Posts by lfrigo

I am 38, female. Think my mom is great! Of course, I sometimes "hated" her when I was 13, but that's a different story...

I think that you hear about the "bad" mothers so much, because people talk more about things that are worth complaining about. People with less traumatic memories have less to talk about. It's kind of like I was on a forum where people were talking about their recovery from a surgical procedure--the stories of poor recoveries were many, but that's because the people with easy recoveries had nothing interesting to write about.

woohoo! Thank you for the congratulations. I slept much better last night than the same day four years ago.

What a relief!

Congratulations! Keep up your good work.

What a great "problem" to have: your pants falling down! :)

Original Post by killerqueen215:

KFC abuses chickens (and I wonder what other food companies do this, actually).  And...their food upsets my stomach.  I'd rather junk out on a pizza...

 Who else abuses their chickens?! Although KFC is singled out for how poorly their chickens are treated, there is nothing unique about it. ANY time you buy chicken, whether in a fast food restaurant or in the grocery store (whole or processed), the chickens come from horrible living conditions. The workers get awful working conditions as well.

The only way to eat a decent chicken is to raise it yourself, or buy it from one of the exceptions, a farm that treats its chickens like real animals. Even with "organic" or "free range" labeled chickens, that doesn't guarantee one that was raised humanely. The "organic" label only means that the chicken was given certain kinds of foods and no drugs. The "free range" label means nothing (they still keep the chickens packed indoors, and technically the chickens can go outside to a little patch of grass, but they are raised in a way that trains out the instinct to go outside).

To be a little more "low impact" in your requests: 

-Start with the thing on the menu that is closest to what you consider healthy. Modify from there.

-If you're asking for a lot of modifications and it's starting to get complicated, think about whether you can just do some of them at the table instead (like if you don't want croutons on the salad, just pick them off yourself)

-Mix and match appetizers, salads, soups, and side dishes to get the meal you want

-Forget about special orders. Just order something small, or eat only part of your dinner, then fill up on a healthy snack later (like fresh fruit/veggies; bring along a small cooler or insulated bag to make it easier to have these on hand). 

Plan your eating based on calories and portion size. You need to let your BRAIN decide about eating for a while, not your stomach. Because your stomach is not a good indicator. It can feel hungry when you don't need food. It can fail to feel hungry when you are starving.

Through trial and error learn how to eye ball your food and estimate how much will be enough. Put that much on your plate, and no seconds. Decide about dessert ahead of time, and stick with your decision about the amount you decided you would have (none, a whole piece, a half, etc). 

It'll take some time to learn how much leaves you satisfied (but not overly) an hour later. And remember, if actually don't eat enough at this meal, it's not like you're going to starve to death. You can have more food later! 

Ah, I've been through just the same thing. The low-calorie losing phase was far easier than the transition into maintenance. Here is what worked for me, it's somewhat redundant with previous posts, but I'll share my plan anyway.

1. Set your goal for average daily calorie intake

2. Continue logging EVERY bite of food everyday. Use a little notebook to jot things down as you go, and log it in here online every evening. 

3. Each evening, use the Analysis tool to get the average calories for "this month" (use the drop down thing to select "this month").  Your goal is that by the end of the month, the AVERAGE calorie intake for that month is at your goal. It's perfectly ok if one day is higher or lower, they just need to average each other out. However, if you see yourself going between hi/lo extremes, you might also set a firm range (e.g., no less than 1600, no more than 2700, or whatever makes sense for you). Towards the end of the month, if your average is too high, you might end up having to "diet" for a few days to get your average back on track (but don't do anything extreme).

4. Weigh yourself regularly.(keep a written record, or record here online--the graph is very nice). If your weight is within your acceptable range, don't worry about blips in the calories! Remember that maintenance is a very long-term proposition, you have to look at the big picture.

5. No more binging for you! One way to prevent that is to make a rule that you will eat NOTHING without writing it down, including how much you plan to eat and how many calories that involves. Keep a running tally (estimated but on paper) through the day; when you've "spent" all your calories for the day you're done. 

hmm...this sounds awfully obsessive! But it's not that way in practice, for me at least. It's become automatic to jot down foods/portions through the day (though I'm the only one who could translate the notes!) and logging the foods online just takes a few minutes a day; I'm online all the time anyway. 

How many calories in the soup? How many calories have you already eaten today? What is your daily goal? Those are the questions you have to ask yourself and think about.

How many pounds have you lost? You need to focus on maintaining THAT, not on catching that elusive, "just another 3 pounds". Focus on the good work that you've done and give yourself credit!

And keep in mind that weight loss often does get slower and slower. 

Also, you don't need to worry needlessly about "gaining it all back" if you just set a red flag weight level. What I mean by that is set a level of lbs. where if you get up to that level, you'll go back into diet-mode, instead of maintenance mode. For example, my current goal is to be at 135, and I do fluctuate between 132-137, and that's fine. But if the scale ever tips at 141 or higher, that's when I push back my calories down to 1500 for a few days. Seems like that's all it takes.

Hey, I've been on calorie-count since June but just found this thread...I'm 5'6" as well so it jumped out at me. It's neat to see all of you in the same height range and the variety of goals.

Here's my Question For Everyone who is 5'6": How many calories do you eat to maintain your weight? Especially for those of you with only light to moderate activity.  

And my rambling stuff is below...

Last spring, I was up to 160 ( +a few?) and have gotten down to about 137, which was my original goal weight. So, I guess I've lost about 25 pounds. Woohoo! The day I decided I needed to lose weight, that was really scarey, because by saying that I wanted to lose weight implied that it was not ok to be overweight, which I was but didn't know if I could actually be successful in losing it.

But it did work out. Thanks mostly to calorie counting/awareness. Pants started at too tight 10/12's....that was my motivation to lose weight. I just couldn't stand to go shopping just in order to buy bigger pants. So  I lost the weight over the summer and was all excited in the fall to try on my pants to see how well they fit. Well, they were too big! I was irked at first, but then decided that wasn't such a bad problem to have. I went out and bought a bunch of 8's, not realizing that I should have been trying on 6's. I guess the last time I fit into 6's I was like 14 years old and I know I'm not that small again, so it never occurred to me to go as small as size 6. But that was 20 years ago and clothing sizes have really grown over the years. Funny thing is that sizes on sewing patterns haven't shifted--when I sew for myself from a pattern, I'm size 14! 

It's been harder maintaining weight than losing it in the first place. Losing is kind of fun and motivating, to see the numbers go down. To help me maintain, I sort of have a goal to lose a few more pounds, maybe down to 133. And if I ever see that scale inching toward 140, I do a few low-cal diet days.

Once my weight is stable and I get past my surgery and stuff, I want to work on toning up (thighs, hip, buttocks, maybe the abdomen will need some post-surgery). Maybe lose a few more pounds in the summer. That's such an easier time to lose weight. Trying to start weight loss in the winter would have been very difficult--maybe that's why weight-loss New Year's resolutions hardly ever work out, it's just not a good time of year to start. Your body is still in hibernation mode. :)

You have to look at the big picture, not just what you ate yesterday, but your average over the week, month, or last few months. One high day is not a failure, it's just one bad day. All you have to do is start over tomorrow with the goal of eating 1800 calories. Forget about the 3300, what's done is done. You might also look at what you ate on the 3300 day and ask yourself: which of these items coudl I have done without? Why did I eat it? What would I do differently in the same situation to help me build up resistance or avoid temptation in that kind of particular situation? Are there certain foods or certain social situations that were the problem? What will you do about those in the future? Write down specific action plans. None of these questions should be about guilt or blame...instead they are meant as practical questions to learn about your habits.

Also, do NOT try to compensate for one high day with an extra low day. This is only asking for trouble, because you need to work on learning moderation and balance. Instead, set a goal for the average calories that you'll eat over the next week.

You don't stop eating for the day. It's just, well, too bad, you'll be over for today. But plan some light meals for the rest of the day. Veggie soup with a limited number of crackers could be a good lunch.

So, you screwed up today's breakfast! Don't focus so much on the rest of today, but learn from your mistake so that you can develop a better plan for all of the breakfasts in front of you in the future. What went wrong? Did you just start eating without a plan? Did you eat without thinking about it? Figure out what went wrong and how you would better handle it in the future. 

For example, a useful strategy would be to develop a set breakfast, something around 350-400 calories. (A good rule of thumb is to base it on whole grains [cereal, oatmeal] and fruit, plus a bit of dairy or protein). Then every day, you ALWAYS eat that first, before even considering eating anything else. Just get yourself into a nice breakfast routine and it will do wonders.