Omega's journey

Thanks for visiting.

Camy

Feel free to abuse my diary. Rest assured that Kimberly is actively trying to bring her weight down and understands nutrition as much as anyone on the forum.

Kimberly

Although I note the things that Camy says to you - I suggest that you continue as you are. It is easy for a girl in her early to mid twenties (no matter her education level, training and employment) to take a pragmatic approach to the benefits of waiting to try to concieve - but problems can and do happen. Also people can wait a lifetime trying to become an optimum weight. Hopefully your weight will soon be of a suitable BMI and everything will come together. You are actively trying to bring that about. I do know that you are more aware of how to eat healthily than most women (whatever their current shape or size) and am sure that any baby that you manage to concieve before that optimum period would thrive. Few mothers would be motivated or able to ensure that they had required levels of nutrients in the manner that I know you would.

Claudia

Welcome to my diary. I freely admit that I am inclined to be obsessive about things and that my weight loss project has my prime focus. I had dreamt of returning to a normal weight for so many years - so now that I feel that I have found a way I am pushing it along as much as I ever can. I am truly determined to make it happen.

You are so close to your goal weight that you should be able to get there very quickly if only you can get your weightloss happening. I do understand and accept that it becomes harder to lose weight as you get nearer goal. My own weight loss has slowed down in recent months.

I suspect that one problem may be that you look so good at your current weight that it is difficult to force yourself to exercise as regularly and eat as strictly as would be needed. You look great on the photo on your avatar. In comparison I have quite a long way to go (I last showed photos on page 94 of my diary).

Few people are able to devote as much time as I do to my project. I know that much of your time will be devoted to your child. Having said that - it is amazing how much extra time we can find for something that we really focus on.

As far as getting hungry is concerned - I found that by eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables I can effectively eat all day long and on the occasions that I total the calories it really ends up being quite an acceptable level. I really do challenge anyone to eat what I eat and say that they feel hungry. I have a huge appetite. When we have a roast dinner my plate is piled high.

Stress eating is another thing entirely. We can all do that. I have tried my best to reduce my stress as much as possible. For instance - I have cut out all direct contact with my mother-in-law. My relationship with her has never been good and I really think that this is a positive step. I have taken yoga classes. Part of the class was spent doing all sorts of poses - but the class always finished with meditation and I am sure that I have benefited from this. My major form of exercise is my walking. Not only does that help me to lose weight - I am convinced that it has made me feel more tranquil. More tranquil can easily mean less stressed. Another benefit to walking is that it is easy not to eat while you are walking. I would recommend anyone to consider walking as part of their exercise routine. It may seem dull compared to other things - but I swear by it.

I am sure that if you can just get yourself to get out of the house with your gym kit you will head for the gym and get the exercise done. Whatever the weather I force myself out of the house for my morning walk by 10am. I know that once I leave the house and am a little way down the road I will not return home until I have walked at least 6 miles. The hardest part is often getting out of the house.

I know that you will do it this time. You will be strict with your food and get the exercise done. You deserve to have the shape of your dreams and you know exactly what you need to do to make it happen.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
You and Claudia had me cracking up!! :rofl: Yes, our dedication to our babymaking project is certainly to be admired. :D

Camy--I do know a lot about food and nutrition now, and I certainly don't intend to starve myself were I to conceive at this point. Hell, I don't starve myself now while I'm trying to lose weight..lmao. I would like to wait until I'm at goal before getting pregnant, but as I just turned 36, time is running out. I'm very concerned about birth defects due to my age, and the increased risks of complications due to my weight and age. I am pretty well educated on the subject, and plan to continue to eat healthy foods and exercise while pregnant. I also am making sure to get in extra folic acid to help reduce the odds of birth defects. :)

Margaret--thank you for the kind words regarding my pregnacy/weightloss endeavors. That brought a smile to my face. :hug2:

Also--great advice to Claudia. If I looked as good as she does, I, too, would have a hard time motivating myself to lose weight. :D

I'm glad you had good weather today. Things are very soggy here atm due to the snow melting recently and all the rain we've had today.
 
Kiwi! Look at that Marg, there's another thing we have in common! I first ate a kiwi when I was ten, and ever since, it's been one of my favorite fruits. Right now, I'm stocking up on grapefruit and oranges however because there seems to be a bug going around. I love me my fruits and veggies. I could eat them all day long as well.

I know what you mean about exercise being a stress reliever. I find whenever I get frustrated and for whatever reason, I can always take it out on Treadmillio and he never complains. I love venting to him. He's my baby and I love him. Really, after a workout, I feel so MUCH better than I did beforehand. I've also noticed that I'm alot calmer of a person and have quite a bit more patience. My treadmill is a virtue for sure. I'm glad your morning walk and yoga classes do the same for you. I don't know where I would be emotionally if I couldn't take my stress out somewhere.

I hope you've had a great Monday and will have an even better Tuesday! Much love to you,dearest! (((big hugs)))
 
Margaret~
I noted something today that I thought you would find of great interest. We had talked in earlier posts of how we felt it would benefit my kids to get them moving and being more active.
Today at the Ymca I helped to teach a group of 3rd graders how to swim. As this was their 1st day they didn't do much swimming. We were testing them to see just how much they knew.
As I was waiting for my group to come over to my area I happened to notice just how many of the kids were overweight. Quite a few would even fall into the obese catagory. Without realizing it I was mentally comparing them to my dd who is in 2nd grade. Compared to the majority of the group she would be considered to be very fit. I felt bad for those kids. They don't even realize or understand yet what they are up against.
And it should come as no surprise that the kids who were soooo overweight could not swim. Most of them couldn't swim even one stroke.
It was quite an eye-opener for me.
If anything it makes me even more determined that I will raise my kids to be healther than their peers.
Life in itself has so many disadvantages. If I can help to set my kids up for success in this one area than I will do all that I can.
Because unfortunately the world WILL judge them by their appearances. And other kids can be most cruel.
 
Margaret, thanks so much for summarizing your plan. The sad thing is that I lost steadily and every single week for an entire year until I hit the high 130's last June. I lost continuously for a whole year, and then stopped, despite continuing on the same plan. Of course I've gone off that plan lots since I hit my plateau weight, but that's from the discouragement of it all and the length of time I've been at this and trying. Despite being on or off plan, I range from 138-144. Grrrrrrrrr. That's why I need a double dose of motivation from people like you :).

When I read your food I thought "I'd be starving on that!", but the dinners do sound filling with all those veggies. I never seem to get full when I just eat fruits. I have to saute my veggies in a tiny bit of olive oil and grate a tablespoon of parmesan cheese to make them palatable for me. But after making them like this I would roll my eyes in disbelief at how good they tasted. What are these weetabix?? I should ask my sis as she lived in the UK for a few years with her husband (they just moved to Florida this past year).

I used to do a 4 mile walk over the past several years and that always helped me maintain my weight before I gained this 10 lbs a few months prior to becoming pregnant (I am now back at my prepregnancy weight). I also used to go on 10 mile hikes in the woods and the mountains, that really helped me keep the weight down. But alas, the baby will no longer put up with long walks in the stroller and those hikes no longer sound inviting nor do I have the time. Luckily I have a gym quality elliptical machine in my home which I should be using more often..so I really dont have any excuses. Anyway, I did end up at the gym yesterday and it felt good. I plan to return today!

Hope you're having a great day :).
 
Thanks for visiting. I hope that Tuesday is going well for you all.

Kimberly

Soggy weather can be good if it gets rid of that snow once and for all. It rained early this morning a fair bit - but fortunately stopped before I set out on my walk. I wore my shoes though as there were puddles everywhere and I half expected the rain to resume. I prefer to walk in walking sandals.

Rae

I hope that the vitamin C keeps the bugs away for you. I have my two clementines every day and in addition have a reasonable amount of vitamin C. There is 120mg in my multivitamin and I also take 1000mg vitamin C in tablets. I really dont like catching those bugs because at the first sign of sniffles in the vicinity we take our echinacea too.

Dawn

There are more and more obese people about at all ages and it is such a shame. We know from our own experiences how much it can affect our state of health and how we feel about ourselves. It is such a shame that there were so many overweight kids in your swimming class - the only good thing is that the fact that they have joined the class indicates that they are open to the idea of exercise. I suppose it is the other overweight children NOT joining the classes that are going to have even more problems.

I really think that you are right for encouraging your children to be active. They will hopefully build habits that may keep them healthier for their whole lives.

You are right - other kids can be cruel - and we all remember how much another child's cruel words can hurt. Discrimination is not limited to childhood though. As you know - I often try and encourage my husband to lose weight. He has to agree with me when I suggest that he may be able to get a job more appropriate for his qualifications and experience if he weighed a few stone less. I honestly believe that employers can look at a severely morbidly obese person and somehow reach the (erroneous) conclusion that the person must be disorganised and lazy. It is wrong but people do apply all sorts of stereotypes and jump to all sorts of conclusions.

Claudia

Plateaus are indeed traumatic. I dealt with quite a few weightloss slow downs by increasing the amount of exercise that I do each day - but that seems to not always do the trick and a plateau developes.

I discovered this forum when I was in the middle of a plateau last September. I really did not know what to do. I had tried everything that I could think of.

I had visited my GP. She told me that if I had honestly stopped losing weight whilst continuing to be walking as many miles a day as I was telling her and being as strict with my food as I was telling her - I must have lost all my fat. I pointed to the roll of fat on my stomach and asked her what that was then and she said that it did look like fat but I certainly needed to be doing exercise for my stomach muscles. I asked her to suggest some and she couldnt. She refused to put me on the scales to see what I weighed. Hubby was sat there with me and said that he wouldnt have believed it if he hadnt been there himself. I weighed 14st9.4 that day (i.e. 205.4 pounds) which is obese for a 5ft3in woman. Effectively she was saying that I was not telling the truth about my food or exercise level.

I also tried writing in to a TV doctor but got no reply.

It was then that I tried surfing the internet looking for info on plateaus and found this forum. I found quite a few threads on plateaus and worked my way through them. I remember that I did reorganise my food.

I am sure that you will have worked your way through the same threads on plateaus.

I had to reorganise my food plan again around St Valentines Day as things were getting slower than I would like.

I lost 5.8 pounds during March which is not the great levels of weight loss that some people manage to get - but in all honesty it is about as much as I think that I can realistically hope for this deep into a long term project. To someone that has just said that they have been stuck at much the same weight since June that may sound like I'm bragging - but I am not - I am just saying that I changed things around in February and I think that changeing things around was worth doing.

If I hadnt changed things around last September - I would probably still be up over 200 pounds. My plan had worked until that point and I had lost a lot of weight - but I really needed to change it. I think that it would be worth your while re-evaluating your food plan and maybe re-reading those plateau threads. When you have a plan that works on paper - stick to it like you did at the beginning. I am sure that you will see results and that should help to motivate you more than anything.

I weigh every day and keep all the data associated to my weightloss in a spreadsheet. It helps me identify which foods agree with weightloss for me and which seem to work against it. I gain weight if I have bread or cheese. I lose weight if I have salmon. If you weigh every day - it may be worth you trying this.

It is a given that you really need to be doing that exercise. Well done for going to the gym. I do hope that you manage to get there again today. I am so envious of you for having a gym quality elliptical at home. It will be so useful for you for getting the exercise for polishing off those last pounds that lie between you and goal.

I can see how walking will currently be difficult for you. Having said that - you acknowledge the fact that walking really helped you maintain your figure when younger and your baby will not stay a baby forever. It sounds like a great family activity for a few years time to help you maintain your figure and set your child up with the healthiest of starts. Dawn and I were just discussing the benefits of her encouraging her children to be active.

Frying veg - I get Fry light - extra virgin olive oil spray and use that if I fry my veg. There is only 1 cal per spray and about 6 sprays does a panful of veg.

Weetabix -
They envisage people having 2 for breakfast - but I always have 3. As I mentioned before I tend towards having a big appetite - but I certainly dont plan on feeling like I am starving so I make sure that I eat enough - so try to stick to healthy things.



Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Last edited:
Monday 31/03/08

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.6 miles
Round the block = 5 times
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 10st 11.0 lbs (i.e. 151.0 pounds)
Steps = 26,932
Distance = 10.41 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – missed one bio-oil massages
Continued ankle exercises

My Food / Drink:

Basic eating plan

1 banana
3 weetabix, sweetener, 350 ml skimmed milk
1 bowl cauliflower and veg soup
1 kiwi fruit
1 clementine
1 clementine
1 pear
1 pear
1 apple
80 grapes
2.5 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Marinaded spicy chicken, courgettes, peppers, onion, tinned tomatoes, fry light, few drops of peri peri sauce
3 plums
1 apple
 
WAH WAH WAH! :rofl:

I suppose I prefer to whine than switch things up :rolleyes:. I've even stopped posting in my diary for the moment because its pointless and boring for others to read about my constant whining. But you are oh so right. There is nothing special about the fact that my current plan used to work for losing weight, but now it works for maintaining. It stinks but its a fact of life that I must face.

I used to keep a spreadsheet of my calories eaten and burned, plus my daily weight. Yup, I'm one of those daily weighers too. Can't seem to help myself, even when I know it'll be bad. I will start one again for today and give this another shot. The gym actually went well so I am for once looking forward to going back today. For G's sake, its only right across from my job! No excuses for Miss C!

Do you do your 6 miles going 5 times around the block or are the 5x around the block in addition? Sheesh that's a lot of walking, but it really seems to be working great for you.
 
Hi Claudia

We all know what they say about pain and gain. We dont like it - but we have to put the effort in to get to where we want to be. We deserve to have our dreams come true.

I am pleased that you are forcing yourself back to the gym. We both know that the exercise is necessary if we realistically want to get anywhere worthwhile with our projects. I am also pleased that you are going to re-evaluate your food plan. I am so pleased that I did. Leap back in my diary to the week starting around the 12th/13th/14th February. I hated messing things about and I hated having to count calories to do it. I find that a really bad danger zone for me. I can stick really well to a repetitive diet - I am pretty good at avoiding junk food - but make me count calories and I get oh so twitchy.

Get filling in your spreadsheet. I find that the most useful document in the world. Weighing every day gets fun if you get to see your weight go down. I am sure that it will happen for you when you have a new food plan and are really focused, determined and consistent with your trips to the gym. Like me - you will probably find that the 2 pounds a week myth is a step too far at this stage in the proceedings - but that doesnt matter as long as you start to see things heading in the right direction. Let the folk who still have hundreds of pounds to lose bask in the glory of big numbers of weight loss. What does it matter if we still get to where we want to be.

As far as my walking goes - my afternoon blocks are an addition after the morning long walk. My total mileage for yesterday was 10.41 miles. That was 6.6 miles in the morning, slightly over 3 miles in the afternoon blocks and the remainder was in normal day to day living as I wear the pedometer in the house too.

My total mileage for March was 332.71 miles and as I mentioned - I lost 5.8 pounds during March.
This is pretty typical in quite a lot of ways.
January was comparitively disappointing (so you can see why I changed things about in February). I walked 360.62 miles and lost 3.8 pounds.

It is a fair bit of walking - but really worth while. I really had stopped believing that it would ever be possible for me to be the size that I am already. I am now greedy and want to be the size that I really would prefer to be.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
It's really interesting to hear about how you've refigured things to break plateaus in the past. I haven't, I realize, hit a real, serious plateau yet, but I'm not looking forward to it. It's good to know that just moving around the food can be a big help. I'm trying now to figure out what my optimal eating configurations are--it's difficult because I really want to keep my calories down but keep my energy well up. It's just so frustrating sometimes--maybe I just need more fruit!

Sophie
 
Hi Sophie

Yes - plateaus are indeed a nightmare. Most people that do a reasonably sizeable project hit at least one along the way. I cannot describe how miserable I was last September when things just stopped working. I am normally very strict with my food - but that was the last time what I binged. I think that it was the absolute frustration of the situation that triggered it. I (and most people that knew about it) had visions of me returning back to my start weight. It was a very difficult situation.

I can strongly recommend a lot of threads on this forum for giving a whole load of what I found to be really useful information. All that I can say is it seems that people that say if you eat x calories a day you will lose y pounds a week are looking at things far too simplistically.

I have known people break plateaus by actually eating more (in a very calorie controlled manner) each day.

If I was struggling again and had tried all the advice that I could see - I would definitely ask here for further suggestions. I certainly found much more here than anywhere else.

I think that we all strive for the optimum diet. Up until a week ago I was having more cereal - but I have recently been experimenting with eating even more fruit. I was already eating plenty fruit but I tend towards being greedy and wanting more weightloss.

I find a tin of baked beans is a wonderful food. It is high fibre and high protein. We each have a tin about three times a week because it also is good for cholesterol and my hubby is inclined towards high cholesterol.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Just thought that I would clarify on the swimming thing.
The kids did not get the choice of it. They have to do it for school. It is part of the gym classes that they take.
They take it once in 3rd grade and again in 10th grade.
Why not every grade I don't know.
But I do know that there are plenty of those kids who would have rather been somewhere else in more clothing than they were.
Even at that young age you could see that they were uncomfortable.
Surprising enough I have observed the high school swim teams and I would say that at least 1/2 of the girls on the team are overweight as well.
So even though they DID sign up for it, and do exercise daily for the team, they apparently are not eating in a healthy manner.
'Cuz there is no way you could swim that much and stay that healthy if you were eating within your calorie ranges.
 
I think the saddest thing about the childhood obesity thing is that the kids are the ones who suffer because their parents have taught them such poor eating/exercise habits. I don't understand how parents can think it's okay for their children to be morbidly obese. The health risks alone should almost make it abuse/neglect imo. It is shocking what many parents consider to be acceptable foods--tons of high fat/calorie processed foods, few if any fresh fruits and veggies, and tons of refined carbs. Eating that sort of thing occasionally is one thing, but far too many parents feed their kids that crap on a daily basis. :cuss:

Margaret--I'm very glad you found this website and didn't gain back all the weight you lost when you hit that plateau in September. I know all too well how frustrating they can be. But if we give up it's all over, right?

Glad you had decent walking weather again today. The snow had pretty much melted before we got all the rain, but the ground was so soggy due to the recent melting of the snow, that the rain just made it flood a bit. Many people found that they had ponds in their yards that aren't normally there..lol. I was living on an island yesterday, as I had water running in ditches on all four sides of our property..lol I guess it was similar to be surrounded by a moat. :D

Claudia--I'm glad you're getting back into the groove of things, and that your're finding Margaret's sage advice to be helpful. :)
 
Thanks for visiting.

Dawn

Thanks for clarifying that. I hadnt realised that you were effectively teaching the swimming aspect of the school gym classes. I thought that it was a seperate thing entirely. When I did swimming at school - it was at the swimming pool attached to the school and there were normal school teachers who's subject was swimming that taught those lessons. People maybe paid for lessons at the swimming baths if they hadnt learnt at school to the standard that they wanted (maybe their school hadnt a pool or they had not been paying attention, or maybe they wanted to do really well) and I thought that was more the equivalent of what you were doing.

It is quite frightening that kids are so much plumper than kids were when we were young. We know only too well how easy it is to get bigger as you get older. If those kids follow in our footsteps and get bigger - how big will they get? Will they get the chance to save their health by doing something about it? What damage will happen along the way? It frightens the life out of me!

Many parents set great store in the education level that they gear their children towards - maybe setting their children up for a lucrative career. And yes - there is much to be said for that and I can fully understand parents wanting the best for their kids. It seems to me that they are totally ignoring the fact that without their health their kids have nothing. They do so much for them if they encourage them to enjoy regular exercise and eating healthily.

Kimberly

It is not just parents that feed the kids crap on a daily basis. A lot of schools here have sweet vending machines everywhere and serve crap for school dinners. When I was young there was none of that. School dinners might have been a bit boring - but at least they were a balanced meal. It is one thing that has certainly got a lot worse in the past 30+ years.

I have to say that this forum really saved my project and I cannot say how pleased I am that I found it and didnt put the weight back on. You are right - we just cannot give up. It is too important.

It doesnt sound like you have the best walking weather yet. I was able to wear my sandals for this morning's epic (always a pleasure as my new walking sandals are so comfortable). I am going to buy another pair soon because a comfortable pair of walking sandals is very useful womens sports "jute knot" design - expensive but well worth the money. My new walking shoes are there too k shoes casual "fan tail" in black leather.

Note the ticker - I just got a new low.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Tuesday 01/04/08

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.6 miles
Round the block = 5 times
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 10st 11.0 lbs (i.e. 151.0 pounds)
Steps = 27,581
Distance = 10.66 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – missed one bio-oil massages
Continued ankle exercises

My Food / Drink:

Basic eating plan

1 banana
3 weetabix, sweetener, 350 ml skimmed milk
1 bowl cauliflower and veg soup
1 kiwi fruit
1 glass orange juice
1 pear
1 pear
1 apple
40 grapes
2.5 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Breaded plaice, tin of baked beans
4 plums
 
Only 40, rather than 80, grapes?! Scandalous! :)

Oh if only I had your penchant for fruit (and walking).

Hope you're enjoying the day.
 
Hi Claudia

Well I am trying to lose weight and I did have an extra plum yesterday! Grapes contain calories too!

The thing is that I do stick to a very repetitive diet (which many/most would consider boring) but at least it means that I can stay on the straight and narrow without having to count my calories and I know that if I stick to healthy things I can have extra.

The day is pretty good. There is a slight misty rain in the air this afternoon. I have done my long walk and 2 of my laps so far. The pedometer is up to 8.72 miles so it is basically another day on track. Got a new low today. It is only 0.4 pounds less than the previous low weight - but a new low is a new low however you look at it. It is still a weight that I havent been in over 20 years!

How are you doing? Have you any plans for the gym today? You did say that it is conveniently located.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Still Motivating Margaret

Congrat's on another New Low! :hurray:

I'm so happy to see that you're doing wonderful.

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Wednesday!*~
 
hickgurltx said:
Congrat's on another New Low! :hurray:

I'm so happy to see that you're doing wonderful.

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Wednesday!*~
Click to expand...

WOW TX Sunshine, is that you????? Howdy!! I've missed ya!! I haven't been posting a lot around here lately, I've been so busy. But it's good to see you!!

Margaret, CONGRATS on the new low, you rock lady!! Rub some of your MOJO on me, will ya please!!! HEHEHEH great job!
Kim
 
Thanks for visiting

Stacy

It is wonderful to see you back. I just raced over to your new diary to welcome you back straight away.

I know that you can do it this time.

Kim

I must admit it is nice to see a new low - even if it isnt a big drop from the previous low weight. I note that you have lost about 5 pounds during the challenge so far which is very similar to my own losses so it would seem that we all have some of that mojo working for us. We all need the luck of course - but a crucial part of it is the hard work and I know that you are relentless with your gym activities. I hope that your husband's birthday went well.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
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