For those that are exercising while on the diet, post your workouts here! Let's support, encourage and motivate each other.

Thanks for starting this thread boyz4us.
A very good session of Hot Yoga yesterday, today a hike during my lunch break and going to a class tonight that a friend is starting combining yoga and meditation (clearly yoga is one of my jams. A really nice sunny day here in Colorado so great day to be out for a bit.

Usually I get a couple good sessions in a week of something or other, but this week my goal is on the "off" days to do at least do a little walk or stretching for 15 or 20 minutes. Also within a month I want to get back to some strength training. The yoga I do is the intense kind, so there is some strength training involved, but want to add in some weights soon. So writing it here to "declare" to myself the goals

Thanks boyz4us, My weekend included Weight training Friday, 2 mile walk 1 mile jog on Saturday and 2 miles walked Sunday. Today I walked 1.75 miles. I did have my weight in this morning and had gained .8 lbs. I was fine with it. I knew going in this morning I felt like I had some water retention. Around week 5 I had a stall week. The next week I saw a 4 pound loss. Hoping to see a whoosh next week.
Great to see this thread. I do like my exercise and as the weather warms up I look forward to being active outside.
Grateful4health, I have always wanted to try yoga. Is there any dvd's that you recommend?

Rebelgrl there are so many dvds out there and so many types of yoga - I liked Rodney Yee's DVDs for a long time...he's kind of old school.
I go to a studio and I like the intensity of the Bikram/ hot yoga. Best thing is maybe try a few free downloads or check out some free classes and see what type you like. But ask me any other questions, I'm happy to answer.

Btw re: weekly weigh ins, I almost always had two weeks of stall or a little up, and then one or two drop weeks. In the drop weeks not many inches, but on the plateau weeks more inches. I had to learn to gage it more by the month, and just know I was in it until I met goal, and it was going to take however long my particular body wanted to take.

Hey Ipeeps, Just finished my 2 mile walk at our local track. Anyone get some activity in today? Thanks grateful4health. I am going to check some out online tonight.

Got a long hike in yesterday, today 1 hour hot yoga (which felt esp. great today for some reason) and a short outside walk. Tomorrow is a busier day so I’m using my lunch break to go for a 45 minute walk.

Sorry I haven't been back to post on the thread I started. I am glad you are enjoying it!
Monday I did a 2 mile run/walk. It was suppose to be all run but my legs just didn't have it in them so I did intervals.
Tuesday: I used yesterday as a rest day-since I had either walked or run every day prior for the past week and thought my legs could probably use a break.
Wednesday (today)-Plan is to go for a run again-hoping I feel better this time out. If I don't have the energy, I will walk. I am o.k. with that at this point. (Phase 1 week 2).

Boyz4us, I know for me the first three weeks were a real adjustment period. I think listening to your body as you are doing is the best way to go.
Grateful4health, sounds like you had a very active day. I was looking at your stats. Your weightloss is awesome. How long did it take you to lose that much weight on IP?
I will meet with a trainer today for a strength training session. Hope everyone has a great OP day.

Grateful4Health - I love those days when yoga feels especially good. I always love a good yoga class but there's definitely days where the body and/or mind needs it more. I didn't have time to do my Tuesday vinyasa flow class so I went to the gym instead yesterday. I'm probably going to make my cousin go to a hot yoga class with me while she visits this weekend.

rebelgrl87 - Yay for meeting with a trainer! Hope you get a lot from that. Have fun!

Yesterday I went to the gym and did some weight lifting (chest and triceps), followed by intervals on the treadmill, and finished with 15 minutes of light yoga. So nice.

Yes, I agree. The first time I did IP I followed it to the letter about no real exercise until after 3 weeks and then light walking only.
Yesterday it was beautiful here and my run felt so much better. I just did what felt good and decided to pull back a bit from my attempts-I ran 1 mile, walked 1/4, ran another 1/4 and then walked 2.5 for a total of 4 miles. I will slowly build from here.

Hi, I just wrote a post on another thread that I am copying here below...
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Kira I hadn't been following your thread but happened across it this morning. I saw your profile pictures - wow, you look amazing, a huge change in health. I also read back a few pages and saw the outline of your story more - we really do have a very similar history.

Just to encourage, I think we have written a little more about it on other threads also, but as we were writing, I also was having a lot of difficulty with weight loss even though eating very well and exercising heavily. It actually took me three years to convince my doctor this was the case, as 95% of the population are convinced that someone is lying when they say this, and actually are eating more than they think.

I wanted to write a little more here in case others happen across this thread and it helps them decide whether to do IP. I think I will also re-post a copy in the exercise thread.

Prior to doing IP, I was at times going to hot yoga once a day 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day, and other times alternating with a fantastic personal trainer with very hard workouts. On the days I did yoga I also often walked for an hour on my lunch break. I was tracking every single thing I ate, sometimes going down to 900 calories, usually around 1200 average depending on the workout day, following my trainer and doctor's recommendations religiously. I did boot camps. I went for nearly two years without eating sugar or gluten, and drank a glass of wine maybe every three months. I had some low form of carb, maybe a sweet potato, brown rice, etc. every two days or so, sometimes every day, but small and measured. I did a cleanse of some type every two months. I was not eating much meat, maybe chicken breast every few days, sometimes for a month totally vegetarian. Everything organic. It was crazy how hard I was trying and how disciplined I had become.

I had been through a health scare in 2009 and had a very bad car accident, couldn't exercise much for a year, gained quite a bit of weight, and like you started to fight some depression and anxiety. After that year I was determined to get healthy again, and started a very healthy lifestyle that I describe above.

I am well aware of compulsion and addiction issues, and definitely have used food as a drug or to calm anxiety, and was successful and not doing this for the most part, and if I did it was still within my program.

I tracked everything I ate and all my exercise. I lost maybe a pound every few months. Finally both my trainer and doctor said "there's something wrong". There was a thryoid issue, but overall my body was just shot. IP was the first thing that truly worked. It was truly a godsend for me. So far in maintenance I am finally processing foods again as it feels I should. I can tell my body is still very carb sensitive - even an extra apple seems to trigger it to retain water and hold weight. Also stress seems to play a part - even with food exactly the same, during stressful times my body starts to hold weight. So I'm still working with it, but at least now my body is at a healthy weight and I know what to do to correct things.
It will be a lifelong focus.

I also stopped a little short of goal for the same reasons you did. I will see how it goes the next few months, and I may do another 3 weeks of IP in 6 months to lose another 5 lbs if that feels accurate at that time, but right now my body can't handle the restriction any more, and it feels right to have the plan I have now, which is very similar to the one you have planned for yourself.

Hopefully we can stay in touch a little through the threads as we continue in maintenance and share our discoveries and realizations. I would like very much to hear how things go for you.

Good luck to everyone here - I am very inspired by all of your successes!

rebelgrl87 To answer your question - I lost a big chunk really fast the first few months - I think about 40 pounds in about three months. Then about 8 lbs for a month for three months, then it all got very slow once I was within about 10 or 15 lbs of goal, that last part was just two or three pounds a month for four months, toward the end just one or two until I finally decided to phase off. I was on almost exactly one year all together until I went to Phase 4. I did all the Phases exactly as instructed except I only did Phase 2 for one week because I waited a little too long to start that.

I had to do a lot of little adjustments throughout to keep things going - I often had weeks with no loss - I would take out restricted, then add restricted, then add a little oil or fat, then add more red meat, then I had two weeks of substituting an IP packet for the 8oz of meat, things like that. These were all things my doctor recommended. Looking back I don't know if it really mattered, I think just staying the course however I could was the key. The changes I think just helped with the diet fatigue in general, and I have a really active mind so it helped just engage me in some change.

hey everyone. Hope you have enjoyed Good Friday. I met with a trainer again today. We had a great workout. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be beautiful here. Hoping to get some walking outside done. Hoping the scales move downward this week. Have a great Easter weekend.

Just posted a little update about my week and P1 day on the Maintainers thread, didn’t want to clutter things up here by reposting but here it is if you want to have a look http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/idea...l-18-a-12.html

Beautiful day today, will likely be a more restful day today but will do yoga sometime this weekend. My yoga studio has classes that incorporate weights, and I want to look into doing one of those this week. Also my trainer that I used before IP is where I used to live, about 2 hours away, but I decided last week I want to make a trip this month to see her and ask her to help me put a program together I can do at the gym here. So those are my April goals… will let you know how it progresses. I think I’m getting acclimated enough now to maintenance that I can start to push more into using more weights and a little higher intensity cardio.

Trying Pilates today after work.... kind of excited to check it out.