Weight-Loss Thread
 

Good morning. It is tomorrow and I am starting my day under the premise that I can eat like a normal human woman and not some sort of disgusting pig. I promise to tell the truth about my progress and my exercise routine (which, up till today, has been pretty much 'lie on the couch and watch TV)

Anyone who wishes to join me, come on in!

And good luck for today. All we have to do is eat reasonably TODAY. That's my goal.

And, walk.

I promise too. to be clear, I will post everything that passes my lips ( on the way in) and everything i consider to be excercise. You may get sick of this thread. tough.

FWIW, personally, I have found that, no matter what the people say, the exercise is *optional*.

It takes an enormous amount of walking to make up 100 calories of intake and 100 calories is nothing to a food addict.

Exercise is important it turns out, but I found that demanding BOTH eating well and exercise at the same time was too much responsibility. Too much reason to fail.

Plus, it was always a route to rationalization. Of course I can eat this cake. I will exercise tomorrow. And tomorrow I will find another rationalization, until I fail completely.

I kind of am like UT. My diet consists of me not eating cassaroles yet I do pick up unhealthy things to eat sometimes. I work two jobs and walk the whole time during one, thus the indulgence. When I do exercise it is usually pilates which I find helpful.I've taught myself how to make healthy dishes the last two years but I don't really eat that much. So I'll observe before I decide if it is right for me to participate.

goodluck guys

Try what I did -- small changes. Don't start jogging in the morning, every morning. Instead, take the stairs in place of the elevator. Don't try to ride your bike to work, but try parking your car in the remote area of the parking lot and walking in. Take a walk before or after lunch around your office. It all adds up and eventually you'll get to the point where you'll feel great doing more, more often. You might even actually want to wake up early to walk with the sunrise! (This is a recent surprise for me and it is a habit I hope I stick with! Early mornings are beautiful!)

Drink coffee, not soda.
Drink plenty of water.
Eat vegetables and fruit.
Move around each day, even just a little.
Don't eat anything three hours before you sleep for the night.
Watch the movie "Supersize Me". Be afraid.

Another tip: Try going hungry for just a several hours to feel what it is like to have a totally empty stomach. If you can't feel this feeling on a normal basis without getting dizzy/faint, check with your doctor. A lot of people don't realize that you should be able to go hungry without feeling miserable. Once you're empty for awhile, eat something healthy. (Pasta, salad, steamed vegetables over rice.) Do this until you get used to satisfying cravings with good food instead of junk.

I don't do a lot of activity, but these small changes made to my life of sitting in an office chair for eight hours a day resulted in a loss of 30 pounds in one year. I've been at 157lbs for more than three years because of it and I'm now working on getting in shape. (it's going to take awhile)

I second what Kitsune said except Drink tea instead of coffee or soda -- less caffeine. And when you do feel hungry between regularly scheduled meals, drink something instead of eating -- water is best.

Take it slow with the exercise. It is easy to burn out if you try too hard too soon. Eventually you want to work in some aerobic exercise (heartrate of >120 bpm). For me I try to ride my bike or use a stationary equipment at least once a day reaching 120 bpm for 15-20 min. It took about 4 months to work up to that level -- I lost about 45lbs. from 230.

On the whole "move around more" topic, try this. Once an hour or so, stand up nice and straight. Take three deep slow breaths, and do four or five deep knee bends. If you have your own office, maybe do ten quick push-ups. This makes your body think it's about to do something active and gives your metabolism a small bump. Chase this with a glass of water. These little bumps during the day will keep you from getting that bogged down feeling. I've been doing this for about a month now, and it's kept me from going into a food-coma after lunch. The hard part has been remembering to do it, so I've got my email reminding me during the day.

i think i could get away with that.

breakfast:

whole wheat bagel w/cream cheese, 1 banana, lrg coffee w/cream no sug.

I only stated this because if you're used to drinking soda, you'll be more likely to burn out without the caffiene. But it is still a good idea if you can do it!

The heart rate thing helped me out a lot, too. When I do go out on the bicycle, I found out with a Polar monitor that I over exert myself if I don't pay attention. Staying in the correct range means the difference between a fun day out and extreme misery.

Does anyone else here completely skip breakfast? I've been told repeatedly it is a bad idea, but I've done it for years.

I eat a huge bowl of Wheaties for breakfast every day. It's kind of a running joke in my family that I always eat Wheaties. My day never really gets started unless I eat a breakfast. I need it to function right.

I'm not so worried about the weight loss, but I like the idea of getting up from your desk at regular intervals to get the blood pumping. That's one thing I really need to work on. At the end of the 9 hour day sitting at the desk, I feel like the life blood has been sucked out of me.

Oh, also, I'm a little jittery at times. I may bounce/tap my leg or something for a while just for fun. Like a teenager with pent up energy. I've read that fidgeting around like that can burn off more calories than than deliberately exercising once or twice a week.

Weight Watchers point values:

whole wheat bagel = 4 pts
cream cheese = 2 pts
banana = 2 pts
cream = 1 pt (if it was real cream)

9 points total on the weight watchers system. (You are probably allotted about 35 for the day.)

And I add, weight maintenance would be an excellent reason to keep the Cellar in one's allowed-to-browse list. The equivalent of saying "This is a safety issue, not a warranty issue" to a service department.

Oh, when I say "you are probably allotted 35 points", that's not good enough.

It's like, 250 lbs = 35 points, 275 lbs = 37, 300 lbs = 39 and so on. And this is of course a vast oversimplification.

can i count on you to tabulate my points on a consistent basis? j/k

If you felt like it would be helpful, I would definitely do that.

It's edumacational, plus it's like a support group sort of.

But it's scary, it's like putting yourself out there man.

Ok - I'm in.

I am trying to do a low carb kind of a thing. Nothing structured - just watching my caloric intake, and trying to steer away from sugar & bad carbs.

This is not an easy thing for a bread-a-holic like me!

Breakfast today: 2 scrambled eggs & 1 breakfast sausage.

well, i'm not scared of that.

i think my main problems are portion size, and timing.


LUNCH:
turkey reuben wrap(turkey, tortilla, slaw, 1000 island) 10 steak fries

too large a portion. damn tasty tho

Wrap: est. 12 points (tortilla 2, turkey 4, slaw 2, dressing 4)
Fries: est. 6 points

lunch = 18
total for day = 27

nothing to drink?

let me know when this is annoying

. noob here..

This is a good idea. I was a member of a martial arts forum, and often people would do this kind of thing in their journal. Which was of course great for accountability if you thougth people actually read your journal.

Mind if I join in? Accountability with me is a huge issue. I just bought this urban rebounder thing (basically a mini tramp with an excersize video) and while I promised myself to do it at LEAST 3 times a week, im not even doing that.

Recording that as well as my food intake may embarass me into being good:)

I love this thread idea! Thanks, Bri for getting the ball rolling! Like you, I did Atkins, did really well, went off, and all went to hell. It's too easy to get bored on it, but it worked for me. I need to find something else that works.

Breakfast:
Special K
Dannon light and fit strawberry yogurt

Lunch:
BLT - no mayo
Fries - nice sized portion, not greasy
water

Snack:
2 fannie may mint meltaways - had to finish the box.

As for exercise - I walked to the bus stop - 3 blocks and I will probably do the same when I go home. I need to get back on my bike.

Breakfast-Slimfast shake (the Optima kind) had this at 8:00
Lunch turkey/lettuce/tomato on bread with mayo/diet coke ate at 4:00 (was famished!)

4:00 had a hot chocolate (bad! but, it's rainy and gloomy here and my whole self hurts)

Exercise--walked all over campus.
I'll try to do better tomorrow. It's a LOT of planning, planning, planning so you have healthy on hand and don't get starved and eat an entire pizza.

Phoo. All of this is making me take a close look at what I've packed in my lunch, today. I don't like what I see.

Just out of curiosity, where do you find french fries that are not greasy? Aren't the two inseparable since, you know, they're "fries"?

Non-greasy fries have the grease on the inside.

just h2o

had another coffee at 3pm with cream

-welcome in, munchkin.

Oh I am beginning to realize my downfall...... grazing while cooking dinner. I start preparing dinner and I take a bite of this, a pinch of that. I think I need to wear big cooking mitts the whole time so I don't touch anything.

Dinner( too late [10:30]at night, which i think is part of my problem)
Turkey sandwich on wheat toast with american cheese, lettuce tomato and " a little bit" of mayo from wawa, and a blueberry yogurt.

You're right LJ, you really should try and eat no later than 7.30pm-8pm, as your body starts to shut down its metabolism for the nite and its too easy for your body to store that food as fat.

The other thing you could do is make your main meal at lunch? then just have a light dinner?

I've done a couple of nutrition courses and the first thing we tell everybody who wants to be accountable for their food intake...is to go buy a little calorie counting book...it makes things sooooo much easier and you will be amazed at the food choices you can make daily that will make a whole heap of difference.

Good luck everybody :D

Turkey sandwich = 9 pts (3 pts bread, 2 pts chz, 2 pts turkey 2 pts mayo) (mayo is one pt per teaspoon, it kills you)

Yogurt = depends on size, usu. 3 pts

Total for day = 40

Caloric equivalent = roughly 2000

The time of eating, I ignore that. I guess it's more satisfying to spend your hungry hours asleep but in the end I feel it's just eating fewer calories per day than you burn. Most solid food takes 24 hours to get through your digestive system anyway.

4 pretzel rods, 1 tiny little orange

Why are you up so early, lj?

I hope I can stick to it today. god, I'm a weak person.

Last night I wanted a doughnut soooo bad I could practically taste the damn thing. I didn't go get one, though. :donut: It's all about small victories.

Rods = 2 pts, orange = 0

not so early, so late. got home at 11pm, and i'm off today. you didn;t have any dinner?

Nothing to eat so far today, medium coffee... will have PB&J for lunch... trying to drink as much water as possible...

will note tonights food and excersize tomorrow :)

breakfast. same as yesterday, Whole wheat bagel w/cc, banana, coffe w cream....oh, and a capri sun grape juice.

Oh! as for dinner, I had another slimfast optima shake and then I ate about 12 french fries (I made them for my son)

Sigh.

today, nothing but coffee so far and I MUST eat soon. This is when the drinking devil rears his head--mid morning when I haven't eaten (I know that sounds weird, but I used to work 7p-7a shifts and I always drank in the morning and THEN went to bed.) Must. Get. Food. In. Self.

9 points now you need to go out to the store and look for whipped cream cheese.

This very fine food product comes in a plastic tub like the old margarine tubs, but it's gray like the cream cheese packaging color.

It seems to be the very same food product as regular cream cheese, except with air mixed in. The air has no calories. This permits you to use two tablespoons of it for 60 calories. 1.5 T on your bagel loses you a point on the WW system, with no fake taste.

Grape juice has roughly the same caloric level as soda. Points depend on the calories, one point per 50 calories. 12 oz is 3 points, generally... a tetrapak is probably 2.

ah. see my bagel comes from dunkin donuts. i usually dont have time to make breakfast. i need to figure out a protien for the morning that i can eat on the go, and not have to cook. maybe i'll boil some eggs, or something

What about those portable containers of Breakstone's Cottage Cheese? That's a protein and filling, too.

wow, nice sentence.


missing punctuation, lower case letters. disjointed run on thoughts. You're learning :p

No. He's lightheaded from cutting down on food.

Dinner last night: Leftover pasta with meatsauce - maybe about a cup of that. Not a lot. For a snack - I had a blueberry muffin, but I ate it really slow and enjoyed it.

Breakfast - same as yesterday - special K and black cherry yogurt

Lunch - 5 boneless wings, celery.

Exercise - walking up and down the stairs at work with and without stuff in my arms.

My goal is no cookies or candy this afternoon.

lunch: steamed chicken and shrimp with broccoli, carrots, snow peas and white rice and a bunch of edemame.

Depends how much. Uncooked rice is 150 cals per 1/4 cup and generally doubles, so one "serving" of rice is generally 300 cals or 6 pts. The chicken is apx 1 pt per ounce so maybe 4. These veggies are free and I don't know about edemame at all.

That's the first time I've seen edamame written as a word. We eat it a lot at home, and say the word all the time, but I'd never seen it written. At first I was wondering what the hell you were eating, and then slowly it dawned on me.

I'm still wondering :neutral:

Soy beans, steamed and salted.

I am at that "beginning of the diet" stage where you feel like you have poofed up more than anything else. I've been drinking tons of water, and I have not had a single bread related item in a week, but I feel gross. I think my body is going into survival mode & storing what it can.

I had a scrambled egg for breakfast
4 oz grilled steak & 1/2 tomato for lunch
1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese for a snack
1 tortilla-free taco for dinner

I still haven't bought a scale yet, but I know that I feel better.

Yabbut see the thing is, if you don't eat enough your metabolism will in fact slow down, making it harder to lose weight, and that's not enough...

dinner was a turkey hoagie with cheese
1 buffalo wing, and a couple bites of jinx's cheesesteak.

oink oink

i'm on my 3rd captain and diet canada dry.

going for a walk in a moment ( 1.5 mi.)

I would like to bring up a diet which is avocated by the medical columnist in our newspaper. It is so simple and so easy that you will not understand why you didn't do it before.

Dr. Peter H. Gott says ALL you need to do is completely eliminate all flour and refined sugar from your food intake. Easy to remember, easy enough when you get used to thinking that way. You don't count calories, carbs, grams, fats, or colored flash cards, you simply do not pick up anything with flour or refined sugar in it. Read the label if you are not sure, but you KNOW the bagels, turkey dressing, pasta, twinkies, and chocolate cake are out, but the cream cheese and fruit juice is not, UNLESS it has been sweetened. The breakfast cereal and french fries are iffy, better read the label to be sure no WHEAT is in it. It seems that wheat is one of the most damaging things we eat, it is really not digestible or beneficial, and many of us are just plain allergic to it and do not even realize why our bodies are bloated all the time when this ingredient is in almost everything we are eating during the day.

People have been writing in to Dr. Gott for years to tell their stories, how the weight just fell off them once they got their mind adjusted to skipping those two ingredients. If I can find a url link to his information, I will post it here.

I read in... I think it was the Washington Post that a new, very good diet idea is to simply eat exactly what you want. Before you put something in your mouth (heh) ask yourself, "Do I reeeeeeally want this?" if the answer is no, then don't eat it. Your body knows what it needs, 90-odd percent of the time. If you only eat what you reeally want, then you're good to go.

Hm, I think I want to start eating a little better - a little less junk, a little more healthy stuff. Not so much for weight as for health, but I'm gonna post here anyway, kay? Kay.

Breakfast - Bagel with cream cheese, Nestea.

Lunch - Two slices of cheese pizza with parmesan cheese, no drink.

I'll probably drink a root beer when I get home, and eat a bowl of tostidos and salsa con queso, or maybe make a bowl of spaghetti and parmesan.


New eating habits start tomorrow. I hope.

Dr. Gott does not seem to have an online column. So I copied some pertinent letters from several newspapers which Google found:



DEAR DR. GOTT: For the second time, I am trying your "no flour, no sugar" diet. I eat no refined sugar, flour products or potatoes.

It isn't working. My weight has stabilized at 176. Also, my brother has not had success with your diet.

Could it be that we are not drinking enough water?

DEAR READER: No weight-loss diet guarantees results. In patients with genetically determined obesity, for example, special provisions — such as stricter dieting — may be necessary.

Based on the thousands of letters I have received from satisfied patients who have had success with my "no flour, no sugar" diet, I continue to encourage its use because it is overwhelmingly effective, inexpensive and easy to follow. (Water consumption is a matter of preference; it should not affect your weight.) I see from your letter that you avoid refined sugar. This is not enough. No sugar means just that. Along with cane sugar, you must avoid corn syrup (a commercial sweetener), maple syrup, molasses and other sweets. Milk sugar (lactose) and fruit sugar (fructose) are OK.

In addition, potatoes contain neither flour nor sugar — so why restrict them?

If you choose to follow my diet, act like a lawyer. Pick out (and avoid) the products with flour and sugar by reading labels. If the edibles contain flour, it is a "no-no." If, in contrast, it contains — for example — cornmeal, rice or wheat germ, it is acceptable.



DEAR DR. GOTT: You know, you make it sound so easy to just stop eating flour and sugar. Have you ever been morbidly obese? It isn't as easy as just stopping eating. If you do, it doesn't always work as well as you say. Ever since my mother saw your column, she's like, "You can do it if you want to." Thanks a lot.

DEAR READER: Your mother is correct: you can do anything if you want to. Perhaps this realization, if you accept it, could make a huge difference in your future health. For sure, no one can do it for you, so if you tend to blame other people for your lack of success, quit. Admit your obesity and deal with it.

Do some people suffer from genetic overweight? Yes. Are they likely to lose weight simply by dieting? No. Are they often helped by following a reasonable and inexpensive diet? Yes — for while. Could they drop a few pounds and keep them off? Absolutely. While my "no flour, no sugar" diet seems very easy to follow, some patients have a problem with it because of genetic factors. In such instances, I recommend a recommitment to the diet plan, or any other weight-loss program, with close medical supervision.

To give you related information, I am sending you a copy of my Health Report "Losing Weight," which includes my "no flour, no sugar" diet. Other readers who would like a copy should send a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope and $2 to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092. Be sure to mention the title.

I like this no flour, no sugar idea. Esp. as it allows me to have milk and OJ (two things I really, reeeeeeeally missed on Atkins)---and, you get potatoes, too! I shall try.

Today--egg, small piece of canadian bacon for breakfast. Lj-how can you drink and then GO FOR A WALK? Ugh!

Someone has to explain to me why flour, something mankind has consumed for thousands of years, is suddenly off-limits. Same with sugar. I'm going to continue baking bread and enjoying it.

Really -- no milk, no OJ? These fad diets have gone mad!

Eat less, exercise.

dinner: a bowl of grits (two packets, instant), a root beer, and about three seasoned spuds (potato wedges). Oh, yeah, and about 1500 mL of Nestea.

Turkey hoagie w cheese depends on the mayo. The roll is probably 8 points, the cheese 2 pts per slice, the turkey 1 pt per slice. The mayo is 1 pt per teaspoon so a large slag of it is as much as 6 pts.

Buffalo wings are Right Out, probably 1 pt each.

Cheesesteaks are Right Out, probably 1 pt per bite.

You have to do what works for you. For me, I would *order* the turkey and cheese and then eat half of it. Because I'm weird. This is wasteful, but so is eating it.

A mile and a half of walking gets you back 3 pts worth. A slice and a half of cheese.

breakfast...2 oz cottage chs 2%; banana, coffee w cream

Hmmm, breakfast was two cups of coffee and a granola bar.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast again.

Hey - I've been doing this diet for about a week, and like I said, I don't own a scale. I weighed myself at my sister's house last night, and I actually weigh about 15lbs less than I though!! Woooot!