Posts by atsetti

Sounds worrying and worth call to your GP. Not something anyone on CC is really qualified to give an opinion on.

Oh, I know I would be big as a house if I were to sit at home and watch kids all day. Working from home has always caused me to overdo the snacking. Instead, I think I'd rather just not have the kids and spend my days in the gym, practising my yoga and going for long walks around town. Yeah, I could easily use a year's maternity leave for that sort of thing.

Another walker here. I walk 8-10 miles a day.

I agree with one of the previous posters in that a pair of MBTs will help to make the walk a little more challenging. They have a slope to the heel which makes for a rolling motion when you're walking and forces you to engage your core muscles for balance. They're pricey but far more effective than any other other physiological shoe in the market. I've been wearing mine for over a year and almost all my cellulite is gone, my tummy is flatter and my posture is vastly improved.

I think it's a good idea to set your playlist in the ole MP3 player to a tempo that will keep your pace. I find that if I am listening to slower, more relaxing tunes, I tend to move slower. By doing that, I am nowhere near my target heart rate.

Which brings me to the other point -- a heart rate monitor is a worthy investment. You can walk for miles for little effect if your heart rate is too low. Plus, most of them have a calorie counting function that will help in getting better approximations of how much you are burning. The estimates on this website are too vague and won't take into account any added weights you are carrying or breaks in your pace when you stop for a breather, etc. Polar makes some of the better monitors and they have several different ranges for every budget.

Something interesting I've found -- I spend far less on food when I am buying my groceries as I go. So on my walks, I will pop into the grocery store for whatever fresh ingredients I need for that day's meals. Not only am I getting the freshest produce possible this way but I am also avoiding the costly exercise of having to dump anything that goes off before I have a chance to get to it. I still do regular, big shops for heavier or frozen items that wouldn't do well in my backpack on the walk home, but this little daily shopping exercise has helps to burn calories, spare petrol/emmissions and save money.

Original Post by ducklingerthank:

Original Post by ladyfirelyght:

I've never understood this point of view. I think it's extremely selfish of people not to be willing to just put up with a boring conversation. What makes you so special? I feel like if it's important enough to them to talk about it, it's important enough for me to listen. But then again, that's just me.

 Totally agree! Nothing annoys me more than when I start to say something and my boyfriend stops me and says its boring, I always talk about that and he doesn't want to know. :(

I understand where you two are coming from, however, whilst I wish more people out there would be as enthusiastic and willing to listen to me talk about great apes, I appreciate it's not everyone's cuppa. It's pretty easy to read when people are genuinely bored or disinterested in what you are talking about. So why waste your breath when they've probably already tuned you out? If anything, it only serves to frustrate when you realise this person in front of you, probably a dear friend, doesn't share your interests. I'd hate to subject someone to a boring conversation for my own desire to talk about something that interests me and few others.

Whilst I think the "skinny b****" remark was inappropriate, I can appreciate all too well how irritating it can be when a friend or loved one will not let up when it comes to their weight loss successes.

One friend would get so carried away, it started to put off some of my other friends who didn't know him the three years ago when he was much heavier and perhaps didn't appreciate the way he would go on and on about weight loss, eating unhealthily, etc. Three years was a little too long for him to still be banging on about it all. There were other issues with this fella that I imagine were also related. Ego and self esteem problems, perhaps, that didn't go away with the lost weight.

Next time you feel the urge to share your knowledge and/or good news with your friends and family, perhaps you can first ask yourself what your reasons are for wanting to share. Are you needing validation? Are you looking for a pat on the back? Do their well wishes keep you on track? Because while support is great, especially when you are working towards a difficult goal, there comes a point where we need to find the strength from within to power on. Right?

As the article stated, the relationship between the basal metabolic rate and calorie consumption is not linear. Simple maths cannot and will not work when trying to figure the right calorie intake. Everyone's magic number is different. And their numbers will vary greatly over time, even over periods as few as a couple days. See, the human body is an incredibly intelligent and effective machine. When you starve it, it adjusts so that it can survive. It will cling to fat stores for a pretty long time before it will eat through them. The notion that starvation is an effective means of weight loss is an absurd one.

If one wanted to kick start their metabolism when faced with a plateau, the sensible and least harmful way to do this is by doing the precise opposite of what the original poster suggests. Instead of systematically reducing intake by 200 calories, so as to further hinder your body's ability to burn through energy, you should have one or two days at a level much higher than the restrictive one you're already trying out. For instance, someone on a 1500 calorie a day diet would do well to increase their intake for a day or two to 2000 calories, then return to their original 1500 level. After all, if the body's adjusted to the fewer level of calories and is burning slowly, you'd want it to speed up, give it a chance and reason to power up, not down further.

Tis true, potatoes do somehow fill you up better when they've been cooked, cooled and then heated back up. I don't know the science behind this but for me it simply works.

I par boil my spuds in their skins until they go soft enough that I can poke them with a fork without too much effort, then drain them and allow them to cool down to just above room temperature. Then I will toss them into the pan to cook with whatever I have in the oven (e.g., whole chicken that's been rubbed with spice and extra virgin olive oil). The skin goes crinkly and crunchy and the flesh is soft like mashed potato, but without all that butter or milk. Of course, I think this much preparation reduces the amount of nutrients. But when I do this, I find I am able to better control my portions as they seem far more filling than a baked potato.

I used their Goodbye Cellulite gel for the entire summer last year after seeing it featured on How to Look Good Naked as the top rated by their panel. It tautens the skin and feels slightly cooling. Results are very slight.

My before diet would have consisted of the following:

08:00 - Starbucks chai tea latte with soya milk, pumpkin scone
10:00 - Starbucks mocha with low fat milk and cream
12:00 - Sweet and sour chicken, 2-3 cups of rice, 2 spring rolls
15:00 - Another Starbucks mocha with low fat milk and cream, cookie
17:30 - Chocolate covered peanuts or 5-6 glasses of wine with friends
19:00 - 1/2 lb pasta with marinara, 1 pint of milk or 2-3 glasses of wine
21:00 - Another pint of milk, 4-5 cookies

My diet these days looks a little like this:

08:00 - 125g pot of fat-free fruit yogurt, tbsp Grape Nuts, 1/2 banana
10:00 - 2 cups of black coffee with a handful of berries
12:00 - Spinach & rocket, tomatoes, balsamic, low-fat mozzarella, crispbread
15:00 - Carrots & celery with homemade dip (fat-free yogurt & salsa)
17:30 - Clementine or grapes, wholegrain pita with homemade hummous
20:00 - Poached salmon & boiled new potatoes on wilted spinach, homemade sauce (fat-free greek yogurt and fresh dill) and a side of peas or asparagus
21:00 - Homemade ice lolly (juiced oranges, carrots and apples)

My moment --

My oldest sister was living in Seattle with her new husband and baby, whilst I had just moved to San Diego with my then-fiance and left the rest of our family in Chicago. My fiance was in the Navy and we had our share of troubles. I was depressed being so far from my family back in Chicago, my sister in Seattle, not knowing anyone and all the stress of being a military spouse. I'd really not considered what it would be like to spend so much time alone. So, I ate. And because I wanted to overcompensate for being a lousy partner to my fiance by being sad and resentful all the time, I would prepare elaborate dinners or take us out for slap up meals in top restaurants. It wasn't long before we both put on weight. No one really said anything. We didn't know very many people. The few people we did know, we'd just met. They weren't going to comment on our sudden weight gain.

Then, after about six months, I went to Seattle, where I met my mother and hung out with her, my sister and my sister's family for one week. The entire week I was there, I felt that my sister, her husband and my mother were being really hard on me about the food I was ordering, eating or talking about wanting. When I would tell them about my favourite restaurants or what my fiance and I would like to eat, they made comments along the lines of "well, that's nice once in awhile but you can't eat like that all the time." I didn't know what was going on until I got home, had some photos developed from the trip and realised I was as big as a house. I didn't even look like me. At least not the me I knew inside.

I don't know how I didn't notice. I think in my depression, I wasn't looking in the mirror or really taking any notice of anything other than my next meal.

I am 5'3".

I was 200 lbs then.

I am 130 lbs now.

I saw a photo of me at that size about three months ago and I wanted to cry. The urge was a strange combination of pity, pride, and fear. Pity for the girl in the photo who I no longer knew and could never fully understand. Pride that I'd managed to rid myself of all that weight and take control of my life. Fear that I could one day end up in the same place if I allowed myself to become so careless again.

If your calves are naturally very muscular, they will probably always be naturally very muscular.

Mine are also very thick. I lost a small amount in my calves (as I went down from 200 to 130 lbs) but they will always be bigger than the average bear's.

I have the same problem. My boobs are like deflated balloons. I cannot wear push up bras without all the skin gathering in a puddle of wrinkles.

Best advice I have is to get a properly fitted bra. Book an appointment at a department store or reputable boutique and get a real fitting, not just some teenager with a measuring tape.

It wasn't until I was properly fitted and adjusted that I realised I was wearing entirely the wrong cup size and needing to adjust one strap slightly tighter than the other to properly align what are marginally different sized breasts.

Who knew lingerie could be such a difficult thing to size, but it can be if you've been going about it all wrong.

Original Post by shevandell:

@smwhipple: I already have a heart rate monitor, it's the thing i called "pulsometer" (at least i think it is". It displays the amount of calories burned, too. So what you're saying is that i can trust this thing more than the machines at the gym?

I don't know of a difference, if any, between a "pulsometer" and heart rate monitor. Anything strapped to your person and programmed with your actual age, height, weight and sex, will yield far more accurate estimates of calories burned than a machine you may or may not be using properly or most efficiently.

If the count on the machine is vastly different, check to make sure it's set to kcal and not kj. Same goes for your "pulsometer".

Geez, I wish mine had become perkier. You ladies who got that certainly lucked out!

When I lost all my weight my boobs turned into deflated balloons. They are still just mushy bags of soft flesh, not at all like they used to be. I cannot wear balcony bras with a cleavage baring top, either, because the skin gets all dimply and wrinkled. Ew!

I don't know what my true size was when I was at my heaviest as I was sort of in denial and still wearing a 36D bra. My boobs were always spilling out the top. I cannot believe I walked around with the quadro-boob look going on! Nowadays, I get re-fitted every six months. I now wear a 32D, but like I said, there's no substance to that measurement as the cup is really just serving to contain all that skin.

Yuck.

Have seen many couples like that. Mostly when I was in university and going to the student fitness centre.