SDMB Weight Loss Club, September

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
181

I think I last posted in March. Back then I was around 225 pounds, with a goal of about 190 (hell I’d be happy just to get under 200 again).

Even though I haven’t been exercising as much as I keep intending to, and it’s taken me a lot longer than I intended to really start shedding pounds, I’ve been able to slim down a bit with two simple shifts in my diet (things I was taking way in excess).

The first, and I think most important change, was cutting soda almost entirely. This was actually very hard to do at first, because when I was in the university dorms and ate at the student cafeteria, I had unlimited access to soda…and I became very dependent on caffeine for my late-night studying, which kept me on my Coke binging. Now that I’m in my own apartment and actually would have to pay for soda…it’s been a lot easier avoiding it. I’ve only indulged myself with diet-type sodas a handful of times since June, whereas before I was drinking maybe a liter of Coke a day. A huge improvement there, if I may say so.

The weight-loss benefits I would have seen over summer vacation from such a reduction in soda consumption were negated by letting myself get way too carried away with drinking beer almost every day between the beginning of June to the end of August. Well, since beer sucks here, it’s been easy to deny myself the pleasure…because it’s so watered down (and more expensive) that it’s not pleasurable. I haven’t had any alcohol since about the 25th of August, which has helped a lot.

Once I stopped drinking beer, I really noticed my weight dropping. I’m now down to about 210 pounds. I’m pretty happy losing about 15 pounds since the end of August. I’ve been slowly ramping up the amount of exercise I do each week, so I won’t be losing much weight as much as I am getting physically fit. If I can get to 200 pounds while becoming more built, I’d be damn happy with myself. My goal for that is no later than Christmas.

182

Welcome to the club. Good luck losing!

183

Today’s weekly average weight: 173.07. That’s down almost a pound from last week.

My plan for this week is to not consume any calories after 7:30 at night. Hubby and I tend to snack after dinner even if we’re not really hungry. I want to put a stop to that.

Monster104 That’s excellent progress with the soda and beer. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble reaching your goal if you keep it up.

And yes, WhyNot I know exactly what you’re talking about, I used to do the same thing.

184

I weighed in this morning and happily, I lost a pound last week. I’m glad because I didn’t lose any the week before. I grocery shopped yesterday and got some healthy, easy things to make this week, like salmon and fixin’s for some big salads. I’m trying to keep heading in the right direction. I’ve been really stressed, but I’ve noticed that I feel so much better and less hungry when I remember to take my daily vitamin and drink plenty of fluids. It seems like a no-brainer, but sometimes it’s like I have no brain.

185

I’ve stopped drinking regular soda (mostly) also, it definitely makes a big difference. This morning I put on a pair of pants that had been getting a bit tight, but now fit more like they did when I first bought them.

Yesterday I went whitewater rafting with a bunch of guys. That was a lot of fun and a strenuous workout, although it was somewhat countered by the consumption of burgers and milkshakes on the way up and back. But I’m starting to get some arm definition, something I never had before, even when I was skinny. I also have some bruises from getting tossed around and out of the raft, heh.

186

I missed last week’s WW meeting since I was home for Rosh Hashanah - which of course means lots of food. I tried to be moderate and in the two-week preiod between meetings I biked to and from school three times. I still expected to be the same or up, but I was down two pounds this morning! 186.2 now, and I have high hopes for this week.

187

Okay, I’m back in this thing. I’ve gotten three workouts in so far this week, with another planned for tonight and perhaps another tomorrow night. It’s my birthday this weekend so there will be some splurging (you’ll get my birthday margarita when you pry it from my cold, dead hands) but I’m feeling good about what I’ve already done this week. The best part about this week is that I got my birthday present from my husband early and it’s an iPod! Yay! I tell you, it really makes my time on the treadmill fly, and I find myself walking faster to keep up with the music. It’s awesome.
Today I’m all the way up to 180 (boo!) but my goal is to be down two pounds by the end of the month.

188

I have been feeling “off” for about two weeks. I feel slightly out of phase. Turns out that despite my weight loss, I have high blood pressure. :frowning:

I had headaches and I dizziness. Monday I was so out of it I finally broke down and spoke to a doc. He put me on a beta blocker. Finally today I almost feel normal. I am going to give it another few days and try to get back to working out.

Fuck I hate getting old! I guess now I have more incentive to lose even more!

189

Damn, Khadaji, when are you ever going to catch a break, health-wise?? Glad you’ve figured out your problem though. And as far as having high BP in spite of the weight loss, think how much worse it could be if you hadn’t lost the weight!!

190

You rock! Good job. :slight_smile:

This has been a terrible week for me. I felt a bit ill last week, then Saturday I crashed. I’m just now starting to feel better, and even so, not much.

I ate what I could, which means unhealthy. I avoided exercise like the plague. I could barely be bothered to reach for the remote.

Still, 221.2 this week, which I believe is still a slight loss. The woman in the weight loss clinic said she almost didn’t recognize me.

191

Thanks for the sympathy - I’m getting none here at work. One of the guys who works for me said: I’d feel sorry for you but you are doing such a good job feeling sorry for yourself.

This was met with general laughter from the rest of my coworkers.

Fucker. I’ll remember *him *at review time! :smiley:

I need more female friends. None of the guys are properly supportive!

192

Man, you aren’t kidding. Seriously, Khadaji, it’s just been one thing after the next for you. I don’t know if it means anything to you, but you’re really an inspiration to me. You’ve had to deal with so much with your surgeries and such, yet here you are, plugging away at it and never giving up. That’s really something to be proud of.

193

Sounds reasonable to me. From what I can tell you don’t feel sorry for yourself at all. If you were feeling sorry for yourself, then you wouldn’t be working so hard to lose weight. Losing weight is incredibly hard work that requires enormous discipline. It’s necessary, but that doesn’t make it easy.

I was happy to find that I weighed in at 225 lbs this morning. I’m lucky that so far I didn’t let myself go so far that I couldn’t get by with excersize alone. My diet has gotten healthier, but I don’t think that my consumption has gone down much. Weight loss is slow, but managable. If i keep this rate up then in a year I should be ideal.

194

Not all of us in this thread are female. You’ve certainly got my support.

195

Thank you all for the kind words.

I’m mostly joking about feeling sorry for myself. Not entirely though. I try to keep upbeat but I confess that this being sick thing is just getting old.

It is nice to have support from all of you.

(BTW, my team at work is really supportive too, they were just playing.)

196

I hope you feel better soon, Khadaji. :frowning:

And I had my weekly weigh-in today. 217.8 pounds! If I can keep this up, I might break 200 by year’s end. (Of course, the momentum slows down after the first few weeks, so I probably won’t. But maybe shortly thereafter.)

197

Back from 2 weeks’ vacation and doing fine.

Vacation #1 - three days paintball in the woods with friends. Running around dry woods all day in 90+ degree heat seems to be good exercise :slight_smile: We’re all old high school friends so same age, I noticed that myself and one other guy (who also does WW) were substantially faster and less tired than others. One guy (who went from rail thin in HS to quite overweight) decided that he wanted to be around to watch his little daughter grow up, dropped a lot of weight, looks much better and was keeping up quite well. I stuck with things like Cheerios for breakfast (instead of pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage that everyone else was chowing down), no soda (can’t stand the stuff these days), lots of water, watch it on the snacks (I asked them to get some fresh fruit so had apples and whatnot to nibble on, beats handfulls of chips and cookies).

Net result, down a pound or two. I stay in the 170-175lb range (from a high of 212, my WW “goal” was 180).

Vacation #2 - two days after #1. Off to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons for ten days camping. Bfast generally oatmeal and tea/cocoa, lunch we use self-heating MREs (surprisingly good and seem to be nutritionally balanced), dinner lots of backpacking food (which has come a long way since the bad old days…we had plenty of Mexican and Thai food, soups and stews, etc), fruit cobblers for dessert (somebody always brings 20lbs of s’mores fixings which never get eaten). However my friends also buy big Costco size containers of Oreos, trail mix and so on so snacking is a constant danger. I encouraged us to do a lot of hiking and when they wanted to spend a few hours driving around photographing elk I’d go for a run or do some pushups or something.

Altitude was about 6000-9000 feet and temps (at least in Yellowstone) dropped into the low 20s at night. You burn a lot more calories under those circumstances just staying warm, and hiking & running you notice yourself breathing harder; it’s not “high altitude” but it definitely felt like a good workout. Especially on things like long uphill hikes I noticed that I was feeling great and ready to keep going while some of my friends were having to stop frequently and rest.

We did have some dinners out where we’d plow through a couple of pizzas, piles of nachos and the like, however I was careful to avail myself of big healthy salads and bowls of soup (on all the menus) so that I didn’t feel starving and wolf down a half a pizza.

Due to the extended amount of driving and snacking that we did I was pretty sure that I’d put on a few pounds but upon return I was down a bit (170 even the next morning). Been eating a bit more this week since Yom Kippur approaches (I fast that day) and the last few months I’ve just generally been keeping an eye on my weight so that I stay in the same range, I don’t want to lose any more.

So my lesson was stick to my eating habits (as much as possible) and get plenty of exercise - if somebody else wants to do something inactive that’s fine, no reason that you can’t go for a good walk (run, hike, row, jumping jacks, whatever). I tend to get fidgety if I sit around a lot so I need to do these things anyhow.

Anyhow, there’s no magic to it, just developing different habits and sticking with them. It’s a change of lifestyle as opposed to a short-term fix that really produces results (IMHO).

198

I haven’t lost any weight in forever and I’m just plain tired of it. I may take a break from it for awhile. Doesn’t help that I’m sick.

199

Hey everyone,

We’ve been quiet for a few days, are you all ok? I’m kind of in a rut right now. I’m feeling stuck and a bit unmotivated. But I’m going to keep pushing through it.

I’ve overdone it a bit in the past few days . I actually ate at McDonalds. That is something I never, ever do. I just wanted it out of the blue so I allowed it, a big, fat burger and small fries. It didn’t really make me go crazy with eating other junky foods. But I’ve been overdoing it with healthy stuff.

Luckily, the scale hasn’t moved up, but it hasn’t moved down either. I’m at 160.5 as of this am. I want that 159!!!

Ginger—I know how you feel and I really hope you feel better soon. Perseverance is a wonderful attribute and I believe you can do this!

Khadaji-- Glad you got that BP taken care of… Hypertension puts you at risk for so many other health problems. Losing weight may help bring your pressure down as well.

200

No fucking shit! Damn, I’m so done with this! I haven’t exercised in a week, I haven’t eaten right in a week. I haven’t painted, I haven’t had a social life, I’m just sitting around feeling bleh. And fat.

Begone, illness. You suck.

Oh yeah. Tussin and vitamin C. Time to self-medicate. And then maybe a nap.