Fending off The Freshman Fifteen...

For those in college, or those quickly approaching it, beware!!! The Freshman Fifteen - the bane of college calorie counters everywhere - is ready to take a new group of victims on campuses nationwide this fall!

For those who have felt the pain of the 15lbs of cafeteria food, hanging out in the dorm, not having your highschool extracurriculars, and just being too darned lazy to get out and about, join me in losing that weight! :) As an upcoming junior in college, i'm still waging war against the last 10lbs - who's with me?!?

*EDIT*

August 4th, 2008

To anyone just seeing this topic, please know that you're still welcome to join us! There are voluntary weigh-ins each Wednesday if you're interested. Whether you're headed to college, in it, or leaving it we're happy to have you! :D

Good morning guys! It's weigh in day so I'm down to:

112.4 - yay!! I'm actually seeing weight loss - I'm so happy! Pretty soon I'll be at my first mini goal which is 110.

My goal for next week is 111.something

Edit: I just realized today isn't weigh in day, tomorrow is. I'll weigh in again tomorrow. Either way it's still a good weight :)

Haha, congratulations Lea!!  I'm actually seeing weight loss too - how exciting!  It feels so good to be working on the second five pounds now instead of the first, if that makes any sense.  This morning I was down to 152.6 :).

I just realised how much of a girls club this is.

Lol, you *just* realized that? :)

This is random, but Heather, how did you get your weight loss graph on your profile??

I'm full of randomness today, but has anyone looked at Julie's profile??  I didn't realize she was leaving CC...I wondered where she was these past two weeks.  Sad times :(.  Oh well, good for her that she reached her goal I guess!

Lea and Carrie - That's awesome!! :D I'm so happy for you both! I'll be lucky to make my maintenance goal for this week after all of that bad stuff on the 4th + TTOM -_- The scale has not been nice!

Anyways, i'm really glad you pointed that out, Carrie - I'd wondered what had happened to Julie. I just hope that she's doing ok and that she's taking care of herself :)

To get your graph in your profile:

1. View your graph on your "Analysis: weight" page
2. Right click the picture and view "Properties"
3. Copy the address (should end in .JPG, I think)
4. Go to "Edit my Page"
5. In your bio, click the insert picture button (looks like a pic of a tree)
6. Paste in the address where it says "Image URL"

Voila! Graph :) Mine is centered, but that's about as fancy as I get :P hehe

Thanks!!  And I know, TTOM is soooo annoying...mine has decided to start coming every 3 to 3 1/2 weeks for some reason since I went to school :/.  I'll retain water and gain like 2 or 3 pounds the week before, lose a little during, and lose relatively quickly the week after...but then the next week is already the week before again!  Such a pain.

Well it's weigh in day, and I'm weighing in at 152.0!  That's down from 153.8 a week ago.  I weighed myself right after my run though, so some of that was probably water weight that I sweated off.  Oh well, I'm taking it!! :)

Goal for next week: 151

Awesome job, Carrie!! I'm sorry I didn't weigh in yesterday - I woke up late and had to RUN out of the house. I forgot to weigh, and didn't want to log my stuff later in the day because I would have eaten and all and my body wouldn't be at the same place. I checked this morning though, first thing! :)

WEIGH IN:

 128.5lbs

Weight Goal for next week: 127.0lbs (Or better! Hopefully coming out of TTOM will help me..)

Work-Out Goal for next week: at least 3x doing 30-30-30 (I've really fallen off the train on the work-outs. I have GOT to make myself start going back!)

Down 1.0lbs from 129.5lbs last Wednesday :) That was unexpected after all of that junk on the 4th...

Work-Outs since last Wednesday: NONE! i've been really horrible... but I have spent a few hours running around, mindlessly spinning my rifle, so my arms are better for that. Its the rest of me that needs attention!

Since I didn't go over the 130, I get my other reward :) One month of tanning! (Yaaaaay!) I'll probably get that sometime today or tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited about it! Yipee ^_^

Yay, good job Heather!! :)

I know what you mean about the workouts...I didn't do any last week because I was pretty busy, but this week I ran Monday and Wednesday, so now I just have to make myself do it again tomorrow.  

Yay for tanning!  I can't go tanning...well I have before, but I have pretty fair skin and red hair, and my dad and grandma have both had skin cancer (just had some spots removed, nothing too serious), so I think it's probably a terrible idea for me, lol.  I've learned to accept my fair skin.

I've got super fair skin too carrie, the trick is learning to love it. Tan looks great on some people but for those of us with naturally fair complexions tend to look better the way we are. Wear darker colors to accentuate it - I get more compliments on my skin than anything else!

Alright I'm making a point to work out every day until sunday. Then I'm going away from Sunday-Wednesday (going up to boston for college orientation!), I'll be home for two days and these two days are my birthday celebration days - Thursday is my 18th birthday and I'm having dinner with my friends and a pool party. Friday my boyfriend has a surprise planned. THEN on Saturday I'm going up to North Jersey for a reunion with my friends from a summer program I was at last year - first we're having a barbecue at the school we all stayed at and then we're having a hotel party. I'll be home midday Sunday, but I am just super busy! So I'm really going to push myself for the next few days because I don't know how much excersize I'll be getting in.

Sounds like an excellent plan, Lea! I'm sure you'll more than make up for it with all of that exercise. Happy almost-your-birthday! :D 18 is a fun one! 19 and 20 are kind of eeh, but I'm looking forward to 21 in Feb ;) haha, but that may not be very diet friendly :P

I looooove really pretty porcelain skin. I have a friend who has the most BEAUTIFUL skin - I'd way rather have hers than be tan... I think it just makes all of your features POP, but its still really soft. (And she always talks about how bad she wants to be tan... it makes me nuts! lol) I guess its one extreme or the other, and I'll just never have that pretty pale. I had jaundice really bad as a baby and I always feel like I look yellow if I get too pale... I almost look a little yellow in the picture I have up now! Just a self-image thing - I'm sure no one else notices any difference :)

I'm wondering how much it'll be... i'd expect unlimited to be ~$50, but IDK. I only usually go for about a month a year, and I figure now is a good time to start, since I'll have to go back up to school on the 15th. when I get up there, i'll just lay out by the pool at the rec center ('cause I can almost do that now ;D) and keep it up that way! :D

I weighed in at 183.5 today - lowest I've weighed. 180 is my goal, but I'm not sure if that's good enough for me. We'll see!

What about you guys, where have you all gone!

I'm still here :)

Congrats Matty! That's really great! Doesn't it feel so good to be close to your goal? :D

I'm still stuck in my 128.5 rut... (sometimes 129 - probably due to TTOM; I'm hoping I'll fall back down to a regular weight on Wed/Thurs when its OVER!) I haven't been doing much formal exercise but I went to play tennis Saturday and Sunday for about an hour and a half each day (very light - I'm just learning). I only logged it as 30 mins of exercise (General Tennis) since it wasn't like "hardcore playing". I had a lot of fun though! I've also been spinning my rifle - I think that my left arm is finally starting to catch up to my right. I'm trying to make myself do things left handed now (little things, like opening doors and all) just so that I won't become monsterously uneven. :P

I'm going to go and work out tonight and hopefully tomorrow too.  I'm so motivated to get fit now that I feel like I've lost a lot of the fat.

I do have one concern I'd like to get you guys' opinion on:

Ok, that body fat scale I got a few weeks ago, I figured out that i was inputting my information wrong (I thought it was asking for the date, when in fact, it was my height... /smacks foreheaD).  I weighed myself now and my bf% is coming up around 24%. I'm hoping to get down around 18-20%. I know that the only way to do that is exercise, exercise, exercise. But I also still see a lot of visible fat on my body (on my back and around my middle). I know you can't get rid of fat by working out exactly, just increase your defecit, which helps you lose faster. Since you can't spot reduce, you pretty much just have to try to keep losing and hope that it comes off! So I'm wondering... CC tells me not to go below about 120, and I wasn't planning on going below 125... but I'm 3.5lbs away from my goal now and I feel like I'm still carrying a lot of extra jelly - granted, not NEARLY what I was carrying before. Should I just hope that I increase in muscle enough to stay >120, and keep the diet up so as to lose the fat? Is there a method/way for me to do this best?

Thanks for the help, guys - I might just start a new thread asking this too since its so long!

I'm still here too!!  

I second the congrats, Matt!!

Heather, I was stuck at 152.6 for almost a week, and then this morning I magically jumped down a whole pound to 151.4!  So don't give up hope, lol.  TTOM always makes me gain a little too.  Congrats on losing so much of that "extra jelly" already!  As for your question, I'm not really sure.  As women though, our bodies are programmed to carry a little "extra jelly"...makes childbearing easier or something.  Psshh...who wants kids anyway, right?  If you get down to 120 and you still don't like how you look...you might just have to work on accepting it! :)

I hope someone else can give you better advice, lol!

I've weighed 181.5 the last two days. Hoping to hit 180, my goal, by next week.  I'm also starting to pack on a nice bit of muscle so things are going really great.

Great job Matty! You're really moving along the last week or two! Congrats :D Just don't lighten up... I think I've been going less hard on myself now that I'm close to my goal and it feels like I'll never get there, lol.

Carrie, good job for you too! Almost down to that 150 mark!! :D You're doing great! :) And you were right, of course - this morning I was at 128.0 and TTOM still isn't over. So maybe all hope is not lost! And I think you're right again about just trying to learn to love what I've got... I'll keep up the exercise and all, and I'll try to be grateful for what I've done so far, so that I don't push myself too far.

WEIGH IN:

 128.0lbs

Weight Goal for next week: 127.0lbs (Or better!)

Work-Out Goal for next week: at least 3x doing 30-30-30 (or 2x doing 30-30-30 workouts and LOTS of extra activity!)

Down 0.5lbs from 128.5lbs last Thursday (since I weighed in a day late!)

Work-Outs since last Wednesday: 2x doing 30-30-30 and ~2hrs of light tennis over the weekend 

What do you generally do, for exercise?

Once I get down as low as I want I'm actually going to have to start like - doubling my eating to gain muscle. I think I'll stick with this thread though. I've done better on this site with you girls then I've done with any bodybuilding website, or anything.

Well this morning when I woke up I weighed 152.0...so I cheated.  I went for a run and weighed myself when I got back before I drank any water, lol.  I was 151.2! :)  I have a feeling I'm going to be gaining next week because it'll be right before/at the start of TTOM, so I don't want to set a goal, really.  Hopefully after it's over, I'll break 150!!  Then, once I hit 149, I'll be halfway to my goal!!!! :D

I think I'm getting to the point where exercise is starting to be really important for me.  Just with my eating I've been keeping around a 500 calorie deficit, but losing one pound per week isn't going to get me to my goal on time.  If I go for a run every morning, though, and burn an extra 200 calories or so, then I can lose a pound every 5 days, and I think if I do that - just maybe - I could make it!  The last two days I've gotten up a little earlier than normal and ran before it's ridiculously hot outside, and that's been nice.  Hopefully I can keep it up!

Good job Heather and Matt!!  You guys inspire me with your crazy workouts :).

I'm glad you guys haven't disappeared...this thread has been one of my favorite things about this site.  Maybe when it's closer to time to go back to school (are you guys still in school?  I forget), we should start a new thread and try to get some new recruits.

Matty - Well i'm really glad to hear that! You definitely look like you're getting some good results :) This thread has helped me so much, just because I feel like I'm doing it with friends, you know?

My exercise routine typically goes:

30mins of cardio
This is basically running 3 miles on the weight loss program on the elliptical. That might sound easy, but I'm really busting my tail to make 3 miles in 30 mins! lol. I do a 3 minute cooldown for 1/4 mile, and burn about 323calories byy the time I'm done with that.

30mins of weightlifting
I usually do: Machine for inner thigh, Machine for outer thigh, Abdominal crunch machine, Bicep curls, Tricep (behind the head) lifts, freeweight lunges, a one-hand one-foot kneeling on a bench thing with a free weight that works back/triceps, lateral pulldown and rowing machine (which might be cardio, IDK) this doesn't burn as much... usually 70-100cal for all of it, I think. I only row for about 3-5 mins.

30mins of calisthenics
I alternate 25 crunches (regular), 25 butt ups (feet apart and turned out), 25 crunches (regular), 25 butt ups (feet apart and turned in), 25 crunches (left oblique), 25 butt ups (feet together and turned out), 25 crunches (right oblique), 25 butt ups (feet together and turned in). All in all, 100 crunches, 100 butt ups. I go constantly since they're done from the same position, I just switch muscle groups. I also do leg lifts (from an all 4's position). I tried push ups last night and I could actually do a decent one so those might become part of my routine too! :) I usually burn a similar 70-100cal total for this stuff too.

Carrie - Lol, I don't blame you at all! Its so frustrating to be down, down, down, and then on the day of weigh in it pops back up just for fun... You're doing so great! :D I got to that point to back at the beginning of June. I don't think I'd have ever made it lower than 133 without exercise, so i'm glad I finally got myself into it! I envy you for having the tolerance to run outside. I'm in Tennessee and its hot here too! And humid as can be... phew!

It makes me sad that our thread has gotten smaller - but I do like that we're all close and know eachother's goals and habits pretty well by now =) Lea is just on vacation, but its not as many people as it was. I'm going to be a junior in college this year, so I'm still there! I'll definitely start another thread. How soon would you guys like me to do it? I know schools start at different times in different places. I'll be headed back to mine August 15th. One more month!!! :D

I'm going to resume rock climbing and swimming when I get back to school... plus I'm thinking about taking a few recreational pilates/yoga classes at the rec center since its right across the street from my apt and free for students :D

I got back today guys! Well I was at college orientation and I ate like a pig, which kind of scares me. I mean, it was structured and they kind of fed us like...every few hours and the options were minimal. One day it was salad bar (no protein options) and pizza or wings. The other day it was burgers and hot dogs. That day they had veggies burgers so I was more than happy to pear that with my salad. However, even though I DID make the best possible choices at mealtimes, we had frequent cookie breaks and ice cream things which I ate a TON of. I was activeish in that we climbed a lot of stairs, but I wasn't NEARLY as active as I usually am since I had NO time for excersize. I weighed myself when I got home and was 116.4, which is a normal mid day fluctuation, so maybe I did better than I thought. I have a series of nice dinners coming up for my 18th birthday

(Today is sushi with friends, tomorrow is home cooked at the house, friday is a nice dinner with the boyfriend)

The thing that was totally scary about this week is that I spent 3 days living like a college student and I didn't make good decisions at all. I'm here trying to prepare myself for the transition and then in the program DESIGNED to prepare me for the transition I couldn't say no to the sweets I was offered! Oh well, I got my schedule and it's really good and leaves lots of exercize time. Plus, I checked out the cafeteria and they have an extensive salad bar with a DELICIOUS 25 cal/2 tbsp balsamic dressing, a 45 cal/2 tbsp raspberry vinaigrette, hard boiled eggs, tuna, grilled chicken, turkey, etc. And they have an omlette station where I can easily get egg white omelletes made with any veggie I want!