Posts by breakky

Not enough fat, not enough protein, not enough food!

1. Full fat greek yoghurt
2. Parsley/Spinach/Rocket/Salad Greens
3. Eggs
4. Chick Peas in many forms!
5. Berries (mostly blueberries and cherries)
6. Avocados
7. Oats (as oatmeal and in bread)
8. Goat Cheese
9. Carrots
10. Sourdough bread

No, those measurements sound good!

Hey girl, this is very similar to my story too! I am 5'6" and 142 and I can't get back down to 138 -- sometimes I decide to do it but I get hungry and eat normal calorie intake whenever I try! (And just to compound this: even when I get really strict and can force myself to restrict I still don't lose the weight...go figure.)

Now I definitley need to take my own advice here, so take what I'm saying as though I am saying it to both of us since we both need it.

1. Nobody except you can even tell when it comes to a 5 pound difference.
2.Don't let the ghost of "I was thinner once" haunt you! Everyone was thinner once, like when they were 12. That doesn't make it good or right or desirable.
3. You're at a healthy BMI. BMI might not even be a good indicator, but it certainly isn't too lenient -- if anything it's too strict! So if BMI says you're fine, and you're a healthy person all around, I'd say let it go!

You aren't fat at all. You do NOT look fat. Just ignore the person who says you could lose 10 pounds. You don't need to lose a thing - you look great.

I get worried too, thinking I look huge at 142. But my friends think I'm insane whenever I say that.

And in turn, I think you're crazy to think that you're fat!

Thanks to everyone for their input!

Bairn,  I know exactly what you mean. But when I look at your photos I can't imagine that you could ever possibly feel fat, since you are so slim and pretty!

Some of the people on this site do have such low goals that it makes me wonder if I am huge and don't know it! Still sometimes I do think I would have these "fat" days no matter what size I was. After all, I am a US 6/Aus 10 and an S in most shops, so I suspect I cannot actually be fat. I remember feeling fat at 138 pounds as well, in fact, even when I had friends ask me how I could be so slim and still eat chocolate.

Sometimes I feel that my need to be back at 138 (which became the magic number by accident...) is ruining my enjoyment of the here and now. Sometimes I resolve to lose the 4 pounds again, but it doesn't last long because I feel deprived.  And yet when I decide I won't try to lose the last four, and try to accept being 142 pounds, I feel fat and useless. It is such a struggle. This community helps a lot though, since sometimes just to be able to talk about it can be helpful.

Big weight fluctuations happen to me too - in fact they happen to most people! Don't worry, it might not be actual weight gain! It can be carbohydrate stores in your body if you happened to eat more carbs than usual. It could also be water weight if you had something high in sodium the previous day to your weigh-in.

If you're fluctuating a lot then start using a tape measure and looking at your measurements, or have a "measurment garment" (I have a pair of skinny jeans that I bought at my skinniest that are totally unforgiving). Don't just rely on the number on the scale.

okay, this might not work for everyone but this helped me lose 30 pounds since January (not all with CC). I bet my dad $20 every week that I would lose 1 pound that week. (It was a one sided bet - I would give him $20 if I didn't lose, but if I did lose I kept my $20.)

I woudl email him the photograph of the number on the scale, since I live alone. I chose my dad because I knew that even $20 wasn't as bad as disappointing him after everything he's done for me. I found that if I was directly and clearly accountable to the scale and to another person who wanted me to be healthy, I could find a way to lose the weight every week. I never plateaued and I never ate too little or overexercised.  It is really important to chose a person who loves you no matter what, and who will never put you down if you don't reach that week's goal. Otherwise I can see this strategy having problems.

This is just another approach, a bit different. I found it worked for me because I would want to eat cake or chocolate, but just the thought of havng to tell my dad I didn't lose the weight that week, and paying out my hard-earned cash, was enough to stop me. BUT I acknowledge that this may not work for everyone. I just thought I'd mention it.

I got the idea from www.stickK.com if you're interested.

I have a great idea for you! Don't bother buying baked beans and rinsing them. Buy some white beans, also called cannellini beans - they're basically the same thing but you can either buy them dry or canned with no sauce. I eat these all the time and it's only 71 cals for 100g of beans (canned value).

If anyone is curious about eggs, by the way, my doctor says you can have one every day but he recommends no more than that if you're trying to lose weight. I was glad as I eat a boiled egg almost every day - it's a great source of protein and good fat.

I eat cheese - full fat cheese - every single day and I've lost about 27 pounds in 6 months. The key is to eat white cheese, which allegedly has more protein and less fat in it. But I keep the servings small - a small round of goat's cheese has 50 calories and that's all I need on my lunchtime baguette (I live in Paris).

As for sweets, I eat sweets only on the weekends but I never eat a lot of them - maybe a crepe with nutella one day and an ice-cream the next. This to me is how to sustainably incorporate sweets into the diet. When you get the craving, you say "Well, I will have that chocolate, but I'll have it on saturday afternoon". You manage the cravings like you would a persistent child. Good parents don't give children everything they ask for, but at the same time, it's a cruel parent who would never let their child have anything they wanted. So no, two days won't ruin things, but it has to be only two days or a similar limit imposed and enforced.

If I have to have something sweet during the week I have yoghurt with honey or fruit.

However, you won't be able to healthily stay at 1200 cals if you add in an icecream which could be 300 cals - so you will need to up your exercise during the week. Your exercise levels seem low which might be restricting your food options and making dieting more misery-inducing. I'd up the exercise to 1 hour at least 2-3 days a week, or half an hour of more intense exercise like jogging or cycling. But at the same time if you start intense exercise you'll need rest days where you just walk a bit or something.

Hope this helps...I rambled a bit, sorry!

I eat some cucumber. If you have serious munchies go ahead and eat the entire cucumber. It's only like 20 calories for the whole thing and it's so crunchy and refreshing!

I was overweight despite being a black belt in tae kwon do and working out at the gym 4-5 days a week. It all comes down to what you eat. I would say to myself, "Wow, I just did 1.5 hours of tae kwon do, surely I can have this (extremely large) slice of cake for dessert! And ice cream!"  But you can't do that. I was still unhealthy, even though I was fit.

If you feellike you eat constantly, and this feels bad, I was in the same situation and I decided to keep calorie counting but combine it with the No S Diet (www.nosdiet.com). The founder doesnt' realise it but No S is actually a shorthand for calorie counting anyway, but it's much easier long-term. I am like you - I don't feel good eating little meals, and I didn't lose when I did.  I like to eat 3 meals a day and I think someone with an ED past might benefit from this more traditional and relaxed, "normal" set up.

Yoga is super easy to do at home - in some ways even better because you should not be competitive in it. Anyone who does yoga with competition on the brain is doing it wrong, and if the people in your area are snobby about it then they probably are doing it wrong. My mother is a yoga teacher and she has no time for these people, they see yoga as another fitness fad. Actually yoga is about learning to work with your body and connect with it. Very healthy for people with former EDs (my mom is one too).

I would advise getting books or a dvd. Go as traditional as possible. In terms of books you might want to try BKS Iyengar.

holyfear, they don't take them out of the picture at all. They allow them on days that start with S, "sometimes", so in moderation. This is basically what I plan to do for the rest of my life - small sweets only allowed twice a week. I can't be counting calories forever, though I think counting is more effective in the loss phase.

In the maintenance phase I think No S is a great strategy. The whole point of No S is to build healthy habits that become unconcious, and that you follow forever.