I'm still hovering between 126.4 and 126.6. I've gotten used to really rapid loss, but I think my body is kind of starting to settle back down again. I know logically that no one loses a pound a day in normal circumstances, but it's just kind of a letdown after what I was seeing before. Boo! Oh, well. I'm just going to keep going. TOM is about to show up, which means an automatic small loss that sticks. Here's hoping to push through those cramps and keep up my exercise routine!

I'm thinking I'll go work out with the boy again tonight... I'm actually looking forward to exercising! I'm definitely not used to that!

EmmaD,

I tried the complicated calorie calculator you posted, and was wondering whether this is calories to lose weight or to maintain weight?

Mine came up at 1574 calories based in a weight of 125 (which I claim as my weight, even though I have recently gained--lol)

Oh, yes, EmmaD, I meant to ask that! Is that a BMR estimate or a daily caloric need estimate? It seems too high for a BMR (mine came out to 1620). But since it doesn't take into account activity level, I was hoping beyond hope that's what it might be. :o

So halfway through the month I switched calorie-counting programs, from Fitday to DailyPlate. I definitely like DailyPlate better for ease of entry and for their database, but there are elements of Fitday I definitely miss, like easily being able to look at my averages over a week, month, 2 months, etc. Anyway, I looked back at Fitday, and for the first half of July, I was eating about 1750 cals/day. Since I started with DailyPlate, I've bumped up to 2100. I haven't gained -- but it's only been 10 days. The difference is that since the switch, I've started "eating back" my exercise calories -- which makes sense for maintenance, since if I don't eat them back I would continue to lose. The other option is to estimate how many calories I burn over the week and spread it out over all of the days, and eat a more consistent amount each day (instead of more on days I work out and less on days I don't).

If I go with Beck Diet for Life's 1620 cals and figure in 2500 calories burned through exercise, it comes to about 1975 calories. I think I can live with that.

Ha! I'm no expert on the Beck plan, but those numbers were supposed to be for losing weight "slowly and steadily". She only gives diet plans from 2400 down to 1600 calories, so it is a really moderate diet plan. She even says something like if you don't lose weight with the 1600 calorie plan, consult a dietitian to lower your calories to 1400 "if you need to lose weight to improve your health" ... Which I'm sure I don't for my health, my health is fine. But carrying 10-15 extra pounds of fat on me is certainly not a *good* thing. And it ain't pretty either, kwim?

She says to multiply by 1.2 if you exercise more than 30 minutes/day, so my total would be even higher.

ANYWAY - I'm not putting too much stock in her calorie recommendations or actual diet plans. I think I already have a really good eating plan - my issues are much more around motivation, follow-through, self-sabotage, focus, etc etc. So I am hoping to establish some more healthy behaviors.

I was just telling my husband this tonight: For most of my life I was an unhealthy skinny person. I didn't have any regular exercise, and had pretty much a borderline binge disorder and a secretive junk food habit. So even though I don't have much weight to lose, I have a LOT of bad habits to unlearn. I think this Beck book will help. And apparently I don't even have the good one yet (the pink one). I have the green one. I'm really excited about what I am reading so far (ignoring the calorie information).

I made my list of advantages to losing weight, made sure to sit down and eat each meal slowly today, weighed myself today (I had been avoiding that), got back into exercising, planned my eating and followed it... it's all good stuff. I think most of this boils down to setting aside a time to plan everything. That - for now - is the only way I can be successful. I hope the habits will sink in and I won't have to put in this much time later!

Hi Feathers!

Strange thing happened last night... I did a bit of a "free-feed." I cooked dinner at home, a delish salmon recipe with a lemon-raisin-pine nut relish. Weighed my fillet, etc. Made a nice spinach salad with raisins, apple and walnuts and regular homemade dressing. A little couscous on the side. Then I just threw the whole idea of portion control out the window. Ate so much salad, and those raisins add up! A little couscous, a little wine, And my dinner added up to 1100 calories. Yikes! Somewhere along the line I just "forgot" to be mindful about my portions and went overboard. I might be overcounting the raisins... but that's beside the point. I felt like I had so many calories left I could just eat whatever because it was a generally healthy meal -- but as we all know, too much healthy stuff is, well, too much.

I think I am overdoing it on the exercise. I went to kickboxing today and was just... so... sluggish. From the first minute to the last, I just felt slow and heavy. The light handweights felt like too much. All this, even though DS slept all the way until 6:30! Unheard-of luxury. ;) So instead of taking just tomorrow off (as scheduled), I am taking two days off. Yes, two! How's that for radical!?!? And I am going to lower my running mileage for at least a week. I will supplement with walking and yoga, but I am going to give my body a little time to rest.

Hmmm, multiplied by 1.2 that number might be a little high for weight loss for me. 1620 x 1.2 = 1940. Maybe not. Maybe if I'd eaten at that level for the past three months I wouldn't be so tired today!

Hope everyone else is feeling perkier!

Oddly enough, this happed to me last night as well! Ok, not exactly but I thought becuase I was eating a generally healthy meal, I thought I would be ok on calories. Adding it up, it was at about 1000! Good thing for eating good earlier in the day!

Glad your taking time off. You do seem like you exercise a lot and you are always so dedicated to your workouts and making sure you get them in! Well thats what I have observed from on here anyways..

Amy, your husband is in the field I am interested in correct? If so, I need a reminder that its worth it lol I am doing a lot of work and planning to get into the program (which is very hard) and I just found out I am not even eligible for student loans becuase I aready have my bachelors. WTH Blah. Anyone know of a good scholarship/private loans/grant website?

Im in a sluggish blah mood today as well! Must be something in the air :dizzy:

I'm in a sluggish mood as well today. I feel really unmotivated to do ANYTHING! I just kind of want to go home and snuggle up in my bed. Haha.

I did find out yesterday afternoon that my roommate and I don't have to move at the end of this week because something came open at the last minute and the office managers were nice enough to switch around a couple of apartments so we can keep ours. Yay! But I am still having a MASSIVE cleanout of my room and closet, because I want to be organized before I go back to school. :)

sluggish here, too. nodding off at work all day today. Not sure why but I actually had some caffeine this afternoon in an attempt to revive.

Still intermittently incorporating stuff from the Beck Diet Solution. I glanced at her website today and something struck me from her blog about planning what to eat... here's an excerpt:

Interesting - I often substitute things, like cabbage for the turnips I had planned to eat. And yeah, that's when I'm not going off the deep end and ignoring the plan altogether. Looks like I have a lot of work to do in this area.

That's it for now. Off to eat the rest of my "planned" food :D

Oh, oh, oh, Feathers...

To say I went off-plan yesterday is a gross understatement. Ugh. I full-on binged. To make matters worse, I chose to binge on pure sugar, which triggered an episode of reactive hypoglycemia. I was dizzy, shaky, unable to stay awake. I ended up taking a much-interrupted nap on the couch and woke up feeling physically awful. Had to go to a party and luckily the shaky/dizzy was gone by the time I went. I stopped at the supermarket on the way home and took a few minutes to consider the ice cream case, but decided to cut my losses (at 1000 calories over for the day) and went home and went to bed. Slept horribly b/c my DH is out of town and I never sleep well the first night he's gone (too many bumps and creaks in our oldish house).

~sigh~

Today is a beautiful day -- cooler than it's been and the humidity is down. I took my little guy for a slow walk in the stroller and now we are both going to take a nap.

I will be on plan today!

Hello Feathers,

ok... after a pretty unsuccessful July. Only 1 pound lost. I am going to make an August resolution. When this thread is restarted in August, I am going to post here, interact and be ACCOUNTABLE.

Although in my heart I will always be a feather - my body should be/needs to be a maintainer!

I am armed with a new plan, and a new burst of motivation. End of August the goal will be reached.

So I will see you all in a couple of days for the whole month.

thesame7lbs - adjusting from dieting to maintaining must be so hard. You have been so inspirational to people on this board, especially taking care of a little one as well. So I have every faith, that when you make a little slip up you'll pick yourself right back up. Have a nice nap xxx

That inflexible eating thing is interesting. Although I don't understand how if I planned to have baby carrots with my lunch and instead had sliced cucumbers how that would mean I'm about to binge? :?: I could see if I said "when I go to costco I won't have any samples" and then when I get to Costco I decide to 'live a little' and have a few samples or whatever. That spells trouble.

I realized my husband really eats too much cheese and junk. He thinks he's a healthy eater, but really his portions are so out of whack, and unless I remind him he would go all day without veggies until dinner time. He made me breakfast this morning, which was nice I know, but it had sooo much cheese and no fruit! I had bought this round of gouda cheese on Tuesday, mainly for Ainsley, and it's gone now. I only made her one grilled cheese, so I know DH has been over doing it. Besides not buying gouda, what can I say or do to get him to no eat so poorly? I just had to start buying him a bigger size in pants, so I know he knows he needs to lose weight, but I guess he doesn't seem to care. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but at the same time I want to light a fire under his butt. I guess it's like an alcoholic though - you can't make them want to be sober.

Today I'm going out to lunch with my mom and tomorrow is DH's company picnic. For lunch today I'm planning to get a salad with dressing on the side, and I'm planning to have a light lunch before the picnic so I don't eat the bad stuff. I'll be too busy looking after A to overeat I think.

Hello, everyone! I hope we're all having a great Friday!

I ate waaay too much for dinner last night, and my body definitely made me regret it. It's funny how after you get used to eating regular portion sizes your body gets a bit grumpy when you overdo it. Not doing that again. :P

Anyone have any exciting plans for the weekend?

I was wired from the coffee I drank yesterday afternoon to fight the sluggishness - so I couldn't sleep at all last night! But then I had to get up early today to work after ~3 hours sleep, so coffee again. The cycle begins...

Yeah, I've been pondering the inflexible eating as well. I have been planning pretty well in the past months, but easily diverging from that plan - in good ways and in completely wacko ways (like: instead of salmon and veggies I'll have pizza :?:). I think the idea is to practice it as a skill and until you master that skill, don't move on to substitutions. A lot of Dr. Beck's recommendations are like that.

So I don't know. I'm trying it, but for example, what was I supposed to do when I found out the cauliflower I had planned to eat was spoiled?

Eh, I'm not a big fan of anything too rigid but I'm trying... All I know is that for 3-4 days I have been really, I mean really, sticking to my plan (except for occasionally omitting things if I wasn't hungry enough). And I have lost 0.8 lbs. Which sounds ridiculous to even mention, but my weight has not budged except to go up for about 5 months now. I'll take 0.8 lbs!!

That put my weight at 140.0. I hope to see the 130s soon, which would be a first (if it lasts more than a day) in at least a year and a half of trying. My goal right now is ~130.

same7 - sorry to hear about the binge! Ugh, I hate that feeling. I was struggling a lot with that early this year until I revamped my diet (no simple carbs, very few grains). You are truly and inspiration and I'm sure you'll snap right back into action. After the nap.

ainsleymom - I have similar issues with my husband! The thing I have found is that if I keep healthy stuff around - say a frittata, lentil salad, dolmas, fresh cut up veggies, whatever - he will eat it. But if I don't make that effort, he will turn to white bread, cheese, salami, etc. It frustrates me a little that the responsibility is mine and I have to be like his mother taking care of him. But I love him and want him to be healthy... so... I haven't figured all this out by a long shot. Oh and portion size! He'll eat like 3-4 servings at a time, thinking it is "healthy." <sigh>

I was behind on my exercise goal for the month so I'm trying to pack it in on the last days. Off to a hike today. Crap, I just checked, I need more than 5 hours in 2 days to meet my (arbitrary) goal of 1 hour/day average. Oh well, no harm in trying!

Happy feather-light weekend!

Hello Feathers! Happy Saturday!

Yesterday was so much better. Exactly on plan and I felt like a million bucks by the end of the day. Went to a kids' birthday party with my DD's and was able to have a yummy hamburger but said, "No, thank you!" to the cupcakes.

Today I will stick firmly to my food plan again. My exciting weekend -- farmers' market with all the kids in tow, then a nap during DS's nap, and then off to the pool for the afternoon. Tomorrow I am hoping to fit in a 9-mile run in the morning, but it's is DD#2's birthday so I will have to plan my time accordingly. Luckily we're having her party at a gymnastics center rather than at home, so all we have to do is pick up a cake!

Part of the Beck Diet Plan is to write down all the reasons you want to lose weight. Mine are not exactly prioritized, but the first one I wrote down is: "I want to feel good every time I get dressed. I have to do it every day." I love this one! When I read over my list (which you are supposed to do twice a day), I actually close my eyes and visualize pulling on my pants, pulling them over my hips, zipping and buttoning them, and it all being just right -- not too tight, no anxiety, no let down and having to change outfits.

As far as the inflexible eating -- I agree that substituting carrots for snap peas or something like that seems inconsequential. I think it's kind of like parenting books -- it doesn't make sense to implement anyone else's plan 100% -- you have to do what works for you, your personality, your situation. I like the idea of getting used to planning a very specific menu every day and sticking to it as close as possible, but if your pear isn't ripe and there's an apple sitting next to it? That seems like an OK adjustment to me!

Hope everyone is doing well and having a happy day!