Baby's Diary

baby82

baby82

New member
Well, a few people on here suggested that I should track my progress in a diary, so that's what I'm going to do. It will pretty much be an outline of what I have been eating and how my weight loss progress is going. I was going to start with my diet tomorrow, but I feel it would be better to wait until Monday for the start of a new week. So Monday will be the day I start keeping track of everything. If you're interested in knowing my story about how I came to be here you can read it HERE in the newbie thread.

So...my goals:

Current Weight ~ 305 lbs
Target Weight ~ 180 lbs
Need To Lose ~ 125 lbs

Goal Date ~ January 2009

I never thought I would need to have a support system but I've realized that without it, I will get nowhere. That's why I joined this forum. Everyone is going through the same thing I am, and aiming for the same outcome. And everyone I have talked to so far seems so great and genuinly caring. I love it here and I'm looking forward to sharing this journey with all of you :)

Natishia
(Baby)
 
Last edited:
Hey, Baby! :seeya: Welcome to your diary!

I am sooo excited for you! You are giving yourself the best possible gift by losing extra weight and getting healthy! It is such a joy to watch our weight fall off, seeing those numbers get smaller as we totally shrink!

Best wishes on your journey. Might I suggest you check out Omega's diary, if you haven't already. She started out around the same as you, I believe. She's a stellar gal who is very encouraging and knowledgeable!

Cheers from :eh:
 
Hello fellow Canadian!

I read your initial post and I thought I'd come say hi in your diary. I wanted to give you a few recommendations on weight loss.

#1: First and foremost, and you'll see a common theme here from anyone who has spent a lot of time doing research or has personal training experience:

Calories in/Calories Out

Nothing else matters for weight loss more than this. This is 95% of the equation. (with one major exception, see the end) There are a few tweaks here and there, but at your stage, they are simply a waste of mental energy. At your weight 1200 a day sounds too low, I'd aim for 1500-1800 a day.

#2: Food choices. Food choices are finding what YOU can eat to hit your CALORIE goal in a manner that you can maintain LONG-TERM. The only things you need are:

a) about 75g of protein a day to maintain and build muscle mass.
b) Fiber so food doesn't run through you.
c) Vegetables for vitamins/minerals and all the other good things you need. You said in your post earlier that you like vegetables, so that's good.

The rest is up to you, but BEWARE: Some food choices will make maintaining your calorie goal very hard. Refined carbs like potato chips, fries, candy, seem to be the worst offenders in this area. Especially pop. However, if you can find a diet soft drink you like, enjoy. In fact, enjoy what you want, but you have to count calories.

#3: Fruit. Fruit is sugar, just like pop. chocolate, etc. Given that, it can be very high calorie if you are not careful. So be careful about it...it can be just as bad as a bag of chips for your waist line.

#4: You said your husband desperately wants to have a large family. He should be helping you. The SINGLE most effective way for people to improve their eating habits and to be successful is to PURGE your house of the crap that tempts you. Alcoholics don't keep booze in their house, smokers who are trying to quit don't keep smokes in their house, and those trying to lose weight dont keep crappy food there.

This means trashing the vast majority of your cookies/candy/chips/sauces (bbq sauce, ketchup, etc.), processed meat (hot dogs), soft drinks, etc from the house. If it's taking you a while to monitor your calories, you need to in the meantime get rid of the worst offenders.

#5: Don't crash diet. The exception i was talking about earlier is if you keep your calories too low your body will slow down it's metabolic functions and preserve fat. Try and stay above 1200 daily, no matter what.

#6: The faster you can be exact with your calorie intake the faster you'll get where you want to. Like coffee with a teaspoon of sugar? Figure out how many calories are in it, and incorporate it. Once you get your favourite 30-40 things calculated, you'll be fine. Treat food as an energy source instead of a source of pleasure. Once you get to your target weight and have children, you can re-introduce meal variety because you'll have become an expert calorie counter and youll be able to adjust accordingly.

Michael
 
Thanks Michael. That was some great information. I'm still a little confused on the whole calorie thing althogether unfortunately. For the last week or so I've been somewhat keeping track of my daily calorie intake, and it seems that no matter how much I eat, I can never get it high enough. I was averaging between 900 and 1200 calories a day for the week and I know thats way too low for someone my weight. The only thing I'm afraid of is if I go for foods that have more calories, isnt that totally contradicting the idea of being on a diet? Because most foods with a high calorie count are bad for you are they not?
I'm so used to only eating one meal a day (dinner), that even pushing it to three is hard for me. So I really dont want to have to eat many more times then that in a day. I couldnt imagine eating 4, 5 or 6 times a day like some people suggest.

As for the junk food in the house, im not sure if I mentioned this in my previous posts, but my husband is very thin. 6'2" and 139 pounds. He does not need to lose weight and can pretty much eat anything and everything without gaining a pound. I really don't want to have to take his junk food away and out of the house just because I can't eat it. I know for awhile it will be a huge temptation for me. But he knows I don't want to eat that stuff so he pretty much only eats it when I'm not around. As long as he's not eating it in front of me, I won't really have the temptation to eat it myself. If I was living on my own, I would definately get rid of all the junk and bad food in the house. But I don't think it's fair to deprive my husband of something he likes just because I can't have it.
 
If you can honestly avoid the temptation of digging into the junk food, then by all means. My only parting comment on that is that food is not healthy in the slightest and long-term I'm sure your husband would feel a heck of a lot more energetic with a more balanced diet.

Back to your calorie count. If you only ate once a day and you were gaining weight I'm assuming you did a lot of snacking on the side. By cutting that out you are probably surprised how hard it is to get to your caloric intake. That's a good sign. Don't worry about the calorie thing right now...in a few weeks I guarantee you you're going to start to get hungry and youll have no problem getting to your calorie goals for the day in your 3 meals.

And no, it isn't contradictory at all. There is no real relationship between a food being high calorie and being bad for you. For example, peanut butter is very healthy and also very dense in calories. Similarly, rice cakes (especially the flavoured kind) are sometimes low calorie and quite unhealthy.

You can be skinny and very unhealthy by getting your calories from chocolate/chips/pop with no protein or fiber or vitamins/minerals.

You can be overweight this way too.

In the alternative, I know quite a few clients I've had who had very healthy eating habits, they just ate too much.

I think ideally for most people they want to be slender/fit while maintaining their health.

It sounds like you and your husband used to fit opposite sides of the unhealthy food spectrum. You are doing something about it, and that's great.

Michael
 
Well I guess my initial intent of posting here everyday is already ruined lol. Sorry, just been really busy. I will try to be a bit more active on this thing.

Quick update..6 lbs lost so far :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top