Oh man, I used my old address as the shipping address for my scale. It already shipped. Ugh. :rolleyes:

Welcome, somedaysunny, so good to have you here! :welcome2:

Rie - It's almost entirely for aesthetic reasons. I have t & a and a medium-to-large frame. When my body fat percentage drops low, I look too gaunt. The last time I was in the low 100's, I even had a few people get genuinely concerned and ask if I had cancer. I'd say I look my best from about 109-122 pounds. I can generally wear the same size throughout that range. I start to look like I could stand to lose a few pounds at around 130. I'm aiming for around 120 because I plan to do a recomp, so my body fat percentage will continue to drop. I don't want to start that process at a lower weight, or I'd probably dislike the result. With regular exercise that incorporates strength/resistance training, I look about 10 pounds lighter than I do w/o it. I'm settling into my new place nicely, thanks for asking :), but it's cost more than I'd prefer. Good luck in the 5k! It sounds like a lot of fun!

Hey, stopping by to introduce myself!
I'm 26 years old, and my weight has fluctuated between 128-ish and 167-ish since I was a teenager. My weight feels the most stable around 140, but I'm fairly short, so even at that weight I've always felt like I could stand to lose more. I'm interested in seeing how I feel at 120, so that's my goal.
2017 was a tough year for me because I changed jobs twice, bought property for the first time, and planned a wedding. The stress of it all caused me to gain more weight than I'm comfortable with. Things have calmed down since my wedding in May, so I began to focus on weight loss. I started intermittent fasting (eating window of 1-5 hours every day) since the beginning of July, and so far I'm pretty happy with the results! On average, I've lost 1lb per week. I could have done better if I avoided carbs & exercised more, but I just wanted to get used to IF first. I'm feeling accustomed to it now, so I recently started focusing more on eating low carb.
I'd be psyched to weigh 145 by Halloween. I wish everyone a good challenge!

Rie: I'm clueless lol how do I find a couch to 5K program? I definitely couldn't run the entire time but I could run some of it, but walk most.

And thanks for the welcomes!

Chunk - Oh no! Can you change it mid-shipment? I think Amazon sometimes let's you cancel a shipment if you ordered it there. I see I see, that's kinda scary people thought you had cancer!! My family are all very large and I'll never forget in the low 150's (still technically overweight mind you) he seriously asked me to "stop losing weight"!! I felt the best I ever had in my life so it kinda took me by surprise!

Mayday - :hug: Welcome to the challenge! Congratulations on your wedding, did it all go to plan? Good luck with the challenge!

somedaysunny - Here's one that I found, there are lots of variations but this one seemed more beginner friendly. There are also apps, but I have no idea if they're good or if you need to pay for them.

Rie: Thank you! I really wish I had a treadmill lol I have a gym membership but it's 30 minutes away from my house.

Yay, a Riestrella challenge - you do the best ones! Okay, an intro:

I was of normal weight as a kid and throughout high school; though I ate my share of junk food, I was good at skipping meals if my 501's started to get tight. Met my future husband at 120 lbs., then got pregnant. For the first time in my life, I had a ravenous, almost desperate hunger that came on a lot, and a reason to satisfy it. Managed to gain a whopping 70 lbs. before my son was born, lost most of it but was about 137 when I got pregnant again and did a repeat of gaining 70. Held onto some more extra weight for a few years, eventually took up daily walking and minded my food intake to start losing again, only to find myself pregnant for the third time. This time I only gained 30 lbs, which came off right after that son was born, leaving me around 152. I made a few attempts to lose weight over the next several years, once losing down to 130 for about a minute, but ultimately my weight crept higher and higher. About 8 years ago, I hit rock bottom - my highest weight ever plus some serious untreated medical conditions. I found it in myself to start addressing my health, relearning how to eat healthy with the help of the South Beach diet, joining up with 3FCs, began walking daily again, and sought treatment for severe anemia and high blood pressure. I lost 73 lbs., all the way down to 113, which took a lot of effort to stay at and didn't look very good on me. Gained about 7 pounds and have stayed around 120 since, except for three regains, each one a little more than the last. This time I gained 30 lbs. before I shook off the apathy and started paying closer attention to my health (and got back on this site!) again. I'd like to get back to the low 120's and stay there for a good long time.

Rie - Thanks! The wedding day was perfect and definitely one of the happiest days of our lives, the planning could have gone a little smoother though! Some brides miss the wedding planning afterward, but not me.. I'm sooo glad to have it all over and done with haha.

Rie - No, I can't change the delivery address, but fortunately my brother lives at my old place. He said he'll return it for me. :) Plus, there's now a 10% off coupon, so I'm saving a couple of bucks! :D Isn't it weird how other people can get a sense of ownership over your own weight?? I think most mean well though. And years back when my brother (who'd lost over 100 pounds) kept losing to the point that he was way too low for his frame, I did say something to him out of concern. He eventually saw what we all did and put about 15 pounds back on. For me, I didn't realize I was "too skinny" at the time, especially since I was working out a lot (and eating a lot) and perceived myself as being in the best shape I'd ever been in. After a few months though, my vision of myself caught up with what was actually before me, and I realized I was too skinny for my frame. Now I'm thrilled that my personal "ideal range" is higher than the generic one I see written for my height. It gives me more calories to work with! :lol: Health-wise, I feel great under around 125, so long as I'm also moderately active. More than a specific weight, what I'm really excited for is (1) to get back to my "usual" size, and (2) to make fitness gains. It felt great back when I could just go for a random 3 mile run, for example, and I love that progress that happens during a strength training routine where what had seemed so difficult at the beginning is now easy (or at least not torment :lol:). I was a very active and outdoorsy kid. I feel best when I live that kind of lifestyle. It keeps my energy up. But I have a tendency to fall into a sedentary lifestyle, and that's something I really want to guard against. My mom's illness left her paralyzed, and that really made me appreciate what a GIFT mobility is. I was so driven for years afterwards to appreciate what I had and to make sure I walked and ran and got moving nearly every day, both for myself, and in a way to honor my mom for what she went through. But eventually, I fell into more sedentary habits. It was primarily bc anemia made me so fatigued, but I wish I'd gone to the doctor early on and insisted that my fatigue be explored and fixed. Ah well, live and learn. Severe anemia can be insidious bc it sets on somewhat slowly so you think it's just normal fatigue for a while until it gets to a debilitating point when you know something is seriously wrong.

Welcome, mayday! :welcome:

Good to see you here, ophelia and Cattails and everyone on the first page! :D

It's so great to see more people join the challenge!!

My official starting weight for the challenge is 184 lbs! Unfortunately yesterday was a terrible day for food. I had a banana in the morning, a granola bar snack (so far so good), a Publix sub (practically a foot long, eep), sweet tea and loads of pretzels with honey mustard dip. The latter was consumed about 9pm at night...so I'm sure I'm retaining a bunch of salty pretzel weight, but this morning I was up to 185.6 lbs! I had to laugh when I saw it and thought "yup...that's about right". Still a bit shocking to see a 2 lb gain, but I know I have to keep in mind that splurges will do that to a weigh in and keep on trucking. So that's why my average weight/starting weight ended up being 184 lbs.

Today I'm gonna try and fit in a workout which should hopefully offset some of the crap I'll inevitably eat today. I'm going to a book festival, then lunch with friends, then a board game night which will inevitably turn into a snacknarok situation. Then tomorrow I'm going to my boyfriend's godparents for dinner and they usually cook extravagantly. However I also start running tomorrow, so I'm hoping that encourages more weight loss in the future since I seem to respond well to cardio. Fingers crossed my exercise cancels out some of the food?! I know I have to be good and can't rely on exercise entirely, I need to also be mindful of what I eat. However, I also want to enjoy life too, because I love food. I know for sure weekends like this are rare, so I'm sure some damage will be done then I'll get back on track on Tuesday!

The challenge starts tomorrow!! Please refresh yourself of the rules, the big one being you can weigh in ANY DAY between Monday and Sunday and feel free to change your weigh in too (I do!).

ophelia - So great to see you back, was worried when I saw you dip out of the August thread!! :hug: How have you been? Good luck for the challenge, we can do it!!

sunny - Not sure if this is an option, but how about walking/jogging outside? I'm about to start in the horrible GA summer but I'll just have to dream of Autumn around the corner :lol:

Cattails - Welcome, welcome, so good to see you! Thank you for sharing your story. You might find this interesting, I used to live in Japan and would talk to mothers who were pregnant. They told me that their doctors encouraged them to stay within a certain weight range and not to gain any unnecessary weight. One of the mum's got pregnant in the winter and I didn't even realize she was pregnant until she was 8 months in and took her coat off to reveal a bump!! In the West I think there's an unwritten rule to let pregnant women eat freely, but I think emotionally after the baby arrives it can be very damaging to a woman's self esteem. Obviously in your case you were handling some intense hunger, but I think it's fascinating how the East and the West view pregnancy and weight (and weight in general!). Good luck with the challenge and sorry for ranting, I have a habit of going on tangents :lol:

Mayday - Haha, I'm going to have a wedding someday (technically my boyfriend is my husband on paper, but I still refer to him as boyfriend until we have a wedding!) and I know that despite my love of planning and organizing I'm sure it's going to be crazy.

Chunk - Huzzah for coupons! It all worked out in the end, that's good :). Yeah, it is strange. My Dad has this view that people who are thin/healthy are miserable because they can't enjoy food or alcohol. To me, I want to get to a weight where I feel good about myself, where I feel strong, but I know I'm never going to have six pack abs or be super toned because I love food and I want to enjoy it for the rest of my life! I'm not bothered about the vanity pounds. It was weird to me that my Dad saw me on a journey towards that and asked me to stop, because I was literally the happiest I had ever been.
That's an excellent point about realizing your ideal weight is higher than anticipated! It's also interesting that you've experience highs and lows, so you know your body well and what looks good. My goal weight is 135 lbs, but I might be content at 140 lbs, I just don't know yet! I just want to get to a point where I'm further away from the 150's (and an overweight BMI) than closer to it. I foresee I'll gain and lose 5-10 lbs give or take, so I'd like to have a goal weight that accommodates that.
What a beautiful way to honor your mum's memory. Sometimes when I'm out running and struggling, I think of a friend of mine who passed away when we were 16. She was always super athletic, so I have this weird moment where I think "I'm alive, I'm here, I need to do this and she'd be judging me right now if I gave up!" It's good to honor those who have passed in a positive way.
I'm curious what caused your anemia to form and to become so severe?

Rie - I haven't lived near a Publix for a long time, but I recall them having really good subs! About your dad...It's tough when people we're close to can't see past their own narrative about weight & food to really see us. Such is a problem with communicating and relationships in so many ways, I guess! Do you know if your dad tried really hard core diets in the past? Maybe he's not experienced that there can be a middle way, one where a person is at a healthy weight while still enjoying food. I'm so sorry you lost your friend at such a young age, and I completely get what you mean about pulling them into the present with you sometimes. Regarding anemia...I've been mildly anemic since at least the time of puberty (that's when they first started telling me that during feedback about my bloodwork). My doctors never made an issue out of it though, probably because the numbers were mild. It's funny though that they didn't have me take an iron pill back then because I'd complained to them of fatigue starting around the age of 12. I have a few conditions contributing to fatigue though, so I guess it's hard for them to know what's what. Still, you'd think? Anyway, they never did a more complete run up of my iron (standard bloodwork only looks at hemoglobin levels). By the time they did that in 2016--after my hemoglobin had tanked--my iron stores were terrible. So that had probably been getting worse and worse for a long time. What most likely caused the sharp plummet though was IBS. I'll spare you the gory details of that :lol: but my body likely wasn't absorbing nutrients well. Plus I had to eat way fewer trigger foods (like spinach) that had probably been keeping my iron a little higher. I can't even express how relieved I am for my IBS to be pretty much cleared up now (very manageable, at least). I can finally eat like myself again. :) Ah, a book festival and a board game night--we could so hang out. :lol: Have a great time! I put off my hw so far this weekend, so that's what the next 2 days will mostly be about for me. My scale is due to arrive Tues or Wed, so I'll be able to enter a weight on the spreadsheet then. I'm a little nervous!

I'm at 222.6 today. Question for clarification: Is our starting weight today's weight or the weight we first entered on the spreadsheet? In other words, do I put my weight in Week One or change my starting weight to today's?

Your starting weight is your weight from this week, so today would be your last day to enter it/weigh in. So 222.6 lbs is your starting weight :) Some people treat Sunday as day 1 of the week, which isn't a huge deal, but for me my weeks run from Monday through to Sunday.

Fabulous, thanks for clarifying.

Oh, and I changed my goal. Given where I'm starting from today, I think I set my goal too small. I'm going to shoot for 208 by Halloween.

Happy labor day guys! Hope you all have the day off and are relaxing.

Yesterday was a lot of fun, but maybe not so much a good health day! I Skyped with my parents, did a workout (yay!), ate a delicious burger for lunch with friends, walked around a book festival (not to mention walking to and from town so probably a total of 4 miles walked?) then played board games in the evening. I did have a couple of glasses of wine, plus a handful of chips and fries, but no where near the amount I would usually munch on. Small success? I also tried to keep on top of water, especially after being in the summer heat for about 3 hours.

This morning I dropped a bit of weight and I'm down to 184.8 lbs, a 0.7 lb drop from yesterday, so despite all my indulgences I'm pleased with that result! It's not quite back to my usual 183's, but I'll take it.

Today I'm going to do a bunch of chores, try and catch up on journaling which I'm determined to be good about, go on a run and then off to the godparents for dinner.

How are you spending Labor Day this year? :)

Week One
09/03: 184.8 lbs
09/04:
09/05:
09/05:
09/06:
09/07:
09/08:
09/09:
----------------------------------------
Avg Weight for Week One: 184.8 lbs
Total Loss for Week One: - 0.8 lbs

Chunk - I was spoiled for subs in Boulder, they have a great local chain called Snarfs that make pretty great sandwiches. Publix was a good fix though, I just wish they toasted their Italian sub! I'm a sucker for toasted sandwiches. Oh no, my Dad has never dieted in his life. He has cut down on drinking, but that's about it. He drinks a lot and eats a LOT of bread (runs in the family!). A man of indulgences really. I do worry about him and my mum being so heavy. I know back in 2012 when I lost a lot of weight my mum told me I was her inspiration to lose weight. I think it was because she could see it was possible in person and not just on some TV show she watches. Unfortunately she's struggled with her weight for as long as I can remember and nothing has ever stuck, plus my Dad is a bad influence. I see a lot of her in myself, the constant back and forthing, I hope to lose weight and reach my goal as a way to hopefully inspire her to do something too. I'd love nothing more than to be around her in person looking healthy as a way to say "Look, this IS possible if you stick to it."
I'm sorry you had to deal with incompetent doctors! It's so frustrating when they don't listen or see a correlation in results. I'm glad you're finally through the worse of it by the sounds of it?
Haha, yes, let's totally hang out! :lol: I love board game nights, they keep me sane! Good luck with the weigh in, I hope it's better than you anticipated!