I’ve been hovering in the 197/196 range for the last couple weeks. I’m not sure if it is the previously mentioned alcohol consumption on weekends or something else. As of today, I’m slightly behind where I need to be to make my goal weight on time.
I also woke up this morning with the beginning symptoms of a cold. I’m trying to decide if I should go to the gym tonight or not. What say the dopers on working out with a bit of a cold? Yes, exercise will help “sweat it out”? No, working out when sick will just make you more sick?
I find that working out when I have a little cold makes me feel better but working out until I’m ready to drop makes me feel worse. I usually replace my normal workouts with a long walk when I feel crappy.
Working out when I have a cold makes me feel better, too. I find the best thing to do is to go into it with the idea that you’ll do what you can. Take it a little slow and see how it goes. It always surprises me that on a day when I feel really crappy, I feel the best that I’ve felt all day during my workout.
I agree that working out when a cold is just coming on makes me feel better. You want to watch for a cold that’s moved into your lungs, at which point it’s a better idea to rest. IANAD, IMHO, etc.
Last week we finally uploaded old pictures from our camera onto the computer and I look sooooo different. I was huge then and now I’m slightly less huge, but the difference in the pictures is astounding. I’m down to 200 today, from 245 in March.
I’ve been sick with a nasty energy sapping cold, so I haven’t been working out. I plan to talk a walk today at lunch, in a couple of minutes, and I’m going to walk to my polling place tomorrow morning to burn calories and vote.
Thanks. When I had over 100 lbs to lose I didn’t have much sympathy for those that only needed to lose a few. It wasn’t until I got there that I realized how much slower it goes when the number of calories that it takes to maintain your weight is a lot lower than it was. It’s fun and inspiring now to see people take on that big challenge and stick with it. I give myself 5 pounds of wiggle room over a month too so that I don’t freak out every time I gain a few pounds of water weight.
How slowly indeed… I have around 7 pounds to lose until I’m at WW’s highest recommended weight for myself… and I haven’t lost a freakin’ ounce in a year or more.
I’ve managed to scrape off about 5 pounds since the beginning of August but I used to be able to do that in 2 or 3 weeks. I retired recently and I have the time to work out every day and do other physically active things on a daily basis and it feels like it should go a lot faster. Now that our rainy season has started I’ll be spending more time indoors and I know that will make it harder. It’s time to put the hugely fat picture back on the wall to scare me out of eating anything that I shouldn’t.
That’s not the one I go to. I go to one at the Y. I think that one is through Boston Boot Camp, and it does look pretty cool, but isn’t convenient for me.
Yesterday I was so sore when I woke up. I went and ran 4.5 - 5 miles, thinking that that would help loosen me up.
This morning, I was even more sore. The list of activities that hurt includes, but is not limited to, the following:
[ul]
[li]going from standing to sitting[/li][li]going from sitting to standing[/li][li]bending over[/li][li]crouching[/li][li]walking[/li][li]running[/li][li]standing still[/li][li]lying down is fine, but turning over in bed? Yeeouch![/li][/ul]
You’d never know that I’m someone who works out at least 4 times/week as a rule. I guess I just haven’t been using my glutes for much lately.
Today is day 1 of journalling my food, rather than trying to keep a mental tally. If the mental tally worked, I wouldn’t be back in this place.
I’d like to give you guys extra encouragement to focus on exercise. Being overweight but active is better than being a slim couch potato. Besides which, exercise alone can do an awful lot.
I started at nearly 90 kg (about 198 lbs.) and am about 75 kg (165 lbs.) now. I’m trying to put on more muscle, so if I had a goal weight, it would be something like 77–78 kg (170 lbs.) I’m more concerned about making improvements in my performance than in how much I weigh.
I have not significantly changed the contents of my diet, other than trying to eat more protein and reduce the amount of starches. I did a couple of weeks of journaling to figure out what was a realistic serving size for most foods, but haven’t kept detailed accounts since then. I generally eat more often but in smaller portions. The pure calorie count is probably higher than when I was fat.
I may have to get strict with my diet to get the kind of results I want in the next year or so. I want to be able to do all CrossFit workouts unscaled, and I want to do more than the average 3 days I put in each week. For right now my normal eating patterns suffice for this level of activity and progression. Using the standards outlined here I’m Intermediate (lev. II) to Advanced (lev. III) on most exercises, and I want to be a solid III on all. Getting my body fat into the single digits would be nice too. To do either, according to what I’m reading at CrossFit and elsewhere, I’m probably going to have to start taking nutrition more seriously.
Notice how much progress I made without changing my diet with more than a few tweaks, though. When I started exercising again, and then transitioned to doing CrossFit, I was somewhere around lev. I or lower. I couldn’t finish 50 unweighted squats in a row, for example. Now, I could do about 10 squats with my old fat ass sprawled across my shoulders.
OK, I got back on the wagon 2 weeks ago. Today’s weigh-in:
226 / 222 / 150
Down 4 pounds!
I’m still eating by guess and by gosh, but better overall. Yesterday the PT said I could start doing light upper-body strength training, and gave me yet a few more stretches for my neck.
The X-rays revealed bone spurs and arthritis, pretty much what I thought. Off to the podiatrist next week. Hope he doesn’t take away too much of my workout.
I’m up to 15-20 minutes on the elliptical, plus 10 on bike and 10 on treadmill.
I measured my bust, natural waist, waist at navel, hips, and thigh on 10/31; I’ll measure once a month to check progress. (I measure at the navel because that’s the biggest part of my abdomen. I do have a well-defined waist above that.)
I’ve officially made my halfway point, as of today! Like Ivylass, I’ve done it with the help of www.sparkpeople.com!
My user name is also the same over there!
This month will be a bit odd - my wife is in NZ for the month, so I have the kids (17 and 16) to look after. What this means is a bit of a reliance on preprepared meals from the freezer we can just heat up (lasagna, corned beef hash, soup etc) rather than cooking. And that usually means more carbs - I want to cut back a bit but it will be hard. If it were up to me, I’d probably skip meals, but I need to see that the kids are eating, and it helps if I eat too. My goal is to kill the last roll of belly fat before my wife gets back - even if I don’t lose much more weight, I’d be happy with being firm.
I am still running and cycling and going to the gym. Again, the disturbed household routine is a bit difficult - I want to spend a bit of time with my son (16) when I get home, rather than going straight off to the gym. That is the time he would normally get to spend with his mother most days, and I think he misses that contact. So I am getting to the gym a bit later than normal, and I may need to skip some sessions. And the weather has been closing in, so I am less likely to get out at lunchtimes.
I sympathise with lorene - my left buttcheek has been giving me hell for a couple of weeks - the worst is sitting on it driving (and I drive for 2 hours 5 days a week). I can still run and cycle and row, though. Last week I managed 600m in two minutes on the rower for a gym challenge - makes me number 2 in the gym, so I am pretty pleased with that. I have three weeks to get into the points doing pressups, situps and tricep dips. That will be a really big ask.
OK, I had to scroll back and see where I mentioned my butt cheek! I get it now…
As for your eating with your wife is away—are you a salad person? I make a big bowl of salad twice a week. If the family is having something like pasta, I cover most of my plate with salad and have a small portion of what they’re having. Keeps me eating with them, not preparing an entirely different meal for myself, and allows me to have what might seem “forbidden” but is actually fine food in moderation.
I’ve been keeping up with working out as much as possible, but today was one of those runs when I just wasn’t feeling the love. In fact, I was just feeling the frustration. I’ve also been journalling for a few days, and am getting the hang of being more honest about what I eat.
Well, I am back to my starting point, I gained back the almost 5 pounds I lost. My vacation at the start of September wiped me out and I had no energy for a while, I slacked on exercise and eating better. October was even worse because I had an off and on sinus infection, no energy at all and resorted to lots of comfort food. On top of that I started a second job and could not get myself acclimated to a set schedule to even work in exercise had I felt up to it.
I started back at the gym this week but fell on my knees at work yesterday so I don’t think I will make it to the gym for the rest of the week.
I joined Sparkpeople but on my slow computer it’s rather frustrating having to search for every thing I’ve eaten. Even adding stuff to favorites is frustrating. I’d like the option to make my own menus but if that is available I have not figured out how to do it.
I am glad to see Alpine here since we seem to be about the same size with similar goals (though I am closer to her last winter’s weight). I am aiming for a couple pounds less than her goal but I am also a couple inches shorter.
I made it to the gym on Monday with my cold. I actually did feel pretty good during cardio and lifting free-weights. Within about 30 minutes of finishing it felt like I tore a lung! Haha! The cold has gotten worse during the week so I skipped my normal Wednesday (worst day of cold symptoms) and because of some home projects I’m going to miss my normal Saturday morning. I am REALLY bummed about that but I’m still sick and don’t think I do it.
My appetite came back pretty strong on Wednesday, it had been down Monday/Tuesday because of this cold. So I’ve been eating on target with my plan and number of calories and I’ve dropped through the 196/197 barrier I was sitting on for the last two weeks.
With the cold, I’m staying in tonight so no alcohol consumption. I do have a neighborhood cocktail party Saturday night so I’ll probably drink some there but I’m going to try and moderate the intake and mix in water between beers to hopefully help off-set the effect on my weight.
I still look and feel “fat” (IMHO) but I do notice my face leaning out a little bit (less under chin bulge) and a pair of jeans that fit normally were a bit more loose last night. I’m also noticing, when I push my fingers into my belly… there is some resistance under that gut so the ab work is starting to firm up my mid-section. I still am very weak there but it is some progress and I’ll take it and use it for motivation!
MeanJoe - Who can’t wait to get over this cold and be back in the gym next week.
{Hi Shirley} *
I use to be very active and stuff like that. Then I had kids, some brothers died, I started eating out of boredom and therapy and I became a lard ass. ( I’m at 172.)
We are too broke right now to join the little gym in our area which is only $19 a month. So, I’ve decided to walk and eat cleaner. When I eat better, I feel better.
