Posts by susiecue

Original Post by tinycecil:

You sound just like me.  I only like the bad vegetables. 

There are no bad vegetables.  Even potatoes and corn and such have nutritional value as long as they're not overly processed.  It's just that you need a good variety of vegetables to get all the different kinds of nutrients you need.

Egg whites make a killer yummy meringue.  That's about the only way they're nice on their own though (and all the sugar means that while it's a relatively healthy dessert as desserts go, it's not exactly health food).

For a half decent compromise, you could try mixing in about two egg whites for every whole egg - but I'd still rather just have the whole egg.

Original Post by bbchibi:

At 5'3, going under 105lbs is generally underweight, even though it's alright for some people.

The only people it's alright for are people who are naturally thin and maintain that weight eating 2000ish calories/day.  In other words, it's not an appropriate goal for a dieter - regardless of how small framed they are (or think they are).

As for an appropriate goal, that's going to depend a *lot* on your frame and how much muscle you have.  A good goal would likely be in the 110-135 range. 

It's a bad plan.  Oatmeal, while a great food, is not a balanced meal.

Why not figure out a bunch of 400 calorie meals and 100 calorie snacks that you can mix and match between?  Then you won't have to actually count.  You'll just know that three meals is 1200 calories plus 3 snacks is 300 calories.  Easy.

Ideas would include:

• 1 cup pasta (200 cals) with either veggies and cheese (100 cals each) or with tomato-meat sauce (about 200 cals if you use 4 oz. ground beef and some veggies)
• sandwich and piece of fruit (150 cals for two slices of bread, 100 cals for 4 oz. poultry or 1/2 can tuna, 50-80 cals for veggies, 70-100 cals for fruit) 
• grilled chicken salad with a side of whole grain toast and a glass of milk (100 cals for 4 oz. chicken, 100 cals for veggies/dressing, 100 cals for the toast, 100 cals for the milk)
• oatmeal made with milk and a piece of fruit (300 cals for your oatmeal recipe, 100 cals for an apple or banana or other fruit)

Well, I think all coffee tastes like burnt rotten ass, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.  But a lot of the sugar free syrups are really good in steamers and/or italian sodas (syrup+club soda).  I wonder why it isn't good with coffee.

The syrups on those sort of drinks are absolute calorie bombs - worse even than the whipped cream.  380 calories sounds about right.

If you're not opposed to artificial sweeteners, get them to use sugar-free syrup and it'll take about 200 cals off your drink.

I think it depends a bit on the size of the single bedroom.  If it's basically a broom closet while the shared room is big, it might not be fair for that person to pay extra.  On the other hand, if the rooms are the same size, the person who doesn't have to share likely should pay more.  Basically, it depends on how badly you all want the single. 

The fairest way would probably be to "auction" it off.  So, if two people want it but aren't willing to pay a bit more while the other person is willing to pay 50% of the rent to get it, they should have it since they want it the most.  Plus, the other two would get a break on their rent.

Edited to note that I'm assuming all three people move in at the same time.  If one of the residents has been there a lot longer and is serving as de facto landlord, that changes things quite a bit.

Saying that that's what works for you *is* promoting it.  And I really don't understand why you'd risk your health to temporarily drop a couple of pounds.

I prefer red lentils to green and never soak those.  Even with green lentils, I still don't think you need to soak them.  (The green ones keep their shape better than red - red go all lovely and mushy which is ideal for making lentil soup.)

What you really need to do is train yourself to like vegetables - or at least some of them.  Most little kids don't like vegetables at first either, but their parents make them try them repeatedly and they learn to like them.  Unfortunately, your parents didn't bother with that step for you so you have to do it yourself as an adult.  In most cases, the 'gagging' is more psychological than physical.  You expect to have that reaction so you do.

It really is possible.  I've trained myself to like any number of healthy foods that I didn't until a year ago.  My most recent "I will eat this until I like it, darnit" was bananas.  I made myself have one every couple of weeks.  The first couple of times, I pureed it into a smoothie with other things I like (raspberries!).  After a couple of months of that, I tried one on its own.  They'll never be my favourite fruit, but I can eat one now.  (Though not cooked.  I have no interest in training myself that far.  Raw is good enough.)

If you really want to like vegetables, you can.  Just try different ones cooked different ways - and the ones you find most appealing (or least unappealing), try again and again until you like them. 

There is NO way to target fat loss from particular parts of your body.  Your body will lose the fat from wherever it wants to - usually the last place it put it.  There are NO exercises that will specifically make your stomach smaller.  There are NO exercises that will specifically make your thighs slimmer.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something (or has heard too many sales pitches).

As a general rule, a healthy diet with an appropriate number of calories combined with exercise will allow you to maintain a healthy slim shape overall.  Also, having active muscles raises your metabolism so that you can eat (a little) more and still lose weight. 

I'd likely go for something with lots of different ingredients like pizza or lasagne with lots of veggies, a little cheese and a little meat.  (I don't like too much cheese in/on either.)  In fact, I'm pretty sure I did live off exactly that for weeks at a time when I was a student.

That sounds like a good breakfast as long as the slices of toast are full-sized (i.e. you're getting 75-100 cals per slice before you add the cals from any spreads) and "some fruit" is a full serving (i.e. one piece not a half).  The milk should ideally be whole milk as well since you're trying to gain and I'm assuming you mean a full 1 cup serving.

Original Post by tortoisewins:

Also probably gained some muscle in the couch to 5k process.

 

This is very unlikely.  Women eating fewer calories than they burn find it practically impossible to put on muscle - and running certainly isn't going to do it.  What it may do, though, is make muscles that aren't used to being used retain water.  That can result in temporary gains of water weight - which the OP then saw drop off when she took a break.

The take-home message here is that the weightloss was "earned" when she was eating well but didn't show up for a couple of weeks until her muscles released the water they were hanging onto.

That works for ground beef (though it's still very fiddly if you want to use it in the Recipe tool because you have to play around with numbers until you get the right weight for the calories you want) but it doesn't work for any other meats.  I've entered my own data for several different weights of raw chicken, but it would be nice to just have a raw chicken entry that would let us select any weight, for example.