Pjen That sounds like a really nice vacation. Have fun!
Today I weighed in at 169 so another little dip into the 160s for me. I’d be happy if I could stay in the 160s for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Congrats Ginger!
I came in here to say that after a horrid three months of straight plateau and feeling crappy about it, I am back on track and down another 2 pounds!
And, like you Ginger, I fit into my first pair of size 12 pants yesterday! I should probably wait another couple pounds to be comfortable in those size 12s, but damnit if they didn’t zip up just fine!
So I started at a size 18 and weighing 190 and I’m down to 168 and a size 14/12. I’m feeling good about this again.
It helps that my fiance has started to make some changes as well, he and I went to the gym together every day last week.
I would like to point out that I’m sure that 12 is just a number they picked out of the air when they were doing size labelling. I’m in a 14 most of the time.
Well, you still have me beat. By the time I get to your weight, I’ll be a 16. At least that’s what I was in high school at that weight. Maybe middle-agedness has other plans for me. Maybe nice plans, I hope.
Boy, I’ve really had to drag myself through a couple of walks this week. I’ve come home ready to sleep, sleep, sleep. Yesterday was understandable, I think. I ate a typical American breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage. It was less than I would have eaten once-upon-a-time, but I think my body didn’t appreciate it anyway. Ugh! Back to good things like yogurt and oatmeal for me. The walk before that, I have no idea why I felt that way.
Last night we ate dinner really, really late (9:15 pm) for various reasons. I ended up going to bed at 10:30 but going to bed on a full stomach plus a stray cat howling outside my window woke me up at 4:30 and I couldn’t get back to sleep. My regular alarm went off at 5:30 and I felt fine so I got up and did my walk and the day has been progressing nicely until now…now I feel like I’ll just die if I can’t lay down and get a little rest. Maybe I’ll have some coffee.
Meanwhile I’m back up to 171 which I’m attributing to eating so late.
I’ve found a new snack food! Soy Saucers, from Costco. A case of 24 individual serving pouches is $12.49. They contain 8 each of 3 flavors: Apple and Cinnamon, Sweet Barbecue, and Cheddar. They are really tasty, contain about 2g of fat per serving, 3g of sugar or less per serving, and between 9-11g of protein. Hubby is going to start eating them, too, in an effort to wean himself off of potato chips. The single-serving size is really good for him (as is the low-fat), because his biggest snacking problem is opening a bag of chips, and eat them while reading a book. And he just keeps eating them and eating them. . .
He’s not doing anything formal to try and lose weight, but he is trying to make small, sustainable changes to his eating habits.
172 this morning.
I’ll nominate two foods that I really like:
a) Pearl Organic Soymilk (made by Kikkoman) in Green Tea Flavour. It tastes like a green tea milkshake. 110 calories per serving. I drink a cup before I get on my train to go home.
b) No Pudge Fudge: fat free brownies that taste really really good. What I like about these is that you can make them in single servings (I know, amazing). The ingredients don’t involve a whole bunch of preservatives or what have you. A proper serving is a 100 calories or something. The downside is that they have a lot of added sugar. I don’t eat them very often but if I really feel like a chocolate fix I’ll make myself one. Oh, and the single serving recipe on the box blows. Just mix it up like they say, fire up the oven and cook it in a muffin cup.
I’ve been stop and go since I started up. I’ve held to the no drinking thing which I think is why my weight has stayed stable even though I went to Mexico to one of those bloody resorts and stopped working out almost entirely due to some depression in March. I’ve been going strong for about three weeks now and have lost 2.5 pounds. I have 9 to go before I feel happy and then another 5 before I feel incredibly happy.
Oh, and I now have a defined bicep. I just want to take the fat off* so I see my trainer’s sculpting. And I’m up to 65 pushups.
*I gain all my weight in my tummy so my arms were never flabby or big but they weren’t as tight and cut as they are now.
By the way, have you guys seen this article in NYT? My trainer pushed me to commit to intervals pretty stridently and I really feel like it makes a difference. I’m even back into running these days (just 3 times a week) because I don’t have to plod and jostle for 50 minutes at a time.
It was hard to quell my competitive spirit to reduce the tension on the elliptical to something lowish for the rest periods but it is making a real difference. And the calorie burn ends up exactly the same at the end of each session. I always do about 60 minutes but I feel like I use those 60 way more productively now-instead of plodding at a steady crazy pace and then just wheezing out the last 15 now I’m doing my last sprint at 53 or 55 with a decent amount of energy. Currently using the interval program recommended in Fitness magazine-for running and elliptical (I adapted it).
When I’m in a bit better shape I’ll start doing interval again. They are a good way to break up a running routine. I used to do two days of intervals out of a 6 day running week.
www.runnersworld.com has some great information in their forums. Lots of good advice for those of us that are using running as an exercise component.
I wasn’t so good on Friday…it was date night for the wife and I. Saturday I didn’t get my run in like I wanted to…sick child makes it hard to take that time. But I’m still on my diet/exercise routine. I have one package of oatmeal for breakfast…an apple for a snack…then a lean cuisean for lunch. I’m up to 2.5 miles on the treadmill in about 33 minutes. Now I just need to change my run/walk to more run and less walk. Still not getting on the scale yet…so I don’t know how I’m doing. But there’s no way with the amount of crap I took out of my diet that I’m not loosing weight.
Another 3lbs gone! Now weiging in at 101kg/222lb. Psychologically important is that in British measurements I have now lost over 56lbs which is 4 stone. I now weigh one bag of cement less than when I started- glad I’m not carrying that around with me any more- I do feel much lighter on my feet.
Saturday I leave for a conference in Canada and we will just have to see how airline and hotel catering work with a diet! Last time I was at a hotel on this diet, I still managed to maintain weight loss just by eating carefully. Here’s hoping.
I checked out a picture of myself bringing our first child back from hospital (remember I’m the house-husband trying to return to pre-baby weight) and I do look about the same as I do now. I am digging out older photographs that show me with a concave rather than convex belly, and hope that is where I am headed before October when we hit the water parks! Seriously though, the diet isn’t for looks of public presentation (I carry extra weight quite well) but to be healthier and fitter and maybe reduce my BP. I was fixing fencing around our vacation trailler down by the shore, and I found the trench digging and construction a lot easier without those 56 extra pounds! Just think how fit I shall feel when I hit 175 for the first time since the Beatles split up!
After the talk of interval training yesterday I decided that I would try it and see how I feel. I still did the whole 5 miles but the first mile and a half or so I alternated jogging and walking. I keep the jogging parts really short because I’m worried about my hip pain issue.
Surprisingly, my hip doesn’t hurt. 
I’m psyched. I think I’m very gradulally going to add more jogging to my morning routine, maybe eventually I’ll be able to jog the whole 5 miles like those other joggers I pass every morning. How cool would that be?
Today I weighed in at 170. I think I’m going to start keeping a running average.
Pjen congratulations on your continued success. You’ll be a looking good by the time you get to Florida in October.
I am back from the Great Northern Wilderness, where my parents have bought a house and are going to move. I have also just accepted a full-time job that is one state in the other direction, so there will now be more than 500 miles between us. The move will also mean the effective end of a long-term relationship, due to divergent life plans (he’s going 1000 miles in yet another direction, apparently), and that I am going to buy my first house ever. The down payment etc. I can cover, but I won’t have any savings left. Still. A house!
So anyway. In the fact of all this, my first ten days off of the Core program have had no effect. I am still at 170. This is good–I have always had no trouble maintaining, providing nobody gives me bottles of Bailey’s, but I was worried that I’d start gaining. But I’m not. So it’s all good.
To tell the truth, though, those ten days with my parents sort of grossed me out, food-wise. The refined carbs–the fat–my mother’s stupid “diet” foods. I want to shake her and tell her to eat something real for pete’s sake. On the last day, I lost my nerve and told her that I’d been on the Core plan and maybe she should try it. Ick, squick, I never wanted to tell her. I grew up hearing her complain about how “fat” she was (I think her lifetime high was 183) and being told by my dad that “we could all stand to lose some weight”, which meant *I * could stand to lose some weight. They also make fun of overweight people, in private. Sigh. So I never wanted to admit to either of my parents that I found the least thing wrong with my body. Oh well.
Me too! Woo hoo! 3.0 exactly, this week. I have now lost over 40 pounds since I first began. Down to 233.6. So don’t fuck with me, people. I’m a lean, mean, fightin’ machine. 
Regarding snacks I came to the conclusion that I just can’t keep them around. If I buy a bag of cookies and say “I’ll have one or two as a treat for dessert” then what happens is I’ll eat half the bag one night and finish it off the next night.
So my solution is simple: Don’t buy the stuff. If I’m out and really jonesing for some ice cream, I’ll get a serving at the ice cream place, I won’t buy a pint to keep in the freezer.
Instead, I keep healthier snacks around - nuts, fresh fruit, wasabi peas (I love them and have found a brand made with little or no fat), veggies, etc. A friend gave me a hot-air popcorn popper as a gift and I can whip up a bowl of popcorn in a few minutes, it’s a ton of bulk but not many calories (I don’t use butter). Fruit is great as well since there’s a lot of water and fiber, you can drink tons of OJ but try eating more than one orange at a sitting - it fills me up nicely.
I have tried some of those “healthy snack bars” and the like but they’re just too sweet for me. Funny how my tastes have changed through all this.
Strained shoulder so taking a break from my normal workout routine but did my crunches last night, supersets of various exercises (straight crunches, obliques, etc)…total was just under 1,000 - never could have done that a year ago. As nice as it would be to have a “six pack” that won’t happen unless I decide to become some 2% body fat freak (highly unlikely).
Holding steady at 175. Fixed flat tire so can get back to riding tonight.
I think weight loss is easier for those of us that live alone. I don’t eat cookies because I don’t own cookies. When I was taking that weight loss class last year, I felt kind of bad for people that lived with other people, such as children. You have to keep some ice cream and cookies around at all times.
I am weird in this regard. Some things I can keep, some I can’t. I have a bag of peanutbutter M&Ms from when I was operated on (a friend brought them to the hospital.) They have stayed untouched. But there are other things that I couldn’t even try to keep in the house.
As a father of 3, and also husband of a wife with a nightly sweet tooth, I am tempted multiple times each night and I do give in on occasion. But right now, I am still losing weight, just not as rapidly now as I did earlier.
~310/244/~200-210
I’ll challenge that assertion - what makes anyone “have to” keep that stuff around? When I was a kid there was some ice cream around but not all the time, and I really don’t remember cookies being bought (if I wanted them I had to bake them, my parents taught us to cook early on).
I think it’s easy for us to get caught in the mindset that we NEED to buy a lot of junk food and we’ll invent reasons to do so (per my previous post, my weakness is the “Oh I’ll just have one or two as a treat”). In the end, as the adults in the house we get to make our own decisions - the final say on whether I buy a bag of Chips Ahoy at the store rests with me.
I’m with you Valgard IMO nobody “needs” ice cream or cookies. Check out the rate of childhood obesity in america…just keeps going up and up. Parent’s should decide what their kids eat, not the kids. Heck, I can remember leaving a full basket of groceries in the grocery store and walking out with a toddler in full screaming tantrum mode because I refused to buy her Lucky Charms cereal. I may have had to change my shopping plans for the day but I did not give in to her demands for a cereal that I deemed unworthy of consumption. (OK, stepping down off that soap box now)
I have to say that the more I get into cooking and into making things from scratch with fresh ingredients the more prepared and packaged food tastes like shit. I wouldn’t eat a chips ahoy cookie, they just don’t taste good anymore.
But speaking of ice cream…Ben and Jerry’s has single servings of their ice cream in my grocery store now. That’s one way to stop from eating the whole pint.
Meanwhile, my left hip is protesting my little bit of jogging yesterday so this morning I stuck to walking.
Weighing in at 170 for the second day in a row so that’s a good thing. I think I’m inching downward ever so slowly.
tdn you’re doing great but I believe that we need photographic proof of your lean-mean-fighting-machine-ness. 