getting married in Oct, need some help staying on track! 20 lbs to lose!

Finally (lol) my bf and I have decided to get married. We are just going to do a civil ceremony for now, and keep it quiet. But i would like to be a bit thinner for pics, loose the softening chin which crept up the last 30 lbs. I am hoping that 20 lbs in the next 3 1/2 months is not over reaching, i will be doing strength and cardio to tone my arms so they at least dont look to jiggly. In total i have about 80 lbs to lose, but for now i am just trying for the 20 (and hey ill be a 1/4 there!).

I am 240ish, 5'7" 38DDD/E/F (i need another bra fitting  lol)

i am eating between 1400 and 1800 calories, and trying to strength train 4 days and cardio 4 days (one day off, im doubling up a few days lol) at least 30 min. I need to work up to more like 60, but im out of shape and cant yet lol.

Im looking for Oct brides and friends that have over 20 lbs to lose!

I just entered my goal into CC... my aim is 1300 calories, i think that includes exercise too... i hope so at least! lol

well no friends on this yet, but i will post anyways! My scale reads 237. I did only 15 min of my circuit training vid (hopefully in 2 weeks or so i can do the whole 30 min video! plus the added 15 min strength at the end, ill be using more than 5 lbs tho lol)

Im going out tonight, but since it will be the last for a while (my son is coming home from a month visit to Gma in Ohio) I will splurge a tiny bit. 2 bacardi and diets, and split a blt w the DB with fries and add a side of melon at Dennys. But since i didnt wake up til 1 (i fell asleep at 5am... damn insomnia!) i have the calories for it.

lunch, balsamic skinless chicken thigh with 1/4c brown rice

dinner, grilled salmon, jacket potato, frozen veggies

snack, carrots and a yogurt

LATE, 2 bacardi and diets, BLT, fries, ranch (for the fries) and melon

adds up to 1665

Congrats on your upcoming wedding. I am sure that you would be able to meet your 20 lbs goal by then. You are looking at losing about 1.5 lbs a week.

And no, I am not going to be a bride. I've been married 8 years. But, I will be happy to be your friend. I am currently at 148 lbs, and for me that is plenty, being I am only 4' 11". I have about 40 more pounds to lose. I am no expert in this either, but we can try and challenge ourself together.

OK Gals I will help all I can! I have been married 15 years so after you get hitched I will be your guide for that as well! lol!!!Marriage is the best thing in the world as long as you communicate have the same goals!

I am worried you are NOT consuming enough calories! The more you weigh the more you need to eat to lose! Sounds crazy but it is true. I can only speak for my body and my personal experience because I am not a certified nutritionist (YET) - However, I am motivational speaker and life coach and my weight story is simple. I am 5'1 - thick gal - I had 2 kids, worked 24/7 and only ate one meal a day - My perky high school body went south along with my butt and boobs! Weighed 210 in 2000 - pics on my gallary for proof - now at 132 and heading for 119! The truth is you have to EAT 5-6 meals a day to start getting the body in a burn mode! I am new to this and have no clue how to add you as a friend. Maybe someone will share since I have not taken the time to read. You can see my food intake as I am posting it everyday - My husband is training for a body building show on Sept. 20th and I am posting his progress as well - My goal is 15 lbs by September 20th - So if you want to follow what I am eating you will make some serious strides to your goals...BUT YOU HAVE TO EAT and drink LOTS OF WATER. Excercise is very important as well but what you eat is 90% of how you look and feel! The food intake I would suggest may seem boring but it is easy once you get use to it and the results you see will be so amazing that it  will be worth it! How do I add you????

livebbb - great story. Such an inspiration to hear (well read) someone else who has been on the journey.

You need to click on fyrfli name and click add buddy on the loaded page.

All right fyrfli.  Whoo hoo! Congratulations! I don't have much experties to offer but I may be able to help with motivations.  I would like to help out as much as possible. 20 pounds sounds doable.

So what would you like from us.  How should we do this? I have weight to lose to. I am 5'1 and weigh 163 lbs.  I try to weigh in once a week. I've been part of CC sinc May 1. I take a yoga class 4 days a week and try to walk a minimal of 60 minutes 5 days a week. For my attempt, I need to maintain 1200-1400 calories a day. That's not much.

I can post my food or maybe I can open my food and activity log. We can figure something out. Let me know how you would like this part of your journey to unfold and again CONGRATULATION!!!!

Welcome all!

ty ikahead. Congrats on 8 years, my DF have been together almost 10 so i know the work that takes! lol good luck with your 40 lbs!

livebbb thanx for your concern, i am pretty sure that the 1300 calories CC is recommending to drop weight so quick is after exercise, so im actually eating about 1600 to 1800 calories and burning the extra.

Free_style you can post your daily food here, or in a journal or how ever you want! i dont think i will post mine daily, but a few times a week so you can see im being good lol. & ty for your cangrats :D

I had an unexpected visit to some friend over the weekend so i was afk all weekend. But i think i did mostly ok, other than a few drinks Sat, as well as Friday, and a hamburger.... and maybe a bit more sushi than i should have eaten LOL.

But i got to do something id NEVER done!!! I went grunion running! (grunions are small fish that lay eggs on the shore line). OMG it is sooo hard to run on sand! lol my calves are aching now! An hour chasing fish is great exercise! Im going to be hitting the beach once a week from now on! not grunion hunting cuz thata only a few days a month a few months out of the year, but walking n chasing my lil one.

So how was everyone elses weekend?

breakfast yogurt-4oz, 2 turkey sausage, 1c grapefruit

lunch- a quiznos italian sub (sm)

dinner, 4 oz turkey breast, 1/2c rice, 1c cauliflower

snacks, 1c carrots, 1/2c raspberries, 1oz sharp cheddar, 1oz mixed nuts

 totals 1663

 edit: added todays menu

Sounds like a lot of fun. What else did you do to help out with your goal? Any strength training or aerobics. Your doing great keeping the calorie intake low. It appears you have it planned out what you eat throughout the day. This is very helpful in achieving your goal.

The Quiznos italian sub may be a bit heavy in calories but as long as your exercising and not putting extra's onto the sub, you'll be okay. You know what you need to do. I know the hardest thing is staying committed. But with October nearing and your big day.....

free_style, i am doing a circuit training video (working up to getting thru it all, see OP) and doing strength training with mostly body weight and a gallon jug lol. Im hoping to get to the point where i can take my son to the park near my home soon, its not far, but it is up a VERY steep hill and i know if i attempted it right now i would be ready to go home before he got to play lol. That will probably be in the fall tho, since it is pretty warm here (near the 100s) right now.I am searching you-tube for extra workout videos, but it is hard to find any that have any length to them, i dont want to stop every min n a half to pull another one up. I may just try and get a netflix membership.

and the quiznos sub is just left over from my naughty weekend. Some 540 calories, but i always make sure my calories are balanced out before eating something i know is high.

fyrfli,

wow, great job at getting in an hour exercise. Just make sure that you drink plenty of water.

If you can manage to find some time during the day, maybe morning or right before the sun goes down, tries adding some walks. One or two miles everyday would help in the long run. The important thing is to keep moving whenever you can.

If you are trying to do some workout online. Try veoh.com and do search with 'cardio' as keyword. You should be able to find some.

Ikahead ty for the site! ive never heard of them... i will look n see if i can find some appealing videos!

edit to add: i just looked at the site, they have some much better vids than you-tube! thanx so much!

The problem with going for a walk is i have to take my 2 y/o with me... and he prefers to walk, so i am at almost crawling speed lol.

Hey fyrfli,

What's up. Any fun stuff going on with you and your son? and your bf. oops fiance? What has your calorie count been averaging since last checkin? Did you get to 1300 yet? My goal is 1200 and boy it is difficult.

Dinnertime and late night is the most difficult. Yesterday my bf prepared this dish that was extremely good. It took me to my daily calorie allottment. I then ran 4 miles. Upon returning, I had 6 Red Vines and 12 ozs of Gatorade.

My daily total was over 1533. Today's another day. How are you doing?

Ah yes, I remember those days fondly. I wish my son would be at that speed again. Right now he is running everywhere. He is a bit hyper compared to other kids his age, so I usually wait until he is in bed before even attempting any exercise. Though doing my daily abs crunch or exercise on a ball seems to intrigue him enough to where he is also attempting to do it on the mat or with his small bouncing ball.

How about you? Are doing ok so far with everything?

calorie wise i am doing great. after adding my days calories im only at 1200... so i need to add a little more, i try not to go under 1300, and i prefer closer to 1500. When i eat too little one day the next im starving all day. Exercise wise, i moved a zillion pound couch lol, down a flight of stairs and up a flight of stairs. Since im not going to get a chance to do anything else, except clean- that kinda counts lol, i will keep my calories a bit lower and not worry about it. Tomorrow i will be taking my lil one to the pool, not really exercise for me, since he is 2 and has to really well attended, but fun in anycase. If i wake up early enough i will work on my circuit training and do some arm work while im on the comp. If i dont wake up early i will jus take the lil one stair climbing. (my apt complex has stairs alllll over)

My son is uber laidback... active, but really well behaved. I havnt tried working out with him up yet, i am goin to have to start doing that so i can have more time to work out. Ikahead i bet it is really cute your son trying to work out with you! Have you tried video taping it yet? i bet you will wish you had later if you arent lol.

Free_style i LOVE redvines... mmm i can eat a whole box... til i look at the amount of calories in them... lol.  I am the cook at home, so i can control everything (if my DF tried to cook something id worry about pod-people lol). But sometimes i like to do elaborate dinners... like when i make Indian, i make several main dishes, a bunch of veggies, dahl, naan, and a bunch of relishes and sides. But it feeds us for a few days after and i can have a little pork, chicken, and fish/shrimp so long as i fill up on dahl (lentil soup, REALLY low cal and high protein). Thats what im making on Mon.

I have never really tried any Indian food before. I might, now that you mentioned it, especially dahl. I have been trying to up my veggie and fruit intakes to at least 4 each, preferrably 6 serving a day, so any idea intrigue me. I might look around for recipe later, though my son, he is 5, tends to avoid any spice like a plague.

Now that you mentioned it, I have never taped him doing any workout before. I am going to have my DH do that. Thanks for the idea!! And yes, he is so adorable. He just couldn't understand why him mom wanted to shrink while he is trying to grow (he thought that I would shrink to an ant size eventually).

With my son, any workout that looks like a dancing workout, like kickboxing (I know it's not dance, but he thinks it's close enough), will have him on his feet exercising with me. Oh, and the stability ball workout. He loves that the most.  

Well, sounds like you are doing well on your food intake. Just make sure that you add some activities on top of that.

I read an idea that I thought sounded interesting the other day. It's to get a ball, and while you are sitting down, you would put it between your leg, somewhere above your knees, and squeeze with your legs and release it. Apparently, it would tone and shape your inner thigh. And it only takes a couple of minutes a day. I think I am going to give it a try.

Hope everyone else is doing great.

Dahl is delish! And you can adjust the spices and seasonings to suit, i like mine with lots of cumin and a little red pepper flakes, but there are alot of different ways to make it. Tons of protien in it!

I actually sit on a stability ball while im at my computer, and i keep a full gallon jug next to my comp as well to do arm exercises (its about 8 lbs). It is great exrecise to squeeze the ball with your thighs! You will really feel it lol!

My circuit training video has step aerobics and a bit of kickboxing in it so my son might like to do it with me!

I only slept 4 hours last night, so im struggling to get some sort of exercise in. hmmm does making bread count? lol i guess the only good thing about getting so little sleep is you burn more calories awake than asleep, but i feel weird. Calorie wise im doing great, almost 1400, so i only need to burn an extra 100 or so to make my goal, so i think i might jus spend 20 min or so stair climbing, and 10 min working my arms.

Got to get your beauty sleep if you want to lose weight.

Sitting in stability ball is great. Have you tried doing ball pass with it? Great for your abs. You can fell it too, even with 5 or 10 reps.

I did my step class today and I am feeling it right now.

Anyway, hope everybody else is doing great.

Ikahead,i miss my sleep lol. I often dont sleep more than 2-4 hours at a time. I know sleep is important to losing weight, but it is something i struggle with... on the plus side i got about 6 hours last night! *dances*

I havnt done much with my stability ball other than thigh presses and rolling from sitting to laying down.... and i tried a short ball workout that is on CC. I will have to try the ball passes (thats where you pass the ball from feet to hands right?)

I used to take a step class when i was in HS! It was alot of fun... even tho i wasnt coordinated enough to keep up. lol i miss that, all my friends were in it, im sure that was mostly why it was so fun.

I found a recipe for baked spring rolls im going to make tonight (i LOVE spring rolls so if this curbs the craving yay!!!), and a pork and pepper curry from my favorite lowfat cookbook and a l/f peanut soup ( i love to cook lol), i figure if i fill up on soup at 90 calories a serving then i can enjoy the curry (which is 300+ calories) in a much smaller portion with out depriving myself.

I am going to do my circut training, for as long as i can, then do arm work with my jug.

breakfast, turkey sausage (1 link), 1 egg, 1/4c bell pepper, 8" tortilla, 1 spoonful green salsa, 1/2 a roma tomato (300calories)

lunch,  campbells chicken soup, half (spray oil not butter) grilled cheese (330)

dinner, 1c peanut soup, 1c curry, 1/4c basmati rice, 1 veg spring roll (476)

snacks, 4oz yogurt, 1c raspberries, 2 rye crips crackers, 1/2c baba ghanoush (346)

total: 1421

I used to struggle with sleep too. But, once I up my cardio, I find myself sleeping about 6-7 hours a night, which is great.

Yes, that's the one. You pass your ball from feet to hands and back, making sure that your hand and feet straight or slightly bent and never really touching the ground.

Baked spring rolls? Is it crunchy like egg roll? I have never heard of that one. I usually just dip my spring roll wrapper in hot water and roll them with filling. I usually put rice noodles, plenty of bean sprout and shredded lettuce, depending on the meat I have, it will either be pork (cooked in garlic and ginger), shrimp or chicken. So, refreshing. Of course, I eat it with chili sauce. It's one of the favorite in my house.  

Have a great weekend

these are the crunchy rolls, i love the soft rice paper ones too.... mmm but i have a hard time finding the rice paper. I found the recipe on CC, theyre under 100 calories each.

I really hope my sleep gets better, insomnia runs in my family, but id be happy to get 6 hours solid sleep, instead of 2 hours... then 30 min... then an hour... bleg!

I did half my circut training video, and i think i might be about ready to do the whole thing next week! yay! i will have to take it easy for a few min a few times, but i really want to do the whole thing! i think the whole tape is only 45 min, so i should be able to do it!

Im going to have a busy weekend! My friend is having a party for Comicon (the comic convention here in San Diego) and i will be going to that... ill jus stick to diet soda n eat dinner late so im not tempted to munch. And my Aunt n Uncle are comming down from Oregon. So i have to go up to my parents house... they havnt met my son yet! I will have to REALLY be careful about what i eat, my Dad isnt the healthiest cook lol (but its all soooo yummy!) ill jus fill up on veggies and try not to eat too many chips w his homemade salsa (limit my chips to 10, a serving size i think, with all the salsa i want).

Good luck with your weekend!

Well, how is your weekend? I hope at least you enjoy your time with your family. I am sure that your family will adore your son just as much as you do.

Wow, that's great. You are coming along nicely with your cardio. Keep it up and I am sure that you will see some lost. Make sure to add some strength training to the mix as well about 2 to 3 times a week.

I started back on my wogging today after a week off (my knees were hurting and ttom). That week off really threw my stamina out of alignment. I can't seem to muster the energy to jog more than 5 minutes. I am going to try again tomorrow though. I am not giving up.

I hope your exercise is much better than mine is.