Welcome to all who care to stop here! Join us for some fun and supportive sharing on this journey - the journey of 1000lbs begins with one bite.....!

So please feel free to come on in and get to know us!

Well thought I had better post a quickie as well as starting the new thread. Saturday has dawned and I had my current fave breakfast of porridge and cinnamon (with soy milk) and a pear chopped up in it. Oh and coffee. Of course. I dont know how I am going to pass the morning, so I might take the opportunity to sit down and do some meditation, which I tend to avoid most of the time....but this morning I feel the need to go there at least for a few minutes. I will catch up with everyone later in the weekend, but for now love to you all and stay OP! It works if we work it!

I have been here and there on these boards and this heading caught my eye. I haven't posted on here in awhile. I need to do a little bragging. I am so excited. When I joined WW I started at 296 and I thought 250 was a long ways off. Well, I am almost there and I am so excited about it. I have 7 more to go. I never thought I would actually get this close. If it wasn't for the people on this site I prolly would have given up a long time ago.

Melissa

Its been a long while since I had time to breathe and think and post really. Or maybe its just seemed a while as the hustle and bustle of real-world stuff gets in the way. In any case, I have a moment -- so I'm back and pleased to have the time to post a bit more extensively than usual.

Today was "Comedy of Errors" day as we headed off shopping and had to replace the car's battery before we were done (it just flat out died on us). Got home with the cable for my new monitor only to find that when I plugged the power in, the monitor made a sizzling sound and died. So off to get a replacement monitor, return, plug it in, and find now my keyboard has died! Off to replace that, return, plug it in and find the mouse which was working when we left no longer is. Off to replace that -- back and finally, a computer again. My daughter is now off happily playing The Sims on my cast off computer - I won't see her again until she emerges from puberty I expect ... 'cause she sure does love that game!

Dinner tonight was to be spaghetti with meat sauce and rolls except that part way through making dinner the oven broke -- which was followed soon after by my dropping the spaghetti on the floor. So Taco Bell to the resuce. LOL!

Looking forward to returning tomorrow and seeing what you have all been up to. Miss you all.

An absolutely gorgeous Saturday just fading away to twilight as I write this. With hubby away I've been very lazy but he'll be home late tonight so I thought I'd do some vacuuming and dusting and throwing out of general clutter. Also had two aunts and an uncle coming for a visit this afternoon so wanted to spruce the place up a bit. They're all in their 80s and this will be their last visit for a while I guess. Uncle doesn't like to drive in the winter and we're about an hour's drive from them. They pick up my ancient single auntie from her seniors home and man, every time I see her (usually every 2 months or so) I notice a decline in her hearing and her physical ability. She walks so slow I think some of my garden slugs could beat her in a race. Poor thing barely hears a word we say but she's full of chatter about all the petty little spats at the seniors' home and who stole who's seat in the dining room, etc. That's her world now. I took them out to dinner at our local Chinese smorg place knowing full well that I'd OD on carbs. Why don't I just add up the WW points for a cup of sugar and call it a day? Luckily I'd saved up points for the last few days and had eaten lightly for breakfast and lunch today so I'm hoping not too much damage was done. Don't weigh in until Fri. so I've time to repent and recommit.
Feeling so good about my 16 lb lost but nobody else even notices it. Probably a good thing though, or I'd be resting on my laurels thinking I'd lost enough. LOL LOL Sure a 5'4" 284 lb woman looks just fine.
That's all for today, Chickies. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Hi I'm new around here. I love this thread. I am now looking down at 250 I use to look up at it. It happens all so quickly. Although since having my 2nd child last summer I swear I absorb food through osmosis now. I can't stop gaining I never thought I would be so huge. And I finally hit my all time bottom. I sat all summer and watched my beautiful family (my two sons and hubby) having fun. Playing in the pool, bike riding, going to the water park and just general summer frolicking. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin. I feel chroniclly pregnant. Big fat stomach.And to make it so much better I think at least two people mistook me for being pregnant.
So please may I draw some inspiration from your little group. I so desperately need it.
I have a plan. I'm rejoining ww on Thursday. I am going to walk 2 miles 3x a week and do ab crunches everyday. I plan to have 50# off by my older sons birthday Feb 28th 2002 and the other 50 by June28th 2002 my younger sons birthday. No more fat mom. Which reminds me one of my sons friends said I was fat. That was a crushing blow. I felt so ashamed and embarrassed for my son.

lillacglitter~ you sweetheart, thank-you for the message and the invite. I really need a few friends now. You sound so on track. I can't believe you got through that bike ride!! Good for you. I swear it woulda killed me LOL. Thanx

Melissa~ sounds like you are doin' great. You must be so pleased with yourself.When did you start ww?

Linda~ I know what you mean about losing and no one notices. I have that problem too. I usually have to lose about 20 before anyone says anything. But don't you worry it will come.:

ta ta for now
Mandy

256?/160

Okay -- seriously folks -- is it possible that my body is, in reaction to my considerably worrying each week beginning the day before weigh-in, retaining water or otherwise puffing itself up to foil me? Seriously? I weighed in on Friday up 2.5 pounds. This was around 9.30 am. I got home a little down and determined that we'd be sure to get in more exercise this week as I'd really eaten within a point or two of my minimum all week and so changing what I was eating was less likely -- I'm not hungry for more, and eating below points isn't something I'll do regularly. Saturday morning I got up and, for kick, hopped on my doctor's scale -- which has, so far, matched my results at weigh-in exactly when its properly balanced (and it is right now) and *poof* the results show 252 which would be down 4, not up 2.5. I'm asking the question with seriousness simply because I know that stress can trigger menstration and migraines -- so I thought perhaps it could trigger water retention? Either that or my water gain from salt lasted three days -- because I'd avoided all salt for days prior to weigh-in (and I'm giving serious though to just giving up high-salt foods since I don't seem to mind going without them before weigh-in it seems silly to eat them otherwise anyway). Argh.

Melissa -- How exciting!! I feel that same way about making it to 250 -- I'm almost there and can't believe its gonna happen. How cool. Okay -- another serious one... do we hafta leave the Countdown to 250 thread when we make it? Or can we stay?

Linda -- We've noticed your sixteen pounds. Yeah, its not the same and I know it. I'm down about 20 and I hope every day that when I go to the post office or my Subway or Taco Bell that someone, anyone will comment on it. I have a girlfriend who swears you can tell, but I think she's just being dear. It'll come and I know it'll come but hey, I really just want someone who doesn't know I'm losing weight to say, "Gosh, did you lose some weight? You look great!" or something.

Mandy -- Welcome! Weight Watchers is, imo, a great program -- you'll do great with it I bet! I lost from 325 to 250 a couple years back and quit when we moved and started new careers. I've only just started back but its the same wonderful program now. My first goal is to have lost enough that my mother-in-law (who has always made comments like, "She'd be so pretty if she wasn't so heavy") notices. My husband's been forbidden to tell her I'm losing again.

Lilac -- Get back here and get chatty. I miss your ramblingly humourous posts!

Geri, Determined to Succeed, Linda, J-Ann and everyone else whose name is escaping me right now -- come on by! We wanna cheer you on through success and set-back.

Just a quickie before early church:

Bunny - you are not alone in that thought. I have rejoined WW several times and quit in frustration. My frustration came from the scale not being kind and my whole focus being driven by that day. And I would swear that I could be down 2 pounds the day before weigh-in and be UP the next day just because it was WI day. It seemed that I would always retain water on that day and make it look like I hadn't been doing my program. I do believe that our bodies can play tricks on us when our focus becomes to weighing in on the same day and being stressed about that one moment of stepping on the scale.

Got to run. Be back later

Hello Everyone!

I am visiting a very dear friend this weekend and she has introduced me to this website. I don't have a computer at home, so this is a real treat for me. I am SO GLAD to see this chat room come about. I am struggling to move on after losing 75 lbs and finally, for the first time in many years, get below 300 lbs. I am ashamed to even write that. The problem is that I reached my 75 lbs almost a year ago and have not been able (willing?) to budge the scale significantly since - up and down the same 5-8 lbs. I think my difficulty is not physical homeostasis, although my proclivity towards water retention is something to behold. But right now I am finding minimal help in WW because I KNOW how to eat, but what I need to know, is how to keep the motivation going over the long haul. Sometimes I think that WW is marketed to people who, through having children, or sloppy habits or whatever, have up to 20 lbs to lose. But as WW becomes endorsed by more and more medical groups, it would be good for the organization to recognize that more and more morbidly obese (hate that phrase) people are going to be referred, and supporting someone towards a healthy weight when they begin at 400 lbs is different than supporting someone who has much less weight to lose.

THANK YOU for this site. The next time I come to visit this friend, I will check in again.

A fellow struggler.

Hello Everyone! I am visiting a very dear friend this weekend and she has introduced me to this website. I don't have a computer at home, so this is a real treat for me. I am SO GLAD to see this chat room come about. I am struggling to move on after losing 75 lbs and finally, for the first time in many years, get below 300 lbs. I am ashamed to even write that. The problem is that I reached my 75 lbs almost a year ago and have not been able (willing?) to budge the scale significantly since - up and down the same 5-8 lbs. I think my difficulty is not physical homeostasis, although my proclivity towards water retention is something to behold. But right now I am finding minimal help in WW because I KNOW how to eat, but what I need to know, is how to keep the motivation going over the long haul. Sometimes I think that WW is marketed to people who, through having children, or sloppy habits or whatever, have up to 20 lbs to lose. But as WW becomes endorsed by more and more medical groups, it would be good for the organization to recognize that more and more morbidly obese (hate that phrase) people are going to be referred, and supporting someone towards a healthy weight when they begin at 400 lbs is different than supporting someone who has much less weight to lose.

THANK YOU for this site. The next time I come to visit this friend, I will check in again.

A fellow struggler.

I wanted to respond to the comment about just wanting someone who doesn't know you are dieting to make a comment about how good you look. I must say that would be one of the best compliments and it is very hard to get. I have been on WW for 14 weeks and have lost 39#s. It is difficult for me to see that I have lost much, but my clothes do fit differently. Many of my clothes were big and baggy and they all had elastic. Everything still fits but now it is just bigger. I had a funeral to go to on friday and I wore a more tapered dress and it really showed off my loss. A friend of mine could really tell because it fit me so nice. I guess this just means that I need to wear clothes that are actually closer to fitting me. Not the big baggy stuff I wear because it doesn't show my rolls. I am planning on visiting some friend in the next couple of weeks and I really hope that they notice my loss and comment on it. That will be one test for me. I also know it is important to take measurements so that you can see how much you are really losing.

Mandy - your goals sounds good and I wish you luck in reaching them.

Melissa

Hello, Leader, welcome and congratulations on losing that 75 lb. That's fantastic. So you've been stuck for a while. You can get it moving again. I hope you can come and visit with us because there's a lot of support and inspiration here...much more than I get at WW meetings. I agree with you about WW not really catering to the truly "grand" people (that's us over 250ers). I also think they really should do something to make their meetings more inspiring. I've tried going at various times on my WI day (Friday) and have had three different counsellors and they're all boring, boring, BORING. I don't mean contests, etc, like some other weight loss groups because I'm not much of a participant in things like that. I just mean a bit more pizazz to keep us interested in coming to meetings.
Wow Melissa, to lose 39 lb in 14 weeks is fantastic. It's taken me that long just to lose 16. I agree with you that the reason most people don't notice my weight loss is that I'm still wearing my baggy clothes and, of course, they're even baggier now. I also tend to lose from the top down....face, neck, shoulders, wrists, boobs, etc. So far I've lost nothing off my waist but I notice my pants are a lot looser around my hips and upper legs.
I had a minor victory this morning which I'm celebrating. You'd have to be in our weight range to really appreciate it though. I tied my own shoes for the first time in two years. My gardening shoes are the only ones with ties and I've been flopping around in them untied until today because I was too embarrassed to ask DH for help. I also managed to trim my own toenails. Yippee! Hey, we have to celebrate the small victories because the big ones are so few and far between.

Hi Ladies. I thought the list was being really, really quiet this weekend. Then I decided to double check and I can see hat I forgot to set the new thread to autonatically mail me when there's a new post. I have some catching up to do!

We had 25 people over for a picnic yesterday. You would have thought it was July; 90° and sunny! Was able to stay OP by disappearing into the house when the desserts came out. We had"make your own" kabobs shrimp. chicken and beef and all kinds of veggies to string on the scewer. That made it easy for me I also had corn on the cob and my first beer in years! It was a lite one but it hit the spot in the hot weather. Folks brought potato salad and baked beans and macaroni salads but none of these are my fav's so I was able to pass them by. Of course they let behind the brownies and blondies and lemon squares. These are going to the office with me tomorrow so the engineers and the outside guys can stuff their faces (Before I do)! I did have 1/2 of a blondie ... MM MM GOOD.

LINDA: Good for you to be able to reach those laces. It's the little things that I find inspire me the most. Last week I started going down some stairs one foot to a step (rather than both feet on each step). I admit I was grinning to myself from ear to ear when I realized what I'd done.

MELISSA: The best thing you can do for yourself is to wear clothes that fit well. Not all the time but when you are going somewhere or doing something special. We all can't afford a whole new wardrobe every 20 lbs. But treat yourself to at least one nice, new thing in each size that you reach. People will notice!

BUNNY: Hope this doesn't sound to preachy.(Preachy? Is that a real word?) Don't get scale obsessed. WI on your regular day and let it be. We all go up and down everyday and each scale will be different. I used to hop on mine a lot between meetings but one day I'd be down 3, go to the meeting and be down 1, come home and weigh again and be up 2. Instant cause for depression and binging. That's when I got off the scale at home and do my best to stay off between WI's. If you feel better and your clothes are fitting better you're doing OK. Don't let those numbers get to you.

MANDY: WELCOME. We love new faces <G>. You've got the right mindset to lose those lbs. You might want to try setting mini-goals rather than a 50# one. Shoot for easily attainable goals (EG: 5 lbs in 6 weeks, or even 15#'s by Thanksgiving). These will take off the preassure of long distance goals that seem to toake SOOO LONG to become approachable.

A lot of our regulars seem to be being very quiet. Come on out and play!!!

Cindy, Hope all is well with you and your aunt. I think of you each day.

Well I have been away for a day and it seems that everyone has been bursting out of cyberspace and into print!! Fantastic.

How has the weekend been? Well, it has been low key. I took the oven over to my friend's house, and struggled up to his flat with it (up some very old narrow stairs.). He cut the plug off his own oven with the kitchen scissors (as mine did not have a plug on it for various reasons), and we slid it in to the hole in the kitchen unit. Guess what? it did not fit. So we had to put his back but of course had to rewire the plug What a pain! So I then had to go to the local tip with the old oven! I took the opportunity to put a whole bag full of old clothes in to recycling though!! How exciting was that! I quite enjoyed the tip. It is run by the local council and there are different bits for throwing different types of rubbish (old metal, garden waste, plastic, clothes, glass etc). They then go and recyle it all. The whole HUMAN atmosphere was wonderful though - hundreds of people heaving huge old bits of furniture/ rubble etc over the wall, and looking all smiley when they had done it - getting rid of those old things. A few years ago I dumped a dolls house I had had since I was a little girl and you know what - I have never liked the thing. But I kept it as it was handmade and 'nice' (according to my mother). But a couple of years ago I dumped it. WoW!! that feeling was unparalleled!

yesterday was quiet. I went to the hardware superstore and bought some of the paint for my study - so that was exciting. Then I had to work! yuk! I have not really been feeling very well (no idea what is up with me) and although I have been op I dont feel as if I have lost any this week. Maybe that is ok.

Now this reaching 250 thing.....me too - I should make it very shortly. I think it is good that this space is more or less kept 'sacred' for those of us above 250 because it is helpful just to have that space, but on the other hand, I dont want to lose you all! How about if we start a new thread something like 'sailing on down to 200' but still post here too, at least until there are a good few people on a new thread? This is just an idea and maybe people could comment? I dont want to lose you all and get out of contact!

Leader - welcome and I look forward to your posts! I agree about ww meetings not being the most supportive. i think if it that they are structured and give me the goals, plan and action points, but I have given up looking there for support. I come here for support!

Bunny - what a disasterous day you had - I laughed On the up and down scales thing, I dont know what it could be, but i think it is posion to worry about the scales. Some people just weigh at ww and ask the leader not to give them the weight figure. Then they are judging their progress just on whether they have been op or not! I think that might work for me at some point, although at the moment I like looking at another pound gone and going home and getting a pound of something out of the cupboard and carrying it around for a while and then putting it down and feeling the difference.......I sent you a private message by the way.

J-ann that barbq sounds wonderful! and it sounds as if you did really well. Its ages since I had a big crowd over - I feel inspired. We are well away from 90degree temps here though

Cindy - where are you? how are you?

Linda - that tying shoes thing is so fantastic! It really is the small things. I had one where I was driving a friend's very sporty car and found i could put the seat one notch forward as there was more room between my tummy and the steering wheel!

Melissa - people noticing....oh yes it is so good when they do. Someone said to me the other day 'you look really well' and did a double take. That is how it notices sometimes. People say 'have you had a hair cut or somethign?'

Determined - good to hear from you and I hope all is well

Mand - great to see you here!! Your plan sounds fantastic. I wondered about your ab crunches - that is very enthusiastic. i dont think I could do an ab crunch (unless that is some form of new confectionary.....??!! - just kidding). I did buy a yoga video which I watched the other night...but I think I have do actually do some of it to get the benefits . Exercise is such an issue for me....

Love to all, and if I missed anyone it was not deliberate. Must run to work now.
Lilac

I happened upon that new reality tv show last night...the Great Race or Great Chase...something like that. These people were in Zambia and had to go across a gorge on a rope and then they had to bungee jump off a cliff. Every time one of them got up the nerve to do it I sank farther into my seat. I think there are nail marks in the leather of my chair because just the thought of it petrified me so much. I also think I'd break the darned rope. LOL
If I didn't break the rope, by the time they got me down I'd have suffocated in my stomach flab hanging upside down.
Went for my swim this morning and felt pretty good after so did some gardening for an hour. Then it got a bit warm so I've been playing on the computer ever since. Luckily, my daughter in Scotland happened to be online at the same time and sent me some photos of their weekend jaunt to the Lakes District in England. I'm getting so excited about going to Scotland to see them in 10 days. Hope I can lose at least 4 more pounds by then. That would make it 20 lb since mid-June. Not impossible but improbable.
I only weigh at my meetings once a week. When I first joined WW, their scale showed me as 15 lb heavier than my scale which was a real downer for me. I threw the darned thing out. Sometimes I get a bit paranoid about going to weigh in but I'm trying not to make too much of an issue of it. I believe the stress of worrying about it does cause me to retain fluid so the day before weigh-in I try to pretend that I've already been there and done that. Trying to fool my body. Good luck, huh?