Way to go!!! That’s really impressive.
monstro, one of my favorite things about having my own office is being able to shut the door. :D. Yes, to do stretches and all that, but also sometimes to eat in peace. Or just be in peace.
I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who live with others who aren’t willing to make any changes at all. Sr. Olives happens to be a very healthy eater due to his many allergies, and he is usually willing to walk with me, but about once a day he will bust out some potato chips right under my nose. And that is hard enough. But he’s very supportive of me and I certainly can’t begrudge him some potato chips because I’m the one with the eating problem, not him. The places I am most vulnerable are those involving other people - going over to friends’ houses, or out to eat with friends, or socializing at work. In those contexts, food becomes more than food.
I had this really helpful insight yesterday. I lost my wedding ring. There’s a decent chance it was stolen by some contractors who were in our house that day, and I am pretty sure it’s gone forever. As the odds of finding it plummeted with each passing hour, I heard that little voice whisper, ‘‘Hey, you could really use a pizza and soda right now. It’s been such a hard day, you should just order some delivery and relax a little.’’
Then this other voice replied, ‘‘But all the pizza in the world won’t get your wedding ring back.’’
And like a ton of bricks it just hit me, every time I’m stressed and eating through my stress, it does absolutely nothing to solve the source of the stress. In my mind, before, I was eating to feel better, sort of assuming that was my only way out. It never occurred to me to actually address the issue directly, whether that means making a change or learning to let it go. I guess I needed a really concrete example like the ring in order to drive that home.
So I’ve had cravings for junk food in the last few days, but no real desire to eat it. I just think about how it would compound my problems and this solution is starting to lose its appeal.
Amazeballs! We look to you for inspiration.
This made me smile. Thanks. Every once in a while I’ll point out to my husband things he should have noticed. He caught me checking myself out in the mirror the other day, examining my abs, and he kind of laughed at* me, but fuck it. I’ve been working really hard!
*Not in an overly mean way, but in a “caught you!” kind of way.
Ha! My husband doesn’t notice at all when I lose weight, but he notices my increased confidence and he says that’s sexy. Fortunately, he doesn’t notice when I gain weight, either.
Down from somewhere close to 180 to 73.2 kg, or 162 pounds.( My bathroom scale came from Bangladesh. I have to do the conversions myself.). Mostly been eating veggies in salad and soup form, plus protein shakes and flaxmeal bread with PB2.
I know I’ll stop before I get below 150, because I got pretty emaciated at 143 and 5’6". So far, feeling great, if a bit dowdy because my clothes are baggy and I’m not taking them in until I hit goal weight.
Thing that I hate: drinking enough water means I have to pee. All the time. And I’m a teacher.
Ugh, the water and peeing!! I had to install a drink water app because I never can take the time. Annoying damn thing, sounds like a toilet flushing, and god forbid I forget to turn off the sound on my phone when I’m around people. So now I drink the water, and make 47 bathroom breaks.
Oh, and the clothes, I can so relate. Down 30, looking a little bag-ladyish, but not going to (NO NO NO NOT!!) buy anything until I lose the rest. Partner suggested a Goodwill trip might be Ok. STAY STRONG!!
I posted on page one about a lunch I love of tomatoes, onions, kalamata olives and Ken’s lite balsamic. And someone said, where’s the protein (paraphrasing). I had a doc’s appt. this week, and she said the same thing. Long long metabolic lecture about protein v. carbs, and when she reviewed my food diary, she said I am starving myself of protein.
So, new food avenues to explore. Including protein drinks. She recommended protein bars as well, but every one I have ever eaten has tasted like something you scrape off a window where you’ve been killing bugs.
Body Fortress Advanced Whey protein is pretty tasty, it dissolves well, and you can get it for a good price. I like their Vanilla Creme with various sugar free syrups mixed in- it’s almost milkshakey.
And I plan on staying strong- I only want to resew most of this once and I can’t even figure out what’s with the seams on my UV protection shirts. It’s always the most necessary clothes that are the hardest to fix…
I’ve never done the whole “weight loss support” thing before, what the hell, this shit is hard.
I started a low carb diet at the end of 2011. I was at 344 pounds, in the worst shape of my life, and having various weight-related (?) super scary health issues for which I had no diagnosis or treatment due to lack of health insurance.
I had intended to ramp up working out with it, but I was in awful shape, and it was really difficult to get myself out there and do much of anything. Everything hurt, wore me out, was likely to injure me. I had a job at the time too, which made me feel too busy to spend too much time excercising - seemed as though I had precious few hours to myself, didn’t want to spend them at the gym. Kept telling myself I’d get around to ramping up the excercise, but never quite got up to it.
But the low carb diet itself was decently effective. I’d gotten down 50 pounds about 5 months into it. Not great results by my standards, but nothing to sneeze at. But then I sort of hit a plateau which I think was the result of trying to lose weight purely through diet. The next 10-15 pounds took 3 months.
At that point I ended up going back to stay with friends and family back in cleveland for 3 months. It was a vacation for me - so I wasn’t dieting, and more than that, I was going out to restaurants with my friends several times a week, getting ice cream whenever I felt like it (whee, summer), etc. If I had been building muscle, I think I could’ve weathered it better, with a higher basal metabolic rate, but when I got home I’d regained about 25-30 pounds. About 5-10 of that is water weight that’ll come off instantly or go back on instantly depending if you’re low carbing or not, so the actual gain was probably more like 15-20. I dragged my ass about starting my diet back up and lost another month or two. I just wasn’t all that terribly enthusiastic about my results so far, my health problems had alleviated somewhat so the concern was less immediate, so I let it slide.
I was also dealing with plantar fascitis and a bone spur at the time, still am to a lesser degree, and that sucked any and all desire to be physical out of me.
But I’d committed to losing 80 pounds, and when I commit to something, I do it. So I started up again in Novemberish and I haven’t quite lost back everything I regained. I’m sitting around 295 with my lowest point being 283 back in August. So, really, I made progress from December '11 to April '12, and from there I’ve more or less been a roller coaster around the same point since then.
I came to realize that it was kind of a wasted year. I mean, I’m still down a net of 50 pounds, which I suppose isn’t a waste, but I could’ve been working out the entire time, building muscle, raising my basal metabolic rate. I could’ve lost 100 pounds instead. I could feel healthier, stronger, more energetic. I regret that I just let myself slide on the workout issue.
So I’m rectifying that. I’ve been swimming at the gym - I figure swimming is a good excercise for someone in awful shape to gently rebuild their muscles, ligaments, tendons, and all that without too much strain or risk of injury, while still being a fairly good workout with a large number of muscles used. It isn’t nearly as unpleasant as I’ve dreaded - so far it’s actually felt pretty good.
I’ve been taking it slowly, though. Not pushing myself. Which is the opposite of how I’ve always gone about this. I wrote about that here, if you’re interested. Basically I lost 200 pounds in 9 months about 14 years ago. Then, I used sheer force of will to attack the problem with the greatest possible tenacity. Never took a day off, never even had a day where I didn’t work myself to exhaustion. I figured if I always pushed myself and got the most possible results, never let myself slack off or slide, I could remold myself through peer force of will.
My 17 year old self could do that - both for reasons of physical recovery and mental strength that I just don’t have anymore. I’m 31 now, and I manage to injure something when I do just about anything. I try to do the proper form, do the proper stretches and all that, but I’m just so out of shape and brittle that things break.
I’m not sure yet how fast and hard I should increase the excercise workload, I’m going to try to feel it out. Probably for about a month I’ll keep swimming and go from there. I’m going every other day now, I’m considering bumping it up to every day. But I wonder - with as bad of shape as I’m in, swimming is much more a strength training excercise than a cardio one, so is it best that I keep a rest day between swims for muscle recovery time just as I would if I were lifting?
So anyway, there it is. I’m going to push right through to 264, which was my original goal weight, and see where to go from there. I didn’t want to commit to getting down to 200 or some reasonable weight right off the bat - committing to losing 150 at first sounds overwhelming. I originally only committed to 50, and when I reached the 40 mark, I decided I’d do double that, and do 80. So I’ll see how I’m feeling when I get there. Hopefully, barring injury, if I keep working at it, I can get there by summer.
SenorBeef I look forward to your progress. I am sure you’ll be fine.
Are you doing low carb again since it worked so well for you in the past?
Well, I am up (I can barely admit this to myself so posting it is tough) 13 pounds. Granted, I am still down 20 from when I started last year to lost weight but I am so ashamed.
Things are looking up though. I was actually able to find time to go to the gym on Friday and I got myself there again yesterday. I can’t go again until Wednesday (life being what it is) but three times in one week is way better than not going at all, right?
Now if only I could stop eating. I am not sleeping. If I am hungry, it just makes it worse. I have tried eating a small snack before bed but my body (brain?) says that’s not enough. I have to eat until I am sleepy-full to get to sleep. I am headed to a new doctor to see if he can help me out on this one but that’s still three weeks away. I am trying to decide what’s worse, taking a sleeping pill every night or eating myself to sleep. <sigh>
Can we discuss night eating? Not “eating after dinner.” I’m talking “wake up at 2 am and have a cookie or a piece of cheese.” I’ve done this all my life. Not every night though. I’ve done it the past 4 nights and it really annoys me. I cannot decide if it’s emotional or physical hunger. Physical hunger I’m fine with, although I do have a bedtime snack, usually popcorn, so I shouldn’t be hungry. If it’s emotional, I don’t know what to do. I am in therapy, I journal, I pray. Maybe it’s just a mind game. I don’t know.
Have you tried getting up, going pee and then going back to bed without eating something? Can you get to sleep?
I’m not quite sleepwalking when I do this, but I’m not fully awake. My goal tonight is to wake up and go back to sleep. I’ve already started telling myself “it is not an option to eat a piece of cheese at 2am.” I don’t necessarily have to pee when I wake up. It’s more like “I hear a cookie calling me.”
peedin, maybe keep a fiber bar handy for the late-nite snack? Should be pretty filling and not too many calories. I try to keep the 90-calorie Fibars around for just that purpose - tasty and just filling enough.
Well, I fell off the wagon last week too. First week since I joined WW that I gained rather than lost. I blame my husband, sort of the way Adam blamed Eve (he offered, I bit. And bit, and bit. Cursed pizza!). He had a bad week starting with a slip and fall that damaged a disc in his back so my schedule went all to hell exercise-wise, and there was a bit too much comfort eating on top of that. He’s up and mobile again today and I am back on the diet but not looking forward to my weekly weigh-in. Almost decided to weasel out of it but no, I’ll suck it up and try to use the guilt in a positive way.
SenorBeef, kudos to you. Keep on it and keep posting. It is encouraging to read everybody’s story and hear what works, what doesn’t, and get some virtual hugs or high-fives.
I’m starting a rewards jar - put in a dollar for every pound I lose, and when I hit goal (please og!), I will use it to get myself something nice and frivolous that does not involve food. Probably spring for a new hairstyle or a pair of jeans I would never spend that much money on.
I finished my Whole 30 on Friday having lost 18 lbs in 25 days (yeah we did Whole 25 instead of 30). I was losing 1/2 lb every day for the last couple days and I was actually hesitant to jump off the cliff in to the brisk waters of “eating whatever the hell I want” but I think I needed a couple days off the track for my mental well-being.
Since I started low-carbing last January I haven’t really gone out to eat with anyone or gone over anyone’s house for dinner. Maybe a handful of times in the past 14 months. It’s just not fun or easy to go out to eat. If I go to someone’s house there’s just too much interrogation as to what I can or can’t eat, it makes me feel awkward.
Anyway so this weekend I went out to eat 3 times, with several people I haven’t seen in a while. I think that was a nice treat for me.
Back to things today. I’m transitioning back from super-strict-paleo to Atkins. So basically I’m adding back cheese and peanuts. I’m going to continue to avoid my daily Coke Zero and yogurt and eat more meat and veggies (like I am supposed to).
I did really well last week at the gym, getting in my 3x weights and 2x cardio. I started trying out the Stairmaster, first 5 mins and then 6 mins. I wonder if I can keep that up?
Not sure if I can make it to the gym today because I am absolutely feeling the fallout from my weekend of debauchery. Plenty of cheese after a month without it. Hehehe…I might just need to stay home and deflate.
SenorBeef my suggestion for you is yes go every day (well, 5 days) but no do not swim every day. I’m no physiologist but I think mentally you need to switch it up to keep from getting bored and to keep from the days all running together. It’s also nice to have a fall-back activity for when you don’t feel like swimming - so that your only option isn’t “kick my ass in the pool, or stay home”. Since you’re working your heart and muscles so hard in the pool, your other two days could be resistance or cardio.
peedin I’ve never heard of night eating like that. That sounds awful! Do you eat anything that’s around or is it just specific stuff that you’d get up to eat? Could you eradicate all offending foods from your house?
I like Luna’s brand of protein bars. But what I really, really like (although it has less protein than Luna) are Kind bars. They are soooo yummy, the one that I usually get, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter, tastes just like a candy bar.
It seems like I’m back on track. I lost 1.4 pounds this week for a total of 82.8. It was kind of funny because I upped my calories so that I would lose 1.5 lbs per week instead of 2 and lo and behold, that’s what I did! Although tomorrow I’m having lunch at a deli with mile high corned beef sandwiches and matzo ball soup! Fortunately I’m going to the Y tomorrow evening.
Holy (whole-y?!) crow! 18 pounds in 25 days is amazing! And great job on all the gym activity, too.
I did a 5-mile run on Saturday and an 8-mile run yesterday and today I just wanted to eat nonstop. I tried to be reasonable in my choices and all, but it was hard. There are definitely days when I just don’t want to do this.
Resistance isn’t practical, I don’t think. I’m kind of doing swimming as remedial resistance - a way to start building up my muscles at a low level without too much intensity, so I don’t plan on doing any other resistance for at least a few more weeks.
Problem with the off days is that while I could just go for a walk or something, I’m still dealing with the nagging foot injury. It isn’t too bad, but it’s almost gone, and I feel like if I minimize my time on it I could probably get rid of it. Since every time I’m on my feet too much it seems to set back any progress.
So I’d have to have some off-time non-resistance excercise that doesn’t involve being on your feet. Maybe biking - that involves your feet, but you’re not putting your full weight on them. I’ve been thinking of snatching up a decent used bike off craigslist.
Fucking snow needs to fuck off so I can fucking go for a goddamn walk without fucking freezing to death.
Also, feeling fat makes me pissy. And I made ginger brownies for game night yesterday and my friends skipped out without taking the plates of brownies I made for them so now I have a bunch of delicious sugary bars staring at me in the kitchen. Stupid friends. Excuse me, I need to go cry into a baggie of carrots.
Does your gym have spin classes? They’re a great way to burn calories. Each person has their own stationary bike with a resistance control. The instructor guides you through a varied workout where you make it harder or easier. Sometimes you stand, sometimes you sit. It’s mostly an aerobic/leg workout, but your core and arm muscles get in on the action, too. Since you control the effort, it’s a great workout no matter your ability. You can workout at maximum exertion with no impact. It’s great for athletes of size.
You may want to get some biking shoes if your plantar facitius starts to bother you. Sometimes, the flexing of your foot against the pedal may aggravate it. But in biking shoes it’s not a problem at all. The soles of biking shoes don’t flex, so you’re foot will be fine. You don’t have to get the clips if you don’t want. The biking shoe will usually fit in the pedal cage just fine.
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ;16109293
peedin I’ve never heard of night eating like that. That sounds awful! Do you eat anything that’s around or is it just specific stuff that you’d get up to eat? Could you eradicate all offending foods from your house?[/QUOTE]
I’ve done this all my life. Even as a kid I would get up in the middle of the night and have a bowl of cereal. My sister does it as does a close friend. It’s not like a binge or a ton of food. Just one or two cookies. And it’s not every night so I do not fall under the official disorder of “night eating syndrome.” A lot of it is a stress reaction, and partly habit. Last night before bed I told myself “you will not get up” and I put a piece of masking tape across the fridge door. Guess what? I didn’t get up. A lot my issues are habit and mind over matter.
In other good news, my pants are looser today. I’m not ready to go down a size, but I like being able to almost take my pants off without unzipping them.