BikiniBound's Diary

I dont suppose that there is any chance of your parents or grandmother helping you out to get one of the houses across the street. If the finances were there (a gigantic IF - I know) it would make a lot of sense. Not only from the perspective that they would be able to rely on you as much as ever for help getting about - but also they would enjoy being close to you even more if/when the grandchildren come along. In addition - it tends to be financially sound from the inheritance tax perspective (and I cannot imagine that is any different over there - even though it is a different tax system).

As you know - I grew up in an extended family environment. I have to say that there is much to be said for it. My cousin Lesley is - without a doubt - much closer to me than any of my other cousins. Her children and grandchildren too.

I have a number of friends in Greece who are really pleased that the custom is that they have to buy a house for each daughter when she marries. They benefitted themselves from the concept when they were young. Now they have a major say in where the daughter sets up home. It is not unusual for people to buy a big block of land and build a couple of houses - one for themselves and one for the daughter. Then they sell their original house and move in.

That is a nice idea, and believe me, I know that my parents and gran would help us out if they had the $$ to do so. I like that Greek custom, although I don't know how my parents could have afforded to buy us a house.
 
7/7—30 min circuit training, weight: 222, calories: 1,692
7/8—None, weight: 219.5, calories: 2,000ish
7/9—96 min walk, 6 miles, weight: 219.5, calories: 1,700ish
7/10—50 min circuit training, weight: 219.5, calories: 1800ish

Had an okay day. Still holding at 219.5 for the 3rd day in a row. It would be nice to see a lower number tomorrow.

I had to take my mom to a cardiologist for a consult this morning. Everything is okay atm, but the doc suggested she have bariatric surgery b/c she will die if she doesn't lose weight. I think that unless she changes her eating habits, she'd just gain it all back once she could start eating more again. I'm going to try and get her and my dad to join weight watchers with me. I think it would really help them learn moderation in eating. I wonder what their response will be. In the car it was difficult to shift b/c she was pressing right against the shifting console. :(
 
Maintaining is good. If I remember right - TOM should be getting pretty soon for you. In those circumstances - not to gain can be looked on as a really good result.

As far as the Greek custom goes - remember - the parents who only have one daughter only ever have to buy one house - that for their daughter. When they were young they benefitted from the same system and got given a house by the wife's parents.

In some ways it has a lot of advantages - you dont have to buy a house when you are young - you can wait until you have got your career established and got well through raising a family before the expense hits, plus if there is a broken marriage there is no arguement over who gets the house - all the property is in the wife's name. Strangely enough - none of my friends wish that they had more sons instead of as many daughters.
 
That makes sense--instead of spending X amount of money on a mortgage every month, you would instead sock that money away into savings/mutual fund so that by the time your daughter married, you could well afford to buy her a home--and the longer she waited to marry(especially if she was the only daughter), the nicer a home her parents could afford to buy her..:biggrinjester: Even if the daughter married at 18, that's still at least 19 years to save up--with compounded interest they could easily afford to buy her a decent home. :)

Yes, as I was whining to D this morning, I realized perhaps the reason my weight has stayed the same (still 219.5 today) is b/c :reddevil: is due tomorrow. So perhaps I have lost some fat after all, and it's water retention that is making the scale stay put. Fine by me. :biggrinjester:
 
I talked to my mom a bit about WW today. As I suspected, she joined it with my aunt back in the early 80s. She didn't last long, as they strongly encouraged her to eat things she didn't like--she's a very fussy eater. I think she would do a lot better these days, as their food plans are so much more flexible than before. I told her she can eat any kind of food she wants as long as she didn't go over her pt allowance. She didn't respond to that, and I never came out and said I hoped she'd join. I am going to talk to Dad about it tonight. If we gang up on her we might at least get her to a meeting. :biggrinjester:
 
Gosh with a calorie countin' dieting guru like you in the house, I'm not sure why she needs WW. I would love to have someone also dieting in the house to cook together and motivate one another. Well I know how important this is, so I hope she tries something..anything..and Dad too. Now if we could start a Smokers' Watchers for my Dad I'd be happy.

How'd you do today?! I'll have to read back and see..
 
WW has changed a lot from the 80s. I joined in 1996 and it did nothing for me. As I remember it - there was no account made of how big you were coming down from when working out how much you can eat. It was like a skinny tiny person going on 1200 calories a day and how they cope - and then how a solid person copes on those same 1200 calories. Also no bonus for exercise. The only comment about walking was that it was no good if it was not done briskly which is just plain wrong.

As far as points go - the criteria is as follows:

1. Are you
- female - score 3
- male - score 9

2. Are you a breastfeeding mother?
- no - score 0
- yes - breastfeeding exclusively - score 10
- yes - supplementing breastfeeding with solid food - score 5

3. How old are you?
- 15 to 20 - score 5
- 21 to 35 - score 4
- 36 to 50 - score 3
- 51 to 65 - score 2
- over 65 - score 1

4. How many stones do you weigh?
Ignore the lb, the number of stones is your score for this question. Someone who weighs 12st4lb will score 12. Remember 14 pounds = 1 stone.

5. How tall are you?
- under 5ft4ins - score 1
5ft4ins or above - score 2

6. In your day-to-day life are you:
- sitting down most of the time? - score 0
- occasionally sitting, but mainly standing? - score 2
- walking most of the time? - score 4
doing physically hard work most of the time? - score 6

Now add up your score - that is your daily points allowance.

The minimum you can have is 16 and the maximum is 40 - so adjust if you get a total outside the range.

I have to say that at my size - my activity points makes a huge difference on what I can and cannot eat. I know that I would feel like I was starving if I tried to come in on the above criteria if I was saying that I was sitting down most of the time.

It might encourage your mother to walk a little more. I think that a big person can earn two points by going on a walk (at their own speed) for 25 minutes.
 
Gosh with a calorie countin' dieting guru like you in the house, I'm not sure why she needs WW. I would love to have someone also dieting in the house to cook together and motivate one another. Well I know how important this is, so I hope she tries something..anything..and Dad too. Now if we could start a Smokers' Watchers for my Dad I'd be happy.

How'd you do today?! I'll have to read back and see..

I mainly want the WW for mom so that she can weigh in weekly--I think see her weight go down would be a big motivator for her, and my scale doesn't go higher than 350lbs, and the WW scale goes up to 440lbs so it would more than work for her.

In answer to how I did yesterday, well...it was good until I got to my office and saw the glazed donut holes..lol. It went downhill from there. Still, I weighed in at 220 today, and ate dinner late last night, plus my period is due today. So I guess my metabolism is doing pretty well. I know that's one thing that isn't messed up right now. :rolleyes:

7/7—30 min circuit training, weight: 222, calories: 1,692
7/8—None, weight: 219.5, calories: 2,000ish
7/9—96 min walk, 6 miles, weight: 219.5, calories: 1,700ish
7/10—50 min circuit training, weight: 219.5, calories: 1800ish
7/11—45 min circuit training, weight: 219.5, calories: 2,341
 
Thanks for that info, Margaret. I was wondering how they determine our pts allowances. Using the above, it gives my mom 33pts per day doing no exercise, and me 23. If I do my average exercise, that would add 2-3pts per day onto that. I believe one pt is around 80 calories, so I think that is pretty generous for me. And it would give my mom about 2,640 cals per day. I think she would be able to stay full on that amount. My dad would get 40pts which is about 3200 cals per day. I think that would be kinda hard for him to lose on that many, though. I think he'd be better off making it around 2800.

Well, we're off to go look at some houses.
 
I hope that the looking at houses goes well.

As you know - my main activity is my walking - so with my pedometer I know what my walking has given me by looking at the reading for that day. You have to work out your points for other exercise.

for 2 activity points

Checking out my "move more" book -
weight..........................low intensity....................moderate intensity............high intensity
up to 11st.....................60 mins...........................45 mins..........................20 mins
11st 1lb to 14st..............50 mins...........................36 mins..........................14 mins
14st 1lb to 17st 7lb..........40 mins..........................28 mins..........................11 mins
17st 8lb to 22st...............31 mins..........................23 mins..........................10 mins
22st 1lb or more...............25 mins..........................18 mins

When you think that you can buy WW sweets that are 1 point for a small packet - it may be enough to lure your mother into the notion of a 25 minute walk at her own pace - or even a 13 minute walk. They all add up.
 
If you use your WW calculator you can key in the calories and saturated fat to see how many points in a serving of foodstuff x.

As you can see with the way that the points allocation is worked out - a bigger person (or indeed a more active one) automatically gets more food that they can have. I am sure that your mother would find it easier than the way that WW was in the 1980s.
 
According to my WW calculator, I ate 42pts yesterday!! :svengo:

So far today I've already had 14.5pts due to a breakfast of 1 egg, 4 strips of bacon, 2 sausage patties, 2 slices of whole grain toast with about a tbsp of smart balance margarine. Fitday says it's 769 calories, with 35g of saturated fat.

My mother cannot walk more than 5 minutes at a time due to her weight/leg (she shattered her femur 4yrs ago), so I don't see her doing much walking atm. If she will commit to WW, I will see about getting her to do some exercises with a resistance band and some hand held weights.
 
i really hope your parents will agree to WW, because it is true that even surgery won't fix a weight problem if eating does not change.
 
Hey Beautiful! hows it going? good to hear your motabolism is doing great! hope this WW works out for your mom. how is it working out for you? is it easier than counting cals? i was thinking of joining a while back but went off the idea. hope you are having a great weekend! x
 
I'll just apologize for my comment and not dig a deeper hole by explaining any further. Sorry :eek:

How do you find the WW will differ from cal counting? Seems a lot of people have had great success on it. How do you like the meetings?
 
Any exercise is good for weightloss - and even five minutes of walking is so much better than nothing. Resistance band work is a great idea. Swimming may be ok for her too as the water would support her and not put her injured leg under too much stress.

My walking not only helped with my weight - but also blood pressure and cholesterol too.

We all know only too well that the motivation for a change of lifestyle - and we are talking about somehow becoming more active whilst changing eating habits - has to come from within. Other people saying to us that losing weight would be a good idea didnt really make it happen.

I really do hope that your mother finds the motivation to do this - but at the end of the day you need to accept that you can only deal with your own weight problem and you cannot do hers for her. When she does come to that point - you have become quite an expert on the subject and will be able to give her so much help that it is silly. That will be true whether you count calories, points or anything else.
 
Kimmy, I have the utmost confidence that you'll succeed in this. My parents, for a time, did Weight Watchers, and they actually lost a considerable amount of weight if I recall correctly. Of course I was much younger and they didn't have the advantage of the pre-prepared dinners and such they have now in the frozen foods aisle. I hear, overall, the WWs program provides impressive results. As long as you're happy with it, and you feel your getting your adequate caloric intake, I say go for and run with this as far as you can.

I'm in your corner, chica. It's time we knock that 20 into a 19, huh?

Much love, doll!
 
Amber--I agree. :) That's why I haven't been pushing my mom to the surgery thing. I just don't think it would work long term--and why go through all that for a year or two of being thinner? She could lose weight easily enough if she'd just commit to it.

Angel--I'm actually not doing WW atm..lol. I just was curious about it b/c I'd like to get my mom to start going. Margaret has been helpful in sharing how pts are calculated, etc. I've just done a bit of figuring as to what my WW pts were yesterday and the day before. If I can get Mom to join, then I'll join to help support her. Besides that, she doesn't drive, so I'd have to drive her to the meetings. I might as well go inside, I figure. :biggrinjester:

Claudia--No need to explain further. I'm just overly sensitive. :) I know what you meant. I still luv ya--I'm really hard to piss off long term. :biggrinjester: I find it difficult to hold grudges. And anyway, I was never really pissed in the first place--more irritated I guess. :hug2:

As I said to Angel, I'm not really doing WW. Just hoping to get my parents to join up (and maybe join with them for support).

Margaret--Mom would have a very hard time getting in and out of the pool. Add to that there isn't one close-by she could use, swimming is out. As I've said before--in her current state, there is very little in the way of exercise that she can do. However, as I've said before, she weighs so much that she can lose weight steadily with just watching her food intake. Even without exercising, she could eat about 2,500 calories a day and lose easily. And keep in mind that just walking to the kitchen from the living room (not far at all) get her winded. She gets her heart rate up just from walking to the fridge or the bathroom. :D Sad but true.

Rae--Thanks dear! I will do my best. I am loathe to brooch the subject with the parents b/c I've done it in the past with no success. It just falls on deaf, unreceptive ears. I think Claudia may be having similar issues with her dad's smoking. It's hard to see people you love refuse to help themselves. :(
 
Weight was back below 220 today--219.5 again..lol. The scale seems to like that number.

I didn't have much time to exercise earlier b/c H and I stayed up pretty late watching that show Intervention on A&E. We wonder if they do food addicts as well. They do drug and alcohol abuse along with gambling, shopping and other addictions. Should I see if they want to put my parents on that show? :smilielol5:

Anyway, we slept in b/c of it, and I only had a few minutes to exercise before we went to an open house today. So I walked/jogged a mile as fast as I could. I did it in 12 min. This is no world record, I know..lol..but for a 36-yr-old woman who's 50lbs overweight, I don't think it's too shabby. :p I was sweating like a pig when I was done, and it wasn't even hot out.

We looked at 4 houses yesterday, and we really liked one of them. We were all set to write an offer on it today when last night I saw that a condo we'd looked at a few months ago had made a big price reduction. It was now a really good deal. Plus the sellers are willing to pay one year's worth of condo fees. The condo is in the same town as my work, so that shortens my commute greatly. It's 5min closer to D's work than we currently are, 5 min closer to my gran, and a 15-min drive to my parents' house. It's smaller than yesterday's house, but D and I don't need a lot of space atm--but either way, it's a lot more space than we have now...:smilielol5: Anyway, we put a bid in on the condo. I really hope we don't lose out on this one.

Haven't done too bad on calories thus far. I ate breakfast late, and then we were in such a rush to see that condo again before the open house finished at 3pm that I didn't even think about lunch. Then we went to another open house that was a spec house of an agent who is a builder (his spec house) b/c I wanted to talk to him about the work that needs to be done on the condo. Basically the basement needs to be finished. He is going to drop by there tomorrow and let me know what he thinks. His spec house is beautiful--excellent quality. 4BR, 2.5BA, 2,500sqft on a half acre in the country. It also has a walkout basement that if finished would add another 800sqft or so. He started out 2yrs ago listing it at $320K. It's now down to $279K. He said there are several people who'd like to buy it, but they can't sell their current homes. It's such a nice house--and so well-built and finished.

Getting back to my calories...lol...after leaving the builder's house we went straight to the office to write and fax the offer. We were starving, and stopped by a Greek/Mediterrean deli on the way home. D got a gyro, and I got a chicken Tawook. Delicous. My cals are currently 1,035, but I think we're gonna have some popcorn, so that'll still keep them within acceptable range. :)

Currently sucking on a WW lolly that Margaret gave me. D and both like them. They are nearly gone. :)
 
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