I was in the last thread, thought I’d pop in here, too (although most of my weight loss and fitness related stuff lives on My Fitness Pal.)
So I’m down to my last 10kgs to lose, but I have the perfect motivator - my loser exhusband and his parents are rocking up in September to come to my son’s graduation dinner. Fantastic! He weighs, judging by his photos and what I knew his weight to be when I left, upwards of 350lbs. He has no job, has never paid child support, and is a loser in every way imaginable. Since he’s here for the kid and I’m here for the kid, I need to be adult and say nothing, so I intend to look fantastic with my fantastic husband and my wonderful life and let that be my passive agressive fuck you.
I call it the spite and hatred diet.
Anyway, I think I’m getting there, but my brain has convinced me that it’ll never happen. I hit a plateau that saw me losing inches (I measure) but no weight because I was back in the gym for the first time in a year due to a really terrible back issue (scoliosis+nerve damage+saitica). My brain told me I was a loser. Go away brain, and stop being fat!
130kg SW Setp 2009
Had lap band surgery and had that reversed
Was 88kgs on 1st Jan 2012
Back problems
93kgs on 1st Jan 2013
CW 83kgs
Goal weight: 74kgs (ish - maybe 70?)
I’m back in the gym 3-4 days a week, but the limitations are killing me - no running (I cheat and run 3 min at time, it’s all my back/hip can manage), no squatting with weights (use the stupid leg press machine), no deadlifts (can’t seem to replace that.)
Hey, whatever works. I’m reading a book about the food industry called Sugar, Salt, Fat, and the horrible stuff I’m reading is totally riling up my liberal outrage. I want to stick it to The Man and never eat processed food again! Also a spite and hatred diet.
I am doing pretty well, and by well I mean consistent, not comfortable. It is Day 8 of clean eating and the sugar withdrawal is coming hard. DOMS from 300 jumping jacks, body aches, headaches, depression, irritability and constant hunger/junk food cravings. Yesterday was tough but I made myself do a half hour of jump rope and it helped me keep it together. There is something deeply satisfying about making progress toward your goals even on your worst days.
Today I’m still hungry and a little sore but I’m doing much better, and we just restocked our fresh food so I’m inspired. My workout today was pretty strong - 50 ground release push ups and 50 sit-ups.
I’ve got stuff to make my own trail mix. I also picked up a few fatty products (swiss cheese, nuts, whole milk) because I didn’t eat enough fat this week.
Also, this is pretty crazy: I made a big-ass salad for lunch today, and just for fun I decided to limit my salad dressing to 1 serving. You could hardly taste it but I still enjoyed the salad very much. That was unexpected.
This book I’m reading says the max recommended daily added sugar intake for an adult woman is 6 tsp, 30 grams - like half a can of soda. So I’m trying to watch the added sugar.
I’m doing. I’m still eating clean. I ate way too much fruit yesterday and it threw my whole body out of whack. I had no idea fruit could have that effect. I’m getting really sensitive to sugar.
It took me forever to drag my butt to the park today, and of course it started raining as soon as I got there. My assignment was to kick a soccer ball around for a mile and do 80 GR push-ups. I feel a lot better now that I’m done. It really can turn a depressed mood around very quickly.
Had to give in and buy some clothes that, you know, fit. Turns out the reason I was looking like a ragamuffin was that I didn’t drop to a 14, but a 12. I feel amazing, if sore from the Pilates, and felt so good in my new to me clothes.
Also, I have a great appreciation now for Victoria’s Secret. Damn, but their stuff makes you look good.
I’ve been swimming every other day for a little over 3 weeks. I started slow, with about 45 minutes in the pool, but I’ve since worked up to 90 minutes. I figure that’s probably long enough, so I’ve been working on increasing the intensity and aiming for roughly the same time. I’ve made a lot of progress quickly. Of course I’m sort of doing remedial phys ed (one day to graduate and move up to theoretical phys ed), I was in bad shape and you can make some gains quickly just by getting your body ready to exercise.
Weirdly, though, I went up 8 pounds almost instantly, and I’ve been stuck at that weight since. I’m eating roughly the same I was before, and I’d have lost 5-7 pounds during a 3 week period like that normally. I know your muscles will store more water when you increase your exercise load, but I wonder if that could explain it. It seems quite unlikely that I could be putting on fat. I feel fitter in any case, and that’s what’s important. But that leaves me 2 months to lose 40 pounds to hit my goal, so it’s going to have to start coming off again soon if I’m to have a chance.
NSV: Bought a girly tshirt at a concert. Back in the day it would have been the biggest xxl guys tshirt and hope it fit. The girly ones are always cute, too. Yeay!
I haven’t been tracking my food, I haven’t been weighing in. I’ve got a trip to San Antonio at the end of August and I really wanted to lose another stone before then, and right now I’m just not feeling like that’s possible.
The weather isn’t helping, it seems like we’ve been in winter for a year with no end in sight. It’s hard to get out and about when you have to wrap up under so many layers and still you’re freezing.
Yesterday’s weigh-in showed me having lost 1.4 pounds. I don’t know how this happened as it had been a pretty tough week. But I’ll take it anyways. That makes 86.8 total. I’m hoping to hit 100 by my birthday in June and I’m generally feeling more committed this week then I have in awhile.
I’ve been doing the Zombies, Run! C25K and I’m on week 5. I’m really excited by this because I’ve gone from about a 20 min/mile pace to my best so far over the weekend which was 14.7 min/mile. Oh, and I found out yesterday that my size 24 jeans are apparently going to have to go soon as I can pull them off without undoing them . (I started out in a 32.)
So, all in all, it’s been pretty good. I found out that I do have a slightly torn meniscus but basically surgery is not likely to help. The only way to know for sure if it would help is to lose a ton more weight and see if it’s still bothering me. The good news is that he said that running will not damage my knee further so that made me happy. Especially since I’ve signed up for two 5Ks in April.
{{{sandra_nz}}} Good luck. I know it’s hard, but you can get back in the game again.
Haven’t broke down yet, still doing the bag lady thing, but I am now wearing my 14 tall dress pants, and pretty happy about that!! All my jeans are now basically slip on–I don’t even have to unbutton the darn things!
First I want to reveal that this thread has somehow helped me make the transition from wanting to do something about losing weight to actually doing something.
I’ve officially cancelled my Weight Watchers account because all the monthly charge on my credit card statement was doing for me was making me feel like a failure for mot working up the motivation to follow what was a really easy plan for me back in 2001.
I’ve started the Fast Diet - bought the ebook. I don’t think I buy all their claims that I’ll see dramatic changes in my LDL, IGF-1, blood glucose, etc, and I am of course skeptical that the results you see in rats are translatable directly to humans, but I do think it’s an interesting way to reduce my calorie intake. The basic outline of the plan is: 2 days a week you restrict your calorie intake to 500 or 600 calories. The other 5 days you eat whatever you want. Obviously that won’t work if you overeat on the non-“fast” days, but I am curious to find out of their claims that people on the plan only increase their calorie intake by about 10% the day after a “fast” day.
Basically, I am approaching this as an experiment. Will I lose weight? Only time will tell. I am 2 weeks in and the fast days have been surprisingly easy. I followed the authors’ advice to choose busy weekdays, which helps, and their statement that when faced with something I’d really like to eat “it will still be there tomorrow” is currently working. On my non-fast days I am working on recalibrating my portion sizes to what they should be, and concentrating on lots of vegetables, some protein and fat, and letting myself have something I denied myself the day before. This past Friday it was a Reeses Mini Peanut Butter Egg.
Motorgirl, please be careful with this diet. That doesn’t seem to me like a very healthy eating pattern at all. In fact, it reminds me of one of the primary symptoms of bulemia - the fast/binge cycle. Bodies as a general rule don’t like to be deprived of food - fast days might ultimately mess with your metabolism.
Wellll I pulled out the scale yesterday despite my better judgment and didn’t see a loss, and instantly felt worse about myself. I’m about to pitch the thing; I knew weighing myself was probably not a good idea. In fact, I decided to set aside the weight thing for now and keep focusing on healthy habits.
I feel strong and healthy and psychologically I’ve been bouncing back faster than ever before. I am now very sensitive to sugar and trying to keep my added sugar intake to a max of 30gs/day. So far that still allows me to eat maple peanut butter on my waffles in the morning and fix myself a Greek yogurt smoothie later on. It’s weird, my sugar limitation isn’t arbitrary as I might have guessed - I genuinely feel physically off-balance when I eat more than that. I’m also getting stir-crazy - sitting on the couch doing nothing just doesn’t seem right to me. Last weekend I took no less than three walks in one day because I just wanted to be outside. I’ve even started reading standing up and walking around.
Today’s assignment is 100 supermans and 100 kettle-bell swings. I’ve been thinking of getting back into aikido, but it costs money and I’m not even sure how long I’ll be living here.
You’re right. Day to day or even sometimes week to week weight measurements don’t mean much. Your weight can naturally vary a few pounds depending on how hydrated you are, etc. You might measure yourself at a low point, lose a pound of fat over the next week, but then come up 2 pounds heavier on the scale because of natural hydration variation. Gained muscle can also offset fat loss on the scale.
A better metric is your body shape, if you want to track that.
But a simpler measure is simply how fit you feel, and if you feel more energetic/stronger/healthier/etc. If you do, what does the weight even matter?
Hey Motorgirl, I did the 5/2 diet over lent, and while I didn’t lose any weight, I didn’t gain any either. My husband lost 4 or 5 pounds on it. One of the aspects I found interesting was the low-protien on fast days. I’m so used to eating low-fat protien when I’m dieting, it took me a few meals to figure of some other options.
I still haven’t lost the weight I gained over Christmas. I’m thinking of going back to the very strict low-fat diet for a few weeks to get back on track again.
Interesting. I hadn’t noticed a low-protein bent to the menus they suggest for “fast” days. I’ll have to look more closely. In the two weeks (4 “fast” days) I’ve been following this plan I’ve had almost the same thing every day - oatmeal around 11am, a vegetable snack in the afternoon, then a dinner of chicken breast, wilted greens (or salad greens) with an assortment of other vegetables like tomato, broccoli, cucumber, around 8. Two days I opted for a cookie before bed. I wonder how my meals are stacking up protein-wise against the suggested meals.
Sending you hopeful wishes for getting back on track. You can do it!
I’ve been watching these guys’ videos on YouTube lately. The Hodge Twins - twin bodybuilders from New Orleans. I am not a body builder but I do lift, and I am mesmerized by them. Probably because they have beautiful eyes but whatever. They have some good advice that I’ve taken into consideration.
I’ve watched a good number of bodybuilding videos on YouTube in the past few years. Even though I’m not a dude and not a bodybuilder, I think it’s good to get little bits of advice and see what I can do to give myself a tiny edge.
In one of these guys’ vids they say you should remember to warm up your rotator cuff and give a really simple exercise. Since I do dips and pullups that sounded important, so now I add that in too.
Still doing my thing and making progress. Life is going to be harder now that I have to scramble back home for baseball games by 7 PM. But I’ve been training myself to get into a real rhythm so I have high hopes that I can keep my workouts up as normal.
Lots of people on My Fitness Pal on this one. I’m doing the Leangains 16x8 fasting, as I didn’t do well with the 5:2 fasting. (16 hours fast, 8 eating.) Working pretty well for me so far.
Fasting in this controlled manner, as near as I can tell, seems to be fine and even help your metabolism - there’s some peer reviewed studies on the Lean Gains site I found quite interesting.
The point in both (16x8 and 5:2) is that you don’t binge - you eat normally in the time you have available to eat. Even in 5:2, you’re eating something on your fast days - generally it’s fasting 5pm to 5pm, and you have dinner after.
I’ve done quite well with 16x8 - I eat from noon to 8pm, so lunch and dinner. I get the same amount of calories as I did otherwise without being starving in the morning - breakfast makes me hungry before lunch, and I was heartened to find I’m not alone in that.
I’m reading a book about the food industry called Sugar, Salt, Fat, and the horrible stuff I’m reading is totally riling up my liberal outrage. I want to stick it to The Man and never eat processed food again! Also a spite and hatred diet.
I’m thinking of going back to the very strict low-fat diet for a few weeks to get back on track again.