I weighed myself today: 144.4 lbs. At 5’4" that puts my BMI at 24.7, which means I am officially no longer overweight.
9 pounds until I hit my goal weight. I have a day of eating at restaurants for lunch and dinner this coming Saturday, so I’m going to try to stay at a greater calorie deficit than usual all week to give myself a larger margin of error in case I go over maintenance that day. I’m still really bad at estimating calories in restaurant dishes. We’ll see how well that goes if I get my period this week, since I usually get ravenous a day or two before.
This month’s Women’s Health magazine has an article about portion sizes for Thanksgiving dinner, with pictures of what a portion of turkey, pie, potatoes, bread, etc. look like and how many calories are in each one. Worth looking at if you see it while standing in line at the grocery store.
My family is planning on having a relatively simple dinner, with only three side dishes (salad, roast winter vegetables, and cornbread) and one dessert, so I should be okay. My usual downfall is that when there are a ton of side dishes, I feel compelled to have a little of everything, and of course a little of everything ends up being a lot of food. Since I’m only cooking for four people and we’re not having a turkey (pork loin with apples, plums, and pecans), I think I should be able to limit the amount of leftovers to maybe a day or two’s worth. I’ll send the leftover cake home with the guests. Or most of it, anyway.
Ok, so I only lost .6 pounds this week. Go ahead and say that at least I didn’t gain, any loss is a good loss, blah blah blah. It’s still a bit disappointing. And I really believe it was mostly related to the incredible amount of stress I had going on this week, because I’ve been eating properly all week. The only thing I could have done differently otherwise was to drink a little bit more water, which I will definitely do this coming week.
I’m so fed up with my weight. I keep saying this and feeling bad but it is so hard for me to move forward on this. I’ve gained a lot in the past year because I started taking a medication that makess me hungry more often than usual. I was a size 10 going into grad school three years ago and now I am a size 14. I don’t think I can bear going up another size. The fine winter coat I bought last year won’t even zip up any more.
I went for a walk yesterday, and it was ridiculous how tired I was at the end. I am really out of shape.
I know the best way is to start small. Until recently I succeeded with No Sweets in the House. I’m wondering if I should do something like No Empty Calories in the house. Whatever changes I make, I know they have to be something I can do for the rest of my life. Support and advice appreciated. Even though I’ve lost weight before, I feel like a total n00b right now.
I just want to point out that it’s taken me five months to lose 20 pounds (some people could do that in two), and it usually plays out like, “Stay the same weight for three weeks and then suddenly lose 3 pounds overnight.”
It’s incredibly frustrating when you feel like you’re doing all the right things and not seeing any results, but what helps me is to focus on the mentality that Doing All the Right Things is the goal itself and the weight loss is a nice byproduct. Eating whole, healthy food and avoiding shit is a great thing to do for your body in itself. Being physically active in and of itself, independent of weight loss or gain, is a well-proven benefit to your entire body, mind, and spirit.
You can’t control the scale, but you can control your behavior.
I also want to say that Doing All the Right Things doesn’t mean you have to be super strict and never allow yourself to deviate from The Plan (whatever your plan is) or else feel the consequences of a tyrannical conscience that tells you you’re a failure and you might as well throw in the towel. For me, I look at the lifestyle as a whole – in general, I do not eat big bowls of pasta and cereal any more, for example. But if once in a while, I want pasta, I’ll eat a reasonable portion of it, which I measure and track. Mentally, it’s almost like tracking keeps the conscience in check. If I went hog wild and ate 1/2 pound of pasta in one sitting but still tracked it in my log, I’d feel like I was being up front and honest with the splurge, and that would somehow shut up my conscience.
I don’t know, maybe this sounds weird. I have a history of hiding food and eating it in secret, as though it doesn’t “count” that way, but of course I know I’ve eaten it, so who am I really fooling? If I put down in the log that, fuck yes, I ate five cookies at the lunch party today, I feel like I’m being honest with myself instead of trying to cheat and that keeps the throw-in-the-towel impulse at bay.
Yes, I know what you’re saying. I feel that I can eat anything I want in moderation. And I have been eating in a much healthier way than I have ever before. I just knew, though, that the Mentos were going to be a problem child for me. I had a few and enjoyed them and that was enough, so I got rid of the rest. And I do log everything I eat, even Mentos. The really odd thing is that I am a 100% certified chocoholic but the thing I have no moderation around is a tube of mints?
I’m doing a happy dance today. The jeans I’m wearing are 4 sizes smaller than where I started. (They are a wee bit tight, but not too bad as I’ve had them on for several hours now and they’re not driving me crazy.)
I’m trying to get serious now because I really can’t afford new pants. I want to start with ending the weight gain, in the very least. I’m starting by just trying to make myself more aware of what and when I’m eating. The answer is: everything, all the time. I’m sitting here right now, not particularly hungry, with an incredible urge to eat! I feel like I should be eating. I think it has become such a part of my routine that I don’t know what else to do with my time. Wow, that is sad.
Anyway, despite my incredible urge to eat right now, I am choosing not to eat, and that has to count for something.
olivesmarch4th, I like your idea of focusing on not gaining. I did that for a couple of years while my emotional energy was needed elsewhere, and even managed to lose a few pounds. Now I’m committed to another plan and really appreciate the slight head-start I gave myself.
Just an update: I got smart and accepted that my decades-long “healthy eating” lowfat, low calorie, primarily vegetarian (i.e. complex carbotarian) way of eating was not going to get me any closer to my goal. So for four weeks I’ve been on Atkin’s Induction, and plan to stay on that until the majority of my weight is lost. In this time I’ve lost 6 pounds, have fundamentally altered how I burn fat, have become a turkavore and have also given up gluten, artificial sweeteners, my powerful addiction to diet soda, and most caffeine.
If anyone else struggles to get off diet soda, I’d suggest substituting seltzer – not soda water or other sparkling waters. Seltzer has the mouthfeel, the particular hard bubbles with a* bite* that diet sodas have, and also come flavored but not sweetened. I like that it also comes in cans, the coldness of which is part of what kept me hooked to diet sodas.
I’m going through the munchies right now because of the smoking cessation. I don’t want to smoke, but I want something in my mouth. So I’ve been chewing sugarless gum. I get the taste of something in my mouth, and my jaw gets to move, but no food is being eaten. It works more than it doesn’t.
Alternatively, when you feel the urge to eat, have some water or some sugar-free Jello. Jello, in particular, is very filling and it will rehydrate you. And it’s sweet, which helps.
I’m in a bad cycle of binge eating. My dissatisfaction with all aspects of my life leads me to gorging for the fleeting happiness it (sometimes) brings, only to feel physically and mentally horrible hours afterward.
First full day of changing my dietary habits. I can’t believe how hard it was. I’ve been hungry and thinking about food pretty much all day. I know it’s going to take a while before I figure out which foods fill me up and which don’t. I’m going to try the rule of thumb of only one portion of each food I eat. I measured out 3 oz of whole wheat pasta today and it was really quite a lot. (1.5 portions.)
I’m trying to avoid snacking because I know that’s where the majority of Americans’ extra calories come from and it really isn’t necessary. I’m taking some cues from the No S Diet and eventually I want to be able to just eat three squares a day and not worry about eating except at meal time. However I don’t want to make too many changes all at once. I had a banana, two clementines, a cucumber and some whole grain bread with jam as snacks. The bread seems to have helped the most. Overall I think I did a great job today.
I weighed myself for posterity (I don’t plan to weigh myself much at all, maybe monthly.) It wasn’t pretty - 7 pounds more than I’d been estimating, and I fall unequivocally into the “obese” category. My goal is to lose 5% of my body weight by my birthday March 4th. That’s 10 pounds which seems completely reasonable to me. I’m interested in slow progress over time.
I’m here for my bi-weekly whining. This past week I did 30-40 minutes of water aerobics 5 or 6 days and walked at least 1 mile each day and 2 miles on some days and I lost a grand total of .8 lbs. :rolleyes:
No, I’m not giving up or anything but I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t pissing me off!
