Posts by zoraj

there's no way i can give up the weight training... i look and feel so much better when i weight train... my arms and legs aren't smaller, but they are harder, and i appreciate that a lot. and i have patellefermoral syndrome in my left knee which has been helped by the weight training i've been doing for my legs. i can sprint at 8mph now... my knee would have collapsed at that speed six months ago.

my gym days have looked like this, and give me about an hour and a half total workout each time:

1: back/chest (bench press, lat pull down, row), 30 min cardio

2: bicep/tricep (curls), 30 min cardio

3. legs (squats, lunges, deadlifts), 30 min cardio

4. abs, 30-40 min cardio

if i eat more than i'm supposed to my weight increases dramatically and then decreases back to where it's supposed to be. i can gain 5 pounds by eating 200 extra calories for a day or two. but the decrease to my normal calories only puts me back at 155. no lower.

bump!

just remember to count the calories in it. after you try it, you might be really pissed that you wasted calories on it, because a lot of the brands out there taste like crap. 

i do two things with the whey protein powders i have:

use a scoop of the vanilla"designer whey protein" brand, mixed with 2 servings of egg beaters and a tablespoon of flour to make "protein pancake batter". they're a little flat, but tasty. (200-300 cals)

i will also add half a scoop of the chocolate designer whey protein to
a half cup of cottage cheese, 4 splenda, and a tablespoon of chunky peanut butter. you can leave out the peanut butter for less cals/fat, but it won't taste nearly as good. (300 cals)

i did measure myself recently... i had gained inches (!!!) but lost pounds. i definitely know something funky is going on with my lower body. i started doing squats, lunges, and deadlifts in january, and my legs are much harder now than they used to be, so i know i've built some good muscle there, but the jiggly fat is still on the back and sides.

i was mismeasuring portions for a while, but my boyfriend bought me a digital scale that read in grams, before i started the zigzag, so i've been able to be more precise (cereal and peanut butter were the worst... i was probably eating 1.5 times the recommended amount).

i know i just have to stick with it. i'm just the type of person who wants to be really proactive.

anybody have any recommendations for changing up my workout? i already lift (different body part each time-- chest/back, arms, legs), do my cardio after i lift and it's a mix of biking, elliptical cross trainer, and running.

Congratulations to you on your recovery. I know how hard it can be, and how skewed our perceptions are about are weight and appearance. I'm recovering from an eating disorder myself (I was a binge eater-- opposite end of the scale!), and the folks above are right-- you'll always get random opinions from other people about what you should look like-- an easy guide for you would be a BMI chart-- if it says you're a healthy weight, don't worry about "losing fat".

I can see what's upsetting you in your pictures-- the flabby bit on your stomach. Looking at your pics, I would say you don't need to lose any weight at all, but you want to change the way your body appears-- these are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!

If you want to look better, I would start doing some total-body resistance stuff (situps, pushups, pullups, squats, lunges, etc) to get that 'hard body' look-- and you can't do those things every day-- every other day at the minimum, because you have to give your body time to heal. If you start doing this, be aware that you will need to *increase your calories*-- that may seem crazy to you, but you'll be putting on muscle this way, and muscle requires more calories. The harder your body gets, the more muscle you have, the more you'll need to eat.

Stop looking at the number on the scale-- don't even weigh yourself during this time. Trust the process. Wait three months, evaluate. Maybe you want to add in some free weights at that time. It will take three months for you to really start noticing a difference.

And a final note-- if you can clearly see your ribs--- like we can in one of your pictures-- you don't need to lose any weight. Your bones are not beautiful-- your muscles are!

cottage cheese is a good one! there are also a couple "high protein" snack like things-- i have trouble getting all my protein in because i don't like eating meat, so i've found a lot of ways to get out of eating meat, but still get my protein:

cottage cheese (w. pb and some low cal or walden farms no cal choc syrup-- delish!)

egg whites (scrambled with shredded fat free cheese, scallions, and tomatoes-- a wonderful breakfast or dinner!)

lentils with shredded fat free cheese

special k protein blend cereal

kashi golean protein cereal

south beach cereal bars

tofu (you can bake it in the oven to make it crispy)

whey protein-- i actually use the vanilla whey, some egg beaters, ff milk, and a scoop of white flour to make protein pancakes-- YUM! if you decide to do this, buy the "designer whey protein" that trader joe's sells-- the other stuff is pretty crappy.

beans -- soy beans especially (edamame)

ff yogurt

broccoli is surprisingly high in protein for a veggie, too....

i've started drinking wine when i drink because it has the fewest calories-- around 90-120 per glass (3.5 oz). and because the lack of caff means it doesn't hit my low-cal-semi-empty stomach and make me the life of the party instantaneously (and then ravenously hungry later... i have been known to make couscous at 4am after a night out drinking).

i also disagree with many of the things said in this article. you *can* change your eating habits and exercise habits. people do fail because they try to do too much at one time, but saying, 'oh, don't bother, 'cause you'll never do it' is bs! you're not a slave to your own laziness!

-i never went to the gym regularly before october of 2003. since then, i made a change in my life and i go to the gym or exercise every week without fail-- usually 3-4 times per week.

-i am living proof that you can continue to lose weight after the 6 month mark-- maybe it's slower, but you do it. if i would have stopped at the 6 month mark, i'd still weigh 175 pounds. over the next 6 months, i lost an additional 30. not as drastic, and with several plateaus, but i still lost.

-you can only lose 10% of your body weight? if i had lost only 10% of my bodyweight, i'd still be over 200 pounds!

-"you're only going to be as small as whatever weight you were smallest at in your entire adult life". i was always overweight/obese. i was the fat kid all through elementary, middle, and high school. i was the fat girl in college. i started losing weight at 24. should my goal have been to just get down to 180 (my lowest weight in high school)? on a 5'4" frame? i don't think so!

this article bothers me because it seems to give a lot of excuses that i would have bought into if i hadn't already lost weight the hard way.

there but for the grace of . . .

i concur with everyone else-- it sounds like you have an emotional eating disorder. i've been there myself.

you've got to figure out what emotion is triggering your binge-eating and learn to conquer it. it's not an easy thing to do. i'm still struggling with it. one thing that helped me to figure out that i was binge-eater was to keep a log of what i ate, when, when i felt the urge to binge, and what was going on around the time i felt the urge to binge. i realized i had a problem with anger and frustration. anger and frustration used to send me right to the cookie jar.

on a side note, i was nearly there with gastric bypass myself. i was 5'4", 225 and researching it on the internet. i thank god that i read the diary of this woman who was going for the surgery and died from it. that scared me straight into the hard work of losing it all naturally.

a year later, i read about this woman who was my own starting height and weight who did have the surgery but didn't change any of her other habits. she'd lost 50 pounds in a year without doing anything. by exercising and restricting my calories, i'd lost 80. just think how much she would have lost if she'd been exercising, too!

thanks for the kind words, folks. i love this site because it lets me know i'm not the only one who's struggling with these kinds of things.

i used to be on the work "party" committee, and i would constantly be championing for healthier foods! everyone would always complain about how much more work it would be to get healthy foods, so eventually i started telling people we needed to accomodate the vegetarians! one time i spent the entire night before one of our parties making up tomatoes stuffed with pineapple and garnished with sunflower seeds and a little olive oil (this is really really good, despite how weird it sounds).  it was a lot of work, but i ate three of those suckers, didn't go over my calorie count for the day, and they were awesome!

i can't even stop counting on days when i purposefully say i'm not going to (like my birthday). in the back of my mind, i'm guestimating at how much i'm eating and how many calories are in them (except when i drink, then i tend to forget about a lot.... lol)

bf has gotten better about the taking me out to eat. when i was really heavy, he used to buy me a pint of ben and jerry's when i felt down. and you know i wasn't just going to eat a 1/4 of a cup (!!!) luckily, those days are over. i hadn't thought about telling him that going hiking together would make me happy. that's a really good idea,t hank you

i know there's a lot of us out there striving to be healthier, who've made this a lifestyle. we must stand strong!

eating more did not help me, and i am about to lower my calories more than i was.

i was eating 1450/day, not losing much, working out 3-4x/week, cardio and weights. weight was 152, want to get down to 135 (i'm 5'4", fairly muscular).

slowly increased to 2000 cals (purportedly maintenance for a 135# woman getting as much exercise as I was). gained 4-5 pounds, hovering between 156 and 157. went back down to 1800 for a few weeks, expecting weight loss. nada. not an ounce.

anyway, i gained 5 pounds and stayed steady. not exactly what i was after, but at least i didn't gain any more.

thanks melkor.

i am trying to practice my patience skills (it has been a real trial with upping my calorie intake...esp when i see the scale and my measurements moving up and not down...), so waiting two weeks is probably the best thing for me to do.

when i increase the weight-- should i still be able to do as many sets, but with 8 reps each?

i think i could make a big jump and easily do 8 reps with a 20 or 25# dumbbell at this point (esp. the bench presses-- when i was doing those on a machine i was doing 60+ pounds easy-- it was such a shock to find out what a weakling i was when i had to hold the dumbbells myself), but i usually can't keep up the sets with that weight-- it tires me out too quickly.

don't know if this will be helpful to you or not, but years ago, when i was uneducated and first started exercising, the only machine i used was the elliptical, going forwards. i lost no weight, because i was still overeating, but my butt did perk up noticeably. it wasn't bigger, but it was higher and harder.

nobody has righted their metabolism?