Jeanette401
New member
Hi guys, I've been lurking around the forums for the last week or so and decided to finally introduce myself.
Stats
I am just under 5'4", around 160 lbs, 34 years old, female, and I'm a computer programmer which means that 1) I sit around allll day and 2) I often have time to peruse the Internet while waiting for a simulation to complete.
Why am I here?
Well, I'm 'okay' with my weight - 5 years ago I was up to 220 lbs and made the decision to fix things. But keeping the weight off is hard, I've been having health issues (waiting to hear if I have a herniated disk, borderline cholesterol) and watching my parents age less than gracefully has gotten me interested not just in maintaining my weight and clothing size, but also in being more physically fit and healthy.
My goals
To figure out a diet and training plan that will help me shed fat, maintain (or maybe some day even gain a little) muscle, while feeling healthy and not hungry all the time.
I don't really care about the number on the scale - what I want is to fit into my clothes, to be strong enough to support myself, and definitely to be in better shape as I age. Which is why when I started reading the advice on the forums, it seemed like this was the place I was looking for.
The Past
When I was in my teens and early 20s, weight didn't seem to be an issue. I ate, I was relatively active and didn't realize how easy I might some day gain weight.
After a break from college I went back weighing around 135 lbs and not really thinking about my weight except to note that I couldn't fit into my high school clothes any more. I didn't have a car so I walked everywhere - and my diet involved lots of Ramen, eggs and yum-yum Taco Bell. And I started steadily gaining weight. Despite walking a mile to class every day and taking aerobics classes and going to the gym to pretend I knew what to do for a resistance plan I kept getting larger. (The fact that I had discovered a love for computer games, and spent waaaaay too much time with my butt planted in a comfy computer chair was probably a large factor) In the break after I graduated I started walking 4 miles a day, 5 days a week and did lose, but very slowly. By the time I officially entered the work force I had gotten down to 160 lbs again, but once at work, walking 5 days a week tended to taper off.
I did make other attempts - Walk Away the Pounds tapes, the Slim Fast Diet. I even joined a gym with a friend - unfortunately, it didn't occur to me that running on a hard indoor track while weighing close to 190 might be bad for my knee. After about 2 weeks of that I was constantly limping. I backed off and switched to cycling, but my knee still bugs me to this day. And I slacked off my routine going to the gym. Later I tried the Slim Fast diet... In retrospect I have no idea if I really was keeping my calories as low as I thought, I just knew that it seemed like I could screw up a month's dieting in one binge session, and that I was hungry and miserable.
Somewhere around Sept of '03 I decided that maybe instead of being fat, hungry and miserable I should just give it up and try to be fat and happy. I started eating whatever I felt like - and learned that yes, I could eat an entire pan of brownies in a day. (The next time I made brownies, I brought them into work so they wouldn't be calling me all day). Two months went by, I weight around 220 lbs, and I read an article about Atkins (No, I'm not trying to sell you on the diet!). The article claimed that there was some study done that indicated you could eat more calories and lose the same amount of weight - I thought 'what do I have to lose?'
Ironically, the reality may have been that after 2 months of unrestrained eating, my metabolism had reset itself and I could indeed eat more and lose weight. I don't know, and it's kind of immaterial now - but I did start losing at a much faster pace than with anything else I tried. After a year and a half I had dropped 70 lbs and actually bought pants with real sizes rather than just the XL sweat pants. Then it was just a matter of keeping it off. Which is easier said than done and brings us to:
The Present
I'm kind of tired of low carb as a maintenance plan - especially since the only draw to the plan was that I could lose weight while not feeling like I was starving, or too terribly restricted. Additionally, I'd like to avoid going on statins to keep my cholesterol under control and restricting fats and carbs means my choices of what I can eat drop down even more.
Before the holidays I started a 'new plan'. I bought a Wii Fit. I started eating more carbs - but I tried getting smaller portions and eating small snacks if I was getting hungry. And any day that I felt like I ate more than I should, I had to either do at least 45 minutes on the Wii Fit or stay standing for 2 hours. Those 2 hours could be house cleaning or just standing around watching TV. They just couldn't be sitting on my ass. (Interestingly, when I told a friend about this, she pointed out a Harvard study that indicated that it was actually beneficial to think of house cleaning as exercise ) And lo and behold... with this new plan I was able to have my eggs with toast and still had a steady weight loss. I even managed to only gain 1 lb over the holidays when all of my family & friends believe it's their purpose in life to feed me to death.
But the holidays are over, and I want to get an actual plan together - I've started logging my food at FitDay so I can get a baseline and I'm trying to figure out what exercises I can/should do while waiting to hear back from doctors etc. I'm definitely far more interested in HIIT than boring cardio, and although I plan to start at the gym soon I've been trying to do some HIIT-like cardio kick at home. All I have at home are 2 lb and 5lb hand weights, and I'm afraid I have no understanding of what the advantages of free weights vs machines are... but I am learning and appreciate all the knowledge you guys have here.
So if you're still reading, or skipped to the end... HI!
and great job on the weight loss so far!! Keep it up and I hope WLF provides you w/ the info. and support you want 
