I got rid of 30 lbs. last year and was doing wonderful. I'm a RN and work in ICU so no one needs knows better than me how important it is to get that weight down lol! Anyways, I was working in LA last year since I have been doing travel nursing 6 months of the year to get out of FL during Hurricane Season. I always take my Mom when I go who is in her late 70's and has been doing ok. Well, so I thought because 3 hours after we arrived back in FL, Mom stopped breathing and her heart stopped twice. Both times I resuscitated her successfully waiting for the Paramedics to arrive. The good thing to tell you all is she is still alive and doing reasonably ok. I'm not. Still haven't gotten past the trauma of it all and gained all of the weight back except for 5 lbs. I checked on my bathroom scale this am.
I decided I am going to hang on these Boards and get going on June 1st. I am on a contract with one of the local hospitals and this ends June 1st and then I will be telling the hospitals when I want to work. This will allow me to get serious with exercise, get back eating right and getting into a schedule that won't tire me out.
I was curious how everyone started. Did you make some really serious changes before you started? What were they? I have been physicaly fit in the past and do work 12 hr. shifts so I do have the stamina to move and work out. I have been cleared by my Dr. to work out however I want to. He says go on any safe Plan, get exercising and get this weight down. Mom is not heavy like me. Maybe could lose 30 or 40 lbs.I don't want to get sick later like she has.
Welcome Nurse, I decided to get off my butt and do something about my weight when I started feeling horrible. My feet became so swollen that it hurt to walk, in the morning I would wake up and my stomach would feel like a ball, and I noticed my breathing was labored, my daughter is always making comments that she hates being teased at school because I am fat, and my clothes for the spring summer would not fit, so all these things together got my butt off the bed and moving.
I am a SAHM so it is easy to be sitting down and eating all day, but I have decided to change that. I now have been exercising for about a month and have worked myself up to 55 minutes, I log what I eat on a online food diary and weight myself weekly( the scariest part of them all). There are days I don't want to to exercise, but I start out and say if I can do 5 minutes, then I can do 10 , and I keep on until I am almost done.
Food is kind of easy for me, because I don't eat meat or poultry, but my problem is junk food , fried foods and pizza, I have cut them all out and eat more fruits, veggies and healthy food, so I am doing ok.
I know being a nurse is very hard, when you work 12 hr shifts are they for the 5 days or 3 days? I know some nurses only work 3 days for `12 hours, or 4, maybe you can exercise on your days off?
I just hope you find what works for you , good luck!
cheryl
Stress can really play havoc with our weight loss efforts! I'm glad you decided to join with us in this battle to gain control over our health and our lifestyles. I started out with the Southbeach plan as this plan was recommended to me by the nurses in my doctor's office. I am insulin resistant and this plan works well for me. I also do 60 minutes of intense cardio exercise each day when I'm on plan. (I'm doing a brief maintenance phase now) The most important thing is to just get started....even simple changes like drinking more water, removing added sugar from your diet, eating more vegetables, eating less processed foods or fast foods....these simple changes can add up to big changes in your body and the way you feel. Maybe you can try one change a day.
I am glad to hear that your mom is well. What an incredibly scary experience.
As for starting out, I personally needed to change everything at once. I am an all or nothing person. It's not for everyone, but it is what keeps ME in check. At least in the beginning. I really needed to set some strict rules for myself. I had to completely elminate all the foods that I overate. I knew one day I could bring them back in small portions, but for the early going - it was basically cold turkey. I didn't have the discipline to eat the foods that I loved in small amounts, so I thought it was better I do without them. So I got rid of all the bad carbs - rice, pasta, bread, cookies, cakes - you name it. Within a matter of weeks, oddly enough when I got rid of my so called trigger foods I no longer craved them! What I did was ADD in lucious healthy foods. I eat tons of veggies and low fat proteins. I LOVE the way that I eat now. I also added in exercise s-l-o-w-l-y and increased as I went along. I am now up to exercising in some capacity 7 days a week.
You need to experiment and find out what works for yourself. Try and look at your weaknesses and see what you can do to combat them. Good luck to you. Looking forward to getting to know you better.
I psych in and out, actually. I can feel myself "revving up" for another go, when I start posting on the boards again, pulling out the old diet books (re-reading Thin for Life every year or so is always inspiring), and taking new books out of the library.
The one that's made the most impact this time is one that hit home so strongly when I borrowed it that I went out and bought a copy for myself. The Four Day Win isn't a diet -- 80 percent of it deals not with the "action" phase of change, but the "pre-contemplation", "contemplation", information gathering" etc. It is the mind-body work that can accompany any "action" phase diet (the ones that tell you what to eat and not to eat, and how to exercise).
I used to think, like the lady in the book, "Oh, come on! Contemplation? I've been CONTEMPLATING weight loss since Reagan was in office!" But the book pointed out that many of us are stuck in the contemplation part of change, and even though we venture out into "action", if we still have some "work to do" in the contemplation stage, we may easily end up falling back into old habits when stressors mount -- job, family, life.
Like I said, it really hit home with me. By working through some of the exercises in this book, I've really gotten to a mental place where the action steps I'm taking are very easy (eat more veggies, move each day, eat only until I'm "satisfied"). I don't feel deprived, or like binging. There's a great couple chapters on "famine brain" and how we react when the primal part of us thinks we're starving or that there won't be food around. It was eye-opening, to say the least. I saw myself over and over in the book.
Anyway, that's what I've been doing to psych myself up. Working through The Four Day Win exercises and gathering information for the action phase of change.
As for starting out it was Thanksgiving 2006, I was going to cook a big meal for me and my son, I called my son after looking in the mirror and told him NO thanksgiving This year, I am to fat!..so we spent the day together and had nothing to eat.....that started my weight loss journay!
Hi and welcome. Glad to hear your Mom is doing okay.
What I did to prepare for my journey (I too set a start date of May 1), was to start just logging what I ate into my fitday log. It didn't matter if I had to see 4000 calories a day as long as I logged everything I ate. Then I wrote out a couple days of meals and went from there. Each night or first thing in the morning I write out my menu for the day. Then I log what I eat into fitday. If I'm not near the computer, my eats are written into my notebook I keep with me at all times.
You have to find what works for you. If you try something and it doesn't work, don't give up. Just try something else. Do you need structure? There are several programs out there you can join to help you with that. Do you like to do your own thing? Try to watch how many calories you eat and adjust as needed. Get in some exercise. If you're not sure what to do, start walking. Many also do some weight training.
Getting Psyched up...
Nursechef! I am so glad your Mom is doing well. 
