WELCOME!!

We are a group of individuals who weigh or have weighed 300+, or near there. This group was formed to provide a place for others like us to find support, inspiration, and hope. We are aware of the distinct problems that come with weighing over 300 lbs.

We want to invite everyone (roosters as well as chicks!) to join us in our journey. We share laughter and tears, heartaches and fears ... joys and celebrations. We also share what works for us and what doesn't.

We have found this thread to be more than just a support group... we have found it to become a home. We invite you to join us!

Happy November!
I did It! I had a good day yesterday! I am so proud of myself. I did not eat one piece of candy. There is a lot left over because it was such a cold and windy night. I have a plan as to who I am going to dump it on.
Betsy your comment about doing one squat had me laughing so hard. Same holds true for me we really are a pair. I absolutely love your idea about putting on my jacket everyday. Now I just have to remember to do it. What are you planning to serve on Sunday?
Fi I like the new collage. Might be one of my favorites. I think I get what you mean about being present in my body. I am working on it and it is helping, plus it feels good! I already do the inhale and exhale but it is an appreciated reminder.
Bllondy mind if I ask where your favorite place to live was? How is your weight loss journey going?
Anticake How lond did it take you to work up to doing that many squats?
Terra, Sam, Donna, sham, Dean, Silent, Jane, Andrea, Miss BB, and everyone let's get chatting!
Have a peaceful day. (Might be a little hyper today!)

Happy November Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nov 1st is starting out good. I went to sleep at 9 pm last night and I woke up at mid-night and I've been up ever since. Chances are I'll take a nap later on today. Its 6:22 a.m. right now. I was gonna go outside this morning and walk but its really cold outside this morning so I might work out to my dvd instead. I need to take a shower today,Clean my room and the bathroom and thoses are my only plans for today

Ubee........well done. Da Iawn ( as we say in Wales!) It is no mean feat to get back on the bicycle...so to speak!!
Fi...I am rereading a book called "Women, food and God" by Geneen Roth and she talks alot about being in the moment and I loved your description of it. Thank you for such a clear insight. And I hope you are enjoying such a special time of year.
Terra...have you always struggled to sleep? I would really find a sleep pattern like yours difficult to cope with.

Well it is my 3rd wedding anniversary today and I must say, despite many many bumps in the road we are settling into marriage well. My husband hasn't been married before or had any children of his own so it has been a very steep learning curve for the poor man! My 9 year old is cooking a chicken and pasta dish followed by chocolate pudding. I know I know it's not what you would call "on plan" but it is a special occasion and he is so looking forward to doing this for us!
It is back to Welsh class on Monday and the gym for my induction on Tuesday and thence to a nice routine. I find a routine essential to coping with life and especially remaining focussed with healthy eating and exercise.

Our new pup will be ready to go out next week...she is 12 weeks old...she has grown so much. The other pup is 6 months old and they play wonderfully together!

We had great news this week....my husband can't get in and out of the bath due to his disabilities and we have been awarded a grant for a level access bathroom with walk in shower. It should be in by Christmas and will make a massive difference to his independence.
Shan/silent/anticake/bllondy...hiya!
Betsy...I loved your posts...they always make me smile! I go upstairs to avoid the temptation of snacking because I can't be bothered to walk up and down our steep stairs for munchies!
Have a great day all my lovely friends.
Hwyl Fawr (goodbye)
Donna

It would be a good day to have Halloween today -- so much fog that I can't see across the street. However, I hear one hearty soul out there mowing his grass and I keep thinking that it will end up looking like a drunken sailor did it since I doubt if he can see where he just mowed. Hope it clears off some, but at least it's not raining. We over a foot over average for the year, and 4 inches over average for October. I'd take a picture of my webbed feet, but need a pedi first.

Ubee -- Hooray for staying on plan. I am so glad that my physical "challenges" are amusing to you. I have found a way for those of us who are arthritically challenged (not to mention age and fat challenged) to do squats. They're called ball squats, and you put a ball behind your back, spread your feet shoulder height apart and slide down the wall and hold for a five count. It's good for you and meets your daily desire to do nice things for others since most people seem too be trying not to laugh hysterically when they see me doing them at the gym. Did you get any of the icky weather that was shown for the Midwest as in earlier than normal snowfall?

Terra -- Child, you wear me out. Aren't you exhausted already with only 3 hours of sleep? Sounds like you've got your day planned out already.

Donna -- Happy Anniversary and what a sweet boy you have that he wants to fix you dinner. And, yes, it does sound as though your husband had a LOT of adjusting to do with being married and being a father all at one time. Glad you got the grant to get the bathroom changed -- it's amazing how things like that can make such a difference in our lives. Do let us know how the gym goes.

Fi -- I am trying your being aware while I eat. Having lived alone for so long, I tend to watch tv or usually read a book while I eat. Well, at breakfast this morning I decided to just eat and actually concentrate on what I was eating. I think I read that when one does this there's a greater likelihood of stopping when you're full instead of just eating until everything is gone.

Only had one trick or treater last night -- next door neighbor kid -- and, of course, Toby decided that a romp around the yard was in order. We all spent about five minutes chasing him down and getting him on his leash. The rest of the candy bars went into the basement freezer for when the grands are here. I have to go to the grocery store to pick up the stuff that I need now that I've changed the menu for Sunday's meal. I was going to make quacamole and chips but decided on an avocado dip and veggies as the hors d'oeurves. I need a red onion for the salad as I'm going to make a walnut, mandarin orange, and onion salad with a oil/vinegar dressing and need the onion. Then I need to get a pint of ice cream as I was going to make brown betty apples for dessert, but decided to switch to an apple crumble type dessert. The entree will be Taco Soup as my friend is vegetarian so need some protein, but no meat. I'm fixing some cornbread to go with it and will send the leftovers home with her.

OK, must get it in gear. Still haven't cleaned the house (I know that's a shock that I've procrastinated on the cleaning) and need to still get the rugs shampooed. Hope everyone has a great day.

Donna ~ Nope I dont have problems with my sleep, My boyfriend actually woke me up at Mid-Night and I couldnt fall back to sleep but I went to sleep at 7 a.m. until noon today so I did get more sleep.

Betsy ~ LOL, Nope I'm okay, I went back to sleep at 7 a.m. until noon today.

Good Morning!
Terra how cold was it yesterday when you didn't want to walk outside?
Betsy only a few flakes of snow made it here. Up north they got a nice blanket covering. I've seen those ball squats before. How many can you do? Good call on ditching the chips. We went out for Mexican yesterday and I am afraid to step on the scale.
Donna Happy Anniversary! Your husband sure was brave to take on the challenge of all those life changes. That is wonderful news about the grant coming through. Independence is such an important thing that many take for granted. As for your sons meal being on plan... I think his thoughtfulness trumps being on plan any day. What a good son.

I can feel a new routine developing with our daughter at college and I am liking it and starting to relax. I didn't realize how much I was stressing about it.
Have a peaceful day.

Ubee ~ I'm not sure how cold it was yesterday but it felt pretty cold.

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Woke up at 5:30 a.m. Wanted to get up at 5:00 a.m. but I didnt hear my alarm go off which is crazy cause its right by my ear, Oh well. Anyway I'm currently eating breakfast and watching t.v. Clyde has already been outside and brought back in cause its cold outside. Its definitely feeling like fall now. Anyway today I still have to clean my room,clean the bathroom and of course go for my after dinner walk outside.

I'm somewhat in a daze because the sun is out which means I have absolutely no excuse to dig up the geraniums to overwinter them. Toby is even out in the yard for an extended romp this morning which he seems to be loving.

Terra -- Glad you were able to get back to sleep and the erratic schedule doesn't impact you. Hope you're not at the start of some long, cold days.

Ubee -- Meals out are hard. When I first started the diet in Jan of last year, I would ask for a to go box to come with my entree and would immediately put half of the entree in the box. I got out of the habit and need to get into doing that. It is so wonderful to read your positiveness about getting into a good routine. My graph taped to the frig seems to be helping so maybe we've both made some advances this week. Yipardee!

The cleaning and rug shampooing etc. did get done yesterday, and I managed to stay on plan eating wise. I'm going out while the sun is shining and get the yard work done and then I'll come in and get me cleaned up and work on dinner prep. It's not a hard meal, just more dishes than I usually fix at any one meal for me. Busy week (ok, it's busy for a retiree) coming up with a dental cleaning, my annual mammogram (the great squeeze as I call it) and lunch with a friend. Hhhmmmmm, going to be a challenging eating week. Hope everyone has a great day.

Hi Everyone!!

I've kind of been a lurker this week...I would go to get caught up with everyone's posts but as soon as I'd go to post myself something would come up and I wouldn't get a chance to post.

This week was pretty nice and I've been working hard. I did eat out s few times but still tried to stay within the perameters of my plan but I only managed to lose .4 lbs this week...I did however lost an inch in both arms, my bust and waist, I gained an inch in my hips and lost .5 inches in my thighs so I still had a good week. I still weigh in all the time but I'm trying really hard not to get discouraged if the scale doesn't move much.

Friday night/Saturday morning DH had a bad dream and I woke up at 430 and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to give my fitness pal another try just to see where I am with my eating and see what I can do to tweak my diet and get to losing consistantly again. I have a little over 2 months left until I reach my year mark and am trying to make a goal of 100 lbs lost by then. We shall see...

DH had a show last night so I took some me time and actually got a little dressed up for a change...I don't go out much anymore so it wad nice to go out on a weekend and felt really pretty ...We ended up staying out until 330 last night and ate at dennys on the way home. I got a veggie omlette with some chicken sausage on the side and wheat toast. I thought that was one of the better options to choose from on the menu but it ended up being over 800 calories for the whole meal!! This is why I wanted that MFP app to help me watch what I eat a little closer...I also think it will help me decide on food before I eat it. I need to focus on eating to fuel my body with the nutrients I need and not always what my mind wants to eat. Its easy to eat 1 piece of candy and it turn into 1 piece a day which is no bueno. That candy is giving me no nutrient value so I need to steer clear and really think before I eat...I used candy as an example since it was recently Halloween...and I did only eat 1 piece of candy...a twiz santa lol...

Not much else has been going on...I did finally invest in another pair of gym shoes...I had the Reebok easy tones for awhile and they got worn down and too big for my feet so I did some reasearch on what type of shoe I need to be able to achieve my fitness levels and needs and figured I needed a cross trainer since I do a lot of walking but also lift weights and do HIIT I need something that can be comfortable but also move with me well. I got the Nike Flex Trainer 4....in a size 8.5!!!!!! I have been. Size 10 since sometime in middle school so I always thought I just had big feet....I knew I had fat feet but had no clue that I was capable of wearing that size shoe ever!! It felt so good getting a smaller size and now I might have more shoe options!! I'd like to get a nice pair of boots but not sure if my calves are still too big to get a knee high boot or not. I guess I'll have to try some on.

Well no personals today but will try and check in more frequently...I feel bad that I havent been around...I'm headed to Sam's club and to get stuff to make a veggie beef stew!! Take care everyone! Love my fitness family!!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to bring more fire energy into my life. One kind of fire energy that I underutilize is anger. I spent some time this morning looking into what are my choices for setting up an independent artist's website. The collage blog I'm on, plus uploading to Flickr and ipernity, are great for basic networking with other artists, but despite the fact that I'm paying every year to maintain two domain names, I'm not using either of them the way I should, which is to set up and maintain a basic portfolio, and give people links to that site. Looking at my choices led inevitably to the issue of marketing: should I sell prints of my work? should I sell products like T-shirts, mugs, iPhone sleeves, etc.? If so, how would I promote those sales?

Here's the thing: marketing, as an issue, makes me angry. It's a problem. The way I have dealt with this problem in the past is to give away all my originals in the form of mail art (mostly as postcards) and stick my head in the sand, like an ostrich, about the aforementioned questions. Money issues, in general, make me angry, because I was raised by parents who were into climbing the socioeconomic ladder, parents who placed a high value on having jobs that earned money and supported, eventually, an upper-middle-class lifestyle, and a low value on art for art's sake. I don't respect that attitude, despite the fact that their spending habits became, to a certain extent, my own spending habits.

Now I know darn well that if the artists I admire hadn't done some thinking—or hadn't delegated to others some thinking—about marketing, their works wouldn't be available to me to buy as prints, T-shirts, mugs, etc. Despite the fact that these items enhance my life a great deal, I'm not doing anything to enhance other people's lives that way. I don't have the luxury of delegating to others in this area. I have to do the thinking about marketing myself. There's an obvious contradiction here.

Back to anger: the way I have dealt with anger, the way I deal with it even in the present, is by eating and making myself fat. I want to change this. I want to lose weight. And recently, I'm not succeeding at that goal. In the late spring and summer of this year I pushed weight loss aside in favor of getting my house in better shape for the kittens we got in August. But I did the BERP (Big Entropy Reduction Project), we have the kittens now, so what I am doing to lose weight?

I want to be honest in this forum...because if I can't be honest here, where can I? Honesty: I haven't weighed myself since July 22nd. Honesty: I ate, even just this morning, some of the Hallowe'en candy left over from trick-r-treating. Honesty: I am not sticking to my avowed plan of a sugar-free, weight-loss-oriented diet. Honesty: I am not walking yet.

More about anger: I want to use it to fuel my energy for what I desire as an artist and what I need as an older woman whose knees are in iffy shape—not to undermine those efforts. I'm writing this posting as a start towards that goal. I'm using my anger from reading about marketing to fuel myself right now. I'll keep y'all posted on what happens next. =smile=

Ubee— A huge HOORAY!!! to you for not eating any Hallowe'en candy. I am humbled by your achievement and inspired by your example. I am already thinking about ways to plan things better next year so I keep my grubby paws off the leftover candy. Can you say more about what was stressing you out about your daughter in college, and how you solved that problem? I always have more to learn when it comes to dealing with stressful issues.

Terra— You are my hero when it comes to walking! I want so much to be able to walk two miles or more at least a couple of times a week.

Donna— A belated Happy Anniversary!! to you. Marriage is hard work. Just because I've been doing it for 36 years doesn't mean I can slack off. I've told y'all about some of the family issues hanging over my husband's head. I carry those issues, too, just as you are carrying the issues having to do with your husband's disability. My husband, too, is disabled: he lost his job due to depression, and the remains of that depression still linger. And I agree with you enthusiastically about recommending the work of Geneen Roth. If any of y'all are looking for a better understanding of how food issues and emotional issues overlap, just find a Geneen Roth book, whichever one appeals to you, and go for it! The older ones should be available in your library, and if not, as used paperbacks you can easily order off Amazon.

Betsy— Kudos to you, too, for leaving that Hallowe'en candy in the freezer and keeping it out of your mouth! And I can't say how much I admire you for going to get your yearly mammogram. I'll get to my mammogram issues on another day, but here's another dollop of honesty: I'm not even close to being that conscientious. I hope you succeed in making good use of your sunny day. It's beautiful out here, too, so at the very least, I want to take advantage of the lower humidity to spray fixative on some of my recent collages that should be in the mail already.

Sam— I miss your enthusiasm, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't post when you're not so enthusiastic. Please tell us what's up with you!

And a big cheer to ALL of you who have a weight graph on the fridge! My own is staring me in the face daily, saying that it's lonely because I haven't put a new point on it in such a long time. It's been a huge help to me, and will continue to be so.

Over and out. =grin=

Hi ladies,

Popping in this morning to say Happy November. Hope everyone gets off to a good start. Honestly, I wasn't totally on plan this weekend (had some ice cream) but low and behold I stepped on the scale and it showed a loss for the first time in three months that I have been totally on plan and no change in weight. I'm going to take it as a fluke. I'm still calorie counting, but I'm considering making the shift to Atkins but I'm doing a lot of research first. I did it before back in 2003 and lost a lot in 6 months but the minute I gave up the lifestyle I gained it all back and then some. Isn't that the story everytime? Anyways, calorie counting and exercise doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere the way it did when I did it in Korea 3 years ago and lost so much weight doing it. So, I'll keep researching and let you know what I decide. In the meantime, I'm still tracking calories and chugging my water. Happy start to the week to everyone!

Fiona ~ You'll get there, I wish I was in shape enough to go walking place with my boyfriend Scott like last night he said it was at the park and he watched the Sunset and when he said that I had wished I could of been there with him but in order to do that I would of had to walk there with him and I'm just not there shape wise to be able to do that.

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I woke up at 4:00 a.m. I didnt plan to get up until 7:30 this morning but its okay. I'm currently eating breakfast and I already let Clyde outside. I still need get Clyde some fresh food though, He already has fresh water. Anyway its now 5:04 a.m. I finally got the bathroom and my room cleaned yesterday. Today my only plans are to go pay the mortgage and maybe go shopping but if we dont go shopping today we'll go tomorrow after mom's gets home from work. I forgot to tell everyone that today is my mom's first day as the New GM of the store she worked at for 9 years now. Everyone is very proud of her. Anyway I hope everyone has a wonderful day today.

Good Morning!
Terra congrats to your mom! What are you shopping for today?
shan good luck with your research. I am trying to do Grain Brain. It is similar to Atkins. It is a little more strict but does not have the induction phase. Starting today I am going to do Atkins Induction with only the Grain Brain foods. Reading your post made me decide to do this. Thanks.
Fi anger can be a great fuel. Like you I have used it to fuel my eating. Lately I have started speaking up or changing situations that make me angry. As for my college stress, I was concerned as to how our daughter with autism would react to her sister no longer living at home. As the weeks have passed she realizes she comes and goes and we are all settling in nicely. I always worry/stress about everything. I need to have more faith that things will work themselves out.
Sam focus and push yourself and you will meet your 100 pound down goal. Now is not the time to heehaw around about if you will make it or not. You've got this!
Betsy how did supper go? I understand lunch out with a friend but how on earth does a dental cleaning and the big squish qualify for a challenging eating week??? Remember last week when you asked me if I was competitive and I said no. Well it got me thinking maybe I am. Today I am going to join the First person to lose 5 pounds challenge in the Atkins section. I am kinda nervous. I only like to hang out in the 300+ section but they seem pretty nice over there. I need to step out of my comfort zone to get this weight off.

All right has everyone tossed out their leftover Halloween candy. If not just do it. If you are worried about the money wasted don't be our healthy is worth more then $6.73!
Have a peaceful day.

Betsy ~ Sorry I forgot to reply back to your message. Yeah I hope we arent in for long cold day either.

Ubee ~ Thanks,I'm buying non-food items and food items at the store we may or may not go stopping until tomorrow though, Mom will let us know for sure when she gets off tonight at 8 p.m., She has to go back to work at 5 pm today after getting off at 2 pm so we might not have time to go shopping from 2 to 5 and none of us like being rushed so we'll see.