Hi! I'm new here and just starting out.

Hi all -- This is my first time doing this so bare with me.   

 1. Calorie Count Name (user id): Comet
2. Name you prefer to be called in discussions: Christy
3. Age & Sex: 32 year old Female
4. General Location: Minnesota
5. Married? Single? Married for 8.5 years
6. Kids? Furbabies? 2 kids, Brianna (6) and Erik (3); 18 month old dog (Sadie), 2 cats - Mystic (8.5) and Sugar (7.5)
7. Favorite color? Purple and green
8. Favorite movie? I'm not sure, there are so many
9. Hobbies? Reading, walking, taking care of the family and pets, cooking and baking, light bicycling
10. Favorite Snack? Anything to do with chocolate or ice cream -- yum!
11. Favorite Beverage? Diet Coke
12. Biggest Obstacle to Getting Healthy? Not having enough time to exercise properly and a picky family with food
13. Weight/Fitness Goal? I'd like to loose around 80 pounds, but any weight loss would be awesome!
14. Least Favorite Household Chore? Cleaning the bathrooms -- yuck!
15. How did you find Calorie Count? An email from where we bought our elliptical machine
16. Anything Else You'd Like To Share? Does anyone out there have and quick (15-30 minute) workout methods?  Right now I do the Elliptical for 25-30 minutes 3-5 times a week and take the dog around the loop (2.5 mile radius around our house) for a walk/run the other days of the week, but I don't seem to be dropping any weight.  The walk/run has been a year long thing and the elliptical is pretty new, 2-3 months, but I am looking for other ideas to mix in!

Try a cardio workout! Anything that gets your heart rate up helps you lose weight! Also what foods are you eating look at the fat calories and the carbs!

Here's a table that helps me:

Cal        Fat cal      %of fat cal      carbs      % of carbs

1200      30g            23%              120g          40%

1500      40g            24%               170g         45%

1800      50g            25%               210g         47%

2000      60g            27%               250g         50%

2200      70g            28%               300g         53%

2500      80g           29%                345g          55%

Hi js726.

 Looking at the analysis on the food log page, I know that I need to cut back on fat in my diet so I have been doing that.  As far as the cardio goes, I do a heart rate interval on the elliptical that keeps your heart rate varying between the fatblaster and cardioblaster mode with varying intensities of resistance.  I do all this at a "jogging" pace for the full workout and was told by the personal trainers at the elliptical shop that it was a workout to maximize cardio, fat metabolism, and endurance.  Is there another cardio workout that you can suggest?  I'm not an avid exerciser so I don't know all the terms and I need something that I can do with the kids in the house or going with me (like outdoors).  A gym is not an option because of the time constraints with the kids and working.

 Your chart is awesome and I will definitely look at my foods more closley to figure it out and try to get it to those percentages.

How many meals are you eating in a day? Eating smaller meals through out the day increases your "burn" (I measure my food portions on serving sizes) On a typical day I will eat breakfast then a snack inbetween breakfast and lunch, then lunch, snack, dinner then a snack around 7:30- 8:00pm I dont drink soda's only water and juice sometimes. I stay in my limits of 1200 calories and I dont exercise all that much...except when at the hospital running around taking care of patients. Just make sure you are not skipping meals and keep to a strict schedule you dont have to exercise daily either, it's better for your body to have rest and heal the muscles you are working so alternate the muscles you work! Sleep can also affect your weight loss, make sure you are getting enough sleep at night. I know it is hard sometimes with kids! Hang in there, you will get there!

Jenn

Thanks -- I only have my three meals a day and a snack some nights before bed.  During the day at work I don't have a time that I can really have other snacks, but I will try to work that in.  I do drink diet coke - about one 20 oz bottle a day - and 50-60 oz of water; not to mention 16 oz of skim milk a day.  On the weekends - no soda at all.  I am trying to cut the soda out of my diet completely, but I'm having a tough time without the caffiene and I can't drink tea or coffee (I literally get sick).  I think that the schedule thing may be a problem too because I never eat at the same time during the day, only the supper meal is within the same time frame.  Sleep -- what's that?!  I average about 5-7 hours a night depending on if it is the weekend or not --- I definitely need more of that!!  Does sleep really help with the weight loss?  At work I am always running around the lab and back and forth to my bosses office in the clinic and that is exercise I don't even count (our lab once had people where pedometers for a month and we averaged 4-6 miles of walking a day per person).  I have been measuring my portion sizes and following the recommended portions on the product -- I am not feeling "hungry" per se, I am just not loosing the weight.  I'll keep trying!  Thanks for all the great insight! 

A lack of sleep can change in the way the body metabolizes carbs. Most people have problems fully digesting carbs without proper sleep. This means that instead of being burned for energy; these calories are being stored as fat.  Or....maybe you need to increase your intake a bit, if you are burning too much and not eating enough calories then your body will want to store fat and that could be another reason you are not losing. How many calories have you decreased off your old intake? The soda thing is a big one! I was addicted too, and to starbucks, so I completely understand! I just told myself I dont need it and did it, and yeah it sucked for awhile with headaches, but now i dont even crave one! Sounds like your kids are young enough a health change in diet wouldnt really effect them and will be easier for you to change~ my kids are older and i am thankful I tought them at a young age what are good foods and they love it when me and my husband start wanting to eat better! They get along better too, without all the sugar! I love to be outdoors, but right now it is too cold to play; In the winter I just run on a treadmill and I have clinicals at the hospital twice a week, other than that I am sitting in class, or on a computer. I have only been a tad overweight at 163 when I started this and I am down to 157.

I eat fruits in the morning and vegetables through out the day and I dont crave any sugary foods like candy anymore either. My friends laugh at me and tell me I am a nazi because I turn down junk food all the time! (when we are at study groups i bring my own snacks) Oh well I am getting the results I want and am happy with the food choices I make! I now have friends at school wanting to do this too!

I hope all this helps!

I am trying to work on getting more sleep.  That may be a lot more of the problem.  You are so knowledgable about this!  I really appreciate you taking the time to answer me back!!!!  I have not had the Diet Coke for 2 days now - I haven't had any since I left work on Friday and I'm doing pretty good without it.  I did have a headache that turned into a migraine on Saturday, but I just took my medication and was fine; then no headache or anything yesterday. 

 Calorie wise I am eating between 1550 and 1750 and on my activity log I am burning 1000-2000, more on the weekends and less during the week.  This is all without doing any "formal" exercise like the elliptical, jogging, or excess walking because I am recovering from a sprained ankle, but shoud be able to start doing light workouts again this week.  Am I eating too little?  Before I started CC I tracked and I was eating about 2000-2200 calories a day, so I cut down about 500 calories and that is what the tools section said to eat too (1550 calories with Light being checked, 1750 with moderate being selected).

 I know that my kids are at an ideal age to eat better, but I have to be very careful because my husband has hemachromatosis (iron overload disease) and he is not supposed to eat anything rich in iron or vitamin enriched.  That includes a lot of green vegetables and a lot of meats and his specialist actually said that meat would be better for him to eat than a lot of vegetables and cereals.  Our kids have a high chance of also having this disease (I know that my daughter does not have it, but I am not sure about my son) and so we are also supposed to feed them as if they have the disease.  We end up not really eating to poorly, but too much so I am trying to cut back everyones portion sizes and so far after two weeks that is working pretty good.  We also don't keep a lot of sugar in the house because diabetes runs in the family (both sides) and so does obesity.  Atypical meal for us is spaghetti with meat sauce (95% lean ground beef and whole wheat noodles) with wheat bread and jam or on occasion Gradns biscuits.  Lunch is usually sandwiches if we are home and those are either peanut butter and jelly, turkey bolonga, or sliced turkey breast.  Breakfast is usually cereal with less than 10% iron or whole wheat pancakes with maple syrup.  All of our meals at home are served with skim milk.  Just from typing this -- we eat a lot of carbs don't we?

Yeah as I was reading it I thought the same thing. The table I gave you gives what you should intake in a day for carbs, so maybe try to eliminate some of the carbs, dont eliminate all carbs, because like the Atkin's diet can cause liver failure! But you can reduce using the table above! Maybe that is why you are not losing; When you enter in your intake click on the analysis on the bar and it will tell give you a pie chart of how much of your diet is fat, carbs, etc... Look at your fat calories, carbs and sodium. Sodium can also make you retain water weight.  I read an article about making breakfast your biggest intake of calories and then lunch smaller amount and then dinner your smallest, make sure you have snacks too. As your body slows down your not burning a lot of calories, since at night metabolism is slowing you want to decrease the calories.

 

I looked at the pie chart and I am about 52% carbs, 24% protein, and 24% fat.  I will adjust those intakes and see what happens.  Do you think that I am getting enough calories in a day?  You are so helpful it is amazing - especially since I am nutritionally challenged!  I know that I am not getting all that much sodium because I have always watched that and I salt nothing.  I am not a salt person - I don't even like most chips or fries because they taste too salty to me.  I thought about eating more in the morning and a coworker of mine is on what she calls "the backwards diet" where she eats her dinner meal as breakfast and her breakfast as dinner.  I hesitate to do that because I am not a breakfast eater and usually have a hard time eating an entire serving of oatmeal or an entire Fiber One bar.  I don't want to cut too much out!  Yeah - I always knew that metabolism slowed down at night and I think that mine is slow the rest of the time too.  I'll do these changes and see what happens!!  Thanks a bunch!!

Your carbs are still a little high; but not by much! 1500-1800 should be 45-47%  Your sodium intake should be 2300-2400 mg per day, 25-35 g of fiber, 38 g of protein, and 300 mg of cholesterol.  I am still trying to adjust to the eat more at breakfast thing, I am so rushed that I just grab and go...I found that Myoplex lite shakes work great and some fruit; you can add things like a banana or frozen berries (which i drink in the car on the way to school)  You can buy them online at www.prosource.net . I eat a snack like baby carrots or raw almonds, then my lunch, then another snack, then dinner, and another snack...oh make sure you look at times too, make sure you are not eating too late; breakfast before 8:30 and your last snack 2 hours before you go to bed.  On sodium most Americans eat over their recommended daily sodium intake since pre-packaged foods are loaded with sodium and eating more than the recommended portions, even if you dont salt your food you can still be taking in too much! Also measure your body and see if maybe you are losing inches, tracking your diet by only using a scale is not too effective and to see more results you should measure yourself. How are you feeling?  
We weighed in today and i thought I gained 3 pounds, but I am at the same weight as last week... so I need to still adjust, it is all a balancing act and once you get the right balance for you then you will see results! compare your calorie intake to what you burn, and if you are burning more then you eat; eat more calories, if not then adjust the other way. Go to the weight loss forum on here and check out the first post.

Okay -- I have been doing better with the eating healthy and lower carb/higher protein thing.  I have just realized that I have "toned" up more by loosing inches so maybe that is the first thing that will happen before the weight "loss" portion for me.  I also have decided that I need a new scale since for the last two days I step on it and it says 196 the first time so I let the scale turn off and turn back on and then it says 204 (my starting weight).  I wonder which is actually correct?!  I'd be ecstatic if it was the 196!  Just to be safe - I think that I shoud invest in a new scale since ours is 9 years old -- it is a good brand, but I have never liked it anyway!  It's a good excuse for one.  I was also reading some of the postings in the weight loss forum here and most of them seem to say not to eat less than your BMR in calories.  Well, my BMR is 1688 so maybe I should try to eat that many calories, do you think that may be another reason things are moving slowly?  I have been hitting 1550 calories most of the days and a few of them I have hit 1700, but maybe I should be shooting for the 1688 and exercising?!  How have you been doing?! 

 About the salt again - we don't eat hardly any processed foods because of the added iron in them so I can track that pretty easily.  I know that I am increasing the water that I am drinking and have cut out the soda so I will give that another week or so and see if it is helping at all.   Some people seem to think that the diet pop makes you crave more sweets and I definitely have a sweet tooth.  It really hasn't been that hard resisting it though, I just grab a carrot stick or celery and the crunchiness is satisfying enough.  The rest of the week may be tricky though becasue today is my daughter's 6th birthday so I made a cake for her and then her she has a party with friends and two more cakes on Saturday and then the Superbowl, which we always have a party for at our house.  Lickily - it only happens once a year and it will test my craving status and sweet tooth.