New to the group!

Hey everyone! My name is CJ and Im from Waterloo, Ia. I actually stumbled across this site a couple of years ago during my last failed attempt at weight loss, and here I am 32#'s later ready to give it another go. I have recently had some pretty serious issues with acid reflux/ nocturnal aspiration (related to sleep apnea) which has caused me to seriously rethink my lifestyle and motivated me to make some changes.

All little bit about myself..I have a 3 year old daughter named Braylie that I pray everyday never has weight issues like I have, and so far so good. I have a great dog too, lol. A 3 year old pitbull named Tatonka that is so excited that I have started taking him for longer more regular walks again. I am also a full-time nursing student and will graduate next summer.

I look forward to getting to know all of you!

Hi CJ,

I am a nursing instructor, so I know the kind of pressures you are under.  You can do it, though.  It would be good for your child as well. 

You have all the information you need to lose weight, but if there are any hints we can give you, just give a holler.

Your main need, most likely, is planning ahead.  Plan your meals and bring your lunch to school/clinical.  Don't eat out as much.  It's not easy, but you can do it.

Best of luck.

Hi CJ,

I am a nursing instructor, so I know the kind of pressures you are under.  You can do it, though.  It would be good for your child as well. 

You have all the information you need to lose weight, but if there are any hints we can give you, just give a holler.

Your main need, most likely, is planning ahead.  Plan your meals and bring your lunch to school/clinical.  Don't eat out as much.  It's not easy, but you can do it.

Best of luck.

CJ,

You know I was sitting here thinking about it.  I have reflux, too.  I take Prilosec successfully.  So does hubby (cancer surgery they took bottom of esophagus and upper stomach).  He has major reflux problems.

Anyway,  I woke up the other night for the first time with reflux and part of it went down my windpipe.  I was burning and coughing and for days afterward continued coughing even after my lungs were cleared.  I am guessing that is nocturnal aspiration (I have never heard that term).  Hubbie has that a lot.

I have told him, and tried myself, not to eat or drink for a few hours before bedtime, but it is hard to do.  I like to drink water before bed.

It only happened this one time for me.   I worry that now it might happen more.  It was terribly uncomfortable.  Yuk!!!

Hi tesmom, thanks for the great reply!

Yeah, nocturnal aspiration is when you inhale stomach acid into your windpipe/lungs. Its NOT pretty! That buring and choking sensation literally scared me half to death. That was all it took to see a GI doctor, who wants me to have a scope done. Apparently, the acid is incredibly errosive to the esophagus and even a small amount can cause serious damage. Scary! Lets hope the scope goes well, its on the 24th.

Oooo a nursing instructor? What classes do you teach? I might like to pick your brain a bit, if you don't mind.. =)

And your absolutely right about bringing lunch instead of starving myself all day or (worse) pigging out on vending machine or fast food. That is my first goal, starting next wednesday (dont have class again until then) to bring something to eat for lunch and stay away from the soda machine!!

Nice to meet you!

I have first level...competencies and health assessment.  I do skills labs for first and second level BSN students.

I don't have all that much left in my brain.  But I use humor and music to make learning all that info a bit more fun.  I keep Puffs in my office.  There are a lot of tears that first level!!

Bring your own drinks, or change to diet drink.  It is much cheaper to bring your own, but heavier.  I look like a homeless person when I come to work everyday with my Walmart bag full of salad, snacks, drinks, string cheese, v8 juice, water, etc.  But, if I get hungry I can go grab a snack or some water or a diet drink, from my stash.

Welcome CJ,  

It's really a hard row, but Calorie Count seems to be the best place to start a healthy lifestyle.  You can do it! 

Oh, as you lose weight, that reflux should improve.

I am a nurse, and one of the many reasons I need to drop the pounds is so I don't feel like an idiot telling my patients they need to drop a few.  Texmom is soooo right, we all know exactly how to do it, it's just a matter of sticking to it consistently.  It sucks but consistently eatting more calories than I burned off it how I got here.  Now it's time to pay the piper.  I'm looking at it a little differently this time, I'm not on a diet, I am just choosing to eat healthier.  I really like the analysis section of this website, it really tells me if I am eating healthy or not.  It seems that if I eat healthy I do ok on the calories.  Just really started today, so my determiniation is still pretty high.  I have a family history of diabetes also and know I am doomed if I don't drop the pounds.  I need to eat healthier so my husband with high blook pressure can drop a few also.  He has so much more will power than me!  Our big down fall is eating out.  I just need to plan ahead and eat at home more!  Thanks for listening, it's nice to chat with folks who know what I am talking about when I rant and rave about my weight loss struggles.

Sparks,

I wondered if you were an RN.  There are so many of us who are overweight.  There is so much stress associated with our job, and so much food at our worksite.  People lavish treats on the nursing staff in gratitude for our service (at least around here they do), plus nurses bring lots of food to work to share.  One of my co-workers stops by and buys breakfast--donuts, pigs in a blanket, biscuits, etc on her way to work everyday.

One of my fellow teachers stopped by my door today and then said, nevermind, I know you bring your own food (she was going to order sandwiches sent in to us).  They don't even try to tempt me anymore, but fuss at me if i seem to be cheating.

Welcome :)

To make matters worse I am a school nurse!  Food is so abundant here!  The good thing is there are lots of folks here that are trying to loose weight also.  They can either help or make matters worse by trying to talk me into eatting bad with them so they don't feel so bad LOL!  My willpower is the pits, I am taking things one step at a time. 

ok so am I to understand that the burn meter is just my calories I burn just living and anything else is over and above that and I should add it to my activity log?  Add everything I do to the activity log and everything I eat to the food log?

Burn meter black number = what you burn in 24 hours and the white number is what you have burned since midnight.

When you do an activity, such as working out, you add it to your activity log and if you burn 200 calories doing whatever activity, your black burn meter number goes up 200 for the day, and the white number will go up 200 more after you add the activity.

I only add exercise I do at the gym, or things specific for exercise sake, like walking around the track at the park. I could add things like vacuuming, but I don't.

yes, everything you eat goes in the food log! :) It can be scary sometimes, but it really helps to log everything, including bad things.

ok that makes more sense to me.  So how are you doing?  I was really proud of myself last night, my husband suggested we grab some chicken express (oh so good fried chicken that I love) while we ran some errands last night and I said "can we get something a little healthier"  He said sure, what would you like and we ended up at a salad buffet.  It was great! 

You did good! 

But I will say, earlier this week hubbie grabbed some food from Chicken Express and brought it home.  I took my chicken breast and pulled all the skin and breading off.   I took my corn on the cob and sprayed it with ICBINB (I can't believe it's not butter) and salt and pepper.  I put the biscuit into a ziplock so he can have it for breakfast tomorrow.

The calories were not bad and the chicken and corn were good.  AND I didn't have to cook. 

I am not sure the total difference, but it was monumental.   The fried chicken breast with breading was 370 calories.  Without it was closer to 100.  (I was sitting there thinking how much difference could it possibly be?) so I looked it up.  over 270 calories.  I didn't want to spend my calories that way, so the skin and flour and grease went into the trash. (it doesn't sound as appetizing that way, but as you well know it looked good still on the chicken breast.)

Also at least 100 calorie savings using ICBINB instead of real butter.

That is a huge difference in calories, wow!!  Small changes really do = big results.

An extra 300 calories a day adds to 14.6 calories per year.  I was sure eating a lot more than 300 calories extra a day.

And then the reverse is also true.  Leave off that 300 calories a day and you lose about 15 a year without doing anything else.

I'm trying to have a deficit of 1000 a day, that is 365,000 per year...hmm let me figure that out...49 pounds a year...Well, dog-gone...I've already lost 42 pounds since June 26.   Beat that!