I’ve got an appointment with a dietican, Monday. My condition and history of success is very much the same as Pantellerite’s. Maybe we should start a support group. 
It isn’t necessarily. In fact - caffiene can seriously help some people lose weight, many of the diet pills contain amazing amounts of caffiene and ephedra as the combination has been found to work for many people.
OTOH, caffiene is a diuretic, and being well hydrated tends to work well for people on diets. (Also there’s the body mistaking thirst for hunger thing, so if you are drinking coffee instead of water, you think you’re more hungry than you are and you eat more than you should. Which is bad for diets)
I went to the WW meeting today at 1. Bought the 10 meeting pack, so I’ll be sure to continue to go for at least 2.5 months. Here goes.
I was pondering that very question tonight, as I opened the 2nd 2 litre Pepsi of the day. If I could just cut out the Pepsi I am sure the weight would fall off, but I just love Pepsi so much! I do have a treadmill in the garage, which has been real good about gathering dust. We shall see.
I’m not. Three years ago last November I resolved to get in better shape. NOT lose XX pounds, NOT diet, NOT cut out bad stuff from said diet.
I started working out twice a week for about 45 minutes. When it hurt, I stopped. When it stopped hurting, I started back up again. I had a reminder on my PDA for every tuesday and Tursday that NEVER gets removed. I may not work out on Thursday, but I will by Saturday. By working out at my own pace and not the pace of my PE teacher or athlete roommate, I’ve gained great flexibility, stamina, and increased strength.
I’ve also gained weight. In fact, when I took a week off reciently, I LOST two pounds.
I still have a little belly padding, but I don’t much care. My body is my body. I can start down the train of obsessive compulsive bodywatching, or just be happy that I’m steadily improving and am in the best shape of my 33 years. My cholestrol is 91. My blood pressure is lower than the accepted average, and I can vault four flights of stairs – breaking a sweat and with an elevated heartrate because my body thinks it’s getting ready for a workout 60 seconds later, My heart rate is back at 60 bpm.
Weightloss is the wrong goal. General health and wellbeing is the right one.
Well my husband wouldnt hear of me making negative resolutions (lose weight) because I shouldnt “feel bad about myself in the first place”
So my resolution is to avoid foods that arent good for me, and to enjoy doing more of what I already llike to do. (Ski, swim, walk)
So far 2lbs gone, but Im not allowed to tell Mr. Foolie, since there was nothing wrong with me in the first place. And I say there isnt if I was your height. 6’3. But since Im a foot shorter…
Not quite a New Year’s Resolution, since I started in early December (during finals week no less), but I’m part of WW online now. I’m hoping to lose the Freshman Fifteen before it’s too late. I figured that if I couldn’t get my lazy butt out of the chair to excercise more, I’d have to bite the bullet and eat healthier.
I ended up posting a Pit thread about having to defend my choice every damn time it came up in conversation, but I’ve kept to the diet 99% of the time so far and have lost some. The structure and flexibility of the Weight Watchers plan has helped me curb my habits of snacking and drinking constantly.
Well. five days in and yesterday I weighed in at 256. That’s 5 pounds down so far. This matches the pattern of my previous weight loss regime: A shock to the system as it realizes that the diet has changed then a slowing down of the weight loss in succeeding weeks.
My reading (online) indicates that this is a typical pattern of loss. 3-5 pounds initially and then 1-2 pounds in following weeks. But that count I should hit my target of 225 in just under 6 months. I don’t actually expect that to happen as there will NO DOUBT be slip ups on my part. But it’s encouraging that A) it’s matching a successful pattern and B) my year’s goal sounds acheivable.
Let’s keep the support coming, folks. We can do anything if we just try.
I would, but it gives me chest pains.
Sniglet, I agree with you 100%. However, being as obese as I am, weight loss must go hand-in-hand with general well-being and health. And experience has shown me that the only true path to permanent weight-loss for me is cutting out sugar completely. I am not aiming for a perfect body. My goal weight is 200 lbs.
See that’s what’s funny. As I continued to workout, two (or rather three) things happened:
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While you’re working out, you’re not munching on stuff in front of the tube.
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When you’re hungry, go work out. It completely removes the need/desire for food.
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When you work out, and eat a little healthier, your cravings will change.
I don’t eat particularly bad (in fact, as a pretty good cook, I tend to eat a lot of real butter, real cream, real meat, real pasta, etc.) to begin with. I’ve just found that with excercise, I didn’t WANT hoho’s and I didn’t really need to count calories.
That 200 lbs. target needs to be reasonable for your body type, and it needs to occur Slowly (usually not more than 1 lb. per week) or it WILL come back when you fall off the wagon. The object is to not get ON the wagon in the first place, but to walk alongside (metaphorically)
Actually, five things:
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after you work out, your metabolic rate is up, what you eat AFTER you work out doesn’t count as much as it directly goes into energy reserve replenishment and muscle building.
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Building muscle mass increases your Basal Metabolic Rate - the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn * sitting still *
And STRETCH! Find a good spinning instructior and you’ll work out harder than you ever have, and WON’T feel it in the morning.
See, for me, this is totally untrue.
My cravings have never gone away, I have never not wanted (or liked) fat, salt, and sugar in various combinations. I’ve never been in the place that other people say they’re at where “it was just too sweet,” or “I just didn’t want <insert junk food> anymore.”
Even when I’ve been eating well enough for long enough that those sorts of foods sit like a lump in my stomach, and make me feel physically awful, I still want them. They still taste delicious. I still crave the same snacks and treats. (Which is one of the reasons I’ve never been able to stick with anything for more than a few months).
Yeah, but the point I’m making isn’t as diet based as you’d think.
My favorite site to point people to is: http://www.howstuffworks.com/diet.htm
To paraphrase: Weightloss is nothing more that burning more calories than you take in.
Whether it’s an all protein or all carb or all salad or all deep fat fried food, you’re just eating less than you’re expending.
Now, that double cheese whopper is more than HALF the average daily caloric intake. How many of those do you think you oughta be eating? (hint, more than one a year, less than 5. 
)
You could be absolutely right about that. My point is, that for me, almost all of the excess calories I consume are in the form of sweets. Then, when I eat sweets, it sets up the craving for more sweets. . .'round and 'round we go. So, if I cut out the sweets, and the peripheral things that make me crave them, I tend not to overeat anything. Add in that I’m now exercising regularly, and, voila, what you end up with is a sane weight-loss, better-health strategy that works for me. YMMV.
One might think that if I’m not overeating sweets, I will compensate by overeating something else, but that’s not the way it works with me. Turns out that what I was interpreting as ‘hunger’ about an hour and a half after a meal was really my sugar jones.
I lost 100 pounds in 2001 when I was finally diagnosed and treated for hyperinsulimia. If this sounds like you, you may want to find out more and get your insulin checked:
–abdominal fat, rather than butt and thighs
–homone problems (bad skin, irregular periods, hair loss or excess facial hair, etc)
–craving sugar, being tired after meals, getting extremely hungry (I used to think of it as “If I don’t eat right now, I am going to have to kill someone”)
I suspect that lots of large women (and perhaps some men, although I know less about this) have hyperinsulima, which is higher than normal insulin levels. High insulin levels lead to blood sugar flucuations, high triglceride levels, etc. For me, they made it impossible to lose weight. The whole “calories in, energy out” just didn’t work. Even though I didn’t eat that much, I slowly but surely gained weight. Then when I was diagnosed and treated (medication to lower my sky high insulin levels), I went on a low carb diet and started using the treadmill. Within 8 months or so I had lost the 100 pounds I had never been able to lose before.
If you want to know more, email me and I would be happy to answer questions, send links, etc. The insulin test, btw, is a simple fasting blood test.
My failing is corn-based chips (Doritos, Cheetos, etc.) Not having them onhand is the easiest way to cut them out of my diet. Occasionally wolfing them down without guilt helps too.
There is no good or bad food. it’s what you do with it. I got fed up with feeling guilty over what I eat and tried to do some small things to remove that guilt. I REALLY like deep fat fried food. (fish n chips, chinese food, etc.) If my workout burns 1200-1600 calories (based on my heart rate monitor), I don’t feel bad at ALL about an occasional trip to Panda Express.
Well, (to go back to the OP), it’s not so much a resolution as simply a resolve to continue what I’ve been doing for the last six months. I’ve been on WW since July and have so far dropped 60 pounds. I still have another 30 or so to go.
Zev Steinhardt
norinew, good luck to you. Limiting sugar is important, but, walking is also important, as well as limiting calories.
Jonathan Chance, I started a diet last January (Nutra System) and lost 50 lbs. Kept it off until Sept. when I was laid off my job.
Loosing weight is EXPENSIVE! Now I’m back on beans, beer and rice. And not exercising.
Also back up to 208 from 185.
Anyway, I like threads like this, they remind me to get off my ass and get in shape again!
Yes, I’m walking on the treadmill at the Y, 4-5 times per week. I prefer it to walking outside, because I can read a magazine while I do the treadmill, also it’s climate controlled. As for limiting calories, as long as I cut refined sugar completely, my caloric intake is sort of self-limiting.
That’s what I’m hoping for.
Though I’m intentionally not using any particular system. I think that would hang me up.