Ah yes, sodium is so hard to handle! I didn't have ham, but we had a pork roast and other goodies. It took awhile to get past that!

Carter: Well said. I like what you posted. I do think that what I am doing now is a form of what the rest of my life should be. When I get to goal, will I be so dedicated to recording everything I eat? I don't think so. But I do know that I won't be burying my head in the sand and avoiding the scale ever again. I have to stay disciplined with that and face the reality.

Calluna: Good luck with the swim meet! It is hard to keep on plan when you're travelling!

Thanks, Diane! It will be a challenge to eat well while out of town, but at least my SO will be at home, which makes it a lot easier. He's the worst for wanting to go to restaurants that serve rich food when we're out. Since my son is such a dedicated swimmer and this is a high-stakes meet, he's likely to want to eat cleanly.

The sodium bounce is off, but it seems as though I'll have to wait until next week to see if I actually lost anything this week. I'll try to make sure I'm pleasantly surprised on Monday!

Hi! I'm new, but wanted to jump in with my sincere congratulations to the long term dedication posted! I can relate first hand to considering plateau or regain a failure after success (I'm there right now.)
Absolutely not a suffering in my plans but a break in my discipline.
This week placing major focus on my water intake! Sodium balance and curbing reflexive and stress eating. And I have a cold... so putting a cramp in my exercise.

Bravome: Having a cold is just such a pain when you're trying to exercise! Hang in there.

Calluna: Have a great time with your son. That's so cool!

I took a look at the scale this morning and it looked really good. I'm hoping for some great numbers by Monday's official weigh in. I took off today to do some stuff here at home. I'll have to be careful to not eat too much. Way too much temptation to be lazy and graze.....

I had someone who I would consider to be an advanced rider in spin class tell me today that she thinks I've really improved and have gained a lot of strength in Spin. Wow. I am so excited to hear that! She made my day. It also made me think of the opportunities I have missed to let someone else know that I've noticed their hard work and persistance.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Mine was pretty good. I had taken off on Friday to do some stuff at home. It took me forever, but I got all my windows cleaned, inside and out. I have a one story house, but it is up on a stemwall, so I needed a ladder for a lot of it. Up and down....many, many times. I was pretty sore and tired that night.

But, had a good weigh in this morning, 2.2 pounds down. I'm looking forward to getting the next 10 off. Then, I'll finally have this recent regain... re-lost.

We had a great weekend with my son at the Junior Olympics - he did really well. I don't know what the scale will look like after my body settles back into "normal" again, but I did not overeat and that is a victory all by itself. Not all choices were healthy choices, but on the whole I think I did ok.

Good weigh in, Diane! Yeah!

Hey guys! I'm so glad that I found this thread. This is my story too, and I'm realizing that I really can't do this on my own. I've yoyo'd more times than I want to count, and I'm ready to be done with that. (+1 for a year of frustration and apathy.)

I hit my max weight at 278 about 8 years ago, at age 26. I had a life event that resulted in a period of anxiety, and the only thing that made the shaking go away was exercising. Even after the anxiety went away (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 4tw), since I'd gotten started losing weight, I felt amazing and kept the momentum going. I took a nutrition class and began to balance my diet and count calories. I did reasonably well with eating, and though I really am not good at keeping up with exercising, I did it intermittently. Despite some mild yoyo'ing. I slowly (~ 4 years) made my way down to 176 lbs, which was lower than I'd been in 15 years.

102 lb weight loss - what an awesome accomplishment! That was 4 years ago. Then I started medical school, and stress/exhaustion set in, and I have done some absolutely ridiculous yoyo'ing over the last 4 years. It seems to depend on what rotation I'm on, what time of year, and how much time I have free... I go from letting things go to getting into a great pattern, and back to letting things go. I've made some great changes in the past that have worked, but then my schedule or work load change, and I so easily stay off the horse once I fall. But I absolutely am not able to stay on the horse without giving in now and then. I don't see my schedule changing in the foreseeable future. So I'm the one that needs to change.

I think simply coming here and talking it through with people, listening to your stories, will be a huge portion of what makes it work this time. It will help keep it in my mind that YES it matters a lot to me that I keep up with this, NO I am not alone in my struggles, YES it's possible to be successful, and NO I don't ever want to go back down that slippery slope.

I have some great motivations (besides my own health and feeling good and fitting in clothes etc, I don't want to be an obese doctor, and my classmates are all healthy and it's embarrassing to be chubby) but it's hard to keep that in the front of my mind when I'm hungry/eating. It's actually the opposite - it's as if everything else fades once I'm eating. I'm great at convincing myself that I'll eat less later to make up for it, or I'll exercise to cover the calories. But I've developed into a really good self-liar, still gullible for my own lofty intentions.

Anyhow, I just wanted to introduce myself! I'll be catching up on old posts to see how things have gone for you guys, and I plan to be around more from here on out!

Carter, on 4/23 you posted the following:"For the rest of your life" is popular diet wisdom. But (speaking only for myself) I find it somewhat daunting and counterproductive: If I have the rest of my life, why should I bother sticking to my plan today? The procrastinator in me needs to think more immediately than that. I need a plan I can stick to today, right now".......I copied it and plan to print it out and make sure I see it everyday.

This just hit me directly, a thought I have had in my mind for years and never pulled out to examine for myself. I don't have to worry about tomorrow because we never get tomorrow we only have today. I have lost and regained so many times and each time I look at tomorrow.

At 57, birthday this past weekend, I now have neuropathy and other medical issues that I know this weight, now 259 is not helping reduce the pain.

Really just wanted to thank you for putting it into words for this procrastinator.

Calluna: Glad you had a good weekend. It sounds like it was a success. So good that you get to go to those types of things!

Sakurai: Good post! Glad you are joining us. I think you have a lot of wisdom to share and hopefully, we can all support each other as we move forward!

Cat Bird: Carter.... ONE SMART COOKIE!!

I did a little calculation yesterday. If I want to make my July 1st goal, I'll need to lose on average 2.1 pounds per week. I'm not sure if that will happen, but I'm hoping that gives me the extra push to keep up with exercise and staying on plan.

Had a massive fail on a calorie replacement idea. I'd always heard that you can substitute plain Greek yogurt for sour cream, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not a fan of Greek yogurt, but thought it might work. Tried it on a taco. YUCK! Ok, that's not going to happen again. I'll cut down on the amount of sour cream, but that was not a good substitution.

I LOVE fat free sour cream. It has really low calories. Try a different brand if you don't like the one you've had before! It's especially great in things - I put it in my tomato soup or lentil soup (lentejas, a Mexican recipe).

Recipe:
Bag of the regular brownish/greeninsh lentils
2 large tomatoes and 1/3 white onion, blended to puree
1 heaping spoon of chicken bouillon (or fake chicken bouillon is also really good!)

Lentils - check for dirt/stones, rinse, and boil in pot ~ 20 mins
Pour tomato/onion puree in and add bouillion - another ~ 15 mins
Add salt to taste
Add a dallop of fat free sour cream when serving

Nom. Great natural protein, no fat , delicious.

This thread got me to join the 3 Fat Chicks site because I saw myself in all these posts. I really was feeling good when I had lost a bunch of weight 2 1/2 years ago. I think my body and I may both be ready to lose weight now, so I think it’s time to give it a try - again.

I have 110 pounds to lose - but I was about 63 pounds lighter about two and a half years ago. I lost the weight over the course of a year doing low carb - but low carb for me was really low - like 20 carbs per day or less - and I was unable to keep it up after a year.

About this time last year (May 2013), I realized the gastrointestinal difficulties I had been having were not normal and they seemed to be getting worse, so I gave up gluten (99.8%) for the past year. That seemed to improve things somewhat, but not completely so then I gave up my diet Pepsi **sniff** (and diet Coke), and then I gave up dairy **Ouch! Dairy made low carb so much more livable**. Then I stumbled upon an article on probiotics about a month ago, and after doing a bunch of research to discover what makes a good probiotic and taking these for a few weeks, I decided it was time to reintroduce some foods… So, over the last few days I've discovered I can again eat gluten, dairy and other foods that were giving me issues. (I’m not going back to drinking diet soda though – that was a good thing to quit!)

Anyway, now that my gastrointestinal issues seem to be resolved, I am hoping that my body may finally be ready to lose the weight it has seemed determined to hang on to for so long. About 27 years ago I got down to maybe 150 pounds (from 185) right before I got married when I was 23, but the weight started to creep back on, and on, and way beyond that over the next few years.

Soooooo….. now,

• I want to lose this excess weight.
• I want to be skinny – I would love to try out and maintain 155 pounds.
• I want to be healthy.
• I want to eat healthy food that tastes good and is satisfying and filling.
• I want to make time every day to exercise.
• I want room in my life for some indulgence.

I want to be FabulousFifty ☺

And, since I'm new and can't have a fancy signature yet, I'll go old style:

272/265/155

FabulousFifty: Welcome! It sounds like you've been through a lot over the past few years. Glad you're here with us and ready to re-lose! You can do it! Oh, and I'm 50 and live in Colorado too!

Sakurai: Ok.... never thought about trying fat free sour cream. That's kind of a no brainer, isn't it? Thanks for the suggestion, I'll do that! I just have trouble justifying the extra calories with full calorie sour cream, so I'll get some fat free. That recipe sounds AWESOME!

Had a great spin class today. It was hard, but I kind of like the extra challenge of this instructor. She's always been really strong and fit, but lately she changed her diet and has dropped some weight. NOW she's really aggressive with the class. Love it! She just grins when everyone else gasps for breath.

Hello everyone.

Cat Bird, I'm so glad that what I said resonated for you. I've been struggling so much myself lately that it's good to have the reminder that I have figured some stuff out and just need to find the discipline to apply what I already know works.

Slashnl - thanks. If I were so smart, I'd be able to stop at one cookie.

FabulousFifty - Welcome to our little thread - good luck and good strength.

Carter: Yeah, I typed it in and thought... cookie... yum! Maybe that wasn't the best phrase to use!

Made it to Body Pump today. Thursdays always seem to be my worst day for working out. I don't know if I am getting tired by Thursday, or if it is just that Body Pump... while good for me... is just not my favorite class. It isn't horrible, but it isn't as much fun as Spin. But, need the weights...

Hello, everyone who's persevering in spite of regains...

I'm still plugging away. Ate well yesterday in spite of lunch out with a friend, and today will face a similar challenge with colleagues. I'm getting better at it, I think. Maybe.

Enjoying wearing a pair of pants that isn't tight and a shirt that I was too embarrassed to wear a few weeks ago. Life is good.