Location: from Houston, TX—now in Maryland (Washington DC area)
Posts: 1,167
S/C/G: 351/267/140
Height: 5'3"
Ubee— trying to answer your questions here... No, I don't regret going on serotonergic antidepressants: I can't really be said to be on an even keel, but to the extent that I am, I owe it to antidepressants. The key thing when contemplating such a step is to get an accurate diagnosis. That means going to a psychiatrist for an evaluation, and it means not getting your first trial of antidepressants from a primary care doc like an an internist or a family care practitioner. They just don't have the training to figure out whether—and which—antidepressants might be helpful to you. I was already taking too much and too many antidepressants when I got hooked up with my current psychiatrist, and he just didn't have enough time to get that mess sorted out before I went into the serotonin toxicity situation—which is such a rare thing, you shouldn't worry about it. (And there are several antidepressants that have a method of action that is not related to serotonin.)
Also, please don't worry that seeing a psychiatrist for a diagnosis and initial prescription means you're (1) mentally ill or (2) going to need to see him/her for more than a few times. Once you have an accurate diagnosis and informed prescription, you (or whomever) can go back to the primary care M.D.
Betsy— Please don't wish on me that I might go into positive numbers on my personal bipolar scale. Everyone who is bipolar has their own way of keeping records, but for me, the negative numbers are depression, the positive numbers are mania (miserable mania, not some kind of happy state), and zero is the balanced number that I strive to be. In my experience, mania is even more horrible an experience than depression: I know you wouldn't wish that on me. So let's stay away from the positive numbers, OK? =smile=
Location: from Houston, TX—now in Maryland (Washington DC area)
Posts: 1,167
S/C/G: 351/267/140
Height: 5'3"
A couple of days ago I managed to half-walk, half-crawl up the stairs. I've been upstairs only ever since, including some time spent in my collage studio. Today I see my QiGong instructor, Mike, and tomorrow I go to a physical therapy clinic for getting my strength back and learning how to walk and climb stairs again. I have no idea what that will be like, so I'm kind of nervous about it: I'm afraid it will be too much like a gym with stern taskmasters. I'm also afraid they'll give me s**t for being fat. Ugh.
Hey just a general check in, Scale is finally in the 350s, feel like I have my workout and eating down. I'm doing slow carb, but on days I workout I feel like I need to up the carbs a little. Feels like no matter how much I eat I'm hungry and sluggish. Today went ahead and had a small crossiont (50 carbs) and instantly felt better. I am thinking I need add toast back in on the days I work out.
Good morning. Just a quick check in as I woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't sleep, read a while and then fell back asleep for a couple of hours. So now I'm running late -- need to get to the gym, get the house vacuumed, work on the yard, pick up the car, find my mind......the last part is definitely lost!
Ubee, M-Th and Th-M sounds fine. And good for you on being down. There does seem to be this odd correlation between staying on plan and losing weight. Who knew?!
The doggies need to go out -- they were out the first time at 5:30 and the sun was already up. Hope everyone has a great day.
Fi: I always figured mania would be worse because it's not happy like people think that it is. It just feels wrong. Personally, I would prefer to feel neither happy, nor sad. Happy because I know that that feeling is fleeting, and it would be gone soon. Sadness because it's just a bad feeling. Crying does feel freeing, though.
Onsidian: Congrats on the scale movement. Higher carbs on workout days seems to be normal practice given that you do technically need more energy on those days. You might want to check into carb cycling. I like to keep things even, but not everyone finds that to be effective. You can find info about carb cycling via Google.
Cindy: In my home, I know that there's more to keep my mind busy during the week. I wonder if that has something to do wiith it? Good job on staying on track.
Betsy: The dogs sound like they add some excitement to your life. I'm sure that they'd love to dig holes if you need them. They might be unclear about where, though.
Ubee: Congrats on being down.
Mountain: Where are you? Hopefully you're okay.
Sam: I hate that jelly-legs feeling. I like the whirly legs feeling after the treadmill, though. Still sore from all that walking last week. Climbed up stairs and down. I walked up 9 floors in a clock tower and hardly noticed. Then I climbed down 15 floors because my daughter wanted to walk down. Before, I would've been out of breath after 1 1/2 floors.
Jen: Don't be shy about telling us what's going on. We're here to support each other no matter what, so if you need to vent, or a kind shoulder to cry on, go ahead and let us know. A lot of weight loss is psychological, so we have to fix that as well as the physical issues.
Silent: I can be that way, but I get burned out easily, so I try to make things manageable. I admire people who can stick to their guns.
Terra: Hopefully things are still going well for you.
Larry: Hope that your DW is doing okay.
I checked the scale. It was a pound higher than when I left, but... that was weighing after my meals for the day, and not emptying my ports if you know what I mean, so I may not have gained at all. I guess eating 1/4 to 1/2 of the "meals" that I was given, and walking around all day worked. I got a lot of funny looks. I didn't order the breakfast buffet, and my server was like, "What? Are you sure?". Now to make that scale go down...
Thanks for all your support and encouragement, everyone.
Last edited by tootsieroll81; 06-23-2015 at 12:29 PM.
Ubee ~ Thanks, I have been having a good day. I hope you've been having a good day too.
Cindy ~ Thanks, Yes I had a good Monday, I hope you did too.
Tootsie ~ Thanks, Yes things are still going well with me.
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Woke up at 6:50 a.m. this morning. Its 11:51 a.m. right now, I just got done with my room all I need now is Scott's help moving my bed and box spring so the window person can come and measure the windows in my room. Now that the bed and box spring is off the floor, I'm gonna vacuum my bedroom floor. I hope everyone has a great Tuesday. Take care of everyone.
Hi everyone. Tootsie good job facing the scale but even better using portion control on vacation. Betsy slow down. You're retired remember? Thanks for doing the challenge with me. I always do better with a partner in crime. I am off to a good start. You better be too. Obsidianbbw hurray for making it into the 350's! Fi thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I will send good thoughts your way for your PT session. I think I would have those same feelings. Cindy weekends are always the hardest for me. That is why I made Monday my weigh in day. It does provide some motivation on the weekends. Terra good luck vacuuming under your bed. I find so many dust bunnies when I get around to doing mine.
I am doing well today. I may have had a little too much coffee.
I wish I could bottle this on plan mojo for the times that I feel I will never get it back.
Have a healthy day.
Haven't been around the past week because I've been super-busy, I had a multi-day business trip followed by a mini-vacation over the weekend, visiting my dad for father's day. We cooked some meals together, and watched his favorite movie, so it was pretty good time.
I skimmed through the last week's worth of posts and a lot of it sounds familiar. I too have a room in the house I need to clean. And I need to get back into my exercise routine, and focus on my healthy eating (and not-binging in my case).
After bouncing around between 321 and 327 for the past 6-8 weeks, I saw 320(.2) this morning. I'm going to try to kick it into gear for the next phase of the weight loss, I'd like to lose a fresh 10% (so down to about 290) and then maintain a bit. Have to see how it goes.
Cindy I did find something healthy ...I had some grilled chicken nuggets and a side salad with no dressing from Chick-Fil-A. For eating out it's about as healthy as it's going to get but it really wasn't bad for me, especially yesterday when I got a TON of protein but not much fat or carbs. I am always busy...But I guess for me that's a good thing. When I get bored or lazy I tend to eat. Hope today was a good day for you
Fi Hearing you talk to Betsy about your negative and positive numbers really resonated with me. I just recently got to see a psychiatrist for the first time in years and got put on a medication that I think is helping me more than the Geodon did. When I went to see her I was definitely in a mania state. It's actually only been a week today that I went, and this new medication (Lamictal) is really helping me. I'm tapering off the Geodon slowly as I slowly increase the dosage of the Lamictal since there are some pretty scary side effects if you don't do it that way. I feel you when you strive for a zero for the day. Thanks for the advice on being able to see your primary care doc after seeing a psychiatrist. I'm not really sure yet what the price to see her is going to be after my insurance pays for it so hopefully if it's something outrageous I can see my regular doctor after a couple of visits. I hope everything with PT goes well....Don't let them get you down if they make a fit about you being fat. You can only handle one thing at a time and right now getting to walk is more important so you can move forward to the things you need to do in order to lose weight.
Obsidian Definitely finding the right balance of fat, carbs and protein is key I think to losing weight. Do what your body tells you, I think that is what is best too. I am trying to slowly increase my fat intake and make sure I get more protein in every day. The protein shakes are helping a lot with that. You're doing great I know you'll find the balance for you
Betsy Your post instantly made me think about the hare on Alice in Wonderland and how he was always late... I hope you were able to get caught up with the things that needed to be done today...hope the doggies are enjoying each others company
Tootsie Wow girl! That's a lot of stairs!!! That's amazing!!! Stairs are not my friend. I'll climb them, well...I have to since I live upstairs but luckily its only one flight. It is great cardio though....My legs are pretty sore today from yesterdays work out but hey I'm still here and still kickin...We can do this!
Ubee So proud of you for taking charge and sticking to things!! You're doing great!!! Betsy being your partner in crime is going to be great...You gals are amazing!
Rabid Glad you had a great time with your dad for Father's Day. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders with figuring out what you need to do to push through to the next phase of your weight loss. Keep it up lady!
Busy day today at work....I mean in my life though, is there ever a not busy day? LOL....My shoe organizer came in today so I went to go pick it up at Wal-Mart's ship to store option and had to grab a few things for dinner. We're having BBQ pork tenderloin and vinegar based coleslaw. DH slow cooked the tenderloin so it's falling off of what bone there would be if it wasn't already boneless lol....I didn't want to work out today but I know tomorrow is a scheduled rest day so I pushed through and did my HIIT cardio session. I'm pretty wiped out and sore from yesterday's leg day but I still pushed through. Been doing good eating wise this week. Been having chicken breast and green beans for lunch with some BBQ sauce....Can you see a trend here? I'm just noticing I need to increase my fat intake. Doing good with the protein and keeping the carbs low this week but not taking in enough fat...Who woulda thought I wouldn't be eating enough fat? Finding the right balance to lose weight can be so hard and frustrating sometimes. I'm doing my best and hope for a loss this week. As I slowly taper off this medication I'll be able to get a good sense on if I really gained any weight with it or if it hindered my weight loss at all. This new medication isn't supposed to have me gain weight according to my psychiatrist. We shall see. Tonight I up the dosage to 2 pills. I'll be taking 2 pills for 2 weeks, then add a 3rd for another 2 weeks, and then the final 4 pills for the last week before I go see her again. I'm hoping that after I see her and tell her how the medication is working for me that she can give me a full time script and then I can go back to my primary care doctor to get refills from now on.
I'm still working on getting everything together for my balcony. It's going to be a slow process of getting everything but I think I'm going to hit up Goodwill this weekend and see what I can find for planters. That's one thing I forgot to look at some more while at Wal-Mart. The rug I originally wanted to order online I found in the local store that sells it and I'm glad I didn't order it...It's made out of woven plastic and although its pretty I know it won't last. I found another one at Target last night that I like but found one at Wal-Mart today for a better price and is multi-colored. I haven't made a decision on what I want yet for sure but I'm leaning towards the one I found at Wal-Mart and is a better price.
Be well everyone!!! Enjoy yourselves and realize your small changes are going to lead to big results!! It doesn't happen over night but we can do it!!!
Obsidian, congrats on being in the 350s. I would think that you probably need more carbs when you are working out. When you burn fuel you need to replace that fuel.
Betsy, you are always so busy. I hope you managed a little down time today.
Tootsie, good job staying on track while on vacation. I'm sure all that walking definitely helped as well. I do seem to be more disciplined during the week. I think it's because I plan better for the week. I always take breakfast and lunch with me to work and usually have an idea, if not an actual plan, of what dinner will be. Weekends are less structured and since I usually do some prep on Sunday for the week, by Saturday I'm usually not as prepared.
Ubee, Monday is my official weigh-in day also, but I weigh myself just about every day. Right now I'm a couple pounds heavier than my tracker says, but I'm feeling confident they will be gone soon. I'm so happy you found your mojo. I am in the zone right now too. I wish we could find the magic formula for keeping it that way.
Rabid, congrats on losing weight while away from home. For me that's so tough to do. Vacation to me usually means a vacation from eating healthy as well. Fortunately I don't take many vacations.
Sam, I agree that finding the right balance of carbs, fat and protein sometimes feels like a full-time job. I don't eat refined carbs anymore, and not many complex carbs either. I don't count them though. My diet mostly consists of protein and veggies, very little fat, no sugar, and some fruit. It works for me when I stay on plan, but that's the trick lol. I know that as I lose more weight I will probably need to adjust all that to keep losing.
Today was a busy day at work and somewhat of a frustrating, challenging day for me. People tried my patience several times, but I kept my cool. A good friend of mine works with me, which sometimes is a good thing, but not today. She truly hates her job, and says so all the time, and generally has a negative attitude about work. Sometimes I really just want to tell her to do us both a favor and quit, but then I would have twice the workload. Fortunately she is off tomorrow, so my day should be quieter.
The one good thing about work today was a baby shower for a coworker. Lots of yummy food and I just said No to all of it. I brought my breakfast and lunch just like it was any other day and ignored all the goodies. Success! Why can't I do this all the time?
I was feeling good today. I exploited a format string vulnerability for a challenge. I'm learning this stuff so that I understand what bad guys do so that I can help defend against that stuff.
My oldest wanted to try his hand at Minecraft moding, so I made an Ubuntu VM, and installed Net Beans, Bukkit, and Minecraft on it. I couldn't get Minecraft to run, but I successfully troubleshot it. I just had to uninstall some old NVIDIA drivers that were causing a conflict with my current display drivers. After that, it worked just fine. Then I connected the Minecraft client to the Bukkit server. Now my oldest can test his mods.
Then tonight happened. We were nearly out of food because of being gone for nearly a couple of weeks, so we went shopping. We ended up with a cart full. We checked out, and went to our vehicle. On the way to our vehicle, I was way behind my spouse because I was with my daughter, and she wanted to stop and try the games. I never let her play them, but she always tries. When we got to the parking lot, some people starting "mooing" when I walked by. When I reached our vehicle, I told my spouse about it. I loudly said that I'd rather be a cow than an idiot, and that if they had any intelligence, that they would come up with something more original than mooing. I'm not sure that they heard me. I still feel inferior though, because I know that appearance is what people care about, and I'm obviously lacking in that area. So I'm crying. They win. They make me feel subhuman.
Good morning all. Hope this finds everyone doing well.
Tootsie First of all, I think to come back from 2 weeks on the road, having to eat out for every meal, and not gaining any weight is wonderful. Good for you. Sounds like you really thought through what you were eating! I did laugh at your explanation of setting up Minecraft for your son. I was in IT for 20+ years, and I was lost! Sounds like you're already an expert. As for the parking lot incident, I just don't understand people who feel the need to put others down -- whatever the perceived target might be. I'm so sorry that it happened, and especially sorry that it impacted you that way. I totally understand and won't say to just shake it off because you're a way better person than they (although you are) because I know those kind of hurts stay with us. The thing I've noticed is that weight is the first thing people go for in making nasty comments when there's any kind of situation. I've had it happen to me and even though the last incident was several years ago, I remember everything about it. Hugs to you! Terra It never dawned on me that you'd have to move stuff around -- I had forgotten that part of getting new windows. Did you ever figure out how to move your bed to a place in the room where it wouldn't be blocking the vent? Ubee OK. I made it through another day and am down half a pound this morning. And, yes, I do need to slow down. I'm been working on doing maintenance to the house and/or yard for several months now and have set artificial deadlines based around when I have company coming. I realized this morning that if they are upset because everything isn't perfect, they can stay at the motel. I think I was having a 1950s-the-house-must-be-perfect flashback. If you figure out how to bottle your mojo, cut me in on the franchising rights......we will be rich! Rabidstoat Your weekend with your dad sounds wonderful! So glad that you were able to do that. And congrats on seeing the 320s head towards the teens -- way to go. Do you find that it seems more "doable" to set smaller goals that compile into a big goal? I find it overwhelming when I think that I eventually want to get 250 pounds off, but for some reason, just getting below 300 seems like something I should be able to do. Sam Eating healthy is such a balancing act -- I think one day of exercising should count as figuring out our menus! The thing I notice about what you post in terms of eating and exercising is consistency; i.e., staying on plan for you is in terms of weeks instead of in terms of minutes (that would be moi!). Sounds like the transition to the new meds is going ok -- hope that continues to be the case for you. Cindy Hope today goes better at work. It is hard to work with someone who hates being there but won't do anything to fix the issue (like find another job). It's probably harder when the person is a good friend. Great job on staying away from the goodies at the shower. It is hard to do. Maybe it doesn't happen every time, but just knowing that you can do it helps get us in that mindset of knowing that it's possible.
We're headed into a major heat wave with temps in the 90s and no AC. Plus the kids arrive next week. Bill and I have to go into town tomorrow to get the paint and other supplies for getting the house painted, and I'm going to buy box fans for all the bedroom windows. It's not bad sleeping at night if I turn them on about 8 and leave them on during the night. If all else fails, I'll sleep in the RV with the AC on!
More work on the yard again today. We haven't had rain in a long time, so I'm going to turn on the sprinkler this morning as I noticed that some of the perennials are looking pretty bad. Friday I need to start on getting laundry done and the house cleaned top to bottom for when the kids come. Haven't washed the floors in a while plus there's always dusting.
Time for coffee and then I need to hit the gym and get some stuff done around here. Hope everyone has a great day.
Just a quick check in still struggling to eat well. Best laid plans I woke up super early this morning so today is going to feel long. At least I workout before work right now so I won't be tempted to skip it. It's already done, it will probably be another early night for me. I can tell I have gained weight but don't really feel like knowing the number. I know that might seem ostrich like but if I make my changes about numbers rather than his I feel I won't stick with it. I haven't weighed myself in months. I can tell my pants are a little tight though so hopefully I will get the eating in order enough to fix that.
Checking in but no personals today. It's my rest day and although I had to go grocery shopping after work and meal prep for the rest of the week today has been nice.
Back at it tomorrow with the work outs. I wish the scale would move on top of losing inches. Do you guys ever feel that the scale kind of runs your life sometimes? Its a great tool to keep me accountable but if I don't see the number go down sometimes I feel like I'm doing something wrong and have to over analyze my diet. Sometimes I wish this would all be over but I'm closer to my goal weight than ever so I really shouldn't complain much...
I'm ready to kick back in bed and enjoy the rest of this rest day.
...I had some grilled chicken nuggets and a side salad with no dressing from Chick-Fil-A. For eating out it's about as healthy as it's going to get but it really wasn't bad for me, especially yesterday when I got a TON of protein but not much fat or carbs. I am always busy...But I guess for me that's a good thing. When I get bored or lazy I tend to eat. Hope today was a good day for you 
