Posts by vagabon

Smoking actually increases a person's metabolism.  So when you quit Cold Turkey there are about 200 calories not expended all of a sudden.  Which could make some stand still and make others show a gain. 

 But when your body gets used to it, it will will be like a whole new you.  And that's what we are all after, isn't it?

You are most likely just muscle heavy.  What you need is a little cross training.  Your body is just used to the usual food & exercise routine.  You need to mix it up. 

Prevention.com has little snippets of different dance video's or yoga & pilates stuff that they have for sale.    If you can view them online and then just put on a great radio station and do the moves to the music, you can create a whole new cardio workout that could stimulate your metabolism.

Just like our minds, our bodies get bored with the same old thing all the time. 

P.S.   You are doing a great job!  Keep up the pace.

Every time I add exercise, I get constipated also!! 

I have recently (last two weeks) added a half cup of Activia or DanActive yogurt (110 cals) with a quarter cup of some kind of fruit (40 cals?) as my mid-afternoon snack.  After the first two days I started to go EVERY DAY!!!  Sometimes 2 & 3 times a day!!   My ankles lost their puffiness and my belly doesn't seem so rigid anymore.  And I definitely feel better! 

Most likely you just don;t have that much to push thru and adding extra fiber might just make it worse.   Cook your vegatables to make them easier to digest.  (I also find that too many raw anythings bind me up)  Just try it for a few days and see if it helps.  Otherwise check with your doctor.  Enemas aren't the answer, they can get addictive and pretty soon you won't be able to go without them.  Keep me posted!

  I am also a 53 year old female.  I am 20 pounds from an ideal weight.  I have always been weight concious since I was a little girl.  Everyone in my family told me I was fat except my DAD.  He grew up in the depression and would feed us enormus meals to make up for the deprevation he felt back when he was a small child.  Anyway, I have always maintained a healthy weight until I  hit menopause!  I went on vacation at the age of 50, weighting 145 and came back a week later at 157!  Well, I just thought to myself, salads for lunch and exercise every day.  And that used to work, but this time I lost .5 lb.  And the next week, nothing. And the next week nothing!  Never has it taken me but one week to drop at least 3 lbs.  I was horrified.  And even thought I counted calories and tried hard to workout at least 3 times a week but now it seemed like I was a big ball of dough and just oozing over and out of my clothes!  (I'm a clerical person so I do alot of data entry and answering the phones). After many other outside emotional struggles and moving twice, I find myself at 168.8 lbs.  I am determined that it will go no higher.  I am temping at a hospital and I walk their halls during my lunch hour, climb the stairs during the day on my delivery route and am trying very hard to use all the tools here at CC to control my eating.  I also try to get in at least 15 to 20 minutes of real exercise at home 4 x's a week.  Over the years I have collected various exercise CD's so I have regular weight training, pilates and yoga.  That way I'm not doing the same thing over and over again.  It helps to eliminate boredom.

Let's all take this moment to contemplate that we need to plan our meals.  I know this is really difficult but if I don't take the time the night before to clean vegatables and fruit, I will slip and grab chips or worse.   I myself suffer from irritable bowel, so I really need to plan meals to be filling and not too raw or I will be miserable all night.  Especially helps to make a huge bowl of salad at night, so that I can grab a handful or two for meals.  Makes it more filling than just meat and vegatables.

Remember the old stand by, 1/2 of the plate should be vegatable and/or fruit, 1/4 should be meat/protien and the last 1/4 - grains.  And when in doubt grab some water and wait 10 minutes.  If you're still hungry- grab raw vegatables.  If you're still hungry 10 minutes after that, fruit.  If you're not full after that, try protien.  I try to keep hard boilded eggs handy.  Good luck!