Sunday update.
current weight 168lbs.
I lost 2lbs since tuesday (18th august) which means i get to change the clothes on my virtual model me. hehe.

I'm still trying to continue from time to time, visualise myself as slimmer.
Apparently what you think of , you attract.

Gosh, Cape, I'm really hoping you're not too affected by Bill.

Here's my food confession:

Breffix - a handful of veggie straws. I know, I know, it's terribly unhealthy but they're gone now. Finally finished, so I'll get back to my normal breffixes starting tomorrow.

Lunch - Chicken jalfrezi (curried vegetables with chopped up chicken breast) and 1/2 cup (I'm guessing?) cooked white rice, 1/2 cup plain NF yogurt. 10 veggie straws. Um. The bag is officially gone now.

Dinner - Black bean quesadillas. Black beans, corn, fresh tomato, green bell pepper, spice, salt. Whole wheat flour tortillas. Mine will have feta cheese.

My exercise confession:

Yesterday, we got rained out after 20 mins of tennis. Came back up and found out 10 mins later the rain stopped but we had already gotten dinner by then. Thanks, weather. Today, we're going out for 45 mins - 1 hr of tennis. Hopefully, we won't get rained out.

Great job on the weight loss Echo!! You'll be at your goal in no time!

coffee with lite creamer
water
banana

ham salad sandwich
veggie pasta salad
water
diet dr. pepper

rice noodles with veggies and chicken, 260 calorie microwave meal
carrots and celery, large servings with reduced fat ranch dressing
water
apple

did 50 waist/stomach twists today

awwww thank you so much Sunni!!!

well done ladies !! Sunni, Cape and Hydra! you're all doing super !!

Cape - glad that you're safe and sound and that the worst is over.
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Well last night after dinner, I was knackered!! I may have been abit too over zealous in upping my step counter lol. so it really hit me after dinner. But because I was going to have home made pizza for dinner, I wanted to increase my step count.

my confession from yesterday:

exercise - 30 minutes of kenpo X (p90x)

breakfast - 1 french toast.
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40 minute walk in the garden (leisurely sunday stroll lol).

general walking around the house throughout the day.

dinner -

1 large glass of water and 1 date.

then after an hour or so 3 slices of home made pizza

I should have stopped eating after 2 slices! and even 2 and half, but I was being piggy and it was so delicious, I over ate and ended up eating 3 slices! Which I felt guilty afterwards, but its okay, its a slip up and is to be accepted according to Paul Mckenna.

I also had 2 glasses of 7up. which was very nice with the pizza hehe.

But today at dinner time, really going to stop eating when i am comfortably full and satisfied.

total number of steps taken yesterday 15,801 steps. - BUT it's not 100% accurate - but i really dont care about that - as i am more interested in seeing relative increase or decrease of steps. I keep it on as soon as i get up in the morning, and have it on me the entire day. I know that it is probably over-estimating, but I use it more as a relative number rather than an accurate number of steps.

i've been monitoring the number of steps in an excel spreadsheet all this week. and i can see that the lowest number of steps i took was last monday - 5832 steps, and the highest was yesterday and yesterday i did feel it at night time, as the heel of my feet were hurting haha. even though was just walking normally throughout the day at a leisurely pace.

I think its a good pedometer. and i have noticed i will make more of an effort to move around the house more, just so i can "up" the number of steps on the read out, so its a good motivational device hehe.

have a good day girls!! see you later on tonight for todays confession

Cape, glad to hear you're alright and didn't suffer too much at the hands of Bill. You still managed to watch what you ate, so kudos!! I know it would've been very tough for me in that situation.

Wowza, Echo! I've noticed that since you first starting posting on this thread your food intake has more than halved! That's amazing that you're not feeling starved and miserable and that you're satisfied with how much you're eating. That's great! Also, good job on the steps! I was reeling when I saw the new number...

As for me, well this morning I weighed in at 164.2 (yesterday was 163.9 and the day before was 163.4). You know where I'm going with this. Actually, I'm happy I'm not seeing 165 and 166. I was seeing them for the LONGEST time. It's just that I made the mistake of setting my Vegas trip as my deadline for a mini-goal. I'm 4 lbs away which I didn't think would be that tough and it's starting to look tough. Boo. BUT I made the decision to keep plugging away. It's so funny that I just starting seeing a slew of posts from other chickies saying they were frustrated with how long it's taking...seemed to mirror my thoughts exactly.

I don't have much to confess since it's only 9 AM for me... will post again later tonight

Breffix: 3 fresh figs (YUM)

Yeah that's it for now. Will have a cup of tea in a bit.

Chit chat time: I met up with my friend a couple of days ago and she looked good! She's always been a little "bottom-heavy" but her upper body is ridiculously toned. When I saw her, her legs were looking way more toned - must've been from all her running she's been doing lately. For once, I wasn't jealous that someone I know was losing weight. I thought about it and I realized it was probably because I was taking care of myself and doing something about my weight. Instead of being huffy that everyone has it "so easy" and I was cursed to be fat, I was actually counting calories, watching what I ate and enjoying what I ate. I think that's made me a happy person. Well, genuinely happy person. I wish I could've said something to her, but I know she wouldn't like me commenting as it would make her think "what are you saying I was fat before?" So I said nothing. Oh well...

to everyone. Have a good day!!

Hi Cape!

Yeah, I'm a calorie counter. I never thought I would be. My method is a combo of methods out there.

First, you need a tracker of some sort. There are plenty out there. I use Fitday. Others are sparkpeople, freedieting.com and calorieking. I heard calorieking is awesome because it's more indepth than other programs out there. I've only used their free food database when I needed calorie counts of restaurant foods since Fitday doesn't recognize many of those. I would start with Fitday since it's the easiest (you can also log your activity calories) and then move on to other programs.

Second, you need to determine how many calories you need for your body type and rate of weight loss. This is the trickiest part of calorie counting, and one that can only be perfected by the person who is losing weight (meaning you ). I'm sure you've heard/read on these boards that 1200 is the minimum number of calories for someone over 5'. I chose 1500 because I thought that would be a good number to start with. Turns out, it was too little for me. I would feel incredibly hungry all the time and miserable when I would look at the number of calories in a freakin' bowl of grapes! I was also having trouble sleeping at night, most likely due to my hunger. I upped my calorie count to 1800 and was still having problems but not as much as 1500. Then I started cycling between 1800 and 2000 (one day 1800-ish and the next 2000-ish) and that works for me. Yeah, 1800 makes me feel hungry, but I don't get that starvation mentality because I know the next day I can have more calories. It's a self-compromise.

That's pretty much all there is to calorie counting. Most of the foods I make are not on Fitday. What I do is calculate the total number of calories in the entire dish by adding up all the individuals. I look up the calorie counts for veggies (when I first made those dishes, I would be strict about measuring each raw ingredient). Others - canned foods, sauces, etc - I got from the container. Once you've tallied the calorie counts, determine what's a serving to you (1/2 cup, 1/2 a sandwich, etc) and divide the total cals by the servings to get the number of cals per serving. Based on that, you can decide whether you want to cut down or increase your servings. I started switching ingredients or cutting down on some. I found that using 1 less tsp of oil is a reduction of 40 cals without sacrificing taste! I also found out about making butter-free cream sauces (use skim milk and cornstarch). It tastes the same to me and I bet there's at least a 75% calorie reduction from the original.

Wow, that was long-winded but I hope it helped! Good luck! Feel free to ask me more, I'll share whatever I know with you.

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Confession:

I took a big ol' nap after I ate my flatbread sammich and 3 figs. I love figs. The end.

Echo this is such a cool idea! Where do you do the model at??

I have a real problem with overeating, even though it's always super healthy stuff. I can't stop myself. I feel hungry. I ate very very well all day yesterday, then added about an extra 1,000 calories to my day between 8 and 9 pm....cereal, fruit and vegetarian chili! I am super mad at myself, as I always am after I overindulge. Even though I know the overeating will make me feel guilty, I still end up doing it, between three and four times per week. It's sick. I don't feel like I'm an emotional eater...I just feel hungry no matter what I eat, and portion control seems impossible. It's ridiculous. Guess I'm looking at an extra two hours of exercise this week. Was it worth it? NO! lol
Any advice?

fresno26~ I do the same thing all the time. I overeat on the healthy stuff. I'm the same way, hungry no matter what I eat and how much I eat. I'm just going to try my best to stick with a set amount of calories and see where that gets me.

fresno26 I also used to suffer from over eating, until i started implementing Paul Mckenna's 4 golden rules (Sorry i know i keep going on about it. you would think i am under commission!)

basically in a nutshell,
you eat when you are hungry, actually hungry, and you eat VERY SLOWLY!!
put down your fork between each mouthful, chew your food completely, until its like baby food! something like 20 bites.
keep a clock infront of you to remind you to eat slowly. and then after your mouth is clear from all food , go for the next bite.
my meals usually take about 25 minutes on average to eat, and i find that i am eating half of what i usually eat.

also when you think you are full. STOP EATING.

you can tell you are comfortably full, because somewhere around the 20 minute mark, you will involtunarily take a deep breath! a sigh, or you will be more thirsty than hungry.

eat consiously, dont eat infront of the telly, or reading. nothing, just concentrate on what you are eating. and enjoy what you are eating. not what you think you should eat.

the rules are:

4 GOLDEN RULES

1. When You Are Hungry, Eat

2. Eat What You Want, Not What You Think You Should

3. Eat Consciously And Enjoy Every Mouthful (eat SLOWLY, no T.V)

4. When You Think You Are Full, Stop Eating

also sometimes you might not be hungry, but thirsty , so drink a glass of water, and then wait and see if your tummy rumbles.

also try not to leave your hunger until you're ravenous or faint,

try to stay out of the red zone.



if you eat like this, dont be suprised if you are hungry again 3 hours later, thats okay, you can eat again.

i found a link on youtube that explains abit about it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRz8BEJLpi8