It was raining today, so instead of the pool I rode the recumbent bicycle for 3 miles. I tried to do "sort-of" HIIT where I rode normally for 3 minutes, then went all out for one minute, then normally for 3, etc. The last time I did this, my hip hurt the next day (I actually think it's my tight piriformis), so I stood on the vibration platform for awhile in the hopes it would "jiggle out" the problem, haha. My chiropractor likes the vibration platform, it reminds me of I Love Lucy with women trying to lose weight with the vibrating belt machines. Anyway, I did it. My weight seemed to be down a pound (yay!), although I have one of those bad scales that aren't very accurate. It looked lower to me, though. My eating so far is on plan.

Today, Independence Day, Americans commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 when the Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject to Britain and were now united, free, and independent states. Sometimes in life you just have to step up and take a stand, drawing on internal reserves that we all have, we just have to figure out how to tap into them.

So, today I did my hour session with my trainer, which went pretty well. I've been doing this twice a week, and trying to do fasted cardio another time or two in between. I logged my food this morning, and was spot on with what I ate, so feel pretty good about that. I ate dinner really early, about 5 pm, and plan to fast through to noon tomorrow or 19 hours.

So, I think I'm down to 243 - have one of those old-fashioned wonky scales that can be off by a pound or two, but it's definitely on the low side of 245. I am very excited to get to 239. I was 239 at my last high school reunion, and I have another one coming up, so at least I won't be fatter than I was 10 years ago! I did pretty good today, stayed within my calorie budget. I went out to dinner and brought half of my meal home, so that was good. I did have one dinner roll (I'm trying to avoid gluten grains - really all grains) with butter and two Michelob Ultras - but I still stayed within my calories so it was okay. I did fasted water exercise this morning for an hour and put off eating until noon, so overall a good day.


I'd love for someone else to weight in on this thread. I feel very alone.

This was an unusual day for eating. One of the things I am doing is what they call a 16/8 day - 16 hours of not eating, and eating within an 8 hour window. I actually try to make it less than 8 hours. So, for me, this normally works out with breaking fast at noon, and finishing dinner by 6:45 pm (do not ask me why 6:45, I just like the sound of it). However, if I'm really hungry, I don't make a big deal out of having a longer eating window. Interestingly, I very rarely eat outside the 8 hour window.

But today I was quite hungry at 9:30, so I told myself I could eat if I was still hungry at 10. I was, so ended up eating a salad and leftovers from my last night's dinner out. Lunch for breakfast I guess. I also had a snack around lunchtime. Then I had a dinner out in the evening, and did very well. No bread, no alcohol, and chose a clear fish soup kind of thing that cost $36. It was one of those fine dining restaurants where the portions were small, so even though I started eating early in the day, I came in under my calorie budget (but well over my money budget haha).

Hi ChickieBoom! Welcome to the thread! I'm so glad to have you here. I usually post at night to re-cap my day, but I just thought I'd say "welcome". CJ

CJ...hello and thanks for the welcome!!!
I was so excited to be in this group that I posted without taking a minute to read your previous posts...sorry about that!
I can't imagine how exciting it is to have accomplished so much before your next high school reunion. Congratulations! I know that I always get anxious when I know I'm going to see people that I haven't seen in a long time. My short term goal is to get to 235 by the end of August. I don't know if that is overly ambitious but I'm going to Orlando with my family and I'd love to fit on the rollercoasters. I went to Tampa a couple of years ago and was too afraid to be turned away so I just waited for everyone else. Not fun.

I'm so jealous that you have a trainer! That will be my first gift to myself once I start working again (very soon hopefully). I've been going to the gym and to spin class twice a week but I feel somewhat lost in the weight room. I don't have a great plan and find myself doing random workouts that probably aren't as effective as they could be BUT I'm fortunate to have access to an awesome gym so I'm not complaining.

I hope that you get to your next goal but I'm so happy to have a buddy here for now.

Hi ChickieBoom, it's nice to have a buddy on the thread! It's great you do spinning etc., and have a gym to go to. I wouldn't know what to do with the weights if it weren't for my trainer, I'm like an robot - do this at that weight, keep your arms down, hold in your core, only 3 more !!!

I think I somehow threw my lower back out today, my lower back and hips are kind of wonky anyhow. This is actually sort of funny, but I think I sustained this injury as I was thinking about how I was going to describe my hip/back issues when I get to physical therapy next week for the first time. I was lying on the bed, moving my legs different ways that hurt so I could be ready to show the physical therapist, haha. I am possibly the only person on earth who has injured themselves preparing for physical therapy.

Anyway, it's not the end of the world (as my mom used to say). I'm just trying to decide whether to go to my training session tomorrow, I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning. I hate to miss it, but I don't want to make myself worse.

Yesterday, I ate slightly more than budgeted, but I ate healthy food, and I sometimes think it's good to have an "up" day just to shake things up. Today, I was back on my current plan, which I've sort of cobbled together. I do three main things: 1) maximum 8 hours food window per day (so I fast 16+ hours), ending eating by 6:45. 2) Keep calories below 1547. 3) Keep net carbs below 100. I am losing slowly on this plan, so hope I keep ticking down. Well, I am doing the exercise thing too, but I don't think of that as weight loss but more of keeping everything lubricated and moving?

I'm happy to report that my back felt much better today, and I went to my personal training session, and had no problems. I also had a massage by the massage therapist with "hands of steel." She sounded like she knew what she was talking about and she sure found some painful knots in my legs which hurt like heck. She said she could tell the difference "by feel" in my leg that had the sciatica and the one that didn't. It definitely wasn't one of those "feel good" massages, and I didn't want it to be. I am hoping it helps my back and hips and, if so, I will go back. I think I will have to wait a few days to figure out for sure.

The only time I eat early in the day is on training days, I need the glucose in my system to get the good weight lifting effort I guess. Because I normally don't eat until afternoon, I usually end up eating more on training days. I'm also usually hungry after my session. So, I actually ate quite a bit early in the day, and only had 300 calories left for dinner. I was stressing a bit about that, but then I got busy on the computer booking a trip, and the time flew by and now it's past my eating "window", and I'm really not hungry. So, I'll just wait until tomorrow to eat, yay!

On an entirely other matter - I'm old enough to remember when travel agents made all your travel arrangements. Now you have to be your own travel agent. I'm pretty good at it, but it sure is time consuming. I am going back to my home state for a high school reunion. We are going to stay a few weeks and travel around a 3 state area, so I'm renting a car and want to drop it in a different city than where I'm picking it up. I did not realize it, but rental companies don't charge a flat "drop charge" anymore, they wrap additional fees into the rental days. So I actually ended up flying my husband and me into a town an hour away from where I'm actually going (just over the state line) because the rental car rate was literally half of what it would have been because of the drop fees. So I ended up saving $300+ by driving an hour.

Hi ChickieBoom - love your screen name!


I think my main problem is I just like to eat a lot of food. Limiting the time in which I can eat food has helped me a lot. Luckily, I actually like good food like vegetables and fish and meats. I've steered away from fruits because they are pretty sugary, and that can set off a binge for me (although I do eat a small apple most every day).


I also eat "sort of" low carb, I try to stay less than about 80 net grams a day, but sometimes I go over. I'm nowhere near ketosis. I can do true low carb and have successfully in the past, but thought I'd try something a little less restrictive. So far it's working, but I think you have to change things up now and again. The intermittent fasting has been great for me, particularly since one of my rules is I don't eat past 6:45 pm. I thought that would be hard, but it's really not, so it's helped me eat fewer calories because of my self-imposed time constraints. I also try to stay below 1533 calories. (That's the number MyNetDiary where I track my food came up with to lose 2 lbs a week after I plugged in my stats.) I'm not sure I'm actually losing 2 lbs per week, but I'm definitely going down.


Today for exercise, I went to the pool and did water exercises in the pool. Probably do the same thing tomorrow, or maybe go to the gym and ride the recumbent bike in a fasted state. I have read that doing aerobic exercise fasted really accelerates fat loss.


Good luck with that job interview! What type of job is it? Hope you get it and they pay you a lot of money!

I did go to the gym today, rode the recumbent bicycle doing HIIT - 3 minutes of regular pedaling, followed by 1 minute of a mad dash - rinse and repeat. I did this in a fasted state, which I have read is good for fat loss, so I'm hoping that's true.

As for eating, my eating window was from noon to 6 pm. I just kept eating stuff, and I could have eaten even more. I ate a ton of roasted vegetables, 4 cheese sticks, 2 apples, some scrambled eggs, some egg salad, an actual green salad. I tracked it all in the calorie tracker, and I forced myself to stop eating when I got to my plan maximum, but it was tough. I think all those veggie carbs made me extra hungry.

I was interviewing for a paralegal job and it went ok. I didn’t feel great about it but I’m also really hard on myself so it’s hard to gauge. Fingers crossed.

I love to eat too. I’m a terrible with bingeing. The low carb helps but I do find myself eating much too late at night. I might switch it up after a few months just to keep from getting too bored. I also think it’s probably a good idea to keep my body from getting too comfortable.

I’ve been taking digestive enzymes also in the hope of reducing bloating but I can’t tell if it’s working. I’m still bloated most of the time. Oh well.

I think after writing this I'm going to go lie down and listen to some meditations. I do not normally meditate, but there is a guy named Scott Gaul that has a You Tube channel called Quiet Mind Cafe. He has a meditation called "Simple Relaxation" which helped me through some tough times a few years ago. I was reading an article today that said meditation is really good for our health, so I'm going to check out if he has any more meditations that speak to me. Also, I don't want to eat any more tonight, so this will take up some time, haha. I am at 1200 calories now for today, low for me, but tomorrow is my weigh-in day on one of the challenge threads. I'm hoping to go down enough to be at 141. I did water exercise today also, so I'm hoping it helped a little bit.

To keep myself busy, after the meditating, I'm going to sort through photos and delete a bunch off my laptop, which is chock full. (I already have them backed up.) Then, I'm going to download a couple of books from our local library onto my Kindle. Of course, I have to look up the reviews on them, I want to make sure they are "good". Then, I'd like to find a new TV series to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime. By then it will probably be bed time. My husband is out of town, so we'll talk on the phone before bed. I don't talk to him about losing weight. His weight never fluctuates and he eats constantly. However, he doesn't really notice my weight either, for which I am profoundly grateful. About 12 years ago, I lost 85 pounds, and honestly he never noticed. He thought I lost maybe 10 pounds because everyone was commenting on it. I then gained back 45, and he never noticed. Even though I gained back 45 pounds, I am happy that I have kept that 40 pounds off for many years, it gives me hope that I'll be able to go down lower and actually keep it off.

I have to say I am supremely disappointed at how this site has gone downhill. There are so few people posting. They have a post on the main page that says "1405 Users Online Right Now" but it never changes so obviously it is not true. I wish I could find another site like the "old" 3FC which was vibrant and active and you could always find nuggets of wisdom among the posts.

ChickieBoom - I hope you get that job if you want it! I think being a paralegal would be exciting. By the way, people who are hard on themselves like you usually do the best work. Best of luck!

Twice a week I work with a trainer, mostly weight lifting with free weights and machines. While most days I try to stick to a 7 hour eating window (starting at noon), on training days I always eat prior to the session because I get a better workout. I usually eat overall more on those days because I eat breakfast and I also am hungry when I get home after. So I ate breakfast today, ate lunch after I got home, and now it's past my dinner time and I'm not hungry. I am astounded! I wish I felt like this all the time. For the past 3 days I have eaten well below my calorie budget. Usually, I am ooching out that last little calorie, but not for the past 3 days. I am trying to figure out why. I'm just not hungry late in the day. It would be great if I discovered a miracle.

So my hip hurts now, I am going to ice it in a minute. I think it might be the recumbent bike, maybe I will try a different aerobic exercise. Tomorrow I don't think I'm going to exercise at all unless I go to the pool. I need to give it a rest.

I'm on a challenge thread where we record our weight once a week, and weigh-in was yesterday. I went down 2 pounds this week, yay!