Hello everyone! I was here five years ago, when I was losing weight from 140 or so, and lost weight at 1lb/week. My eating habits have been a little patchy since, and the last month in particular has been a nightmare in terms of stress and not having access to healthy food.
In case anyone knows me from before (and if you do, apologies but my memory is shot so I may not remember you!), my ex-partner left me not long afterwards, and I've been with my fabulous current partner for three and a half years. We also have a cat who is very lovely. He does like to cook, and the ME/CFS is fairly bad at the moment so I'm not well enough to be doing the cooking myself. He has health problems of his own, so there are quite a few times when we need to go for frozen food or the odd take-out (generally Chinese noodles, sometimes pizza). As I said, the last month was a nightmare, both of us were ill and stressed to pieces, there was a lot more junk food than usual and a lot more stress eating. A photo taken the other day made me realise that I've put on a lot of weight, so here I am again.
It was actually a positive thing for me last time, and I hope it will be again. There are all sorts of recipe websites I was enjoying looking at yesterday. Calorie counting works for me, and I'm going for a higher limit of 1300 this time, which should mean 0.5lb/week, as I'm too ill (almost entirely bedbound) to risk being low on nutrients. I've been vegan for twenty years and generally eat a wholefoods diet. Last time I went for soup or salad for lunch, and yesterday we had fun making up a big batch of beetroot soup. I like to put in a pulse and a grain with every soup, I do better with combined proteins, so this time it was black-eyed beans and barley.
I have support workers in for four days a week who help with cooking, amongst other things. I also have a bread machine and make my own sourdough in it these days, which is good stuff, very satiating and meant to be great for keeping your blood sugar stable.
Random note: I've got neurological and visual problems, so I'd appreciate it if people replying to this could refrain from changing the font (italics, other colours etc.) and also from smilies and anything that moves.
Hello and welcome back. I too had been here in past, lost some weight, but unlike you, I really, really, really gained a lot since. Well done on coming back and deciding to change what needs to be changed. I've read through your post and it seems like you have a lot on your plate, so many health issues and diffiuclties. It must make weight loss even more challenging, I admire your strength and courage, I really do. It's amazing!
I hope to see you around. Congratulations on the new beginning!
Thank you, and welcome back too! Honestly, I think in some ways it's easier for me. I'm not having to deal with constant social pressure, eating out, what do people say at work etc., and in some ways I can control what I eat a lot more.
This time round there will be a few aspects of my relationship that make it trickier, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. We spend half the week at his flat and the other half at mine. The half at mine is sorted, that's when the support workers come in every day, we keep on top of the chores better, and I have a decently sized fridge and freezer. His fridge is small, his freezer is tiny, and we don't have extra support when we're at his flat, so if he's not up to cooking, hmm, we will see. Simpler meals work out easier when you're more tired, and I have supper as my biggest meal so I don't think it'll actually be particularly different. I still don't think the odd take-out is the end of the world, I really doubt the noodle place makes food which is all that much higher in calories than my own stir-fries, and the pizzas are pretty rare. It's high time I stopped eating too many biscuits when I make them for board games anyway, I really can't handle too much sugar. The main thing is that we're happy together and support each other.
I'm trying to work out the best way to use this forum. I think I could do with some sort of small support group, and am looking through the various subforums to see what would suit me. One snag is that my memory is shot, and I know I will have serious trouble remembering who is who, even in a small group! I'm thinking of starting a "meditation and relaxation" thread in the Chicks up for a Challenge group, for those of us who need to focus on that in particular. There's not much point in my joining a group where everyone is trying to do lots of exercise when it's the last thing I should be doing, and as for things like drinking water, I've been doing that fine with the help of an app ever since the cardiologist told me to drink three litres a day. Any suggestions?
It sounds like you have a sound plan, despite all the circumastances. I understand where you're coming from, not having to deal with social pressure and worrying about what to eat when you're out and about may be a substantial help, on the other way sometimes just being out of the house removes me from the sight of candies and other food I may be secretely sneaking in while I"m home. So it will require good planing, always having the right food for you. As you say, a take away here and there, as long as you're aware of the portion size, doesn't sound tragic to me. But I know the vast majority of my obesity problem is caused by eating sugar, so if I stop eating sugar, I can have a decent meal, even a restaurant one, once in a while, and still lose weight.
As for the forum, I found Accountability threads in Support forum a great place to be, but they are a bit busy so may not be what suits you. The advantage is that there are people with all sorts of diet plans and activity levels. We just stay accountable to each other about how we follow what we had planned for ourselves.
You may have a look at Dieting with difficulties. I tried to participate there when I was pregnant and breastfeeding but it was too quiet to my liking. However if you only find tow or three other people to join you, it may be just what suits you. I'm not sure how many people would join a relaxation thread but you can always give it a try and see who catches up. If you find yourself being alone there, you can always move to a busier part of the forum. I wish you find all the help you need, it may take a while to figure out where to be on here, but once you find your people, I'm sure you will really benefit from their support. Especially considering your circumstances, online support is probably the best way for you to go!
I had a look at some of the Accountability threads, but the flashing images seemed really popular in the ones I was looking at! I've posted in the Women on WEED thread in the Challenge forum, let's see if I fit in there. If you know of one that might work for me, do let me know.
Yep, the Obstacles forum is pretty dead, isn't it.
We don't have anything truly irresistible around the house, and it's not as if I can just nip out to the shops and buy food. I think I'll keep the chocolate chips for making biscuits and use chocolate bars for snacking, since it's easier to keep to a portion size with bars, and I am not standing there counting out chocolate chips while they melt in my hand. That plus some dried fruit is pretty much all we keep around, and I can't eat much sugar anyway, it does nasty things to me very fast. But snacking is my main problem, yep.
Oh right, I didn't realize you have a problem with all the blinking and moving emoticons (I had a friend with same issues, she had epilepsy and even a blinking emoticon could trigger a seisure). I know on some forums you can turn emoticons off, but I haven't foind the option here. It might be worth contacting an administrator to ask though, I imagine it would make your life around here much easier if you didn't have to worry!
I can't find the option here either, even in the Mobile mode. Some threads are a lot worse than others, and if I open up a thread and there are moving smilies and sparkly text everywhere, I immediately close it. Signatures aren't shown in Mobile mode, which probably helps, although being able to see people's stats would be nice, and I have to switch to Full Site mode if I want to see what I'm replying to!
If I were accessing this on a laptop it'd be easier, I could block individual images and GIFs, and that's what I did last time. These days I mostly use my tablet, though.
I hopped on the scale again, and I have lost 1.8lb in five days! I am pleased and rather surprised, as I'm on 1250 cal (suiting me well) this time. Last time I was on 1150 and then 1050 (small and inactive, don't worry) and lost 1lb/week, so I was expecting it to be more like 0.5lb/week this time. I didn't buy a scales for the first month last time, so I don't know what happened then.
I thought initial faster weight loss was about water weight? How does that work? I was already drinking 3l/100oz a day, I've been doing that for years on cardiologist's orders, and for the same reason I've been eating a huge amount of salt, or rather drinking it (electrolyte drinks). I haven't changed my diet radically, it's been more about cutting out snacking and having soup or salad for lunch, and while we'd been having veggie burgers and chips (fries) a bit too often before, we were still cooking healthy meals most of the time.
Also I have accidentally discovered that if you make date porridge and then salt it (I salt pretty much everything, I think I'm meant to be getting 10g a day of it), you get salted caramel porridge and it is amazing. Since I'm a small breakfaster, it was 1/4c of rolled oats, half water and half almond milk, two dates chopped up, simmer that until cooked, and a bit of salt at the end. Scale up as desired. If you need to avoid salt then it's still very yummy.
Most women have some experience of dieting, and I am finding out how my support workers feel about this. Thankfully they're all being supportive, as opposed to the nasty piece of work I had to deal with last time who kept insulting me. Of the fellow vegans on my team, one who gives off a strong hippy vibe has decided to eat nothing but fruit and vegetables for a month, and is talking about "detox" and "it cleans out all the gunk in your body" (erm, your body is already well-equipped to do that). Oh dear. Still, she seems in good health and has done it before, hopefully she's not harming herself. The other has long experience of eating disorders, but seems to be doing pretty well at the moment, and she weight-lifts too, which is awesome. I introduced her to the rice and quinoa pouches I keep in the cupboard for emergencies a while back, and she's absolutely run with it, she's making up batches of lunches where they get cashews and kale and stir-fried veg added and look amazing. I might see if I can work out something like that for weekends at my partner's. We shared one of those rice pouches with some Moroccan chick pea burgery things the other night, and unsurprisingly, he wasn't keen on the rice/quinoa. He's not a big rice fan.
Also I asked him to buy me some spinach, I like to use it as a base for salads, and they were out so he came home with kale. He can't eat kale, he's on blood thinners, and had thought, "I don't want to deprive her of kale just because I can't eat it!" I had been avoiding it too because I had been indigesting it rather uncomfortably, but decided to give it another try. I looked up how to make it more digestible, and when we were simmering red rice to put in miso soup for lunch, I added some well-chopped kale 15 min before the end. It was absolutely fine, huzzah, so we will make up a huuuge batch of soup with it tomorrow. I've already got black-eyed beans soaking, and am thinking of being really wild and having two different grains, such as buckwheat and millet, plus carrots and onion and the kale.
Back after five years
