Absolutely amazing Rayze! Any advice or observations from your journey to success?

WTG Rayze!! :D

Rayze, you are a superstar and an inspiration!

I just crossed the 50 pounds evaporated milestone today. Still a long way to go, but I feel a lot better!

https://mindstar.com/scratch/WL_2014_12_16_sm.jpg

Congrats to Rayze and Avalon on their milestones. :)

Spectacular Rayze!
One hundred pounds gone, and another six, too!
Spectacular!!!:carrot:

:carrot::carrot::bravo: So happy for you...so funny when I started 180 which was my goal seemed so out of reach....now that I am knocking on the door of the 220's I am thinking.....hummmm maybe I can go lower. Lol.

:carrot::carrot: woo Hoo. :dancer::dancer: you got this! Keep it up.


Down another .5 for me yesterday....was aggravated till I realized I finally dropped .5 in my hips and arms which have been hanging out at the same measurement for weeks! I'll take it. I figured hips went down cause my dream pants slide on lol....if I can button the, this weekend I will officially hit that goal too....

Co_6, JJTx, Briael, OneUh2, SGRealtor1, snickbean, Kcodrums, loser58, sweetvt, TOgden3, and everyone else posting: Your weight loss tickers are really flying too! Fantastic job, very proud of you all!

RuthAnn, fantastic job losing 125 pounds and keeping it off for over a year! Maintaining after a huge loss (I think) is even harder than losing. So that's an accomplishment.

Anyone else notice how it's hard to keep your pants on after weight loss. I was wearing elastic-waist sweat pants the other day in the grocery store -- and had to hold them up with one hand while shopping with the other hand. That's a nice problem to have!

Avalon - I LOVE your graphs and approach to this challenge.

This morning I was feeling a bit blue and out of sorts over my challenge of re-losing pounds I have gained when I saw your delightful red "regression" line. It gave me a smile and a better start to the day.

I have missed you on here and happy to see we are both tackling "regression"!

Schenectady, I have always liked your optimistic and upbeat posts. We both go back to 2013, so I feel like you and I are old friends! Great job keeping your diet and weight on your mind. You are doing great being nearly 90 pounds off your all time high!! Congratulations!!! It's a tough nut to crack -- and has been a struggle for me. Actually I am pretty good at losing weight, but not so good at maintaining. This time, I think I might try simply making IP more of a lifestyle change as opposed to a discrete "diet" with an end date.

I like your play on the word regression. I always forget the other (non mathematical) meanings (probably due to me being a Math major in college.)

re·gres·sion rəˈɡreSH(ə)n/ noun

1. A return to a former or less developed state.

2. A return to an earlier stage of life or a supposed previous life, especially through hypnosis or mental illness, or as a means of escaping present anxieties. "regression therapy"

3. A lessening of the severity of a disease or its symptoms. "The treatment produced a regression in this disease"

4. Statistics. A measure of the relation between the mean value of one variable (e.g., weight) and corresponding values of another variable (e.g., time).

Thanks everyone for all of the congratulations and support. Last night I went into Ann Taylor and fit into size 12 pants. That was pretty much my goal. I was so surprised and thrilled.

I don't have any unique tips that haven't been posted on threads before. I think my success is around sticking to the Basics:

Follow the Program: Eat what the sheet says. Do not eat what is not on the sheet.
Make this food easy and accessible: This could be PLAN. But at a minimum it means have the right food in the house all of the time.
Drink Water: It makes you feel better too!
Read the Forum Everyday: It reinforced my commitment.

Everyone is doing so well - Keep it up!

Just catching up on this thread - kudos to everyone! So fun to see all the great, positive posts!

You guys are doing great!

WTG, everyone!!
:bravo::woohoo::woohoo::bravo:

Liana

I already told my July gals but I've had a hard time mentally the past couple of weeks. Like a mental stall or something. Yesterday the scale went up for the second time in three weeks and ive been in a funk. Enter the basket of homemade goodies to our office and I indulged. This afternoon I went online to rewatch some IP videos and try to get my mind back in the right place.

For those of you who have been on the program so long and lost so much weight - how did you stay in your "happy place" to keep going?

Hey JJTx,

First off big congrats on losing nearly 85 pounds! You need to be commended for that accomplishment.

I totally understand your frustration at scale stalls -- I have that same dynamic. I would get this little voice in my head after a long stall that says ... "What am I killing myself for, I am not losing weight anymore. What's the point." Then I would eat something I shouldn't -- and that would start a "turn" in my weight loss chart -- then it would build on itself and before I knew it, I would be up 5, 10, 15 pounds, or more.

One thing I realized since then is that a stall is (at minimum) "maintenance". And that is a good thing. Even if you are stalled, 235 pounds is still a lot better than 245 or 265 or 300. And by giving up and giving in during a stall, you might be setting yourself up for a backtrack -- and that's just taking you farther away from your goal.

So hang tough and hang in there! And remember a stall at 235 is still better than 245 after a binge -- which will just make it harder to restart and you'll have to spend a lot more energy and money trying to get back to where you were a few weeks or months earlier.

Believe me, I know all about yo-yo dieting. I am an expert because I have made all the mistakes! This is my 2nd try on the IP diet and I have spent the last 3.5 months retaking ground I had already won once in 2013. And that's a worse situation to be in than a stall at a lower weight.

I am pulling for you!

I think a lot of it is the weather (the shorter days with less desire to get up and do something physical) and the season of over-indulgence and general merriment. I don't buy anything that isn't acceptable on IP, but that doesn't mean I don't see all the food and feel tempted.

There are definitely times in the day when I'm more vulnerable to the risk of splurging or temptation - normally in the evenings. Identify your "at risk of giving in" moments and have a plan to do something else. Do you knit, crochet, macrame or sew? Keep your hands busy, or get up and move around until you have distracted yourself. :)



Avalon, that is genius - regarding a stall as maintenance is a brilliant idea. After all, once we reach goal we're going to be happy to see a "stall" on the scale rather than a gain. Thank you for that perspective! :)


I still have 60-odd pounds to lose and some days I think "just another half cup of broccoli" and have to catch myself. It's not the big splurges that derail us (because we feel guilty about those and aim not to do it again), it's the little deviations from measuring and being honest with ourselves that are likely to be the road to gaining weight back.

Luckily the massive sodium rush from the water additives appears to have dwindled for me and I am losing again. No longer craving sweet food so I think I'm back into ketosis without any of the hardships, and so much more quickly. Just in time, as today is a strength training at the gym and who wants to feel weak and hungry for that? :)