So, I didn't weigh myself yesterday but this morning I'm up 1lb from Thursday. Kind of frustrating. I guess if I hadn't been weighing myself daily I wouldn't have been any wiser. Guess I need to look at the big picture that in my first week I lost 7.4 lbs.
Definitely staying with the weekly weigh in.
I've been thinking about this after reading Laura's post...
My first start with Medifast from Sept - Thanksgiving I was weighing daily and I think it really sabotaged the process for me. I was all over the place if I checked my weight too often, but when I settled into weekly I was always down from the week before. Sometimes the number was 1 pound and sometimes it was 5.
Sounds weird to say but I believe scales can really be a negative with weight loss. The scale is just one measurement of how we are doing. I started paying attention to how thin my face was looking, how much better I felt, how much more I was in control of what I was eating, etc. For me these became my primary measurements because the scale wasn't going to always define how I was doing.
I have a pair of my "skinny" jeans hanging on my bathroom wall. They are not "art" but a reminder of where I am heading. Every week I take those jean down and try them on. The first several weeks I couldn't get them past my thighs but as the weeks have gone on I've been able to inch them up my body and closer to my waist. My thighs now finally fit, my hips are snug, but not nearly as tight as they were a few weeks ago.
So, I say all of this to encourage you to find another measurement besides the scale to take with you on this journey. It will be a good distraction from the number on the scale.
Laura~ Yes, the big picture is key! 7.4 pounds is fantastic! Remember you were worried about losing too much weight too fast???
Your WEEKLY losses may be small or huge - even though you stay on plan. But, think about all the good habits you are putting into place: eating dinners out wisely, handling sleep deprivation without succumbing to mindless eating, and all the little things you are subconsciously doing.
Your clothes are probably not going to feel more loose until about 20 pounds. Heck I didn't even really notice a difference physically until then.
Just keep on doing Medifast as written and then one day soon, out of the blue, the magic happens! You see the physical difference!
Mental preparation is the foundation you are forming right now. One change leads to another.
Stick with us...we know how you feel. Karen explained it perfectly!
Last edited by MorningGlory1950; 01-21-2017 at 03:52 PM.
I weighed in today. Another .5 pound down! I am following the trend: 3 so-so weigh ins, then 2 whooshes!! So this is the second so-so week.
I am not disturbed at all now with this loss. In the past I was a bit bummed out. But now I know how my body works. So I am peace. I am happy that scale is going down. Goal weight will happen when it happens!!! (As long as I do my part!)
Hang in there, everyone!!! Celebrate the losses, whatever they may be!
Last edited by MorningGlory1950; 01-21-2017 at 01:00 PM.
Just wanted to let you all know that I definitely turned a corner today. My 3 day headache is gone, Im not as hungry, and I had enough energy to clean my whole house. GIven how Ive felt all week this is HUGE!! I even snuck a peek on the scale today and I dropped another 1.5 pounds, which puts me back in the 160's and gave me that boost that I needed.
Im so glad I stuck through the last 3 days, Im telling you it was tough. I kept thinking if I just ate a little bit of carbs or a little extra food I would feel better, but I was able to hold off. I feel like I finally kicked into fat burning mode and am on my way to success. Thank you all for the motivating posts that kept me going the last few days.
As far as the food I must say it is really not bad. There are some things I actually enjoy!! I don't microwave my food, I cook it all on the stovetop in a small saucepan and I feel like that makes it so much better. I also try to pre-soak for at least a few hours. With the Mac and Cheeses and Ziti, this makes a world of difference.
The only things I really hate are the Optavia Green Smoothie and the Chicken and Wild rice soup. Other than that Im pretty happy. I have held off tweaking any of the food yet. Last time I did Medifast I started doing that in weeks 3 and 4 and It definitely slowed my losses, but helped in keeping the food palatable. So I am holding off as long as I can.
I like the discussions about daily weigh ins. I too, was very frustrated last week because I was stuck at 170.4 for like 5 days straight. It was making me second guess if this was working, etc. I am going to take the advice and go to once a week as well, so no weigh in until Thursday.
I weighed in today. Another .5 pound down! I am following the trend: 3 so-so weigh ins, then 2 whooshes!! So this is the second so-so week.
I am not disturbed at all now with this loss. In the past I was a bit bummed out. But now I know how my body works. So I am peace. I am happy that scale is going down. Goal weight will happen when it happens!!! (As long as I do my part!)
Hang in there, everyone!!! Celebrate the losses, whatever they may be!
Joyce-Congrats on another loss! You are doing great and really sticking to it. You will be at your goal weight in no time!!
I've been thinking about this after reading Laura's post...
My first start with Medifast from Sept - Thanksgiving I was weighing daily and I think it really sabotaged the process for me. I was all over the place if I checked my weight too often, but when I settled into weekly I was always down from the week before. Sometimes the number was 1 pound and sometimes it was 5.
Sounds weird to say but I believe scales can really be a negative with weight loss. The scale is just one measurement of how we are doing. I started paying attention to how thin my face was looking, how much better I felt, how much more I was in control of what I was eating, etc. For me these became my primary measurements because the scale wasn't going to always define how I was doing.
I have a pair of my "skinny" jeans hanging on my bathroom wall. They are not "art" but a reminder of where I am heading. Every week I take those jean down and try them on. The first several weeks I couldn't get them past my thighs but as the weeks have gone on I've been able to inch them up my body and closer to my waist. My thighs now finally fit, my hips are snug, but not nearly as tight as they were a few weeks ago.
So, I say all of this to encourage you to find another measurement besides the scale to take with you on this journey. It will be a good distraction from the number on the scale.
Karen
Great Post Karen-thank you. I have to remember that I did not put this weight on overnight and it wont come off overnight either. Slow and steady wins the race. Weighing myself every day was mental sabotage.
Last edited by yumyumgirl; 01-21-2017 at 02:15 PM.
Just wanted to let you all know that I definitely turned a corner today. My 3 day headache is gone, Im not as hungry, and I had enough energy to clean my whole house. GIven how Ive felt all week this is HUGE!! I even snuck a peek on the scale today and I dropped another 1.5 pounds, which puts me back in the 160's and gave me that boost that I needed.
Im so glad I stuck through the last 3 days, Im telling you it was tough. I kept thinking if I just ate a little bit of carbs or a little extra food I would feel better, but I was able to hold off. I feel like I finally kicked into fat burning mode and am on my way to success. Thank you all for the motivating posts that kept me going the last few days.
As far as the food I must say it is really not bad. There are some things I actually enjoy!! I don't microwave my food, I cook it all on the stovetop in a small saucepan and I feel like that makes it so much better. I also try to pre-soak for at least a few hours. With the Mac and Cheeses and Ziti, this makes a world of difference.
The only things I really hate are the Optavia Green Smoothie and the Chicken and Wild rice soup. Other than that Im pretty happy. I have held off tweaking any of the food yet. Last time I did Medifast I started doing that in weeks 3 and 4 and It definitely slowed my losses, but helped in keeping the food palatable. So I am holding off as long as I can.
I like the discussions about daily weigh ins. I too, was very frustrated last week because I was stuck at 170.4 for like 5 days straight. It was making me second guess if this was working, etc. I am going to take the advice and go to once a week as well, so no weigh in until Thursday.
Hope you all are having a nice weekend so far.
Best,
Carmen
Oh, Carmen, I am thrilled for the breakthrough! You sound so much better...I am so glad you "stuck it out" and now the payback is in energy and weight loss!
You are a role model for perseverance and persistence!
You really made my day. I thank you for letting us know how you really felt when the whole Medifast detox was getting you down to the exuberance of a Medifast program that works!
Congratulations! You are truly on your way to goal and beyond!
I weighed in today. Another .5 pound down! I am following the trend: 3 so-so weigh ins, then 2 whooshes!! So this is the second so-so week.
I am not disturbed at all now with this loss. In the past I was a bit bummed out. But now I know how my body works. So I am peace. I am happy that scale is going down. Goal weight will happen when it happens!!! (As long as I do my part!)
Hang in there, everyone!!! Celebrate the losses, whatever they may be!
Joyce ~
Cheering you on. I so admire your attitude. You have such a positive outlook on all of this! Your acceptance of where you are and what the scale reads is a good reminder to us all that we must celebrate our losses (big and small) because when you add them all up they become quite a BIG number.
Super happy for your loss and most grateful for the way you look at things!
hi all, I am back. I'm so glad to see you all have been doing so well, and so mad at myself for messing up. I had lost 5 pounds in 10 days, then for a few days no losses and I started eating carby foods and regained 4 of the 5 pounds I'd lost. I am really very upset at myself, but also sat down to figure out what happened. When I did Medifast before, it was pretty easy to stick with and I lost weight every week. This time around, what is different? Well, my doctor told me to avoid the hair loss and slowed metabolism he wanted me eating 1200 calories a day, so that meant a 5&1 plan PLUS an extra 3-400 calories of fat and protein. Apparently that just does not work well for me. All those extra choices with very few limits made me crave more and more, and justify eating "lower carb" things even though I knew they were going to throw me out of ketosis. I just kept craving so many things.
I have decided that while yes, it might be better for me to eat a bit more calories, that is not going to do me any good if I don't lose any weight. I NEED to lose weight for my health. I am over 250 pounds and the very most important thing right now is to get the excess weight off. And, I think to do that I need to stick to the original 5&1 plan. I decided to allow myself 2 extra FAT servings per day as my way of conceding to what the doctor would like. That is a narrow allowance and should not set me up for craving things like scrambled eggs or deli meat outside of my Lean and Green.
So I am back and this is my day 1 with new, tighter parameters. I hope this works.
Breakfast was a lemon bar.
Lunch was a Wonderslim pasta packet which is basically the same as the MF mac and cheese packet.
I had a cup of coffee with 1 Tbsp half and half.
Mid day will be a packet of pretzels.
Dinner will be a taco salad with lettuce, salsa, lean ground beef, and mushrooms.
Evening meal will probably be a pudding.
Actually that is only 4 MF meals because I missed the mid-morning one, being at church. If I get hungry I will have something liquid like a MF orange drink or MF smoothie (I really dislike the smoothies but they are fuel so I will drink them!)
Steph! Welcome back on the wagon. It sounds like you have a happy medium plan in place. Keep us updated!
For me the weekend was a challenge because of complex family news that almost derailed me, but with the support of my husband, I came through the other side more committed than ever.
Over the last two nights, I have slept deeper than I have in a very long time. I'm hoping my snoring subsides soon so my husband can experience the same. We noticed that when my weight hits a certain level, I snore worse, so transversely, I hope as I lose weight it will go away all together.
Clothes are slightly looser and my husband says he can see a tiny loss in my face. Despite the temptation I did not step on the scale this morning. My TOM is imminent, so I really don't want to face that roller coaster of water retention. Saturday is the official day and it will stay that way.
Looking back on posts, I wanted to say, Carmen, glad to hear you've turned a corner! Nothing is more dissuading than feeling poorly. I too have been cleaning my house lately. For me it's almost been obsessive but I see it as cathartic. I rearranged my utensils drawer as it was a crowded mess and the drawer was difficult to close. It was almost symbolic of my life before starting this journey.
One of my self-therapy exercises (apart from planning my meals ridiculously far ahead of time) is to put together my goal weight wardrobe. I spent time scouring my favorite clothing manufacturers websites and copied the images onto a page. On another page I pasted the hyperlink for each piece and noted the cost. I plan on squirreling a little money away intermittently over the next few months to go towards buying it when I hit my goal size. The clothes are primarily work clothes as I intend to be more spontaneous with my fun clothes.
Perhaps my milestone rewards (i.e. 5 or 10lbs loss increments) will be to put away some money in a savings account. I know it doesn't sound like an instant gratification prize, but maybe I need a little less instant gratification in my life.
Hope everyone has a great day!!
Cheers,
Laura
Last edited by LauraRVA42011; 01-23-2017 at 08:57 AM.
Today is a good day. I lost 3 more pounds for a total of 50 pounds since I began Medifast in September 2016. I am SO happy! I still have a ways to go but I can see it actually being achievable now....50 pounds ago it was merely a dream in my head and A LOT of hard work ahead. I added in exercising this week which I took slowly each day and will increase a bit more this week. My goal is to walk 30 minutes each day. Exercise makes me feel so much better.
Laura ~ You are doing great! You've really wrapped yourself mentally around this and are putting some great attainable goals out there for you to reach. One thing I did early on was get rid of clothes that were too big as I've lost weight. In the past I'd always keep them but I realized I needed to have faith that I would never be in them again. It was as if I was sabotaging my own good efforts by keeping them on a hanger in my closet. Kudos to you for tackling your closet and cleaning/straightening areas up in your house that you felt needed better order. It is a good thing mentally to keep yourself busy and your house tidy, especially during dieting.
Steph ~ So proud of you that you didn't throw it all in and stop when you were doing the up and down scale dance. I'm a believer in sticking with something and staying the course. Drink as much water as you can as our bodies respond better to weight loss when we are hydrated. Water also helps keep us full.
Hang in there. The first two weeks can be the most difficult until your body AND your mind adjust to your plan.
I hope everyone else had a great weekend and is doing well.
Laura, it sounds like you are doing great! I snore too, and when I lost weight before it stopped so I think it does correlate with weight and you will see improvements as the scale goes down. I love how you are working on less instant gratification. That is something I need to work on, too. I tend to get mad and have a little mental tantrum if I "feel like" having a bar or MF cereal and I am out of them! I was like that last time around on MF. After I get my feet solidly under me with staying on plan, I may try your meal planning technique. I have about 80% liquid MF meals so I need to be drinking them more than I am. I inventoried yesterday and found I have something like 6 boxes of triple berry smoothies, 2 boxes of pineapple smoothies, and 3 of orange drink. Those are NOT favorites of mine! I also have about 5 boxes of hot cocoa and 1 of Chai and two of chocolate shakes. So I am going to have to discipline myself to drink liquid meals 3 or 4 times a day, SOON, or I will be running out of my small stash of solids (a few packets of pancakes, a few pretzels, a few cereal, a few pasta, and maybe 2 or 3 boxes of bars). This is what happens when you buy someone else's dregs, lol. But I am grateful I got them cheap.
Karen, congratulations on 50 pounds! That is a huge milestone and you should be so proud. Also thank you for the encouragement. I am so glad I am sticking with it now. No more excuses.
After yesterday 100% on plan I am back down a pound and a half! Yay, that makes me so happy! I am trying to decide if weighing every day is a good thing or maybe once a week would be better. I have to say last night's taco salad was soooooo good. It was very simple, just iceburg lettuce, seasoned lean ground beef, salsa, and my fat servings of sour cream and a little grated cheese. It tasted like a gourmet meal. That's one of the great things about this plan. You quickly learn to appreciate healthy, simple food!
I will be posting again later today because this board is my accountability place. No one in my real life is supportive except one friend of mine who is doing this with me (5&1) and she is using the Wonderslim products. We can talk about it together and she is mostly using shakes so can encourage me in my liquid meal woes until I grow up and get over it, lol. (I am an adult with adult children but boy can I be a whiner about food. I aim to change that!)
Karen! You give me hope!! Keep checking in so newbies like me continue to get the reinforcement that it works. I did throw away most of my old clothes as they got too loose except for ones that had a sentimental value. Unfortunately, I did turn to them when I started to gain and bought a lot of inexpensive clothes over the last 5 years which did not dissuade me from gaining more and more. I made sure that I have not spent a lot on clothes in the past few years because I was confident that they would be tossed once I lost. I can't wait for those days!! I kept all my thin clothes from last time and am so looking forward to getting in them again!!!
Steph, I had a "I want this instead of this now" moment last week and because I had plotted my meals out, I was able to remind myself that there was a system in place that I needed to respect. I grant you there are some days where I look at the meal and think, "I want x instead" but I don't, I stay with my plan because I need to teach myself to look at this as fuel first and not something to satisfy an impulse.
Wow, wow, wow! Everyone is doing so well and sticking by their guns in the quest to lose weight. Everyone should be sooo proud! Karen - 50lbs is so impressive. You're such an inspiration. Congratulations. I know you'll meet that goal in no time. What a great attitude you have.
Carmen - You really stuck it out during the toughest of times especially since it seemed to last forever for you. I'm so happy you turned the corner and feel encouraged! You should. Its a real accomplishment.
Joyce - You amaze me because 1/2 lb with a winning attitude. It would be easy to say, I'm close enough and just maintain but you don't do that. You move forward know you are moving toward your ultimate goal. Your 1/2 pound is more than 8 ounces, its a true example of being committed!
Laura - Yay! Sleep is everything! It can make such a change in your attitude toward life and weight loss. Now that you feel your clothes being a tiny bit looser, you are on the road to all those happy small victories that give that feeling of satisfaction. I'm sorry to hear the weekend held some distressing news but what a gift to have a wonderful partner who helps you stay on track. He's a keeper!
Steph - So happy to see you back and committed with a new sense of determination. Take it day by day. I know you can do it. I'm glad to hear you have a new plan that is a compromise between what you know works and what your doctor thinks would be ideal. Dr.'s know what is best generally speaking but only you know your own body and how it works intimately. I'm sure the weight will be falling off sooner than later in no time. Keep us updated because we all know you can succeed!
As for my weekend, it was very relaxing and yes, I continue my obsession with checking my weight daily to small but pleasant results. Sunday I met a friend for lunch. This was my first dining out experience since beginning. When I looked at the limited brunch menu, there was nothing I could eat! Or so I thought. I admit, I did falter somewhat and then felt guilty all day. I ordered a brisket sandwich and only ate the meat and the smallest bit of cheese from 1/2 of the sandwich (no bread). I brought the rest home and my husband ate the other half of the meat and we threw the delicious smelling bread away! Instead of french fries I took the alternative which was roasted brussel sprouts with crumbled bacon. I knew this wasn't exactly on track as a green vegi but wow, was it fantastic! Now for real falter. I had a cocktail, a Bourbon blueberry smash! It was about 4 ounces total and tasted out of this world.
I came home and walked on the treadmill and ate just enough to keep my metabolism moving the rest of the day (1/2 bar each of 2 times). The funny thing was, I was just stuffed the entire rest of the day and had to force myself to eat that. I drank tons of water and was a little afraid to weigh myself this morning. I did though because I worry that once I stop, I won't start again. I'd lost .2 lbs even with my stumble. I found myself being very conscious of what I was doing and eating and what it would take to compensate. Maybe it was an experiment in transition.
I still have a ways to go but I can see it actually being achievable now....50 pounds ago it was merely a dream in my head and A LOT of hard work ahead. I added in exercising this week which I took slowly each day and will increase a bit more this week. My goal is to walk 30 minutes each day. Exercise makes me feel so much better.
Karen! You give me hope!! Keep checking in so newbies like me continue to get the reinforcement that it works. I did throw away most of my old clothes as they got too loose except for ones that had a sentimental value. Unfortunately, I did turn to them when I started to gain and bought a lot of inexpensive clothes over the last 5 years which did not dissuade me from gaining more and more. I made sure that I have not spent a lot on clothes in the past few years because I was confident that they would be tossed once I lost. I can't wait for those days!! I kept all my thin clothes from last time and am so looking forward to getting in them again!!!
