Gained this week, and I deserved to! sigh
Re-joining this thread, after about a year away!
My weight varies between 79kg and 75kg - I’ve not gone above or below that in a year. Ideally I’d be 60kg, but let’s face it, I’d be happy to see that number just drop below 75, nice to see 70kg, and ecstatic to get to 65kg.
I walk everywhere I go, so probably about 6 miles a day, and that includes hills (mostly up. I think I live in a MC Escher drawing) 
My diet is appalling, lots of frozen food and junk food, hardly anything fresh, and I drink too much (frequently a glass of wine at bedtime, and a weekly piss-up with the boyf).
I’m going to try and start running again - at the moment I can run approximately 5k without having to walk, albeit a slow jog. If I can get out once or twice a week I could try and either speed that up, or lengthen it. Or both 
I’m joining this thread in the hope that posting a weekly weigh in or so willl give me a kick up the arse I need to avoid the junk and get off the sofa a bit more, so that I’ve got lower numbers to report!
(it worked in the online dating thread. I made more of an effort contacting guys so I’d have dates to report back here, and I’ve now been with the resulting boyfriend for a year!)
Yes, and it sucks because shoes are expensive to replace and you (literally) can’t walk around in too-big shoes the way you can with clothing.
I’m still stalled at around 145 pounds, but I’m hanging in there. Confession: I have never belonged to a gym and have put off joining for want of money and fear of embarrassment. But now…the university I work at has a brand new recreation center – 3 floors of equipment, including a rock-climbing wall – and membership is $400/year, which is cheaper than the two gyms in town. I went over there the other day to check the place out and now I’m lingering over the paperwork. I’d have to work out after work in a gym full of hot college students. Do I have the courage to do this?
Yes. Yes, you do! 
As of today, I’m down to 153.4 pounds from somewhere around 175-180 and my size 12 jeans are getting loose in the butt area. I’m trying to keep up on cardio and working along with the Blogilates calendar. I started out able to do 1 video every day, and now I’m up to being able to do three of the five. Pilates, for looking like it’s laying on a mat, really hurts. Hopefully, that means it’s working.
My clothes are slowly getting replaced, and I really hope I can manage to make costumes that fit for Dragon*con this year. Things don’t seem to fit the same from week to week these days. Weirdly, some of my shoes don’t fit anymore either.
I’m sucking somewhat on cardio because I hate indoor cardio and I’m not supposed to really be out in the sun. I gave up hiking because it was just too hot last year, but tomorrow I’m determined to hike the Wissahickon Gorge, armed with my spiffy new UV protective workout clothes that won’t give me heatstroke. The outdoors is way more interesting than the wall of a Planet Fitness.
I enjoyed reading all of your stories. How do you all feel about latecomers?
After about a year of effort I met my first fitness goal a couple weeks ago. I am embarrassed to do so, but will say publicly that my goal was to go from being “obese” to being “overweight”
My most recent fitness goal was to go on vacation without gaining (much) weight. Accomplished. I am having trouble deciding on what my next goal should be…other than maintain. Any advice is appreciated.
I think we’re pretty accepting of newcomers (as a relative newcomer myself). ANd we’re all over the map in terms of goals, so no need to be embarrassed about yours!
In terms of choosing a new one, what works for you? Something like a 30-day clean eating challenge (which, BTW, olives, I’m not doing well at. 
I’m trying to determine if I should accept that I’m more of an 80/20 person, or just push myself harder)? Or an hours-per-week exercise goal? What sort of goals have helped you get to where you are now?
Nothing to be embarassed about - I’m still obese so hearing that you have made it to overweight is inspiring to me!
Forgot this thread existed, but after gaining 15+ lbs since last year (hovering in the low 180s, my heaviest ever), I finally resolved to take things seriously and apply myself with a combo of rigorous diet (meaning change of eating habits, not food deprivation) and exercise.
The Bad News: I’ve been a bit of a lazy bum with the exercise, going 2-3 days but then lapsing, so a little back-and-forth.
The Good News: I’ve still lost 3lbs/week for the last 3 weeks. On Monday, May 6, I was at 184.5 lbs. Today, I weighed in at 171.
I’d tried Weight Watchers and other rules and guideline-driven programs, but it was touch-and-go and never really lasted.
This time, I just set up a basic menu that I stuck with, giving myself plenty of latitude for certain snacks, never feeling hungry, and not really ever feeling like I’ve been going without.
The key was: No Carbs. A virtual zero tolerance policy.
No grains, starches, potatoes, rice, pasta, baked goods, candies, chips, or fruit.
Once a week, I’ll go have a taco at a local restaurant, and once a week, I’ll have a sandwich if I’m eating out, so those two items (2 tortillas, 2 pieces of bread) are the sole exceptions for the week, really.
I’m really incredibly shocked by the results, but I feel great and am obviously quite encouraged with the results. My target is 160 (or lower) and while I gave myself a goal of 1 lb/week (to reach my target by my birthday), I’m tracking significantly faster than that.
My diet primarily consists of:
- Lots and lots of greens (spinach, collards, mustard flat, etc.), cooked with white wine vinegar and red pepper flakes
- Spinach salads, with lowfat feta, almonds, and nonfat vinagrette
- Lots of fish (salmon, cod, tuna, tilapia, herring, etc.)
- An avocado a day (usually with the salad)
- At least 8 oz of white grapefruit juice and 8 oz of spicy V8 a day
- Propel waters
- 1oz of dark chocolate (at least 80%) a day
- A small portion of cheese (mozzarella or Laughing Cow slice)
If I’m hungry for snacks:
- Lots of nuts (peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, pecans, walnuts)
- Cold cuts (low-fat, 3 slices)
- Campbell’s Healthy Request cream of chicken soup (straight from the can)
- An extra serving of chocolate or cheese
- Nonfat Greek yogurt
- Wasabi seaweed snacks
And if I need a caffeine boost, a Dr. Pepper (mini bottle)
If I’ve worked out, then maybe some chicken or low-fat franks, cooked with eggs and french beans (w/garlic, mustard & tabasco).
Plus, eat a lot slower. I was always a fast eater. Now, I put down my food back down on my plate after every bite, and chew thoroughly.
That’s really it. It’s worked like a charm, far better than I thought, and while this was only a vague plan when I started (largely improvising as I went), it’s turned out to be a fabulous formula.
Plus, I’ve enjoyed my recent workouts so look forward to doing those more, which will only kick things into another gear.
I know this works different for everyone, but thought I’d share. I’ll be doing my check-ins routinely, too, because I like the accountability that’s here.
Good luck to everyone else!
Morning WL&HLers!
I’m toying with the idea of cancelling my WW subscription. I’ve been an online member for nearly two years and used it to track my weight and food. I’m not adding my food in regularly anymore - on the good days when I eat all planned food I know I’m within my points, and on the days when I splurge, like a meal out or a trip to a coffee shop, I can’t track the food anyway.
And it only allows weekly weigh-ins, when I prefer to do a daily weigh-in. I find small losses inspire me to continue living well, and small gains are small enough to reverse with a couple of days of more mindful eating.
I do think food journalling is good for me, but these days I’m more interested in low carb eating, so maybe I should just set myself up a Google spreadsheet to manually journal.
Any thoughts/tips/suggestions?
I’d advise switching to MyFitnessPal or one of the related free programs if you’re not doing WW for the support aspect. MFP lets you weigh-in every day and has a big food database.
Thanks, I’ll look into that!
In my experience, I’ve been able to track my weight whenever I want to but it does make sure you do it at least once a week. I am not sure how it uses the extra data though.
I’ve more or less failed at Weight Watchers. I traveled for work for more than a month and it has been a disaster. And I haven’t made any real effort to be better for the two weeks I’ve been home. With all that though, I’ve still dropped about ten pounds.
In addition, I joined a gym and started a C25K. I am still super excited about the program and don’t see myself quitting, even though I am going back to travelling for work starting next Monday. I am remembering why I used to like exercising. A friend of mine has been pushing to get me to sign up for a 5k race in August and I am going to take her up on it. In all honesty, these goals feel so much more achievable than the weight loss goals I have been making that I might just focus on them for a while. They have me feeling motivated again.
Daily weigh ins seem neurotic to me. Unless you’re specifically gaining the extra data to try to calculate your deviation numbers, any use you put to that data is going to steer you the wrong way. Your body is going to naturally go up or down a pound or two just based on how much you’ve drank, how much you’ve pissed, how much salt you’ve eaten - I can’t ever imagine making a decision based on a daily weight measurement, and if I did, it would probably be the wrong one. So if that’s the case, why do it?
Edit: Actually I’ve been taking daily measurements lately since I found an old scale, but mostly because I’m curious if the scale is accurate (if it matches up with my gym scale) and to see how much weight can fluctuate from day to day. I’m not looking for progress on it.
Wow, thanks for being so judge-y. Different approaches work for different people.
It’s generally a counterproductive action. Are you making decisions based on these minor fluctuations? “Oh, I gained half a pound since yesterday, I guess I shouldn’t eat peanuts”? If so, you’re almost certainly reacting more or less randomly. If not, then what does it matter if you have that information every day?
In general, weight obsession is counterproductive. You should measure your progress by your health, how you look (not necessarily directly correlated with weight), what you can do, etc. Weight obsession over daily fluctuations ramps that up into “drive yourself crazy” territory. It’s a bad idea.
You’re making a bunch of assumptions about my behaviours and emotions. No, I’m not making decisions like ‘I won’t eat peanuts today’ because I’ve weighed in 0.2kg from yesterday or ‘driving myself crazy’.
When I’ve eaten more than I should, I definitely see the results around two days later and that feedback is useful to me. A couple of days of more controlled eating and I see that 0.2kg loss and that reinforces the controlled eating habits.
The very fact that I know and understand weight fluctuations means that a once-a-week weigh-in doesn’t work for me - maybe I genuinely lost 2 pounds this week or maybe this week’s weigh-in day gave an unusual result and if I’d officially weighed in the day before, the result would have been very different. But when I’ve been weighing in daily, I get a much better sense of my weight changes over time and know to trust the small changes more than the large ones. I would much rather track a moving average of my weight than a once-a-week data point.
The best free website I know of is Spark People (www.sparkpeople.com.) It has a pretty comprehensive food tracking and exercise tracking system as well as a large community of bloggers and message board users for various issues. There is a ton of information on there; I’ve been a member for years (RACINGSLUG.) Feel free to add me as a friend and let me know if you have any questions.
Good gnus everyone! I finally, officially lost some weight. In the last month I’m down to 180 from 185, more or less.
I actually had my first official slip-up in 78 days of clean eating. The chair of our board brought bagels to celebrate my Ex. Director’s 1 year anniversary, and I had bagels and orange juice on the spur of the moment. I felt a little sick afterward. I dunno, I didn’t beat myself up about it or sweat it much at all. I just resumed life as usual.
My nutrition has been a bit screwed up this week, because I decided I was eating too much dairy and cut down by like 75%. The problem is I never really planned an alternative, so it’s been a week of scrounging random foods. I’ve been feeling sick, too, with stomach cramps and hot flashes - left work early yesterday. I’m almost certain it’s nutrition-related.
I’m reading this book called ‘‘Wheat Belly,’’ it’s about how unhealthy wheat is (even the whole grain kind.) I’m still in the beginning so I can’t tell you much. I’m going to try to cut out wheat from my diet and see if it helps any with how I’ve been feeling. Even if it’s not actively harmful, it’s still not the most nutritionally dense of foods.
My Coach is still pushing me hard. I’ve been whining about workouts all week, but I’ve done them, even while sick. I’ve gotten so much tougher lately, just in terms of the level of discomfort I can tolerate while working out. I got to go hiking on Sunday for the first time in weeks! I finally realized I had been making excuses for not going the last three weeks. Another hike planned this weekend, this time with friends.
I use an Excel spreadsheet to derive a daily 3-day average (of the last 3 days) from each morning’s weigh-in and use that to chart my general progression, because that average tends to iron out the small daily differentials. Also, weighing myself at the same time every day (morning, an hour after I’ve woken up, but before my shower) also acts as a more reliable constant.
One week since I joined this thread, have been eating (and drinking) appallingly, not walked as much as normal since my toddler’s off nursery ill, but still weighed in today at 76kg (lower end of my standard variation!). I just need to think how much weight I could drop if I had actually done some running and not had those extra chips and pints.
I think I might bribe myself - new corset when I get to 70kg?