Posts by carolf_new

Wow.  Everyone is doing well.  Even those of us not losing just now are making necessary mind changes, which will benefit us later on.  Good on everyone!

It almost seems like we're making New Year's resolutions ... except that these aren't so much resolutions (which are easy to forget) and more like promises to ourselves.  Keeping promises is important.  We all recognize that honor demands we keep our promises ... to others.  Well, it's JUST as necessary for our honor that we keep ALL promises; perhaps particularly those to ourselves.

Didn't weigh myself this morning, so I don't know about weight.  Wii says I've lost 2 pounds since yesterday ... somehow, I don't think so.  I don't pay much attention to the Wii's measurements, other than making sure it's a downward trend over time.  My scale is much more accurate.  So next week, I'll have a report.

Doctor's visit on th e 15th is my current goal.  I want to have lost a measurable amount of weight by then. 

I'm back to doing yoga.  Not exactly strenuous exercise, but at least it's something.  And I'm doing the gentle exercises from PT.  Again, something.  At least I'm not simply a couch potato.  But yes, I'm looking forward to the time when I can get in there and exercise for real.

No one is mentioning water.  I'm having trouble with it.  It was easier when the weather was warm or merely cool; I tend to want to drink a lot then, anyway.  Now that the weather is cold, it's harder.  I much prefer ice water ... and then I get super cold!  I'm drinking water all the time, but I don't think I'm getting the full 64+ ounces per day.  How about the rest of you?

Margie:  HONK HONK HUGS

Donna - How sad about your nephew.  I'm so sorry. Hugs.

Exercise helps with emotions, particularly sorrow and stress.  It's all those endorphins.  So good luck with your round-robbin-house trades.  Exercise -- it's not just for weight loss anymore; you need it doubly.

Welcome back Rose!

Thanksgiving was quiet, but good.  Friday we broke out Xmas, so the house looks nice and festive.  BUT, no sweets out to tempt.  No pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce with the meal.  I was very, very good.

Water ... well, I need to ramp that back up.  Sigh.

I'll do a full report tomorrow - or Monday, since we'll be gone tomorrow.  But I wanted to get back to Rose and Donna.

Hang in there, ladies.

Hi all,

Margie - 9 miles!  Oh, how I wish I could do that!  Way to go!

In fact, I'm getting concerned about just how inflexible I am.  I can't clasp my hands behind my back without pain, for instance.  I'm too young to be this old!

I'm  hanging in there.  Decided not to buy another machine.  I already have the Weider Total Body Works 5000.  It's not very smooth, which is a problem for what I'm doing in PT, hence the search for pilates machine, which I'm using at PT.  However, we've figured out how to jury-rig the body works into something I can use for now.  And husband -- who did all the jury-rigging in the first place, is looking into making me a performer.  How's that for devotion?

Husband and I will be home alone for Thanksgiving, as well, so it will be a quiet one.  We'll either roast a chicken, or we'll look into the possiblity of ordering a Thanksgiving dinner for 4 made by the grocery store deli.  Bring it home, heat it up -- voila! Thanksgiving dinner plus leftovers, the easy way.  I know I could do this at the grocery store near my mother's home in the Chicago area, so it's not impossible.  I just have to see if the local folks do it.

Progress?  None, really.  Holding in place; that I am managing.  Weighed in this morning at 224.  That's holding the 4-lb loss from 228 I had last week, with little to no exercise (the machine was under reconstruction ...) So I hope to shed a pound or so this next week.

Ok all.  Drink that water.  Walk that mile.  Tote that barge.  Or something like that.

Margie - I know it's frustrating when your body keeps putting roadblocks in your way.  Hang in there!

I can't exercise right now, either.  We're working on it in PT, but meanwhile ...  However, I am still losing weight, one very slow pound at a time.  I'm being more careful than usual about what, how much and when I eat.  I try to keep it nutritious, light and regular (every 4-5 hours).  Since I can't do the exercise, the intake is even more important than normal.

Of course, eventually just the eating will not be enought -- I'll have to address the calorie burn.  But I'm doing what I can.  Maybe something similar would work for you?

Thanks for the shout out, Margie.  The back is doing better.

Actually, it's my pelvic saddle that's haywire.  That in turn puts the legs, feet, upper back and neck out of kilter - which means lots of pain when I do normal stuff, let alone exercise.  Still, I do what I can.

Fell in the shower beginning of this week, so took 3 days off during the worst of the stiffness.  Since I was already scheduled for PT, we simply shifted the focus.  The worst of the fall affected -- of course -- the pelvic saddle.  It's more in alignment now, and I've gone back to exercising.

A friend reminded me of an interesting factoid.  It's all about choices.  Each time we eat, we have a choice about what we will eat.  Each time we contemplate exercising, we have the choice - do it/don't do it.  Past choices are made.  But the next choice is still waiting.  How will you choose?

That thought kept me from buying soft pretzels, yesterday.

About water: Be careful not to drink too much.  It screws up all the electrolites, not just salt, if you drink too much.  "Too much" is a lot more than we think, though.  I've upped my intake; my goal is now to drink between 75-100 oz per day.  I'm still stuck at about 64, but I'll take it one day at a time.

Sunday check in

Well, so-so.  Got at least 64 oz of water in every day except Thursday, which was a strange day around here.  Did my Wii daily like clockwork until - yep, you guessed it - Thursday.  Or actually, I did exercise on Thurs, and after I finished Wii fit, I played a game of bowling and then 3 games of tennis.  The last tennis game I reached for a ball (which I then hit out of the lines) and twisted my back.  No exercise for me since then.  I think I can do the yoga today - I'm going to give it a try, anyway.

Haven't lost any weight, but haven't gained any either, and I'm not as worried about losing as I am about getting the stuff scheduled.

Did fine with the regular meals.  I think that's getting more and more ingrained.

Next?

Margie, you are exactly right: It it much easier to regain than to lose.

The body is designed to save calories in times of famine.  Insulin does more than merely help with sugar transfusions to the cells; it is also the storage hormone.  The brain gets the first bits of energy, then the liver, since it supplies the brain.  Then heart, then other muscles.

But all of those can only store so much.  The rest is stored as fat, and insulin is the method of storage.  The last place is the visceral cavity - the belly fat that is so dangerous.  By the time you start storing belly fat, you're not using up the calories you consume.

Ah, but the body is used to consuming those calories.  That's "normal."  Now, you go on a diet.  Oops.  Feels like famine to the body.  The more drastic the calorie cut, the more like famine it will seem to the body.  So insulin gets cracking on taking in every little bit of stray energy (calories) and packing it in the storage areas as fat -- and then the body shuts down.  The metabolism literally slows, so that you use less energy to do the same actions.  The LAST thing the body will do is let go of the reserves; those are for last-ditch need only.

That's why exercise and evenly spaced meals are so important - they force the metabolism to stay up and reassure the body that the caloric difference isn't really a famine, after all.

Without that, though, that old insulins will slurp up all the calories it can, and the body will slow down to let it happen -- and you gain a lot faster than you lost it.

It's a great survival mechanism for a hunter-gatherer society which can't be sure when meals are coming, and expends a lot of energy getting what meals it can.  Not so great for modern (indolent) life with mega grocery-stores.  But in evolutionary terms, it's only been a second or so that the modern norm has been around.  It'll take a while for the human body to adapt.

Meanwhile, we come here and commiserate with one another. 

Margie, I think you are too ambitious.  It's good that you are.  But I don't want to set myself up for failure.  I need some wins right now.

I got a pedometer, found that I'm doing roughly 6,000 steps per day, and that's with me doing a lot of puttering around the house.  I want to get it up to 10K, but it's not something that's going to happen overnight.  In fact, "they" say you should add on incrementally until you reach 10K.

So, how about we word the challenges a bit more friendly-like:

1. For the next 2 weeks, monitor water consumption and steps.

2. For the next 3 weeks after that, add some increment to what you find in #1.  Maybe add 8 ounces of water and 500 steps each week, but not more than the 10K/64-whatever ounces.

3. For the next 3 weeks after that, maintain level reached at #2

That's working on two things at once, which is awfully ambitious in itself.  We could also hone one at a time.  This is a discussion, not a decree.

And no, tea/milk/coffee at al do NOT count towards the 64-or-whatever ounces of water per day.  Plain water is actually magic.  Tea and coffee both contain caffeine, a diuretic.  Tannin, too is a diet-ambusher, and tea is high in tannin.  Sodas et al are sugary and/or have the same caffeine as coffee, if not more.

Per my doctor, it's 2 liters of WATER per day, in addition to whatever else you drink.  That's roughly 64 ounces.

The data for this, by the way, is from the recent full-scale studies of people who have managed to lose weight and keep it off for more than 2 years.  What the scientists found was actually quite grim: Very few manage it.  Losing weight is not a question of will power or character; it's a matter of biochemistry and the body hangs on to every pound.

But, in with the discouraging news were 3 things that leaped out as common to everyone who did lose weight:

1. Don't skip breakfast.  It really is the most important meal of the day.  Coming after 8 hours of sleep, the breakfast signals to the body not to go into starvation mode.

2. Eat at least 3 meals per day - spread the daily calories throughout the day.  Again, the goal is to keep the body from fearing starvation, which sends the body into starvation mode.  In starvation mode, not only does the body not give up fat stores, but it creates more insulin in order to store even more!

3. Drink 2 liters of water per day. (I've not heard the explanation for this one, but I suspect it has something to do with the way the cells give up fat and the natural waste system of the body.  I'm not a doctor, though.)

Just in case anyone was interested in the detail.  As you can see, I'm the curious type and do a lot of research into the things I spend time on.

It is SO frustrating to have pain hold you back from the exercise you know will help you lose weight, which in turn will help ease the pain!

My hips flared up again this past week, and I've not been able to do the bowling and tennis on the Wii as I've done the past few weeks.  I have continued with the unpacking, so there is at least some time where I'm sweating, so I'm getting cardio in.  But man, I'm so very tired of the pain!

Come on, Margie -- we gotta beat this, right?

Donna, where did you get 19K steps?  All I've read says the average in the US is about 4-6K, and the goal for fitness is 10k.  No wonder you are so hard on yourself!

I'm not saying ice cream is guilt-free; I'm just saying once in a long while is hardly a dietary crime.  Dairy, too, has its nutritional side.

When you are eating well but not losing weight, it could be a metabolic "stuckness" (my doctor says that's a medical term. ) which can be helped with exercise, or it could be you have built muscle.  Remember: muscle is heavier than fat and less efficient (burns up calories more.)  At some points, it's not enough to go by the scale; you have to look at inches, too.  If you've been regular about the toning, this could be what's going on.

Husband got me a wii for Christmas, which just (finally) arrived last week.  What a gas!  I have a 1/2 hour routine I do.  I start with two games of bowling to warm up.  Then I do 4-6 games of tennis (depending on how long the games run.  If we keep deucing and advantaging, it can be a long game ...) followed by another round of bowling to cool down.  After that, I'm literally dripping sweat.  So, while it may not be a major workout, it's plenty for me at my current level of fitness (that of someone aged 88!)

Husband tried out the boxing, which he says was a workout for him.  So that is in my future.  Should be fun.

[edited to change WII to wii - looked too much like world war 2!]

Donna and Margie:

Googling works for calorie expenditure, as well.  There are also some estimates of things here on Calorie+.  It works just like the food log -- you can find stuff in the CC+ database or you can add your own.

What Alice said.  You're sick, you need nutrition.

Besides, that calculated burn on the meter is if you do NOTHING.  Do you get up to go to the bathroom?  Do you wave your arms around while you talk?  Do you pace out of boredom and get back into bed? 

Anything you do beyond lie there and breathe is extra.

I repeat: What Alice said.

Get well!

I'm here.  Was out of town for the weekend, but back now.

Donna, Alice gave you good advice.  Eating too little can be worse than eating too much; it tricks your body into slowing the metabolism.  It's part of my problem.  Hence the promise to myself that I will eat every 4-5 hours.

So far, I'm keeping many of my promises.  Working on the others.  Right now I'm not worrying as much about calories or weight as I am about getting my life working around what I need to lose weight.  Refusing to skip meals has really changed things, for example!  But it's all part of making this a way of life, rather than a temporary diet.

Keep up the good work!

Hi all,

I'm back.  To new arrivals since my hiatus: Welcome!  I look forward to getting to know you here. To my old friends: Hi! How're y'all doing?

My hiatus was not intended, but a product of depression coupled with a lot of just not being with the program. I'm starting anew - heavier than when I started 18 months ago, but starting anew all the same.

I posted to my journal much more eloquently than I can here. 

Can I come home?

I'm just so ... dispirited.  I have tears in my eyes right now.

A little over a year ago, I came to CalorieCount all prepared to really lose weight for the last time in my life.  No gimmicks, no fads; just hard work and healthy nutrition.  I set a goal of 30 pounds in a year (from 220 to 190).  Well under one pound per week, so definitely acheivable.  And at 15% of my weight, it would give me the health benefits right at the start.

Now, a year later I have a serious sugar addiction.  I weigh 235. My hips and back hurt so much I can't exercise.  Stress levels are higher than I've had since my dad died and I became responsible for my ailing mom.  (Hmmm, the reason for the sugar addiction, perhaps?)

Guys, I need some serious help!

Guys, I really help!