SDMB Weight Loss Thread: January Version

It’s 2009, a new year! Let’s go!

I will put in my monthly plug for SparkPeople. I fully credit them with my 35 pound weight loss (and I’ve kept it off for going on four months, baby! I do love shopping for size 6 clothes!)

The only thing I’m dreading is going to the gym. All those New Year Resolution people are going to be hogging the machines. If more than 10% stick with their new lifestyle past February I’ll be very surprised.

I’m one of those people who joined the gym. Gotta start somewhere…might as well start with the gift I asked for. We go at 5am so it’s not crowded.

I’ve lost 4/10ths of a pound since Wednesday. I also ate two sliders for lunch (trying to clear out the fridge) and I’m starving. And we’re going to the movies and I don’t know what to bring that isn’t fattening. :frowning:

My goal is 20 lbs, but I’ll be happy with 15.

I feel like shit from my workout. My husband says it’s to be expected since I’ve been off the workout for so long. I need to quit smoking. Double :frowning: . I’ve cut down, so that’s a start.

You are the one who told me about SparkPeople and I can’t thank you enough. My weight loss is still at seven pounds, but I’m going to try and make it ten by the end of January. Slow and steady will win this race. I had the use of a treadmill for a couple of weeks, but quit that job and already miss the fitness center.

I can’t afford a health club and it’s very difficult to walk outside during the winter. We don’t have sidewalks and the road can get slippery. I walk while I shop for bargains this time of year but that’s not quite the same. I do exercise indoors, which helps.

Tracking my food has been extremely helpful. I can still have the treats that I like, just in more reasonable portions. I like that I’m not on a controlled diet plan that tells me what to eat; I can figure that out on my own. As long as I stay within the calorie/fat/protien/carb guidelines, I can still eat cookies. Yay!

I don’t have sidewalks, either, which is why I joined the health club. It’s called Cardinal Fitness, and they have a start-up fee of $80 and then it’s only $19.95/month, which is do-able for me. I can’t wait til the weather breaks so I can walk in the neighborhood up the street.

January 1 weight 170.5. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever, ever shed these last few pounds. And I do mean a few; my goal is 164. We have a cruise coming up this month; the food isn’t all that great (we went on the same cruise line last year, we wouldn’t go again but it’s paid for by my husband’s company and it’s Mexico in January!) so I think I’ll be ok.

We have a treadmill, stair climber (one of the resistance ones, not a shmancy gym-quality one) and an exercise bike. I should be using them. I was working on the couch to 5K but it’s not easy to fit it in to my schedule (I KNOW), I need to try harder.

And, let me share a ‘recipe’ I came up with for a yummy soup that’s very very low in calories. Cook frozen broccoli florets (frozen is cheaper than fresh and they’re already cut up) in fat-free chicken broth, then blend about 3/4 of the chunks up with an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper or whatever you like. That’s a filling soup to have around when you don’t have a lot of points or calories left in the day. This is zero points; in fact, the entire recipe I made this time out (3 pounds of broccoli, 12 cups of broth - and that’s a little runny, I’ll use less broth next time) totals only 9 points. It makes about 20 servings.

I’ve done that too. I’ll put in desserts before I eat them to see what that does to my calorie budget for the day. Or, I’ll eat something different and leave room for cookies! (Yes, you can have cookies. And pizza. And hamburgers.)

I’ve noticed, though, that the high calorie foods just don’t look all that appetizing to me. I see fast-food or casual dining restaurant commercials with big ol’ sloppy double bacon cheeseburgers and it’s all I can do not to hork a little.

I know what you mean. My tastes in food have definitely changed in the past six weeks. Fast food was something I occasionally ate, but now it just seems absolutely gross.

What’s an immersion blender?

I still haven’t weighed myself since Christmas because I know that I blew it big time with the cookies and I’m trying to lose at least a bit of it before I have to face reality. I was at what I had thought was going to be my goal weight before but once I saw how it looked I realized that I should go 5 pounds lower. The last time I did that I looked kind of haggard but that was after a year of losing over 100 pounds and starving myself. I’m not pushing anywhere near that hard this time so I think I look a lot healthier this time

You stick the thingin soup and it blends.

I gained back what I lost being sick, wah, so last weigh-in was 123 on Monday. We’ll see how I do this Monday. I’ve been up and down with my eating, although exercise is back up. 3rd snowshoe of the week today, hopefully (it’s snowing), and I’m going somewhere I’ll probably need to break trail. Then an xc ski tomorrow.

You’d think that 5-8 lbs would take only a few weeks, but I’m not that great at resisting chocolate. And bacon (well, it *had *been a long time and it was New Year’s day). I’ve been at 123 for at least 6 weeks, with a dip to 120.6 for a few weeks, dammit.

134 start /123 current/115-8 goal

I’m very jealous of your size 6s IvyLass. But I’m also very happy for you! And Congratulations on keeping it off, especially over the holidays.

I weigh 162.4 according to my weigh in at WW yesterday. I’ve pretty much plateaued over Thanksgiving/Christmas but I’m OK with that.

I’m still walking/jogging every morning around 3 miles which is good and I find that if I don’t do it I miss it.

My financial situation has taken a nasty turn so I almost quit WW but then my mom agreed to pay for the next three months to help me out. I’m 22.4 lbs away from my goal of 140 and I think I can do that in 3 months.

I think that’ll put me in a size 8 which is perfect.

Happy 2009 everyone. Let’s all be losers this year.

I lost 10-ish pounds last year but gained back 4 in the last month and a half. New goal is back to my college weight by my birthday, 9 pounds in 4 months. I’m on NYC for a couple of weeks and I plan to take long walks in Central Park every day

I weighed in this morning at Weight Watchers and need to lose 6.8 pounds to get back to my “ideal goal” - the holidays hit me with a couple of pounds, and I wasn’t at that superspecial number to begin with, so now that it’s January and everyone’s focusing on healthy habits, I’m looking forward to getting back to reality.

I would like to join your weight loss thread. How does it work? Do we post our weight, weight loss plan, and then update how we’re doing?

My scale just broke so I don’t know how much I weight just now. I’m going out in a while so I’ll pick up a new one. I’m thinking I weigh somewhere between 170 and 180 and I’m 5’3.

I’d like to lose about 40 pounds I think. As for how I’m going to do it, I’m still in the planning stages but I did finally call around about taking karate and I’m going to start on Wednesday, January 7th. As for food, right now my only goal is to eat normal people food for dinner (instead of a bag of chips and a bag of oreos) and not eat any junk food in the evening.

I’m also going to check out that sparkpeople link.

I’m kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. I’ve been feeling ill for a couple of months, quite sick for one month, very sick for two weeks and bedridden for a week. I don’t feel much better than when I came out of the ER on Wednesday, and I have to wait until Monday to even get a follow-up appointment (which will result in more testing, which means even more waiting.)

I have tried to get it together. I bought myself a pull-up bar for Christmas. I still can’t do a single pull-up but I’m convinced if I practice enough I’ll get there. I just really wanted something hard-core to work on my upper body strength. I have very powerful legs that shape up easily, but my arms not so much. Of course, I can’t exactly do pull-ups right now. Neither can I go for a brisk jog, much as I’d like to. Both my body and mind crave exercise–I’ve been depressed and it’s pretty clearly from a lack of regular endorphin release–but I’m not likely to get whipped into shape any time soon because I can barely get off the couch.

Then there’s nutrition. I had really fallen off the nutrition wagon, drinking soda at lunch and snacking on candy. I really have the desire to get back to healthy eating, but I can barely keep anything in my stomach right now. I’m living off soup, crackers, and gingerale, which still makes me sick, and I’m constantly starving. It’s hard to care about calories when you’re starving.

Nevertheless, I’ve been losing weight for a while now, quite rapidly in fact. I am down to 153 pounds–three pounds from the goal weight I set this Spring–and according to the Army I am only 10 pounds overweight. I don’t feel fit at all, but I do seem to be losing inches along with pounds, so it’s not just muscle mass going away. My pants are too big so I think I’m ready for a size 8. And while I definitely attribute some of the weight loss to my health problems, I do walk briskly 30 minutes a day during my commute to and from work. There’s at least some cardio going on. You really have to hoof it in New York City.

It’s times like these I look to ivy for inspiration, a woman who achieved her fitness goals all while undergoing chemo. I have no idea how you did it. I am sitting here like a whiny bitch because my tummy hurts. Help a sister out?

Your tummy hurts? That’s what you’re calling it? Sweetie, you have something bad going on and you can’t keep anything down. The fact you’re even coherent enough to type out a post is impressive.

Don’t worry about your weight and fitness right now. Figure out what’s wrong (please, keep us posted) and then you can work on getting healthy. But you’re not healthy enough right now to get healthy, if that makes sense.

(((((((((((((olives))))))))))))

Floaty, there’s no rules. Post whatever you feel comfortable with, this is really a monthly thread for heath and fitness support.

Velvet, you can do it! Keep going!

I’m still doing fairly well though the holidays did slow me up quite a bit. Luckily I was able to maintain through the last few weeks and didn’t gain anything.

My starting weight in mid-October was 291 and I am currently at 265. Count me as another huge fan of SparkPeople. It’s been great for me.

I’m still around! I’ve been hovering around the same place - 169 lb or so on my home scale. I’m okay with that - it means I’ve kept off the 15-20 pounds I lost last year. I’m ready to get back to losing, though.

I’m not making any grand promises, especially since my semester’s going to be stressful, but I know that a little mindfulness can go a long way.

I actually lost a pound during the holidays because I was sick. Seven pounds to go!