Posts by jordielg

Ouch, I've been there, so I feel your pain....Shin splints can also be caused by running too much. Most runners would advice against running every day. Supplement your training/exercise program with alternate running and non-weight bearing exercise. Cross-training will help you work different muscle groups, improve overall cardiovascular fitness and reduce the chances for other injuries.

You should probably cut way back or even stop running until the pain subsides. Basically, following R.I.C.E. will help a lot (rest, ice, compression, elevation). Do these four things on a daily basis and you see pretty quick improvements. Cross train during this period and ease back into running every other day once the pain is gone.

Replace your running shoes every 300-500 miles, as this is the general mileage at which they run out. Activetrainer.com has a great workout calendar, you can log your mileage and log it to a specific pair of shoes so you can keep track of your miles.

Hope that helps, and feel better soon. I know it's frustrating not to be able to get out there and run, but RESTING really will be best in the long run.

I also have a Le Creuset 6 quart French oven and I LOVE IT. The TJ MAX by our house usually had Le Creuset items, something to check out. Technically, I bought ours for my fiance's birthday a couple years back. It had a tiny chip in the lid, which is why it was at TJ MAX, but you can barely tell. We love it and use it all the time. It is awesome for soups/stews and we also use it for roasts and other stuff.

Not to mention, they're gorgeous

As far as I know (and the only way I've ever done it) is to make stock from the remnants of a whole baked/roasted chicken or bone in pieces if cooked chicken. I've always used the bones and all the leftover pieces you don't eat. The fat that's left on the bones helps give the stock its flavor, you skim it off at the end and strain out the solids.

If you're worried about calories in your stock from using the rest of the whole chicken (dark meat/fat) I wouldn't, because you pull everything out and it's soaking in something like 2 gallons of water (if you're using say 4 lbs of chicken bones) so it's not going to make much of a difference.

What type of chicken breast are you talking about using? I suppose you could use a regular stock recipe and just use whole bone-in breasts, but you'd need quite a few of them. Even then, I'm not sure that making stock with breasts would yield very good stock because it really won't have all the flavor you get from the other parts of the chicken.

I would definitely recommend The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, a great, great read. I couldn't put it down and you get so into the characters. A truly different take on the traditional love story. It's also being made into a movie this year with Eric Bana :), yummy haha.

Also, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. My fiance got this for me for my birthday and I just read it a month or so ago when we were on vacation. The book description sounds a little strange, but you will NOT regret reading this book. Deep character development, action, betrayal, history, love -- it really has something for everyone. It's long, but you'll get so into it you won't want it to end...which is good, because there is a kind of sequel, World Without End that I've also heard is amazing, but I haven't read it yet.

Good luck with all your reading this summer, I need to start making a dent in the pile of books on my nightstand. I keep adding to the "want to read" pile, but never have the time :(

I'm 5'6" 153 and I wear a size 8 or 10 pants and probably around a size 8 dress, maybe a 6 depending on the store. I tend to carry most of my weight in my thighs, hips and butt so I can usually fit into a smaller dress size than I can pants size.

Bottom line is that it's going to be really hard to guess your size because every body is different AND sizes at differnent stores can vary as well.

Congrats on losing the first 15! I'm using clothing as my motivation too, but i'm going to wait to get it once I'm at my goal size to make sure my new jeans fit perfectly! :)

I had the exact same problem. I swam my entire life, including 3 years D1 and I never learned to eat like a non-swimmer, which means I always ate as much as my body could physically consumer. Not swimming and not changing eating habits resulted in 30 extra pounds.

I basically did what Melkor suggested and planned my meals and calorie intake for a couple months and it has really helped me get a handle on how much food is appropriate for the amount of calories I'm burning now. I still work out hard everyday so I never feel like I'm not getting enough food, but planning definitely helped open my eyes to the fact that I was eating way more calorie dense foods than my body needed before.

Good luck with the change! It took me a while to realize that I needed to make a change, but now that I have I am 15 pounds lighter already and feeling much better.

Another Friday...

Start Weight 12/08: 168

2/09-3/09: 156

3/27/09: 153

Today 4/3/09: 156

Last week's weigh in went really well for me. I dropped about two pounds. This week I'm up three pounds. I made some bad (and very salty) decisions on Wednesday night (cheeseburger and fries for lunch, a ton of spinach artichoke dip and tortilla chips in the evening).

Today, I'm feel really bloated and just kind of icky. I don't think I actually gained weight, I have a feeling my body is just reeling from all the salt I've consumed in the past couple of days. Oh well, just have to shake it off and work on being better next week instead of eating my emotions in fatty food, haha.

Hope everyone had a better week than I did!

It does hurt for the first couple times, I will admit. After the 3rd or 4th class you shouldn't really notice it.

Also, make sure you're not sitting too far forward in the saddle. You want to sit back as far as you can on the back of the seat where it's the widest. If you're too far forward and putting your weight on the front of the seat where it's narrow it will definitely hurt more.

Try it again, spinning/cycling is such great excercise and great to increase endorphins. You never know, it might not hurt the next time!

I wanted to post because your stats are pretty similar to what mine were when I first started. I'm 22,  5'5.5"-5'6" and I weighed 168 when I first started CC at the end of December.

As of writing this post I am 153 and I've been really happy with my weight loss thus far. I usually eat between 1500-2000 calories a day; the range is so large because I base the number on my activity level for a given day so I stay within a 500-1000 calorie deficit per day.

My initial reaction is that you may not compensating enough for what you are burning at the gym. Be honest with yourself about how much activity you are actually doing and eat to stay 500-1000 calories beneath your burn. You might not feel hungry, but your body really does need the food. I know that when I work out a ton in a given day I am starving, haha.

In a given week I usually do a 45-minute spin class 3-5 times a week, one of which is actually 60-minutes class; I try to do a weights class 2-3 times a week and I try to run 3 times a week because I'm training for a mini-marathon (4-5 miles during the week; long training run (9ish miles) on Sunday).

I would definitely suggest adding in more cardio along with the pilates and yoga if you have time. If your gym has cardio classes, which i'd assume they do if you have a weights class, try adding that in a couple times a week -- they can be a great fun workout :)

Hang in there and keep at it! Once you find the right mix the weight will come off, sometimes getting on the right schedule is the hardest part.

I just had this happen to me after a nine mile run not too long ago. I normally wear capris or running knickers but I didn't want to be confined to that in the summer when it's really hot.

I bought some BodyGlide and it works wonders. I bought it online, a friend recommended it to me and I couldn't find it in my area. Apply it to your inner thighs before you run and you should be alright, it kind of forms like a protective layer that helps avoid chafing. You can also use it on other areas like sports bra straps, etc.

Hope that helps!

I'm not quite sure why you would WANT to replace your dinner with pudding. Pudding won't make you full, at least not for very long, and I would think it would even make you feel sick to eat most of the box. Wouldn't it be better have a nice 300-400 calorie dinner of lean protein, complex carbs and veggies and a little treat of one serving of pudding (instead of 3/4 of the box)?

I buy generic sugar free snack packs of pudding or jello because i'm the kind of person that likes to have dessert after dinner on occasion. When you make pudding out of the box, try splitting it into single servings in rammekins or even little paper cups so you aren't tempted to eat the whole thing.

Just a suggestion...

Oh dear, I have been so bad in the last month or so about logging weight and participating in challenges.

I was on vacation from Feb 21-March 4 so I didn't really have a goal to lose, only to maintain.

Ever since coming back from vacation I've found it really hard to get back into a losing mindset.

To make a long story short:

Current weight is still 1555-156, which was the same as it was about a month ago.

I quit keeping track of my deficits last month, but I've decided to go back to that -- it seems to help with accountability.

Plan to get back on track:

• keep track of deficit totals
• only weigh in on Friday mornings (had slipped to checking everyday, definitely not a good habit for me)
  

...unless there is some truth behind this. I mean I have heard athletes excersize vigorously while  wearing heavy clothes or plastic wrap in attempts to sweat off more weight, to lose inches or go down weight classes (but i think that would be mainly water, and come back when they rehydrated)

 

Athletes that exercise in heavy clothing and sweatsuits are usually wrestlers or fighters that need to make weight. Their goal is to sweat out as much of the water weight they can immediately before they weight in to that they are in an unnaturally low weight class for their body shape. There is usually a time period between having to "make weight" and the actual event/match/fight when they well rehydrate and eat to fill their body back up.

I knew plently of serious wrestlers in high school that would eat nothing for an entire day and run 4 miles in a hoodie and sweatpants in order to make weight to then gorge on as much food they could get their hands on.

Back to the original post, I sweat a ton. My body temp is naturally on the lower side of normal so slight elevations in body temp cause me to sweat buckets. That's not to say that I'm burning more calories than the person on the treadmill next to me.

our farmer's market doesn't opyen back up until May...I've been missing it. The last week it was open in the fall I bout a zucchini the size of a 4 month old bably for like $1.00. haha. soo good. :)

I shop at sam's club for the following items:

• frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts (it's easier to thaw than the fresh ones at the grocery and if i'm going to freeze it anyway then why not right?)
•  frozen vegetables/fruits
• sandwich meat
• cereal (if I ever buy it)
• yogurt
• occasionally fresh fruit if they have a good deal -- for the past couple weeks they've had huge bags of navel oranges that are delicious! And my fiance and I went through within the week, haha.
  

Pretty much everything else I buy at the store. Those are the things we go through the most of and I think we definitely save money by buyin bulk.

Avoid buying snacks that are pre-portions into hundred calorie packs. You're paying for convenience when you could just separate them into ziplocks yourself when you get home.

I definitely agree about watching for what's on sale and buying a bunch of it. I've never been a big fish eater, but i'm trying to branch out and last week our grocery store had frozen tilapia fillets for basically half off so I bought two bags of them and i'm so glad I did because they are amazing! haha

Planning your meals out will also help you cut costs, especially if you try and work similar ingredients into your meal planning in different ways throughout the week. Finding new ways to use different ingredients will help save you money and can also cut down on prep and cooking time. LIke say you're going to cook some chicken breasts for chicken tacos or something and you're using chicken again later in the week to add to a pasta sauce -- roast all the chicken in the oven with salt and pepper. Use what you need for tacos then you already have the chicken ready for later in the week, just dice it and pop in the fridge!

I kind of rambled, apologies...