I'm technically overweight for 5'2.
Weighed in at..yep...143.4 AGAIN!
So yesterday, I would like to say I achieved what I set out too, with no sweet stuff and no 'treats'...but actually I did both...
My daughter was asleep in the pushchair, my son was at kindy (this is a very new kind of freedom to me!) so I thought I would take advantage of being able to go and sit in a coffee shop and read the paper, uninterrupted - blissful! It's so long since that was a possibility, hard to imagine if you don't have small children I know :-)
So I enjoyed a piece of raisin toast and a friand (small muffin made with almond meal) with a coffee.
Yep, a failure, I know. BUT I do want to focus on the positive elements of the day:
I didn't have any sugar in any of my coffees and I made them Americanos instead of milky latte. Got to be some cal saved there.
I didn't buy or eat any yucky processed junk or chocolate.
I went to the gym, even though it was really late when my kids got to sleep.
Gave myself a very small serve of pasta, about half my usual size for dinner.
This morning I have had a very moderate brekky of chia pudding made with cow milk and a coffee, no sugar.
I think if I can make today quite moderate then fasting tomorrow will be effective. Maybe even a number drop....
So today I weighed at 43.2. Ok...-0.2lb
Not quite a celebration!
At least it has ticked over in the right direction!!!
This week has been really good actually, for a start. I need to make sure I'm not discouraged by the scale not moving very much.
My fast days were not perfect. I am now finding it very easy to go for most of the day without a meal, hardly notice it. But when I get to my evening meal I tend to eat over 500cal - I'm not actually counting, but from my days of calorie counting, I'm pretty sure that it's more like 700-ish.
That still means that twice a week I'm eating about half the calories I should. This should really equate to about .5lb loss each week. I think that's ok with me. Very slow I know. I'm happy for this to be a slow journey as long as it it permanent. I guess I can speed it up by doing 3 fast days a week and adding more exercise. This week I only got to the gym 3 times, becuase DH had to go out a few times so I didn't get time away from kids. Hopefully next week I can go 4-5 times.
I have eaten very little junk food this week. Compared to the last few weeks after Christmas when I was constantly eating chocolate and Icecream and whatever. This week was very healthy for the most part. I only had one milky coffee this morning and have ditched the sugar in my coffee.
We've had no take away dinners this week, all nice fresh home cooked meals. My only slip up was the cafe lunch...and I don't regret it!
I think as a NSV this week I am going to clear out my wardrobe a bit. I have quite a few jeans which are now uncomfortably loose. It might seem premature but honestly, I have NO INTENTION of needing them again. This weekend I'm going to give them to the OP shop. YAY!!! :-)
Feeling motivated and happy to continue. THe weekend is always a bit challenging and I hope I feel as motivated on Sunday evening.
My goal for this weekend :
Relax but don't overdo it. Fine to have some chocolate, but just a little bit, not a whole bar for example.
Hopefully next week I'll get a bit closer to my first mini goal of under 140!
My second mini goal is to get out of the 'overweight' category. That means about 136lb
Scales this morning say 143.2 (AGAIN!). They are not budging.
Now, this is the time of month where I am usually at my most bloated (IYKWIM!) and I would always expect to be a little heavier, like 1-2lb of extra water weight. I'm really surprised that it doesn't seem to have happened at all this week, no fluctuation at all really. I'm hoping that it means there is a loss coming up in the next week or so.
It's my Monday fast day. No brekky, no lunch, healthy dinner.
I'm supposed to only eat 500 cal on my fast days but I reckon I eat more like 700 - considering doing this three times a week instead of two, in the hope that it will speed things up. Also toying with the idea of switching from 5'2 diet to the other form of Intermittent Fasting where you eat within an eating window each day. I sort of do that two days a week. Maybe if I did that through the weekdays and then had a relaxed weekend? hmmmm.
I might just stick to what I'm doing for a couple more weeks because it's extremely manageable. If it's really not working and I stall at above 140 for the whole two weeks then reevaluate.
I've been really inspired by looking at pictures of people who have done some sort of strength training and transformed their bodies. I do weights at the gym but I feel quite inspired to get a little more serious about it. I also love those pictures of 1lb muscle vs 1lb fat!!! They are gross but totally inspiring! I want the muscle!!!!
So my goal this week (besides the obvious) is to try to put together a good weight routine. Maybe get someone at the gym to help me out.
staying on track...20lb to lose
New week. Week #3.
