April 2010 Weight Loss Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yay! I have stuck around long enough to be able to open a thread! Normally I would have dropped out by now.
So:

Female, 30

January 1 - 218
February 1 - 225
March 1 - 213.5

April 1 - 211.5!

I’m not sure how I managed it but I actually lost 2 pounds since March 1. That’s the good thing. The bad thing is that I had actually gotten down to 209 but I fell off the wagon big time.

I think the physical activity involved in tiling my bathroom while I fell off the wagon helped me to stay under my March 1 weight.

I’m back on track now though.

My goal for May 1 is the same as my last goal - to weigh less than I do right now.
How about it guys and gals? How is everyone else doing?

2

Starting the month with my long run, will be headed out shortly for a trip around the water-logged Charles River. I’m getting close to that elusive ‘1’ as the first digit of my weight and my goal is to hit that sometime this month.

Bought a new belt yesterday because all the others didn’t fit anymore. :slight_smile:

3

How bad is the Charles? I live up on a very tall hill so we haven’t seen the kind of flooding that everyone else is getting. I feel for the people who live down the hill from us though.

4

The run was fine, very little water to avoid. I generally run on the worn dirt paths next to the bike paths, and some of them were muddy but not enough to concern me.

At the gym after the run I reached my elusive ‘1’. I know it’s cheating (I was dehydrated from the run) but I’ll take it. :slight_smile: First time I’ve been under 200 for at least 15 years.

5

That is wonderful. Congratulations!

6

congodwarf: Good on you for hanging in there! Slow and steady wins the race. You’re doing great!

Telemark: Isn’t that an awesome feeling to say goodbye to the 200s?

As for me, I’m inching toward goal:

April 7, 2009: 220.6
March 30, 2010: 155.0
Goal: 150 (Weight Watchers), 145 (actual)

I bought myself a black leather jacket around Christmastime as my “making goal” reward (it was on sale). The idea was that I wouldn’t wear it until I officially hit goal. But damn, there was a nice day a few weeks back, I was meeting someone I hadn’t seen for a while and wanted to look GOOD, and I’d just dropped into normal BMI range, only 8 pounds from goal.

So I wore it. I figure if I wait to shave off these last few pounds, it might be July by then, and who wears a black leather jacket in July?! I just won’t wear it to WW until I hit goal. :cool:

And last week I asked some girls in the dressing room for their opinion on some pants I was trying on, and they said I have a nice ass. :D:D:D

When I went to my first WW meeting with my friend, somebody trotted out that old saying about how “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” :rolleyes: I always thought that was hooey, and whispered to my friend, “I dunno, some stuff tastes pretty damn good!” But now I freely admit that I was wrong, and the saying is absolutely 100% spot on. Nobody compliments you on the chocolate cake you’re eating or the fettuccine alfredo you had for lunch or the cookies you sneaked when no one was looking. But damn, I’m still getting compliments everywhere I go, even from people who’ve already seen me at my new weight! It’s awesome. And shopping is a lot more fun when you don’t have to stay in the plus-size section, where the clothes are designed for either your grandmother or people who don’t own a mirror and think they can still wear the same styles as thin people. :mad: I love being able to walk into any store and find cute things in my size. And when that size is 8, or 10, or medium, or even small :cool:, yay for me!

7

Hi, I’m new to this thread.

I would like to start by saying congratulations to so many of you. There are so many inspirational stories of success and triumph here, it is amazing. There are also stories of struggles, plateaus, depression, and even weight gain. I think these are just as important and help paint the issue with a realist’s brush and make the taste of success even sweeter.

My plan is to check in here on a weekly basis to read what everyone else has to say, as well as to record my own progress.

I am using physicsdiet.com to record my weight. I feel like weighing myself everyday and watching a moving average is the way to go (for me). I am experimenting with using sparkpeople.com and dailyburn.com to track calories, although I find this very hard to do on an ongoing basis.

My bigest problem areas are eating too much during a meal and, not getting enough exercise, and feeling like I should give up after a minor slip up.

EATING:
I tend to cook a lot of meals at home. I simply enjoy cooking. I also enjoy good food and don’t think that substituting ingredients (margerine for butter for instance) is the best solution for me in most circumstances. My goal is to eat a target number of calories per day. I want to accomplish that by learning to control the amount I eat (learning to know when I’m full), eating an increased amount of fruits and vegetables, and making more recipes that are naturally more healthful to start with.

EXERCISE:
Well, this one is hard, but I think it is the key to my success. I have a gym membership. I don’t go very often. When I miss a couple of days, I have a problem getting back on the wagon. And my biggest excuse is that I don’t have enough time. The logical side of my brain is telling me that’s not the problem at all - it’s that exercise is not a high enough priority in my life. Still, time to get everything done that I’d like to do on a daily basis is an issue. I also have some issues with my feet and joints that has kept me off of the treadmill for a couple of years now. The elliptical machine is far kinder, but I really would like to run. My plan, for now, is to just forcibly will myself to go on a regular basis, and hope it turns into a habit that is higher on my priority list than other things.

QUITING:
Quiting may be the wrong word for it. Here is how my mind works - “I just ate 2 slices of pizza, so screw it I’ll eat a third”. “I haven’t been to the gym in a week, so what’s the point in going today”. “I haven’t met my calorie goal in 3 days, so obviously I’ll need to find a time in the future to start my diet again, but today is not that day.” It’s like a small bump in the road completely derails the train and sends me down the wrong path. Getting turned around and going the right way again is like some big production even though when I step back and look at it logically, it should just be a simple course correction to get back on track. My plan to deal with this is to get some support and regular accountibility for myself (which is one reason I’m here), and to keep working on it - practice makes perfect - and the more times I am successful at it the easier it will become.

So I have sort of been working at this a little bit so far - a couple of months. It started out great, and recently my progress has slowed/stoped.

Feb. 1: 220
April 2: 209

Goal 1: 199 by May 1
Goal 2: 190 by July 4
Goal 3: 175 by 2011

Time to get moving.

8

Our WW leader has two great ways to look at slips.

(1) When you stub your toe, do you say to yourself, “Oh, screw it, I might as well throw myself down the stairs”? If you accidentally break a dish, do you start pulling the rest of the dishes out of the cupboard and smashing them on the floor? No, you say, “Oops.” So why behave that way when you make a food error? It’s really dumb when you think about it. Don’t be dumb. Put your shoes on or sweep up the shards and move on.

(2) You can be off the wagon at 10:00 and back on it at 10:01. There’s nothing magic about midnight, or Monday morning. Every moment of every day is an opportunity of a do-over. If you need one take it. RIGHT NOW.

I also don’t get discouraged by a slow loss. After all, slow weight loss is the kind that stays off. And a loss is still a loss. Even small gains are no big whoop. There are no absolutes, and you weight WILL fluctuate, no two ways about it. My own graph goes down, down, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, down . . . but the general trend is down.

Same with plateaus. They WILL happen. I’ve had two and I think I may be on the brink of a third. My friend has been on one for a couple of months. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing and push through it. Eventually you’ll knock it loose. In the meantime, you’re reinforcing your new healthy habits.

Hang in there and good luck!

9

I was 151 pounds last week; and today on the scale I jumped back to 153. Honestly I am a little puzzled. My tracking at Livestrong shows me eating all right; I either swim or jog for 5 days out seven (minimum of 20 minutes), so I have no idea what I am doing wrong - either the tracking of calories is not accurate or I am not effective with my exercise. Or maybe it’s muscle growth. Can’t be sure.

As Scarlett 67 puts it though, I guess I just keep pounding at it.

10

The plateaus and ups-and-downs have definitely been a part of my progress. I am getting much better at staying realistic about those - it has been by no means a straight line of progress. I think I’m getting better at higher calorie days, too - I aim for 1700 to 2000 calories per day, but if I go over, tomorrow’s another day, and I’m not trying to do this overnight. Making small changes to my regular diet means that some days I’ll still eat food that isn’t super healthy (and I’ll enjoy it, guilt-free), but overall I’m trying to stay on track.

Crowbar, I’m finding that one or two pounds up or down is fairly normal, as long as the overall trend stays downwards. I don’t understand it, either - I can go up two pounds or down two doing exactly the same things. It almost feels like my body has to get used to the idea of letting go of some weight before it happens.

11

How did everyone go during Easter? I managed to more or less stay the same - 55.26kg. I ate a lot more than I normally do (more carbs than usual, fewer vegies, and more dessert) but was able to fit in a couple of hour-long runs on the beach, some push-ups and some light cardio. I normally don’t run at all, and going from zero to two long jogs aggravated my left groin muscle. I’m taking today and tomorrow off, but hopefully will be back to my regular training (and eating!) schedule after that.

12

I still stick to my schedule, though I was at a friend’s place playing boardgames and downed many packets of colored drinks.

Mind sharing how does one manage to run for an hour? My legs are already complaining from a 20 minutes run.

13

I suspect I’ll be up a little this week, have been eating poorly due to travel and events the last few days even if I got a lot of exercise. I will get a workout in today, but I pulled a muscle in my chest skiing on Saturday so I’m not sure what I can actually do. Maybe I’ll ride the bike instead but I really want to run today.

14

I closed out March with a 196.3 20 day weighted average (actual 3/31 weigh in was 194.0) for a net loss of 3.3 pounds.

That’s about the rate I’m striving for, as I’m trying to balance weight loss and cycling fitness. I did a 400k brevet March 27th, a 360k fleche last Saturday, and will be doing another 300k brevet this coming Saturday (brevets and fleches are randonneuring events – timed long distance unsupported bicycle trips).

The good thing about these events is that you can burn 10,000+ calories in 24 hours. The bad thing is that even if you’re on top of things, they mess up your hydration levels so daily weight really fluctuates. For example, this morning I weighed in at 196.8, but I think that’s mostly excess fluids. That’s why I use a 20 day weighted average.

With a little luck, I expect my current goal of 195 to fall this month.

15

Well this weekend didn’t go as well as it could have. I am not disappointed by the fact that I ate a big family meal, or by the fact that I ate a bunch of chocolate eggs… it was a holiday - one of only a few every year where you can break some rules and have it be ok.

What I am disappointed about is the fact that after the festivities were over, I had leftovers - and too many of them. Overeating is something I am trying to work on and I didn’t get “back in the game” after the allowance I made for the Easter meal.

But the good news is that I was able to reset and get back on track on Monday.

I guess we’ll see how this week turns out in a few days.

16

Easter wasn’t actually too bad - we tried to eat average-sized meals, not pig right out, and get in exercise every day. I’m having a delicious turkey bun for breakfast this morning. :slight_smile:

17

I had a gain of 2.5 lbs last week. It wasn’t because of Easter since I weighed myself before the holiday. I know it must be water weight since I didn’t change my diet but it’s still annoying particularly since it’s only been a few weeks since the last time I inexplicably put on water weight. Today I’m down by 1.5 pounds but I’m still higher than I was two weeks ago. I also had a very tiring jog on the treadmill yesterday. Longest 28 minutes of my life. This is in contrast to last Friday where I was only supposed to run 25 minutes but ran 30 because I felt like I could. Oh well, nothing to do but to continue what I’m doing.

I’m kind of wondering if I should be eating more. I am following daily plate’s guidelines to eat slightly less than 1600 calories to lose 1lb a week but this doesn’t account for any physical activity. I figure whatever I burn by exercise is extra and I’m not the strictest calorie counter so I like to leave room for error. I also tend to eat more on the weekends so I end up eating less during weekdays. I’m afraid to go up though in case I stop losing and I’m not especially hungry or tired (except for yesterday).

18

Lost 40 pounds last summer (245 to 205) just by not eating like an idiot and drinking water for LITERALLY every single beverage I consumed.

Creeping up to the ~220 range, but I’ll surely be motivated again with the warm weather rollin’ in.

Bottom line: More calories out than in = you lose weight.

Increased muscle mass accelerates this, but I wouldn’t buy into any of those weight loss schemes. A little bit of willpower and some common sense is all you need.

I’d imagine it’s much harder to achieve the former the older you get, so I’m sure some of those programs have legitimate ‘motivational’ methods, but I like sticking to the basics. It’ll never fail you if done responsibly.

19

Ended up down 2 lbs this week, who knew? Officially down 15% of my body weight from New Years Day.

20

OK first weekly check in:

Last week: 210.21
Today: 209.78

Not real good, but I knew I was in a plateau coming into this, so it’s not unexpected. I think I’ll have a better shot of buckling down this week.