I saw the old thread was closed, but didn’t see a new thread.
I failed in weight maintenance last year, about 15 pounds worth. So I’ll be going back on my very low calorie diet for a few weeks in January. 
Not ideal, but better to nip the weight gain in the bud.
Anybody else got a new plan for the new year?
My Dr. says the diet that works is the one you’ll stay on.
Most people fail to control their weight because eating is a social activity. You eat what other people want, when other people want to eat.
In most people’s lives, it would be nearly impossible to break out of that. But if you can find a way to take complete, independent control of what you eat, it would be a lot easier.
I lost 40 pounds in two years (and didn’t even need to), when my living situation changed and I was able to take complete control of what I eat.
My original plan was to do a local bodybuilding competition in October of 2017, but it now looks like my Summer / Fall travel schedule will make that impractical. So, I’m going to spend most of 2017 trying to put on some size, and shoot for Spring of 2018.
My training partner wants me to start running with him, and I’m looking at doing a Spartan race in February. This would be a big challenge for me, because I’m so not a runner!
Finances caused me to have to drop my gym membership a year ago (and my health suffered) but they are opening a Planet Fitness around the corner for $10 a month - no commitment. So I joined. Looking forward to my treadmill routine.
I avoided gaining weight over Christmas, and I’m not going out to eat with my coworkers for multiple reasons, one of them being to keep what I eat under control. Not only do the kind of restaurants they like serve too much food for me, their menus are very repetitive. If I’m going to repeat, I’d rather repeat stuff I actually like. Still want to lose a few more pounds but it’s in the “would be nice” range rather than “bloody hell I’m a cow”.
Fitness-wise, I took a refresher bow course in early December; spent an hour shooting on the 2nd and did pretty nice by my standards. It helped that people at this particular club are sooooo much better behaved than at the one I had in Valladolid. Here, protocols such as “mind if I share your target?” “anybody want my target or do I put it away?” and “do not speak to people while they’re shooting” are observed all the time and by everybody; there, not at all.
Gained a shocking amount of weight over the holidays. Now I’m embarking on the clichéd and doomed-before-it-even-starts New Years resolution to lose weight. I’ve found it’s tough to find a treadmill open at the Y this time of year, but regulars assure me they’ll predictably be freeing up over the next 12 weeks or so.
social activity, yes but its also part stress eating, stress in every sense of the word
The people in the office I contract for are being fricking idiots this morning and they are not reading the emails completely again and merely write back their same drivel…I want chocolate or some other snack but I am fighting the issue but I really dont want to!
I’d like to have a burger and some fries from the restaurant down the road and I’m trying to avoid that feeling too!
Aside, back on topic, I did not gain any weight thru Christmas but since then…uhh yeah. I restarted the get up and moving pattern yesterday. Gotta keep at it. I do watch the size of servings at meals so that’s only half the battle
Good luck to all with similar weight issues. Where do we go to take out the fat gene??
The weight has been falling off me recently. I have been eating fairly clean on a low carb high protein diet. I don’t know how efficient this is compared to a low calorie diet but it’s working for me so far. I know soon however that I will hit a brick wall. Im just planning on keeping this diet going as long as I can.
Made it through Christmas without gaining…managed not to eat a single cookie, piece of candy, or pastry through the whole season, in spite of staying in a house full of those things for two weeks.
January is tough, though. The cold weather has kept me from getting sufficient aerobic/cardio exercise, but I have continued to practice qigong daily, and lift free weights 3x a week, and do various other exercises at home indoors.
Food plan – fewer than 50 grams of carb a day, not counting carbs in fresh, leafy greens. Giant green salad every day. If I eat enough fat, I’m not hungry at all, and lose weight/fat. This plan is fine with my doctor, and it keeps the threat of diabetes at bay.
Yup. I failed at a LOT of diets before I found one that works for me. When I’m on the very low calorie part of the diet I pretty much have to give up any social eating. But it’s only for a few weeks, and once I’m back on the low-carb phase I can socialize again.
Do any of you really lose weight by exercise alone? I haven’t found that to work for me, even with a 5 days a week weightlifting routine.
I think it’s very hard to lose weight just doing weights.
Usually, that exercise is (if done right) strenuous but short duration. Unless you are doing supersets of everything for an hour (which is a really grueling workout, and hard to do without a trainer), you are not going to burn a lot of calories weightlifting.
That is why aerobic exercise is recommended for losing weight - you can exercise at a good calorie-burning rate for 30 minutes or more, without killing yourself.
No. Back in the dawn of time I spent a couple of weeks in a summer camp in which our idea of a “rest day” involved walking only 14km over mountains; I came back home 5kg heavier and two sizes smaller and exclaimed “I want to gain 10 more kilos!”
One of the reasons I try to avoid focusing too much on what the scale says is that, since I’m trying to get stronger, that should mean muscle-mass gain. So, it’s actually more a matter of size and shape than actual weight. I’m at the high end of “healthy BMI”, but that’s been my spot since I grew hips.
I’m female, 45 years old, and 5’3. In September I finally got fed up with myself and made some serious lifestyle changes, which I kicked off with a medically-supervised weight loss program. I started at 243lbs, and I’m currently at 215. I have two mini-goals and one big goal:
[ul]
[li]Lose 44lbs - my weight will start with a “1” for the first time I can remember[/li][li]Lose 74lbs - my BMI will go from the “obese” category to “overweight”[/li][li]Lose 103lbs - my BMI will go from “overweight” to “normal”[/li][/ul]
Nothing about the past 4 months has been easy, but the exercise part has been the hardest: I have a treadmill and a dumbbell set at home, so I have zero excuses, yet I still hardly ever use them. I’m working on it. 
I measure/weigh my food, and log everything using MyFitnessPal. The holidays resulted in more indulging than I expected, but I haven’t gained any weight – just plateaued – and most days I’m able to stick to my 1,345-calorie goal (set by a professional). I’ve become pretty active on the MFP forums, because I’m finding that accountability and support are more important than I thought they’d be. I’m glad to see this thread!
I gained a couple of pounds over the holidays, but I’ve ramped up my fitness. I’m currently hitting the gym four days a week for fitness classes, totaling four hours and forty five minutes of dedicated fitness a week (one class on Saturday is only 45 minutes long.)
I signed up for boot camp twice a week and it’s a challenge, but I’m enjoying it. I’m also tracking my calories burned with my FitBit and logging into Sparkpeople.com to track my nutrition. The Fitbit syncs to my account here.
All said, doing good!
I’m still in the process of firming up exactly what my goals are.
The last third of 2016 was extremely successful for me. I made and won a physical fitness bet with two of my coworkers (I squatted 1.4 times my body weight, deadlifted 1.6 times my body weight, and bench pressed my body weight), and went on the Whole 30 diet, where I only lost a tiny amount of weight, but hey, it was something!
This year, I started the Body Beast home workout program, which is a program to add muscle mass. I’ve also talked with a coworker about making a bet involving getting down to a certain body fat percentage, but I still need to take my baseline and determine a goal from there. Last year my body fat percentage was in the teens (like 16-18% range), which is pretty good for a woman, so I might just aim to get back down there since I got a little softer over the holidays. I’m also thinking about making the bet more in terms of muscle mass than body fat percentage, like maybe to increase my lean muscle mass without increasing my body fat percentage.
At any rate, my husband and I are both going to set a goal for ourselves to reach by the end of March, and if we fail to reach that goal then we have to go vegetarian for the month of April.
I benched 200 lbs. (1x) yesterday, which was my 1-rep max when I was in my 30’s, more than 2 decades ago.
Woo Hoo!
Wow, beowulff, that’s great!
I understand. It’s like I use up all my will power to get through Thanksgiving / Christmas / The party last weekend, and then when it’s over I relax and make bad choices. Looking back at my food/weight journal it’s pretty clear I get through the “event” and then gain in the days afterwards.
Holy carps, The wind of my soul, I don’t know what your standards are but body fat percentage in the teens is generally regarded as “Athletic” for women, better than “Fit” or “Acceptable”.
I’m in such an annoying situation with my weight because I would fall into the “skinny fat” category. I don’t look bad and, frankly, the number on the scale isn’t terrible either…but I can just tell that it’s all fat, and it’s all in my stomach. I guess my fitness goal isn’t so much “I want to lose X amount of pounds” but more closely aligned with “I want to fit in my pants again”.
Right now, my biggest factor is time. There are literally no places around my apt. where I can run where it is lit up at night, so I need the sun to not set so damn early!
This is my (tenative) schedule so far:
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Lose 15 pounds by the first week of June for my pre-wedding honeymoon.
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Lose 25 - 30 pounds by the October wedding.
Again, if I’m replacing this fat with muscle and I end up at a net ~15 pounds lost but I can fit into my jeans again…I’m not going to complain!
Sorry to be Captain Obvious, Sir T-Cups, but gyms are well-lit and open late. If a gym isn’t possible for you, consider some hand weights to use with squats and deadlifts in your apartment. There’s lots of instructional youtube videos.