75.5 kg - wooo! About 1lb down, another 28 or so to go 
What I need are exercises for my core (read: belly) that do not require me to be on all fours or to lock my arms at the elbow at all. Because I cannot do that since I broke my elbow, and I never will be able to. The physical therapist has me on a regime to strengthen my trapezius (unsure of the name, actually) muscle, but cautions against anything that will increase my bicep, as that muscle will cause my arm to contract. And he just spent months straightening the arm. Any suggestions?
I found a PDF here that has a good description and pictures for many core exercises (starting on page 3 of the pdf). Based on your description, I think most of them would be do-able for you (there are the usual bridging exercises and kneeling that would put stress on your elbow, but many of the exercises are lying on your back or sitting on a physio ball). Some of the bridging exercises have you rest on your elbow with your arm bent (not with your arm straight and elbow locked) - would you be able to do those ones?
Have you tried Sprinter Sprinter Suitcase? They’re very difficult, but generally your arms are just beside you lightly touching the ground the entire time. I can’t post to the video because I’m at work, but if you google it, you’ll get a good demonstration video as your first hit.
I’m doing well, 1 pound down this week. After my trip home to Michigan I sort of started stuffing junk food into my face left and right, and it took a lot of effort to get back on track. I decided instead of planning treats a week in advance, I’m going to just stick with one treat a week. That gives me more flexibility. So yesterday I got a small fudge brownie Sundae at Carvel, figuring it would be 400, maybe 500 calories max. Looked it up when I got home… 876 freaking calories! :o
I bought a Nutribullet fruit and vegetable juicer. I’d like to make juicing a daily habit. Feel free to send any good juice recipes my way!
Even with the nutrition situation being tentative, I’ve been doing great fitness-wise. I mean, my knees have been hurting too much to do any hiking lately, and that’s a major disappointment, but I’ve been training around it. Yesterday I set a PR for push-ups - 57 baby! In sets of 10. I also found a good video for deadlift form and improved my deadlift by leaps and bounds yesterday. I’ve forced myself to get out there and put effort into my workouts no matter what, consistently, every day, never skipping, and now that I’m in this habit, it’s like I have this thing to depend on. I have this knowledge that even when my diet is all screwy, I have my fitness. And that’s worth more than weight loss.
I decided I deserved a treat last night since I have been having such a shitty month.
So, I went for all you can eat sushi…and got food poisoning.
While I haven’t eaten much since then, I cannot possibly go to the gym today. Tomorrow will be better, right?
I really hope it was!
Things are going good for me (finally!) - lots of walking, combined with less junk food and no bedtime glasses of wine (too hot to snack, too worried about dehydration to drink in my oven of a bedroom) means I’m down another half a kilo, to 75kg.
I’ve already ordered a corset dress in celebration. 
Beautiful dress Cinnamon Imp!
Hang in there pp. I hope today went better for you.
I’m in good shape. Did my benchmark workout and I improved 2 minutes over my time last month (12:30 vs. 14:40) Kicked my own little butt, I did. My knees are still sore as hell, I’m going to the doctor on Friday to see if he will prescribe me PT. Icing them every day after my workout has not been sufficient.
Weighed in at pre-vacation weight today, so I have hit the ground running. Plus my fitness/calorie tracking website, SparkPeople, just integrated their calorie counter with their fitness tracker so now any exercise you log will result in an automatic calorie range adjustment for the day. This really excites me.
I made these Peanut Butter Balls for a snack, they are delicious, but I was thinking no way am I kidding myself that they are healthy - maybe 150-200 calories per ball. But the thing is, they are extraordinary at curbing hunger to the extent that it’s almost impossible to overeat them. I made 26 balls and put them in the fridge, had two for breakfast this morning and stayed satiated six hours until lunch. I am going to see how these work as an after-work snack, just one a day. They might actually be the perfect snack for me.
Hooray! Scale victory (SV), as they say.
I think I have metabolic syndrome along with my diabetes though - I carry all my weight in my abdomen so I still have quite the spare tire. But still! I see that 1! I see it!
I haven’t exercised since Friday though, because it gets so messy and squishy down there during my period. I use BC to skip most of my periods though, I have no idea how women who have their period every month deal with it.
WOOOOHOOOOO!!! does the Onederland dance
I also skip my periods. Thank Og for continuous BC.
I have now been exercising daily for over 7 months. I missed a few days at the end of December, back before I learned my Coach won’t take No for an answer. But other than that I have literally exercised every single day. Sick, depressed, raining, cold, whatever, I was out there.
That’s hardcore! I’m happy with my 3x a week! Ha ha ha.
As an aside, I also got my latest a1c back. Doctor scared the shit out of me, said it was 7! I was freaking out, and then she realized she read the wrong line. It’s actually 5.1. My fasting blood glucose was 7 mmol/l. :o 
6 lbs down in 3 week. I bike between Queens and Brooklyn 9 miles each way to work now. This puts me back at my original starting weight that’s a 24 BMI. I had ventured into slightly “over” after my husband’s surgery. I’m currently only 5 pounds heavier than I was at my thinnest, fittest, looks amazing in tight clothes weight right (size 2/4) after law school. BUT I look a lot heavier. This had been confusing me until I realized that in spite of my Mediterranean/Indian low carb diet and copious amounts of cardio…since law school whenever I’ve lost weight I’ve done it solely through calorie restriction and cardio and made myself skinny-fat. After getting back to the mildly chubby/normal weight I am now, I did a lot of research and realized that the difference between now and then is that in 2005 I had hired a trainer specifically to force me to do weights. She basically gave me a personal Crossfit-esque training session 2 times a week and in addition to the regular cardio and calorie deficit diet I was on, it’s why I looked so radically different in spite of the marginal difference in my scale-weight.
I don’t know what combination of google search led me to it, but I’ve done my research and really gotten into the women’s heavy lifting community on MFP and will be starting the Stronglifts program soon. I’m pretty excited about it and would never have discovered heavy lifting is what can give that “toned” look rather than spending hours and hours on the machines at the gym.
On the plus side, I can now do the step mill for 40 minutes and I can run 7 miles and I wasn’t able to do that ever before, so that’s nice. A lot of people in the heavy lifting community eschew cardio it seems, but I will keep it up for a while and I still have that 18 mile roundtrip ride every day.
Intensive strength training is amazing. I recently went home for vacation and my FIL described me as the thinnest he’d ever seen me… except I’m so not. He’s seen me 25lbs lighter than this, in a size 8 rather than 14… but I look better than I ever have and I’m fitter than I’ve ever been. Because of the strength training.
As a guy who’s had experience trying to lose weight with and without strength training, all I can say is that strength training is clearly the most important component in the whole thing. I mean, I guess diet in general is - going from eating big macs to eating something sensibly is the biggest component, but strength training is way more important than any minor variation on diet, and it’s way more important than any other sort of exercise you can do. Relatively few people try it as a weight loss method and that’s unfortunate - as a way to increase your feeling of health and general physical capability, and a method of weight loss, it can’t be beat.
Take a class, though. Most of the people I see at the gym have no idea what they’re doing. Improper form will hurt you.
I actually briefly did Crossfit last year and they had a required 3 intro classes that showed the proper form for all the lifts utilized in both Starting Strength and Stronglifts and more (including power cleans etc.) but in all honesty the reason I mentioned both of these programs (Starting Strength and Stronglifts) is that they they focus on compound movements and are meticulously documented as it relates to form and how to start as a newbie. Starting Strength, especially, which is actually a book written by Mark Rippetoe. I’ve learned more about proper form by actually reading and practicing with an empty olympic bar and nothing at all than in all the years I ever did at a “class” like Les Mill Body Pump, which is really just more like an aerobic workout (though I also remember that in 2008 when I was also in good shape and less skinny fat I was doing Body Pump + obsessive cardio).
I ended up going with Stronglifts, in all honesty, because that dude Mehdi released an app that makes life even easier.
Have no idea where the Big Mac insinuation came from as I made it pretty clear that I’m at a normal BMI (24) and eat at a calorie deficit on a lower carb diet and STILL don’t look like I did when I was strength training (but in more of a “girlie” way).
I want referring to you with the big Mac comment. I was saying that strength training is vastly underrated by people trying to lose weight. It’s the best step you can take besides the initial step from eating junk to eating better.
Well for the first time in forever, no longer losing weight is a good thing but that’s where I am now.
At my lowest point I was down 20lbs from my presickness weight. I’m now at 16lbs down and have stablilized there for just over a week. My goal is to stay stabilized here until I’m healthy again and then work on weightloss.
I could be losing weight right now, really easily and it’s very tempting but my doc was clear on the fact that any further loss was just going to make it harder to recover. Since I would really like to enjoy SOME of my favorite season I’m following her orders. For now.
I’ve been wanting to learn how to use the strength training equipment, but every time I register for one of the intro programs it gets cancelled because of lack of enrollment. When I stop doing aquacise for winter I’ll have to make an appointment with a personal trainer to show me and set me up with a program - ugh, it’s just so expensive.
So I just got back from the doctor, and it appears I have arthritis of the knee. I didn’t know you could get arthritis at age 30, but apparently it’s common 10-15 years after a knee surgery. I’m going to have X-rays to follow up in two weeks. In the meantime I can’t do anything high-impact. I have the feeling once this is over with I’m going to be a lot more limited in what I can do. 
I burned 1500 calories today! God it felt amazing to be outdoors again. We hiked for a good 2.5 hours, and that was on top of my regular workout. Yes, I’m tired.
And I made a delicious avocado smoothie using my new Nutri-bullet.
I wanted to share some of my weight loss experiences.
Last year I lost about 10 kg through exercise and diet. During the weight lose spots formed on my back. I never had that before, also not during my teens. My diet mainly consisted of reducing my calorie intake and low carbing it. There was one significant change in my diet and that is that I substituted milk for soy milk. I’m a guy. So, I thought perhaps the oestrogen in the soy milk is causing the spots.
Later I heard that toxins are stored in fat. So my theory now is that those toxins were released during the weight loss and caused the spots on my back.
Around the same time I stopped losing weight I also stopped with the soy milk. A few months later I marginally started drinking soy milk again. No spots occurred.
Now I am losing weight again and not drinking soy milk and some spots are forming.
Anybody else had this or heard similar stories?
BTW, no drugs or weight loss inducing products were used. I’m male, 29, 172 cm, 75 kg