I’ve managed to put on two pounds in the last week after exercising and watching my diet. This is most disappointing.
It really is. Take heart - if you’re doing the right things, you’ll get good results. Eventually. 
One week, you follow all the rules and gain… the next week, you cheat like a back-alley card shark and still lose weight.
The weight loss gods have a twisted sense of humor.
Ha! I checked out my previous months’ graphs this morning. Some of em are crazy (especially December’s); but for some odd reason March’s graph is a ruler-straight downward line. It’s freaky, I have OpenOffice display the trendline equation (so I can calculate average calorie-deficit) and the the slope of the line hasn’t changed at all in 2 weeks.
I’m so far ahead of my monthly goal at this point I could pig out on pizza from here to the 31st and still make it.
And FTR starting weight: 300 lbs Nov’09, current weight 242 lbs, goal 185-200 lbs.
Sadly, today I found that when I go for my extended walks at 6 am, there is a bakery that opens at 6 am . And they have delicious looking custard tarts.
One of my (former) running routes went past the loading dock of a candy factory.
Had a rough day yesterday, food-wise. I was really food-raging. I wonder if it was because I had no oatmeal prepared (I do 4 days worth of steel-cut oats in the crock-pot and had eaten the last the day before), and instead had a big bowlful of Raisin Bran Crunch cereal for breakfast. Which was yummy, but it is sooooo loaded with sugar.
I used to eat that stuff no problem, then my gallbladder / blood sugar problems happened in December, so I went to eating the oats - even with a bit of sugar added it’s lower. I had a couple of bowlsful of the raisin bran stuff right after my surgery because, well, I needed the colon-blow effect, and it was so sweet it gagged me.
Anyway - I’m wondering if a sweeter-than-usual breakfast set me up for the food raging. We have some Girl Scout cookies in the office and I had some Thin Mints and two Samoas, and that put me over the edge calorie-wise.
Doing better today, I think, though I have a big lunch packed.
Hi all. My first time in here. I started my journey in mid-February with a weight of 95kg (209lb). As of Thursday 18th, I am down to 91kg (200.6lb).
To be honest, I haven’t really been counting calories, but have cut out full-fat dairy and a lot of bad carbs - no bread, rice or pasta other than low-carb tortillas and maybe once a week a bowl of whole-wheat pasta with spinach and bacon and pesto. Three times a week cardio and strength training circuit at the gym, plus a 3km (almost 2 miles) walk around the park twice a week. So far so good!
Thought I’d drop in as well.
11/09/2009: 270
03/18/2010: 246
Goal is 50 pounds off by 06/01. I gotta start hustling.
Hi Dotty (and Clothahump) - my question to you, Dotty, is what you’re doing sustainable? If you’re making changes you won’t keep up, you’re probably setting yourself up for failure - once you go back to your old ways, you gain the weight back. I recommend counting calories at least for a while for everyone, based on my own experience - I was shocked by some of my mistaken ideas about foods.
You’re trying to do 50 pounds in less than a year, Clothahump? That’s extremely ambitious for sustained weight loss. I wish you nothing but luck with it, but my approach is to make only sustainable changes, because I only want to do this once (well, more accurate to say I want this to be the last time I drop this weight - I want it to stay gone this time).
I agree about counting calories, but none of the changes she listed seemed all that draconian: cutting out a lot of (but far from all) grains, switching to whole grains, cutting out full-fat dairy, getting moderate exercise 5 times a week. Those are exactly the sort of moderate lifestyle changes I think most experts would recommend.
Context is everything here: if a 5’2" woman (say) wants to go from 165 to 115 in less than a year, that’s extremely ambitious. A guy starting at 270 wanting to go to 220 is really very different. It’s moderately ambitious, but far from impossible: a guy in that weight range just walking around is probably burning 3000 calories a day (assuming he’s not 70). To lose 2 lbs a week, he needs to maintain a 1000 calorie a day deficit. That leave 2000 calories/day for fulfilling nutritional needs + satisfying hunger + the occasional treat. That takes some planing, but it’s far from impossible–especially if he’s exercising.
I quit weighing myself for a while because 1) I’ve been focusing more on running and less on my weight loss (although of course the two are related) and 2) I kind of took February off and ate crappy foods and didn’t exercise much. The bad news is that I managed to gain 10 pounds over February, no kidding. The good news is that I’ve re-lost 5 of that already. (I suspect some of that was water retention due to high sodium intake.)
So I’m still hovering around 25 pounds lost since last May, which is a pretty slow rate, but I feel pretty good about myself right now, so I’m not sweating it too much. I’m running approximately 20 miles per week and that should only be increasing as my half-marathon approaches, and I’m sure that will assist with the weight loss as long as I can resist the temptation to eat mass quantities of crap because “I earned it by running 8 miles today!” or whatever.
Good news and bad news. The good news is that I hit 55.4kg. The bad news is that I fought in the 61kg category for my competition because I didn’t think I’d be able to make weight for the 55kg. The first fight (gi) was close but I got smashed in my second fight (no gi) by a sweetheart of a girl, and we’re going to cheer each other on today for the open weight category - which I probably wouldn’t have bothered entering if I’d fought in the lowest weight category.
My highest weight ever has been 61+kg but I think I might have been 59-60kg in late February when I first changed my diet, so I’m pretty pleased that I’m sitting at 55.4kg. I think the sport dietitian was a bit conservative with her estimate that I had 3kg to lose because I definitely feel like I could shed some more fat - but I’ll know more after my next caliper test. Ideally I’d like to drop to 50kg, eventually push my bench up another 10kg, and get that bodyweight bench I never thought I’d be able to achieve. I also increased my deadlift (65kg) and my squat (62.5kg) last week.
I’ve had several people mention (without me saying anything related to weight loss or diet!) that I look much slimmer. And this morning I tried on a pair of jeans that I bought from eBay and shoved away cos they were too small - perfect fit!
Here’s the thing - I don’t feel like I’m on a diet, because, like you, I am committed to only making sustainable changes. Manda JO pretty much nailed my feelings - nothing major or draconian, just a number of moderate changes.
For context, this process started for me not 4 weeks ago, but 4+ months ago. Since then, I have stopped smoking (since 28 October 2009), survived cervical cancer with my womb intact (November 2009-February 2010) and made subtle but sustainable changes to my diet (since January 2010). I just introduced the exercise 4 weeks ago, because I knew from past experience that if I tried to change everything at once, it would be too much and I would fail. But this way, through slowly, gradually changing one habit at a time, I am changing my life.
I am not overly focused on my weight or my measurements at this stage, more on
being and becoming a healthier person for me and my family. I am reaching the stage now where being healthy is a habit, so I am confident that what I am doing is sustainable.
That sounds good - I’ve heard far too many people saying things like, “I cut all bread out of my diet. I love bread so much.” or “I’ve cut out all sugar - too bad I love chocolate so much.” (and tried to do it myself). If you feel every day like you’re keeping yourself away from something you love, it’s pretty much a recipe for failure eventually. It’s much more realistic to allow yourself a little of things you love, instead of trying to cut things completely out of your diet.
Sigh. Same again. 
There must be high calorie air around this spring. I also had my first* move of inexplicable negative progress since I started in November.
*I had a + week in December, but that was due to having the flu, and eating tons of ice cream.
Yay - another beat to add to the headdesk chorus!
Monday’s my normal weigh day, so I’ll see where I am tomorrow - we went for a nice weekend in the mountains this weekend, and I’ll be happy if I just maintained (we ate goooooood food - not low-cal food, but we did exercise as well).
Starting weight on January 4th: 258.2
Last week’s weigh-in: 229.8
Current weight today: 227.6
Goal weight by March 27th: 227.0
I’ve got four days to lose 0.6 lbs and I think I can do it. I went to the gym this morning and was able to wear my size L shorts and shirt and not look like Baby Huey which was pretty cool.
I weighed in at 157.4 today, up 1.8 pounds. Phooey. I had been hoping I could get to my goal of 150 by April 7, which is my 1-year anniversary with WW, but I guess that ship has sailed.
On the plus side, I am wearing my new size 8 jeans today. For reference, a year ago I was wearing this exact same brand and style in a size 24.
