SDMB Weight Loss Club, March (08)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Hm, kinda sorta. The normal calculation is that 1lb of body fat stores about 3500 calories so if your weight is stable given your current diet and activity level and you want to lose 1lb you need to generate a 3500 calorie deficit.

You can do this by cutting down how much you eat - that is, taking in 500 calories less per day would save you 3500 calories in a week, thus 1lb. But the final caloric intake depends on where you’re starting from - going to some level (say 1200 calories per day) might be reasonable (at least in the short term) for a small woman who was eating 1700 per day but for a big guy who was eating 3000 per day it’s a much more drastic change.

I think that most people can certainly make some significant changes in how many calories they are eating by eating healthier foods (a cookie and an apple might have the same amount of calories but not many people can eat 20 apples whereas I know I can polish off a line of Chips Ahoy in no time), it’s definitely a critical part of staying healthy.

However in the long term I think you really need to have the right mix of diet and exercise - rather than just “eating less” to get thin (which makes me think of starving oneself) it makes more sense to add in exercise which burns more calories and has plenty of benefits aside from simple weight loss.

For example if I really wanted to lose 2lbs per week I’d much rather cut about 500 calories per day out by eating smarter and get an extra 500 calories per day of exercise in (depending on what you do that’s probably 30-60 minutes of exercise per day). There’s only so much you can “not eat”.

22

I’m eating breakfast in the morning, rather that waiting until I get to work and grabbing a breakfast bar out of my stash. I’m also eating fruit, plums, tangerines, bananas. Lunch is soup, crackers, a V-8, a yogurt, and a flavored water. I think I’m keeping my caloric intake low. Plus, I’m doing weights, which should help my metabolism.

23

Okay this is odd - I appear to have gained weight this week. I weighed myself this morning and seem to have put on about 1.5/2lb. I don’t know how this has happened as every day this week I’ve been under my WW point allowance and I’ve played three sessions of squash which is extremely calorie intensive. Sure I didn’t walk from the station every day like I normally do, but I don’t see how this could result in a weight gain as opposed to a plateau, and I’m sure that three sessions of squash isn’t the right kind or level of exercise to chalk it up to muscle gain.

I may end up getting weighed on Monday by my leader and find it’s something different, but still I’m left scratching my head a bit.

24

Your body weight will naturally fluctuate. Perhaps you were retaining water. If you’re eating well and exercising, it’s likely going to disappear pretty quickly.

Although if you are under your “allowance” (do you mean the daily target or just that you’re not using all 35 extra - although you’re not U.S. based so maybe the plan is different, but I digress) you may not be eating enough. Please make sure you’re eating at least the minimum the plan asks you to.

25

I was under my daily points allowance - 27 - but by the allowed amount (i.e. up to 4 points under per day). I’m not starving myself I can assure you.

26

I weigh in tomorrow. This week might not be pretty since I was broken up with by a guy who seemed very nice and wonderful for what I consider to be a bullshit reason, so points pretty much flew out the window for the last few days. I really need to find a way to deal with the emotional ups and downs of life without involving food.

27

Interesting - I’ve always known the program you guys follow over there is different than the one we have - we don’t have that 4 points under thing over here. Yet, anyway.

I’m not trying to say OMG STARVATION I’m just saying that in my 10 years of experience, if people are consistently eating less than they should (which okay, it sounds like you’re not now that you’ve provided that extra info) it never seems to work out the way they hope it will. I’m not trying to get all up in your grill or anything , YMMV and all that anyway.

28

Hmmmm, grilled cheese sandwich… :wink:

29

219lb (15st 9lb English style), down 3 from last week and 24½ from the start of the year. Still not having too much difficulty forgoing the snacks that have always been my downfall, mostly there is plenty of fruit about the place to munch on if I really must. Roast pork dinner today with most of the trimmings plus a slice of my son’s birthday cake, but a nice long sunset walk with the dog to help make up for it.

As long as I can keep the faith, it looks like my hope of being 14st (196lb) by the end of May isn’t out of the question - I’m more than halfway there since year end, in less than half the time. The next milestone is only a pound away - 70 pounds (or five stone) from my high spot in September.

30

SIX POINTS! (if you use fat free fake cheez and white bread)

31

Ha! I can do a grilled cheese for THREE points. 1 point WW Bread and two slices of 2% Kraft singles (2 slices are 2 points, same as one slice). Of course, you can’t use butter, but I usually just fry them in Pam and then spray them with a tiny bit of ICBINB spray for taste.

I’m down a total of 14.6 since January 10th, and this past week I had my first “Hey, you’ve lost weight” comment. I’m in a weird pattern in which I lose a ton, then maintain or gain, then lose another big chunk. I think in the last three weeks I was -4.4, +1.4, -3.6. All in all it’s a loss, so I’ll take it. It’s just a very strange thing to observe.

In a month or two I’m going to try to get pregnant, so I’ll have to slow the weight loss a bit. I know it’s still safe to try to lose 1 pound a week while TTC, so that’s what I’ll do. I think I’ll meet my goal of losing 20 pounds before vacation, though!

32

I don’t usually eat bread, so I was looking at what’s around. AND counting margarine.

Also, TTC (oh god there’s sound) means something entirely different to me than it does to you. I blame the Shuffle Demons.

33

We had a party at our house on Saturday, and I cooked lasagna, mashed potatoes and gravy, and baked a cake so people could get an idea of American food. I ate only small portions myself, so I escaped without too much weight gain.

As I wrote earlier, my wife craves high calorie food, (which she only eats bites of) so I’m cooking two meals at a time. It keeps the tempation down.

Actually, I’ve been happy with myself. Normally I snack a lot, but I’ve been leaving all the junk alone. Weekends are usually the worst, since I’ll be at home with the chocolate, but I stayed away from everything yesterday.

Normally, I don’t get much exercise on weekends, so I made a point of going out jogging yesterday.

34

My weigh in will be interesting this week - see if their scales agree with my home ones. Of course next week’s will be even more interesting as it will show if this week is a blip or not. I sincerely hope I haven’t plateaued already.

35

Well my weigh in confirmed I’d gained a pound and when I explained the situation to my leader she frowned and said “you didn’t eat enough”. I know that you earn more points for doing activity but I’ve always seen them as points to use if you wish, but I was reprimanded and told that I had to eat extra points that I earn through exercise. Also whilst you can eat below your daily amount (again up to 4 points a day) you can but you have to use them at some point, rather than just consistently be under your allowance which is often what I do.

So I need to eat more - who’d a thunk it? I’ll wait until my weigh in next week before making any big changes to the way I’m structuring my diet, but otherwise all useful stuff to know and thanks to scout1222 for pointing this issue out as well.

36

Interesting - here in the US you CAN eat those activity points but you aren’t REQUIRED to. Sometimes folks who are super active find out they specifically need to eat them in order to lose effectively, but that’s something you have to play around with, and would really only apply to folks who regularly exercise at high intensity or for super long times (i.e. marathon training, etc.).

37

Sorry - I should have been more specific. In my case I was earning bonus points through activity AND saving points through eating less AND I didn’t use up what I earned/saved later in the week at any point. So, according to my leader, all I’ve done is made my body go into starvation alert mode and retain weight. What I ideally should have done is eat all my points and not save any from dieting, she didn’t insist that every point earned from exercise be eaten necessarily.

Anyway, as I say we’ll see what happens next week. A few weeks ago I didn’t lose anything for reasons I couldn’t explain and then the next week lost 3.5lb even though I hadn’t really done anything extra to merit a big loss, so could just be swings and roundabouts.

38

On the UK plan, are you allowed to save up points? They did away with that in the US when they switched to Flex points. It used to be, you ate between x and x+5 points per day, and could save whatever was leftover from that to the next day, up until your weigh-in day. Can’t do that anymore, but we do have the 35 Flex points to eat if we choose to. We are to eat at minimum our points target for the day.

39

I’m baaack! For some reason, I seem to keep catching these nasty bugs - first a respiratory virus, then shingles, now a stomach virus thanks to my toddler. On the downside, I feel like hell. On the upside, I’m at last getting better - for now anyway - and my weight has gone from 210 to 183 since October last and I’m able to exercise again (finally).

Oh, I almost forgot - even most significantly, I lowered my cholesterol by more than 70 points. Yay!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with the restroom.

40

Wow, you’re all doing great! Even those of you who are struggling with gains seem to be on the right track, and it’s the long-term that’s important.

Now, for my update. Had my hysterectomy on Feb. 28th, out of the hospital on March 1st. My appetite hasn’t been wonderful, but I’m keeping up with my protein. The first time I weighed myself out of the hospital, I was up 12lbs. :eek: I knew it had to be from the damned IV fluids, 'cause it sure as hell wasn’t from hospital food!

Needless to say, that fluid weight has dropped pretty quickly. I can’t be very active. I can walk (slooooowly), and that’s about it! I’m allowed to fold the laundry, provided someone else brings it downstairs, puts it in the washer, puts it in the dryer and brings it to me, then carries it back upstairs once it’s folded. Oh, and I think I’ve washed a dish or two, and picked up maybe ten toys from the living room floor. Otherwise, my main calorie-burning activity seems to be pulling the lever that puts the foot rest up on my recliner chair!

In spite of all this, I’m down to an all-time adult low of 183lbs. That’s a total of 152lbs lost. Unfortunately, it absolutely does not show. My tummy is swollen from surgery, and if I wear a T-shirt that’s a little too tight, I look like I’m about 4 months pregnant. My jeans don’t fit me. I’ve been living in lounge pants, sweat pants, pajama bottoms, and oversized T-shirts.

A close friend of mine died this past Saturday, and I was grateful that another friend had given me two dresses in a size 1X which would normally be too big for me. But right now, with the swelly belly and all, they’re just a little too big, and did just fine for the viewing and the funeral! But the funeral was Tuesday, so now I’m back to my PJs and lounge pants and stuff.

In just a little bit, I’m going to walk down to the grocery store (about 3 city blocks away) and pick up something easy to fix for dinner since my hubby has to be gone all day today, and walk back. Otherwise, I’m going to try hard to take it easy today. I really overdid it Monday and Tuesday (on Monday, we had to go shopping because my hubby was a pall bearer at the funeral, and all his dress clothes are down in Baltimore where he works, then the viewing Monday evening), so yesterday, I was having more pain than the previous two days. So my body is yelling at me to slow down and take it easy!

Good luck, everyone!