Planning & Chat March 3-9
 

Good morning!

New month, new week, new you? How is everyone's pre-spring planning coming?

Have a great week!

Dagmar

Oh dear!
 

I'm up another pound to 134 :(. Getting that fear factor that it will all come back and all of my new wardrobe will no longer fit :yikes:.

Serious winter blahs and my father has just hit me with two more things to put my stress level through the roof :stress:.

And I'm going to be 51 on Thursday :yikes: :eek:.

The one bright spot is my DH. He announced last night that he's going to count calories because "it's the only thing that works" and he's going to the gym after work tonite. Maybe he can cheer me on for a change ;).

Dagmar :sumo:

Good morning... this week will be my week to see a loss. I weigh in Friday, so I plan to stay on track AND exercise this week!

Dagmar -- It gets better every year! I hope you have plans to go out and celebrate you! 134 at 5'4" with a yoga trimmed body sounds like you will be a 51 year old hottie :-)

Have a happy and healthy day, everyone!

Well, hello you early birds :wave: .... I have a snow day yet AGAIN today, but I like it :devil: .... This winter stuff is getting wayyyyyy tooooo freakin' long :mad: .... I am totally sick and tired of it.... Ok, that felt good, now let's relax and start our day....

I don't have to commute to my job today but I do have to report to the school closest to my home, which is only a block away and a place I love to visit with my old friends...

Food on the weekend was good... I drank wine only once, and only one glass... So that's a good thing....

Dagmar -- :hug: hang in there girl... NICE to hear that DH is on board, we are lucky to have this virtual board/forum but it sure is nice to have real people on our side... Welcome to the 51 club Dagmar :hb: I turned 51 in January and it wasn't so bad, didn't hurt a bit :lol: ... walking2lose is right it's time to celebrate YOU :cheers:

walking2lose -- I AM also going to have a good week, I can feel it :carrot:

I feel better already
 

Thank you!

We are lucky to have this forum.

I co-celebrated my birthday with my DH and his best friend two weekends ago (we all have birthdays within 3 weeks of each other). We had thai food, fireworks at the beach, and champagne and chocolate cake.

I really like my 50's so far. I finally feel like an adult and in control of my own life. It took waaayy too long but I'm finally there - an "official" adult in my own mind.

Dagmar :sumo:

Dagmar -- I can totally relate : "official" adult in my own mind..... This is exactly how I felt too HONEST :yes: ... Like I said, we are never alone :yes:

Hi everyone - sorry to be MIA for so long. Work was crazy last week, and then I went off to a ski trip this weekend! I had a great time, but ate like crazy. 3000 calories on Friday night! I skied for 6 hours on Saturday and 5 on Sunday though, so hopefully that burned up lots of calories.

Because I didn't go home this weekend, I can't weigh myself this week. Well, I suppose I could use the scale at the hotel, but since I have no idea what it's calibrated to (i.e. whether it's higher or lower than my scale at home), checking it isn't going to tell me much and will probably either get me disappointed this week (if it's higher than home) or next week (if it's lower than home and I thought I lost weight that I hadn't). So... gotta get through the week and then Friday morning I can check!

Happy birthday to Dagmar and Lekhika :)

Morning! Happy birthdays all around!

I'm on evenings this week. I always kinda like that. I can be slow moving in the morning but still exercise. And I can check in here late in the evening. And it's the perfect set-up for snacking type of eating. I don't have to eat a sit down type meal until Friday if I don't want to.

After the week in SLC with my parents, I'm happy to announce I didn't really lose or gain anything--that was a challenge since I ate out almost every day.

I'm afraid I won't make my goal of "goal" by my birthday, but I hope to be closer in any case.

Hi Everyone,

I'm just going to join right in. I've been reading posts for a long time and last week I finally "got serious" and started posting to be accountable for my plan. I had a good week and I hope I can keep it up. Thanks for letting me in :)

Amy

Hi Amy!
 

:wel3fc:

Glad to have you with us!

Dagmar

Tonight as part of dinner I picked up a bag of Mann's Vegetable Medley steam in bag veggies. It's cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots. The bag has 4 portions which are 25 calories each. I left them raw and munched on them for an hour - SO filling and SO few calories even though I ate the whole bag!

:welcome: Amy :wave: ... The more the merrier :yes:

Have you all been reading these questions and answers by the dietition Molly Gee? Interesting stuff ... http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=184

I'm kinda sad today
 

One of the dogwalkers who I've known for years passed away yesterday at the age of about 62 (she never told any of us her actual age).

She was quite a character. Whenever Jeannie steamed down the beach toward you you never knew whether she was going to cheerily say good morning or start yelling at you for something.

I will write about this in my blog I think.

Dagmar

Sorry you're sad Dagmar
 

Dagmar,

Sorry you're sad. It's sad to hear of a loss of a vibrant happy person from this world. In the last 2 years I went through a period of losing 4 people from my life that added so much to it.

Well-I have been here for 5 days now and have been utilizing fit day to calculate my calories and exercise. I've been at around 1500 a day and exercising (walking) about 40 minutes a day. The scale says I've gained 3 pounds and I feel it. I will be - starting today - keeping to around 1200 calories and trying to increase my walking by jogging and walking in spurts and doing that for about 45 minutes total per day. Maybe I can lose the 3 pounds by next week this way.

Can anyone recommend a heart rate monitor. I have a really hard time finding my pulse and I'd like to know how effective my cardio is.

Also, I checked out the links to MollyGee's q&A sessions. Awesome info. How does everyone here feel about her recommendations with regards to calories per day 1200-1600, and the breakdown of the calories "A balanced deficient diet of at least 1200-1800 calories is a good place to start. The healthy range for proteins (10-35%), carbohydrates (45-65%) and fats (20-35%) have been established by the Institute of Medicine." What works for you?

Does anyone here use any kind of meal replacement bar in a pinch?

Thanks for all your help...
Feeling Fat,
Melissa:(

Hi everyone - I don't have time to respond to everyone right now but wanted to say good morning. I was up at 3 with insomnia... today is going to be a long day, but I have a good lunch packed already.

Have a great day, all!

Morning! I woke up absolutely ravenous this morning. That is sooo unusual for me. So I've had my orange jiuce and psyllium already.


Ah Melissa ... it is a wonderful read yes?
I had to blink a few times abou this statement balanced deficient diet of at least 1200-1800 calories ... but I think what she meant was you can't lose weight on 1800 calories if that's what you've been eating all along. It has to be a deficit diet ... eating less.

I personally don't understand why more folks don't just start at 1500 or 1800 cals. Almost every piece of exercise equipment has a basic outline, it's enough food to get lots of nutrients. And there's lots of wiggle room.

The healthy range for proteins (10-35%), carbohydrates (45-65%) and fats (20-35%) have been established by the Institute of Medicine ... to me, this is for everyone in general and is fine. Some folks have different goals in mind and therefore would customize it. Body for LIfe which tends more toward shapely fitness recommends 40p/40c/20f

But I think I understand from Ms Gee's writing that she too can only generalise. Your plan will change as you grow and develope and your goals grow and develope.

IN a pinch, yes. If I'm out shopping all day, it's much safer for me to grab a bar and water, than to sit alone in a restaurant. But if I have them in the house, I eat'em like candy.

Thank you!
 

SusanB,

Thank you for your insight on the questions I had. It really shed some light on the statements that she made. Also, I know everyone is different when it comes to weight loss, what works for some doesn't always work for everyone. I just feel like what worked for me doesn't anymore. So finding this board and the support that is here (especially with people like you) is really inspiring me to keep going.

It can be so hard sometimes. Does the psyllium help with keeping you full? I used to take capsules on a regular basis because I always seem to have a problem with regularity. Where can I get the ground kind?

Thank you again, and I wish everyone a great Tuesday!

Melissa

I bought the WalMart brand of metamucil because I had a medication change that's giving my trouble ;) I believe Ilene uses it in cranberry juice which is something from Fat Flush.

Chances are, Melissa, that you only need to make a couple of very small tweaks. Really eyeball your journals and things. Then come back here and run your thoughts past us. We'll see what we come up with.

Yep, as we get older we change and what worked then may not work now....YES it sucks but it makes like interesting :yes:

You really have to play with your intake (food/calories) and your outtake (exercise) We're just all so different... I agree with Susan that 1500 or 1800 is a good start and work from there, it all depends on how much weight you have to lose, how often you've yo-yo dieted in the past , your metabolism just changes with time and with those 2 factors....

I use ground flax seed instead of metamucil, I've read that metamucil can constipate if you don't drink lots and lots of water... I drink it in my cranberry water in the morning first think and at night last thing...

Eat lots of veggies too if you're feeling hungry... Actually I'm hungry at the moment and I know it's because I've had no veggies or much water yet today... So off I go :wave:

Meal replacement bars
 

I've tried various bars and find they all set me off on a sugar binge :(. I mean, one popular brand (begins with S and ends with Fast) is covered in "chocolate" :devil: ferchrissakes.

I bought a lock'n'lock tupperware thingy (keeps the dogs out of my snacks) that has two removeable trays with little compartments in each. I can keep a boiled egg, almonds, carrots, and apple slices separated in this thing for snacks all day long. It fits into my backpack (along with about 50 lbs of other stuff :p) and off I go.

I have one for my lunch sandwich too, without the compartments. That one has already passed the "lab chewing" torture test. It now has teeth marks in it but I won the sandwich :smug: that day!

Dagmar (another day, another snowstorm)

Yeah, those bars are very bad! I can't eat just one, so what is the point? My worst favorites are the Fiber One bars. Oh, so yummy. I don't buy them any more because they were just too dangerous.

I'm feeling a bit down that I let February slide and didn't lose anything. I did well in January and I really thought my goal of 1 to 1.5 pound loss per week would happen. It didn't and I won't make my goal by my birthday. I've been snacking on things that I shouldn't have brought into the house. Sometimes I wish I could just move away for a couple of weeks so I didn't have to buy food to make others in my household happy. Just a couple of weeks of TOTAL on plan eating and I think that would be enough. Like that will happen. Not.

I'm thinking about spending a weekend in Boston, and telling my New York friends that I'm here, and my Boston friends that I went back to the city. That way I could just work out, relax, eat healthy, and not have demands on me from other people to do stuff. I'm going to try this weekend to just go home as usual and see if I can avoid the distractions, but if it doesn't work, I may try that plan next weekend.

Getting away to get OP
 

I find that I'm more OP on vacation when I go to NYC. I'm alone (DH is not very fond of cities) and I'm travelling independently (no tour group to stay with) so I can eat what I want when I want it :). And I'm out and about every evening and not dead tired from work so no snacking in front of the TV.

I actually maintained my weight loss last October when I went to NYC. And I hope to do the same this year. After I lose some weight :p.

Dagmar (winter BLEEAAGHHH)

Any bar is a red light food for me... I eat one, I eat the box of 6, in a sitting... So I haven't bought any for quite a while, even when DH buys them they have to be very very well hidden...

Another snow day ... and lots, and lots, of it....

It's so sad one of the young teachers at school, her dad was killed in a skidoo accident last night, they found him on the trail this morning... So sad...She's only 23 or so and he was only 52...

Ilene, sorry to hear about your friend's dad... what a tragedy.

Dagmar, I find it easy to be healthy in NYC, but only because my kitchen is there and I can cook for myself! Boston is tough for me lately because we've been having more and more team dinners at nice restaurants where it's hard for me to say no to things. They are all WAY out of my normal price range, so it's hard for me not to think of them as treats, because I could never go to these restaurants if work wasn't paying for them. So much temptation!

Ilene Sorry about your colleague's dad - it seems so much harder when a younger person dies. We expect people in their 80's to go but it sounds like this was an energetic man with a lot of living left to do.

Dagmar

Birthday recommitment
 

That title could be taken two ways ;). I almost feel like I would like to be commited (preferably into a luxury spa ;))for a week just to escape the winter.

What I really meant was a recommitment to my health. I'm 51 years old today. I'm reasonably healthy (with room for improvement :p) and want to stay that way. Time to take the next steps to proceed with that goal.

All will be revealed in my next blog entry (I'm hoping this evening).

Dagmar :lucky: (happy camper)

:D Happy Birthday, girl!!! Sounds like a great goal to recommit to healthy living - you go! When are you posting pics, by the way? You've been at/close to the goal for a while now... would love to see a b-day pic. I hope you have a wonderful day and that this will be your best year yet!

Everyone else - have a happy and healthy Thursday!

Good morning dears!

Although I'm not a fan of dramatic exits, I do want to let my fellow featherweights know where I've disappeared to. This is my 8th day on Champix and tomorrow is THE day. I'm finding I can't do both. I'm nauseous and sooo tired. I'm needing megafiber ;) And I'm mentally thick!
I'm off the next three days and I'm going to have a houseful of people ... a smoke-free house. It should be great.
I'm sure I'll lurk some ... so you'd better be good!

I'll be back.

Happy Birthday Dagmar!

Susan~be careful! I've heard a lot of bad things with that drug. There is someone over in maintainers who took it for a few days and started having the horrible side effects like hallucinations and such. They went away when she went off of it.

Ilene~eww snow! I just can't handle snow any more. I had to deal with it in SLC a couple of weeks ago and I'm so happy to be home.

Allison, yes, ewww is right ... I can't wait to start complaining about the heat and humidity....

Susan, take care of yourself, I know you can do this...

Not much today... 40 back and bicep workout, 40 biking, and probably yoga later today... Getting my hair cut this afternoon...

Happy Birthday Dagmar!!! You are 51 and it sounds like you are in GREAT shape. :celebrate:

I've haven't been posting much lately but everything is the same with my eating and exercise. My son started his high school tennis so that keeps me busy. He is 6-0 so far this year.

Susan-I've never even heard of Champix which is weird for me since I read so much. I'm going to go google it!

I had my day all planned to stick around the house waiting for a package from Fedex (that had to be signed for) and it came at 10 am! So I'm off the hook! I really need to stick around here anyway cleaning and doing laundry. My son has a tennis match in Dana Hills (over LA way) but I'm not going to that.

Hope everyone is doing well and feeling good. Talk to you later. Jane

Hey girls,

I'm guessing Champix is the same as Chantix?? Maybe it's the Canadian name brand...

My DH has used it twice. If you all may recall, my DH is a 30 year type 1 diabetic. 30 years is a l-o-n-g time to be dealing with diabetes, and smoking is the absolute WORST thing he can do (besides not checking his bgls). He 'quit' smoking many times in the last 7 years, but finally quit for good with Chantix. The first time he used it was when it was brand new (2 years ago or so). He had HORRIBLE side effects. One day he just burst into tears and started bawling, saying, "I don't know why I'm crying, boo hoooo..." It was bizarre. Kinda like a VERY menopausal woman having severe emotional jags.

He was ready to give it up, but we went online where we found a forum of users who had had similar effects. Several people said stick it out... it's worth it. He did and things got better after a week. Trouble is he only did one round, thought he had conquered the habit, and then relapsed.

Second time around he did two rounds and has truly conquered it -- at least we hope! He's been off cigs for 6 months or so and is doing well. No side effects the second time round. He said it's the only thing that ever totally killed his cravings. His doc monitored him more closely the 2nd time because it can cause blood pressure to go up, and also for the potential emotional side effects.

Anyway, Susan if you stop by to read, GOOD LUCK!!!! You can do it.

SusanB Good Luck! You can do it. I did, 25 years ago, and never relapsed. Once you get your sense of taste and smell back you realize just what an ugly habit smoking really is and how lucky you are to have stopped.

Allison EEWWW snow is right. We have 8 ft high mountains of it on the front lawn and another storm coming tomorrow night. No idea where we will put it. No parking spots left on our street. I hope the wind shifts or something.

Iddfoster Welcome to the group! I'm gonna check out those bars - thanks!

Dagmar (sick to death of the d*mn white stuff)

Dieting while sick
 

Woke up today with one of those cement-in-your-head colds. No wonder I went to bed at 9 p.m. last night :tired:.

Today is payday so I have to go out and do those dogwalks. Looking forward to using the head cold as an excuse to not do much of anything on the weekend while the storm rages. ;)

Then again my DH has just had a key employee at work quit so he's in a tizzy :mad:. I might go to a movie, just to get some peace. I will stay OP despite the cold. Already bought a bunch of healthy food and am going to cook up a bunch of meals for next week.

He kept pushing to get me to agree to "birthday" snacks last night. I said no. And went to bed :).

Good start to my 51st year. I'm proud of myself.

Have a terrific Friday and TGIF (NO SNOW, NO MORE SNOW)

Dagmar (cement-head :p)

Happy Birthday Dagmar
 

Sorry I didn't have a chance to wish you it yesterday - but Happy Belated birthday. You have been so inspiring and I wish you a very happy year ahead. Congratulations on your willpower and determination. I hope you feel better soon.

Happy Friday to everyone. :cool: Hope you find something to enjoy today.

Melissa

Snow day
 

Good morning and Happy Saturday!

I'm going to spend all day inside today, nursing my cold and not doing much of anything :D. That is very unusual for me - most Saturdays I run around like a frenzied hamster, trying to get a thousand errands done.

DH was nice enough to go to the grocery store yesterday so we have all of our food. I'm going to cook enough food for 4 dinners of "real" food for the weekend and next week.

And I'm going to read and just lie around :dizzy:. Can't remember the last time I was sick or got to stay inside all day. This is sorta fun!

Dagmar :cool:

Hi girls,

Dag - I plan to have the same kind of day. We have pouring down rain here in Va, so that is going to be my excuse for staying home - no errands!

I have had a really busy week - well, the last couple of weeks actually- with lots of late nights and no exercise. I need to cut out some of my extracurricular school activities for next year because I simply do not take care of myself very well when I work from 7:30 until 7:30 -- exercise is nil, sleep ain't great, and food... not so hot either. I am not one of those people who thrives on having a million and one things to do.

So, like Dagmar, today will be a body and soul recovery day. For exercise, I will do a cardio (Gillian Michaels) dvd and also a yoga dvd. I will eat healthfully today and enter everything into dailyplate (which I also neglected to do for at least 2 days this past week).

Errands... well, they can wait until tomorrow :-)

I hope everyone has a great Saturday!