Well just remeber that to fast is not good either....be persistant...


Well I lost 2 pounds....so now I am back to where I was the first week or so of the program....so lets see what happens I tend to be going up and down too

Yo Gymgurl - WTG on the 2 lbs....most excellent!!

You know, I found the weight just fell off when I wasn't exercising - the first 8 or so weeks on this plan. Now that I've started skiing/biking 3/4 X week, it is coming off in mere oz's.
Cest' la vie - I suspect there it is more likely it will stay off if the metabolism is high.

-S

Gymgurl-Congrats on your 2lb loss!

I was talking to a friend of mine who is the Mngr at an LAWL here in town about you and your hurdle. What she suggested is that for 7 days you do nothing but walk for exercise (no cardio no lifting no nothin') and stay POP which has never been an issue and see what you lose. She said it might surprise you how much fat you lose whenyour body starts burning it.

I thought that was interesting and you might want to try it since you are so close to goal. I am willing to do anything to get the fat off me...Walk on broken glass, sleep on bed of nails, spit fire...

Be seeing you around

Bernadette

I need a rant momemet (or maybe 2!)

OK - had a major meltdown tonight. I started this plan because I'm supposed to be able to eat with my family - the whole idea being that we all eat healthier. I am a busy mom, without a lot of time to cook and rely a lot on "convenience" foods - boxed rices, canned tomatoes, etc.... You know, the kind of thing you can throw a meal together right before hockey practice, or after, if needed. Tonight, there was NOTHING in my cupboard that fit into the plan. So, I made chili for the rest of the family, then ran to the store for a frozen dinner that was OP. After staring at the frozen food section for nearly 30 minutes, I gave up hope. So, I went to look for pita bread and couldn't find any of THAT. What grocery store doesn't carry pita bread, for Pete's sake! I am so tired of chicken, that I bypassed that route completly. I felt myself near tears, so I grabbed a healthy choice fozen meal (one not in the book, but at this point who cares!) and some $5 orange juice (ouch!) and ran out the door. I managed to drive home, then spent the next 10 minutes sobbing in my car. How frustrating to be only a week and a half into this and stuck in a rut, not being able to find "real life" foods that fit, aren't chicken and don't break the bank.

Ok, rant over - thanks for listening!
Tomorrow is another day.

Hey Lori, check out the recipe thread. You will find some ideas that may help. Sorry you were feeling so low.

lori,
One word for you. Plan. You can have the chili with the family actually just set yours aside make sure you make it Op for you. I often eat the same thing my family does, just with my separated out. I also make double servings of stuff just for me (like fajitas, green beans, tacos, fish) so that I can have something I can zap when I need to eat differently then them.
Once you get more used to the plan you will be fine, I promise, but you just have to plan right now and also since you do the cooking n the house, I would suggest slowly moving meals over to the OP side. In my house melba toast has replaced flour in all breaded recipes. I made grilled cheeses this morning for us all with the I can’t believe it’s not butter spray. Turkey sausage and turkey bacon (I can resist the smell of turkey bacon a lot more than regular) has become a regular
If you buy meat in bulk, separate out some portion sizes to freeze for your self for easy unthaw and prep (fish unthaws very quickly) and I plan for the weeks menu based on what I know we have planned for the week often cooking on Sunday for leftovers on Monday..etc.
Good luck and don’t give up.

Thanks, Shennie, for your support - I feel better today. I think I just needed a rant last night. I usually do try to plan ahead, and was even ready to leave the hamburger out of my chili, but everything in the chili was just so high in sodium. The beans, the tomatoes, the tomato juice. I broke the bank to pay for LAWL, and now have to spend even more on so called "real" foods. It's expensive to be skinny!

Lori - Your situation sounds just like mine was during the first two weeks. I had the same melt down stemming from the same circumstances. I needed quick meals that both my family and I would and could eat. I was so angry and so tired of eating chicken and broccoli. I felt I made a very expensive mistake so I called my center and said I was quitting and I wanted my money back. Naturally this isn’t want they want to hear. The director asked if I would please meet with her the next day and give the plan two more weeks. If I still wasn’t happy, she would then refund my money. The next day we met and went over all the problems I was having with the plan. Honestly, at that time she didn’t have a lot of helpful tips because she wasn’t cooking for a family, but she did give me a few meal ideals. So I agreed to give the plan two more weeks and that’s when I found this site. The people on here have given me a lot of useful tips and creative ideals.

Some of the things that have worked for my family:

-Plan ahead. Every Sunday, I make a “meal plan” for the week, make my grocery list, head out to the store & get everything for the week. Every night I look at the plan and thaw out any meat I’ll need for the next day. Every morning I leave the recipe out for the supper we’re having that night (just in case my husband gets home from work before me and then he can start supper).

-Several times a week, I’ll prepare an extra serving or two during supper so I can take the leftovers to work the next day or for those nights when we have a lot of “running” to do or so when you do have a weak point, you already have something prepared.

-I discovered that reduced fat peanut butter, eggs and tuna fish are great proteins to have on hand. I often make a tuna melt or egg pita when I need something quick or if by some miracle I have “alone time” and I only have to make something for myself. Sometimes I’ll make a quick lunch with just a banana and an apple w/ peanut butter on both.

-Through trial and error, I’ve found quite a few new recipes that my family likes and I just keep rotating them in. I still do plan some meals that we used to eat even though I may not be able eat them now. If it’s something I can’t have, I just arrange for those meals on the nights I’ll be gone, out with friends or working late. It’s kind of like a treat for my DH & DS, especially if it’s something they’ve been craving. I look at it like DH & DS don’t need to worry about their weight, so they’ve made sacrifices for me & deserve a break.

-Like Repo said, look at the recipe thread. There a lot of good ideals on there. You’ve probably heard that a new cookbook is coming out. The director of my center let me take theirs home and copy recipes form it. So far, I think the new cookbook has been a great help. I’ve posted some of the recipes from it on the recipe thread.

Wow, I really rambled on!!

Dawn - May I just simply say - GREAT ADVICE - THAT IS WONDERFUL and I will be using some of those myself. I have done fairly well with OP meals, but I definitely need to plan more - I have a very supportive DH, so that helps - of course, he has a hard time thinking green peas, lima beans are considered starches, but he is learning......

Shennie - As always you have wonderful advice too -

Lori - Hang in there girlfriend - we can do this!!! I know there are times when I get frustrated too and just think - why?? but I know why - I want to be smaller and healthy for myself and my family -

Thank you, Dawn and Heather I really needed the pick-me-up and the real world planning. Today was better than yesterday, until I went grocery shopping (I was planning on cleaning out the pantry and donating a LOT of stuff to the food shelter) and couldn't find much to replace the stuff I was going to throw out. GRRRR! It shouldn't be this hard. I did pick up some veggie burgers, some fish fillets, egg beaters and that sort of thing, to have on hand for some variety.

Thanks again! You chickies are great!

One substitution you might try for ground beef is ground turkey breast. SOOOO low in calories, and cooked my family can't tell they're missing beef anymore. You just have to make sure it's ground breast meat, otherwise you end up with a lot more calories and fat becuase it's ground white and dark meat. Good luck -- if it were easy, everyone would be skinny!

This is exactly what I need today...

I don't get it. I don't know what to do. I get sick of 'dieting' because all I think about is food, let alone enjoy it. I notice that I cannot eat just one cookie, it is the extinction of the cookies. It seems i can exersize great, then eat like crap, I can eat great, but then dont' exersize. When I try to put the two together, it's a melt down. It sucks so bad because it feels like there is no need to try, rather, to accept, at least then I can get on with teh business of livign and not always thinking about food. Even when I don't over eat, I can easily gain 7 lbs in a frickin' week. It's not my scale, all scales indicate this. Makes me afraid to eat, but if I don't eat enough, then I'm screwed that way. When I wake up, I feel like I can conquer the world, but half way through the day, I want to retreat. I confuse myself, why I put myself in this position. I have tried many various plans, and haven't found one that I can stick with, and that's the point. I work out for roughly an hr and a half a day, with cardio adn weight lifting ( depending on the day), but yet I still eat crappy, so it's not doing me good. Why can't I stop myself? I think its' because I resent having to live like this, to totally allow my life to be dominated by food. I lost 75 lbs at one time, but now I Can't wipe off fifteen..at least? It makes me feel hopeless. My inability to lose weight goes off into other areas, if I am losing weight, I feel confident in other areas, if I fall prey to cookies, ect. then I feel like I suck at other things. Everyone tells me I am way to hard on myself. I could be, but it's very difficult to stop, especially when it's like you're looking for your exit, but have no idea where you're going...

Another thing that gets me is that when I read magazines and go online for recipes, ect. Almost every one has stuff that I hate ( tomatoes, asparagus, beets, peas) things that I physically can not eat with out having to force it down and swallow fast..eating shouldn't be something you have to force yourself into. Yogurt is another one, it's mentioned a lot, but I cant stand it, but i want to like it for the health benefits. When I'm in a mood, the word "veggies' gets to me, it seems like a nick name, like it's a fun food, most of which I don't like. I dig fruits, but they tend to be more sugary then fruits.

When I lost weight before. I just decided one day that I was going to lose weight, and it worked. I didn't think about it, I just stayed on plan ( did WW at home), and it worked out that way, but this time around, I can't stay on plan long enough for it to be a habit, I can't put this on the back burner, its a huge constant. Not a day, not an hour goes by when I do not think about my weight, my size..and I'm not that big, but I'm big enough to be bothered by it. My goal was to wear shorts by the tiem I go to Rock Fest in July..i haven't worn shorts since six years ago, but now it seems that if I do wear shorts, I'll have to get them in a bigger size.

My rant is how something like this can dominate my life so much. You'd think with all the thinking/reading/whatevering about it, I'd get it and make it work for me. I know that cookies aren't a good choice, but I can't stop itl.....oh sigh. Welcome to my pitty party. I"m the guest of honor.

In addition to what Mary said, if you aren't doing LAWL, then I highly recommend it. It seems to be the only thing that has ever worked for me. I lost 20 pounds on LAWL a few years ago. After I had my baby, who is going to be 2 next month, I gained alot! My total weight loss goal is 56 pounds. My point of telling you this is that the day I called LAWL, I had hit rock bottom. I tried eating right, exercising, on my own but it wasn't working. I, too, read every magazine, on-line this and that and felt like I should know enough to make this work. So I went into LAWL and basically told them they were my only hope. I was beginning to feel like if I didn't lose the extra weight, I was destined to shorten my life and not be around for my baby. So 23 pounds later, I'm sticking with this plan and am determined to make my goal. Sure, I've gone off track several times since I started, but I try to get right back on. One cookie won't kill you...and if you eat a whole bag, you're human! Every day is a new day...you can do this!

Now I don't know what your height is, but regardless, you're not fat! Change that tape that is playing in your head and tell yourself that you look good and you're healthy...you're just not yet where you feel you want to be right now. But don't let that run your life.

If you decide to do LAWL or even if you don't, everyone here would be more that happy to help you through this struggle. We're all here for each other! Hope this helps!

How I love different fonts.....anyway, thank you for your replies, and for pulling up a chair to my table at the party...

I hadn't realized that I was in the LAWL forum. Out of curiosity, I went to thier web site. I don't think I could do it if I wanted to, as when I put in my zip code, they can't bring up any centers near me within four hours...

Regardless, I'm over my funk, adn I realized that much of my problem is my attitude. For anyone who is curious, I am five seven. I have gone from 220 to 145 by way of Weight Watchers. Now I am going to try my hand at counting calories and my using fit day, as well as keeping up w/ my blog... I can't afford to do anything fancy, like join a program. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we find what works for us.

Looking back on my post, I was quite pathetic, but that's how I felt yesterday. I am going to go to the Y, as soon as I check some other things off my 'todo' list.

Yeah, some may say I'm not even fat. I work in the eyecare industry. You can have a person with the most minimal amount of correction possible, and with out thier glasses/contacts they immediately complain that they are blind. You can have a person who has a monstrous amount of correction, who, with out glasses/contacts are very close to blind, and they will also complain. Even at two ends of the spectrum, both people feel worse with out thier correction. I may not be the definition of fat, but I still know how it feels to be treated differently because of my size, to stress and obsess about it. I may not have that much weight to lose,but I still know what it's like to strive for a goal, to become discouraged with it. I may not be truly fat, but that doesn't make my feelings invalid...I'm not saying that anyone is trying to discredit me..but what I do mean is that we're all in this together. People can readily admit that losing five lbs can be just as ardous as fifty....
I'm rambling, but do ya know what I mean?

Alteaon- Glad you are feeling a bit better today. I would like to suggest that you do work on body image. It is very difficult to see ourselves as we really are, especially after being quite heavy. My dad's best friend used to tell a joke. He would tell people that he was anorexic. They would look at him in suprise, since he was a big guy, 6'5 and well over 350 lbs. He would look innocently back at them and say "It's true. Everytime I look in the mirror, I see a fat person." Funny joke, (hope I don't offend anyone, anorexia is no laughing matter) but true for many of us. Why can't we see what others can? Why is it that the girls who responed to your post all looked at your stats and said "You are not fat!"? Because we have such a hard time seeing ourselves as we really are. I have a couple of suggestions for you. Firstly, dig out those photo albums, ask your family to help you if you don't have many pictures of yourself, and pull together some "befores" and "nows". There must be a huge difference in your face and entire body. Pictures are a great way to train our brains on reality. My second suggestion is read a book. It is called "Body Clutter" by Marla Cilley and Leanne Ely. You can find it on flylady.com. This is wonderful book to help you deal with self image, loving youself, and letting go of all the emotional stuff related to food and weight. You are worth the effort to work through the things that are holding you back. Good luck with your journey, and feel free to post here anytime. This is a great group of women, dedicated to helping each other succeed. Katie