Hi ladies - I've been MIA for most of this last week due to working long hours. Aside from Friday, I've been OP and feel pretty good! The scale isn't moving as quickly as I would like, but I did register a loss on Friday. I think it was right at 3 lbs.
I'm in for a Christmas challenge. Martini's idea was very cute. A long-term challenge would help me avoid temptations prior to the holidays (ie: baking/eating cookies!!).
LOL @ "If it's not one thing, it's your mother." Oh I will need to remember that one always. Love, Love, Love It!!!
Stay strong people. I don't know how you guys do the juicing thing. I like to EAT my food. If I'm drinking it I am hungry an hour later because I didn't get that chew satisfaction.
I started reading Life is Hard, Food is Easy by Spangle. I'm about 1/4 of the way into it but so far it all makes perfect sense. The reasons she points out as heart hunger could have been written about me.
My goals for this week are 3 meals a day and one snack. That has been landing me around 1900 calories. That gives me about a 500 calorie deficit without factoring any movement at all. And while the scale was being so nice for the first three weeks of August it hasn't been nearly as kind for this last week. But I do have positive news to report. I have taken my vitamins every day for 12 days now.
I hope everyone has made it through Irene with minimal damages.
wyllowbelle - I'm so glad you rediscovered your center. I also really like that empowered/whiny distinction. I had never known what the opposite of whiny is, but you're right. It's empowered. Three cheers for remembering the amazing strength we do have!
georgia - Interesting that you mention the whole people who need you to remain unhealthy thing. Over the past year I've purged my orbit of people like that. In some cases I cut off contact completely. In other cases I've limited contact to a phone call or two a year. As painful as it was to let go of the dream of who I had wanted these people to be for me, doing so transformed my life and opened up the door to losing weight.
pgh, zinke, lovely, mrstee -
I'm in the middle of a few days of birthday celebrations. Yesterday I kept a good eye on my breakfast and lunch calories, but not dinner and ended up going over by somewhere between 300 and 600 calories (my daily total was roughly 1800-2100). Today I will probably do the same. Birthdays are hard - I want to enjoy and I am, but part of me is also wondering "if I loosen up for two days, can I pull it back in?"
As I was writing this post I thought to myself that I needed to record the things I ate last night... not to magically reduce the number of calories I ate, but to make sure my interpretation of reality lined up with, you know, reality. If I don't write it down I can minimize or blow up how well I'm doing. When I write it down it just becomes a number and that's something I can deal with.
I'm still full from last night's dinner and that's something I haven't felt for a while. I ate based on what I remember used to make me full and not what makes me full today. It's a head trip to make that distinction.
What a lovely weekend, sunny and spring like! Makes me feel more active - less like a bear in hibernation.
I love your idea Martini! Let's do that!!!
So 1st goal 25th September ( he's making a list) - good time for me my MIL is coming over from Syndey maybe SHE will notice I've lost weight....*sigh*
Ok I would like to lose 4 kilos by then!
Wyllow - sounds like you have a whole lot of sour grapes going on at your place - bit of the old jealousy raising its head that you are making such positive changes in your life? Keep on track- this is for you and no one else.
Martini - I am a bit like you in that I wonder if I go a little bit wayward - would it be the start of an avalanche of poor choices? So far no - two or three little flutters off plan but no nasty oh well why bother feelings - but I still don't feel in control of that part of m "diet" just yet....
Hi everyone else - and Hi Lynn - wow 73 lbs now - what a terrific acheivement! See you soon as a regular here!!
PS I'm doing fine, not much to report - plan is ticking along for the moment.
But I'm happy to have a challenge to work in - keep the momentum driving along!
Kiki - Ugh. Some days are just frustrating beyond belief. It sounds like your mother is looking for something... anything... to complain about... "there's too much fruit, there's not enough fruit, where's all my food". Yeah. Just complaining with nothing really behind it. Fruit juices are not just as bad as candy, and I'm a person who is also tired of hearing that. It may not contain the fiber from the fruit (which is why I just enjoy fruit itself), but it still has vitamins and minerals that are plenty darn good for us. A candy bar is sugar, sugar... and more sugar. Not. The. Same. Thing. I'm glad you ended up going for a walk! I never would've thought it, but exercise really helps put a positive spin on things.
Georgia - Good luck with the juicing!!! You are so right. The second a person even half mentions "I feel like eating healthier" it's as though people come out of the walls to say "That's not healthy."
PGH - Grats on staying on plan and seeing that loss on the scale!
Zinke - Nice work on the vitamins and the food plans!
Martini - I'm with you on recording food intake. It's a number. It's reality. And it makes it easier to deal with. For me, it also means I don't lie to myself about 'having blown it' or 'it wasn't that bad'.
Irene has passed. We were without power for a good 10 hours or so today. So we just kept he curtains open, and I wasn't able to take my walk... but I did a long session of relaxing yoga. It felt really good.
I'm bubbling with pride over how well last week went, and I'm thrilled about continuing this. I wasn't living to eat, as the saying goes. Now that things are back to normal, I'm going to pick up where I paused with the Beck book and continue forward.
Agreed - why is it SO many people just l-o-v-e to throw negativity at your efforts to be healthier!!! I still think its mostly jealousy. That YOU are doing something positive in your life and they are not. Easiest way to deal with that is to bring YOU down a notch.
Same sort of gene that will eventually end up in " oh you are too thin now"- we hope!!!!
1st goal of September 25th... I have a baby shower on the 17th that I am making the cake. My twins turn 7 on the 24th so between the school cupcakes on the 23rd, a cake for their birthday party on the 24th, and another cake on the 25th for the family party I have a lot of frosting to NOT eat. I'll need 30 cupcakes for school. I'm not sure how many friends I'm letting them invite over but I think that is going to be a very small cake. Maybe just a 9x9 or something. Then another one that size for the family thing. I'm still struggling to get out of the 280's. I've been here for about 10 days or so. My goal will be my first 5% of 278.1lb.
I read something interesting in the Life is Hard, Food is Easy book last night. It had to do with when we slip up or fall off the wagon and then let things start to slide. She suggests looking at it as if you are parking a car and bump a pole. You don't get upset and repeatedly ram your car over and over eventually totaling it. You assess the damage and fix it. Maybe cut back on calories at the next meal a little or get a little extra exercise.
She also talked about the Head Hunger often making us crave crunchy or chewy foods because there is something in our life we want to chew on. Frustrating spouses, children, parents or work perhaps. We need to deal with the emotions and problems and not try to eat them.
I've been busy for the last three hours tearing out shrubbery around our porch. It is a rental house and we did get permission before we started but I sure hope the landlord doesn't drive by any time soon. It looks pretty bare out there right now. I know next spring as it fills out it will look better than ever though. It has been neglected for a long time and it showed.
Off to find a small snack of raw veggies I think. I had an enormous breakfast but there is no way I'll last until dinner.
@Zink - I think I'm going to put the book you're reading on my list to read. The analogy of your car bumping a pole is spot-on.
He's Making a Wish ... Let's see ... MY wish is to be down 10 pounds by then. So that will put me at 254.0 ... that might be pushing it, but I'm willing to give it a "go"!
Gosh, if I hit 254, I'll weigh less than I've weighed in about 3 years. THAT would be a huge milestone.
I was down about 2 pounds this week... even with all the obstacles in my way last week I still pulled off exercise each day and healthy portion sizes.
Which means... *drumroll* I achieved another mini-goal and I'm now 289 pounds. Down a whole "decade", and onto my next mini-goal which is to be 280/279.
Everyone in this group has been making this journey a lot more manageable. I just wanted you all to know that. It feels good to know I'm not alone in this.
My goal for the September 25 he's making a list weight loss extravaganza is... 275.
Lovely - Congratulations on reaching your mini-goal! That is really, really awesome! Woot woot!
After three days of being very lax I am out of excuses and back to being 100% on plan.
I told myself on Sunday that I was going to take a few days off plan to enjoy my birthday and going out with friends. I did that, but it didn't turn out the way I had imagined. On Saturday I was off plan by about 200 calories (1700 calories total for the day). On Sunday I was off plan by about 250 calories (1750 calories total for the day). On Monday I was off plan by about 750 calories (2250 calories total for the day).
Those are a lot of days off plan and, especially yesterday, a lot of calories off plan. I don't think I went off plan enough to actually gain much, if any, weight. What bothered me most, though, was my completely unnecessary focus on the food. I ate considerably more than others in my group when we went out. It's like I force fed myself even when I wasn't hungry because that's what I thought I should do. I don't even know why I thought I should do it.
That whole experience has opened up the possibility that I might just have to be "on plan" for the rest of my life. I'm not thrilled about the thought of counting calories for years, but if that's what it takes for me to be able to relate to food so be it.
Onwards and upwards, ladies! Here's to starting a new day!
It's why i don't count calories too much. I find that if I strictly count calories I become obessive, and start getting silly, like fretting over 10 calories - which in the grand scheme of things is infintesimal...
I stay between 1200 amd 1500 I think, but don't stress over 100 here or 200or even 300 there.
I figure if I eat well, make good health choices (and let's face it most of us know a good healthy choice from a bad one at this stage of our dieting careers) I know I will lose weight.
I stay low GI because it makes sense to me. I have the two books and I followed the plan in 2005 and lost a lot of weight, just didn't commit to a "for ever" idea....
And I also know how much is a sensible serve, I kid myself I don't - but honestly I only have to go out with thin people to see how much they eat...and I don't mean those phony baloney women who do the " oh I've eaten a tenth of a piece of cake and I'm sooooo full".... that's just cr*p.
Maybe some people honestly don't know the mistakes they are making in their daily diet, but I know I know what I should eat, and how much, I've done it before...
But also I know my body is better off because it getting all the water and nutrients it needs and not too much fat, achohol, and other stuff.
I will need to be on this lifestyle for the rest of my life, I know that, so it has to be something I can imagine doing for a l-o-n-g time, and counting every last calorie is not for me...
MrsTee - What kind of plan are you on? I really like your attitude and I really, really like your self-awareness.
After a few weeks keeping track of my food, I no longer underestimate my ability to blow smoke up my own rear end. Writing down what I eat and counting calories keeps me honest.
Before I started counting calories in July, I hadn't the foggiest idea what a serving size looked like. Swear to God. I'd eat 1300 calories for breakfast and 2000 for dinner and be fine with it. I'm sure it registered that it wasn't what everyone else was eating, but I didn't realize how far off the calorie baseline I really was.
There's a lot to that whole long-term lifestyle change part of things. Usually when I hear the term "lifestyle change" I think of svelte 30-something urban sophisticates who want to move from pilates to zumba, but that's my own biases and prejudices talking. For me, right now, lifestyle change is all about figuring out a way of eating I can sustain for the rest of my life.
And as a general announcement to all and sundry - I ordered the Beck Diet book and workbook. They should be in my mailbox in the next two weeks or so. I'm such a slave to the power of suggestion!!
I think my biggest problem in as far as serving sizes go... is that before I began my new lifestyle (that's WeightWatchers, not pilates to zumba! <3 ) I could NEVER imagine being satisfied with a serving.
I'd see that 5 crackers is a serving on a package and I'd laugh and say to myself "Who in the **** is satisfied with eating only 5 crackers?" I'd eat the whole sleeve and still be looking for something to eat.
It's a multilevel problem for me. One level was that I had never mentally wrapped my mind around what a serving was. Another was that when I did see a serving, I automatically thought "I could never just eat that." And a third was that I never ate for true hunger to begin with.
I still struggle with that. I'm very much so trying to be more conscious about actual hunger versus my usual "boredom/lonely bottomless pit".
We're all after the same goal... I would think... and that's not just to take off some weight, but to find the balance to take it off and live comfortably while maintaining. The methods are obviously going to be different for everyone, of course, but the general idea is the same.
While I say, in my case, WW and counting my points and measuring my food diligently etc etc is my way of getting there, I'm not sure that I'll be doing that specifically forever. My life could easily change in such a way that I need to modify my food plans or my exercise plans. Even as I tweak them now or improve upon them week to week.
When I say I can see myself living this way forever, I mean that I'll always be working on this one way or another. If WW gets me down to a certain point, but then I need to change to some other method to take off the rest I'll do that. If it brings me to my goals and then I transition to a different plan to maintain then I'll do that. Whatever keeps me healthfully maintaining the weight I lost and improving my fitness level.
I read the Low GI Revolution about 6 years ago, and thought it made a lot of sense. It's by doctors, and its not a weight loss plan. My husband actually bought it home.
AND everything it said pointed directly at me!!!
I suffered from the afternoon lethergy like you would not belieive, and I never do now...
Copied from the 'net Low GI Meals leave you feeling fuller longer, ease food cravings and provide you with greater and more sustained energy levels. If you’re looking to either lose weight, or maintain your existing weight, a low GI diet lifestyle is the perfect option. Also, if you find yourself lethargic, losing concentration, or experiencing mood swings an hour or so after eating, a change to low GI meals may show immediate benefits.
In term of long terms health, Low GI Diets are important to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes or heart disease. However, if you’ve already been diagnosed with diabetes, low GI diets have been shown to improve both lipid and glucose levels, maintain more stable insulin levels and reduce insulin resistance, which is important in reducing the risk of long term diabetes-related complications.
More and more health benefits associated with choosing a low glycemic index diet are constantly being realised, but the ones we’ve listed are certainly already impressive …
■Control and stabilise your blood sugar levels
■Raise your HDL (“good”) cholesterol
■Lower your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels
■Assist you with weight loss
■Manage symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
■Improve your body’s sensitivity to insulin
■Lower your risk of type 2 diabetes
■Lower your risk of heart disease
■Improve your energy levels and general wellbeing
So, to get started, just do your best to avoid high Glycemic foods as much as possible … and simply choose medium or low GI foods wherever you can! It becomes very easy once your understand the basics, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’ll be forever consulting charts and adding up numbers to succeed. Begin simply, by continuing to learn a little about the glycemic index and you’ll be on your way to a satisfying and tasty low glycemic diet lifestyle.
So I eat the grainyest bread I can find, lots of veggies, fruit, meat and eggs and cheese and skim milk, and I eat three well balanced meals a day, and maybe a snack or two. I very vaguely tally up a calorie count in my head to make sure I don't drift into eating too much by stealth, but mostly I just eat well - for MY HEALTH!!
It's really easy once you get into the swing of it, a true lifestyle my whole family eats, and it does shed the weight....I've proved it before just need to undertand that my old bingeing habit for comfort are something of the past - they will occur but cannot derail me.
for everyone! Keep awesome, ladies 
My goal for the 
) I could NEVER imagine being satisfied with a serving.
