Hey! I lost 12 pounds! Now comes the hard part...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Congrats, Una! It sounds like you’ve got a good handle on things.

I’m starting on that road myself. I’ve lost about 10 pounds since I moved to Chicago mostly by taking the stairs everywhere I go, banishing pasta from my diet, sneaking spinach into everything and having green salad with dinner every night. I’m making sure I get enough protein - I need to eat more fish, I think. I cannot say enough good things about spinach!

I used to live on pasta, thinking “hey, it’s LOW IN FAT!” - that and the 60-70 hour/week workweek and high stress and no time to exercise contributed to a huge weight gain in a relatively short time. I’m feeling better just taking the 10 lbs. off.

Porcupine, what kind of weight training are you doing? Do you go to a gym or do you work out at home? I’m interested in starting that but don’t know where to begin. Maybe we can talk at the fest this weekend - you know, before Omni shows up and we whip out the vibes.

22

Congratulations, Anthracite!!! And good luck. You are absolutely right, keeping it off is tough. I’m going to agree with the “more water/exercise” people. Again, good luck to you. :slight_smile:

23

I’ve learned a bit on this thread. The main thing that I got out of it, though, was a feeling of comraderie that’s been missing for me. I don’t know why it makes such a difference to have other people out there who are doing this too, but it does.

I have the same problem as Anthracite where the carbs really string me out, so I need to avoid them as well. I stick mostly with meat and veggies. I’ve found that I don’t want to eat as much on this diet, because there aren’t really any “temptation” foods. I just eat and get full on much less food.

On the other hand, it took me awhile to tell the difference between actual hunger and carbo-cravings.

24

Any kind of strenuous exercise is not an option for me. But I am, ounce by ounce, coming down from 240+#. I seem to be stuck at 215, most of it beer belly. I’m shooting for 180.

I got some good tips from this thread.

Congrats to all who have lost it (weight that is, not ‘It’).

25

God, I hate to lose my precious rice and pasta… :frowning:

I guess I’ll give it a try though. Psycat and I are finally joining a gym and I’d like to change our diet too. It’s hard, because we’ve got the boys and I don’t think either of us would want to deprive them of the carbs they need and when you have that big bowl of yummy mac n cheese in front of you…well…you know what I mean. :wink:

Great job Anth, keep it up. You’re an inspiration.

(Must get in shape soon so I can pig out at Txgiving and x-mas!)

26

Congrats! I know that feeling (I’m losing it, myself). Another exercise & water believer. Just a note, you are not really staying away from sugar! Booze, I miss my booze, I want my booze(I really do :() I believe alcohol is just step away from sugar and is converted by the body to a carb. I found that cutting out the majority of booze I lost more weight.

27

About the caffiene.

Personally, I have cut out caffiene entirely. I have had maybe 6 cups since June. (not counting Vegas or my trip to Glenwood Springs.) I don’t even miss it. I drink two 20 ounce bottles of water every morning and stick with water through the rest of the day till night falls.

It does supress your appetite but cutting back on calories is not always the smartest thing to do.

The beer is my downfall and probably why I haven’t seen a dramtic drop in my waist size. I have cut back but not cut it out of my day entirely. Yep it’s a carb and the alcohol slows your metabolism but I like my beer.

28

I was (and am) very skeptical about low-carb diets. A lot of reputable sources say the the “science” behind them is hooey and that they are merely low calorie diets in disguise.

HOWEVER, after almost a year of battling with post-baby, extremely sedantary job weight I finally broke down and read a diet book. (SugarBusters, specifically). I had managed to squeeze in walking or the exercise bike about 5 or 6 days a week, which halted the weight gain, but wasn’t producing any loss, even after many months.

For about 3 weeks I have been following their plan (which is very similar to what Anthracite describes in the OP), with judicious cheating. And I’ve lost about 5 or 6 pounds.

I don’t really believe their claims, but I needed some kind of gimmick to get me going. What I find is that it has done 3 things for me: 1) I always eat breakfast before work now. 2) I rely a lot less on processed foods and 3)I eat more vegetables, fruit and whole grains.

All in all, very positive changes. Just today I managed to resist the Horrible Dorito Urge. This is my only serious PMS symptom. On days like this I finish all the food I bring to work at about 10:30 and then get this terrible craving for those things. Well, today I got all the way to the grocery store, ATM card in hand. I actually stood in front of about 5 kinds of Doritos–and then went and got a chicken Ceasar salad.

Any diet that can accomplish that has to have something going for it.

29

magdalene,

Right now I am using the machines at the health club. I would like to move on to free weights for some things eventually (probably upper body). I have to be extremely careful about form because of my back problems. It’s easier to keep correct form on the machines because the pads give you a guide to proper form. I also hired a PT - it’s so easy to do weights wrong and injure yourself, and I didn’t want to risk it. If you’re not sure how to start, and if you can afford it, I’d really recommend getting a Personal Trainer. I see people using the machines wrong all the time. One of the other advantages of the machines is that you don’t need a spotter.

If you start lifting weights, stick to relatively low reps and high weights. Frankly, if you (generic you) are going to do low weights with high reps, you might as well just do cardio - you’re not going to increase strength much at all. Lifting a five pound weight all day isn’t going to get you anywhere. Low reps with high weights to failure will increase strength and muscle mass, but it will not turn you into Arnold. I’m a beginner and I generally do two sets of twelve of each exercise (2 sets of 15 for some lower body exercises). By the time I get to the last rep of the second set of an exercise, I am about ready to die on most of them - I couldn’t do another rep if someone put a gun to my head. Once I hit a plateua on strength gains with two sets of 12 (which will probably take a long time), I am going to decrease the reps and increase the weights. I go two to three times a week and never lift weights on consecutive days - presumably the muscles need time to recover, and it’s the repair to the muscle fibers that gives you more muscle mass. If you’re going to alternate upper body workouts with lower body workouts, it’s supposed to be ok to lift weights every day. Also, if you don’t rest much between sets you can get a decent cardio workout at the same time. I hate doing cardio; as a consequence, I never do it.

I warm up with 5 to 10 minutes on the treadmill (did I mention I hate cardio? :)), then I lift, then I stretch out for at about 10 minutes. I have never had a workout-related injury.

“Weight Training for Dummies” is a decent book to start with - one of the weight training gurus on a newsgroup I used to hang out on recommmended it to me.

And let me warn you - if you start lifting, you’ll be incredibally sore for the first few days. I had my very first weight lifting workout on a Wednesday, and on Friday I was walking around like my 90 year old grandmother (well, she’s dead now, but you know what I mean). Had my second workout on Saturday. I was still really really sore. But by the time I got to my third session on Monday or so, I wasn’t sore at all after the workout - muscles burned like hell during it, but I felt great afterwards.

I also make a point of stretching any muscle I’ve worked particularly hard right after the exercise, rather than waiting til the end. I also drink about 48 ounces of water during my workouts.

And as far as vibrators go, I think I’ll bring my new big purple “jelly” vibe to ChiDope - much more effective than that hard plastic one. It should fit in my purse. If not I’ll just have to carry it. :wink:

Omni, are you reading this thread? From work, I hope. :wink: <we need a smilie for evil grin>

30

GREAT JOB! I also suffer from the Horrible Dorito Urge, and it has beaten me far too many times in the past.

Perhaps we must all band together to defeat the evil Doritos, which while being soooooo good and nacho-cheesy, are nothing more than triangular coffin nails… :slight_smile:

31

Thanks porcupine! I see you’ve taken my recommendation. :wink:

(Sorry Anthracite, we shouldn’t have hijacked your thread with our dirty minds, but we can’t help it!. Please be gentle.)

32

Oh, you two just go nuts with your vibrator. Just interject a point about dieting everynow and again. Such as:

“I guess one disadvantage of using a vibrator has is that unless you are some sort of circus freak, you normally don’t burn a lot of calories using it.”

Or something like that. :wink: