She's buried in here...somewhere....

Thanks for the encouragement guys. It's been a bit of a rough week, I don't even know what caused me to fall off the wagon initially but..needless to say, I did. As in, fell off headfirst and burned the damn wagon right after. :banghead:

DH and I are committing to a full low GI diet again as of tomorrow (or well, as of 44 minutes ago since it's already past midnight lol)...so far it's seemed to be the only food plan that has really worked for me. I have a much better time of knowing that I just CAN or CAN'T eat a certain thing versus "I can have ___ amount of it to stay within my calories for the day"...yeah, my willpower is *not* that strong yet. Just keep the slice and give me the rest of the damn cake! :p

Anyway. FINALLY took my measurements tonight. Going to bed after this so I can wake up at a decent time tomorrow and do TJ before my cake decorating class at 2pm. Just decorating! Not eating!!!

MEASUREMENTS...sigh.
L Arm: 15.75
R Arm: 16
Chest: 47.5
Ribcage: 44
Waist: 44.5
Hips: 52
L Thigh: 31
R Thigh: 31

It's gonna be a looong road.
 
Chantelle, welcome to the boards, it is lovely to see someone who has decided to tackle this problem. I will be less: woohoo go girl you are awesome and rather post a few things that you should take with a grain of salt. Just little thoughts and advice:

1.)I do think you are too low in your cals. I am under 140 pounds and I eat 1500 cals a day (more or less), I am currently losing 2 pounds a week, so it is working. Your metabolic need you can calculate everywhere online but a quick rule of thumb method is to say 10-12 cals per pound, so in your case somewhere in the 2300-2600 area. Then substract 500 from there. So in your case I would try to aim for 1800 ish.
A few reasons why, you will have less cravings if you are truly satisfied therefore have less cheat days, your body will feel more comfortable at that nutrition level (as long as you know you eat a lot of fruit and veg, whole grains, etc...) and you will have wiggle room. As you lose the pounds you need to go adjusting your caloric needs, if you start at 1200 you have no wiggle room whatsoeever as that is the absolute minimum you should ever eat.
Some people start at very low cals and do fine, but some others don't. I am just saying what I think would be best for someone just starting.

2.) Make small changes in your mobility. I mean of course work out, that is great, but you will be healthier faster and lose the weight more quickly if you change small things such as walking a bit more, going up or down some stairs instead of using the elevator, etc... this sounds silly and nobody writes it down in their diaries, but it really jump started me 26 pounds ago (which for mysize is like 20% of my current weight!). I started doing no real physical exercise just walking a tad more, not taking busses or cars for short rides, etc... then I started gymming, now I take classes. Still the class and the gym are great helpers, but my overall more active lifestyle is what is changing me more, I think.

3.) Take time to find your own activity. You don't have to stick to one, you can mix it up, you can go to the gym or run on the beach or in the park, or just walk. Everyone can find their own good activity that does not feel like a chore. I man soem people like to have it as a chore, but I find that a lot of people I know fall of the bandwagon if the exercise feels like a chore. Omega here at the boards lost like 150 pounds just walking. Some other people lost huge amounts lifting weights, or doing home DVDs (there used to be a girl who did a home DVD and had lost like 100 pounds). But for some people those don't work. I tried many different activities and I am now happy with what I do, I don't count minutes until I am done ;). It took you a long tome to get to your current weight, it will take some time to get down again, so take the time and make the most of it, have fun while losing weight, otherwise it will be so hard that you need to cheat.

4.) which brings me to this point. You need to change your lifestyle. A diet (be it low GI or atkins or soup or cabbage or any of them) will work short term, then you will go "off" it and gain again. Because think about what it is that made you reach this weight... if you get thinner and go back to what you were doing you will inevitably gain it back. But if you change your lifestyle (and you are young and happily married and have all your life in front of you!) you will not gain it back and gain a whole lot of life. It will be good for your husband too and for your kids if you them some day.
Read the stickies, get knowledgeable about food, about exercise, understand your calories, your needs, and then tackle it knowing what you are doing. Also tackle the problems (if you have them, some people are just bigger and don't have trauma underlying and if that is you, I am very glad) that led you to be this size be it physical ones or mental ones. Do you eat emotionally? Try to channel it in other ways.

Ok, after this small lecture that again you may laugh about and ignore if you fancy (this is your diary and you can do whatever you want in it), I wish you a wonderful sunday and a great week, Camy
 
Hi Camy,

No, not at all! I appreciate you taking the time to stop by, and even more so, to offer such good advice - if I wanted to do this by myself, "my way", i wouldn't even be here to begin with! :)

I'll have to recalculate my calories, in that case. You're right, 1200-1500 is well and good on some days, but on others I just feel like I could eat my arm off by 6pm. In all honesty it's a big case of wanting too much too soon lol, I *know* this isn't going to happen overnight but..sometimes you want to do everything you can to speed up the process, y'know? :)

Hmm in all honesty there've never been any underlying issues that caused me to be heavy. I just really really like food! Which, in itself, makes it challenging to change my lifestyle because at this point, when I'm just starting my weight-loss, i still have a bit (okay, a lot) of that "when i'm done, I'm going to eat that chocolate bar like there's no tomorrow because then I CAN!" mindset... but, yeah, that's definitely going to be shooting myself in the foot. :icon_bs:

Thank you again for the guidance... you've lost 26lbs, so you definitely know what you're talking about! I just came in from doing my TJ workout, today's eating has been 100% clean and I'm going to start taking the stairs at work tomorrow...working on the 4th floor has its benefits! :) Have a wonderful week, and please feel free to stop by - it's always nice to see a friendly face!
 
"Hmm in all honesty there've never been any underlying issues that caused me to be heavy. I just really really like food!"

I know how you feel! I consider it the worst situation to be in because it's such a hard thing to give up. Personally I never smoke and I rarely drink. My only "demon" is lots of different food and giving it up without any other comforts to turn too makes it extremely hard.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey :)
 
Thanks, Dowie - best of luck to you as well although the way you're truckin' along, it hardly seems like you need it! :) And yes, I absolutely agree... my other vice is that my husband and I both play video games (we met 7 years ago playing Everquest) so my tendency is to snack mindlessly when I'm online. We dont play much, if at all, anymore but it's been a hard habit to break...giving up EQ & Warcraft probably drove me back to food more than I realize because then I had a bunch of hours a day on my hands that I wasnt otherwise occupied. Lol..ugh, vicious cycle. Filling that slowly but surely with exercise and fresh air though, so yay ^.^

Today:
Ate clean, kept the carbs low, drank a ton of water and had a couple of servings of fruit. Trying to rid myself of all the bad food I invariably consumed last week by sticking to low carb for a few days.
Workout: Learn & Burn (did half of it), full 20 min workout. Was REALLY dragging today for some reason but it felt good completing it. :hurray:

Diet soda count: NONE! Woohoo.
 
Chalking up one more soda-free day! I feel like a camel with the amount of water I've been sucking down..:willy_nilly: The carb purge is leaving me pretty listless when it comes to working out; I can't quite get that second wind that I need when I feel my energy running out...but other than that i feel good and have more energy than I've had in a long time for a basic day-to-day regime.

Working out today felt ... incomplete, i was dragging less than 20% of the way in and it was hard getting through the whole workout ~_~ But I talked to my nutritionist who said this is normal for the first few days of an Atkins-like diet, and that when I reintroduce complex carbs next week I'll feel better. Never looked forward to broccoli and wheat bread so much in my life. :reddevil:

Today, in summary:
Ate clean (onion omelet (1 egg + 2 whites) for breakfast, sausage omelet + 3oz chicken breast for lunch, lean hamburger patties (1 1/2 medium) for dinner).. lots of water, 6 strawberries, 1 large apple
Workout: Yes, albeit sluggishly
 
WOOHOO!!!!! Down 5lbs as of this morning... :hurray:

The past week was a *little* tough - DH and I had two friends stop by Vegas for a day and a half so the low carb diet kinda went to hell for dinners on both days. I did so much better than I would normally have done though! First day we stuck to our regular breakfast of ham & cheese omelets, followed by 3hrs of walking around the hotels on the Strip. Then we went to a brazilian churrascaria for dinner - ate mostly meat, but i did indulge in a couple of cheese biscuits and a good handful of their yummy fried banana pieces for dessert. Followed up with a small hazelnut gelato for more dessert...lol. But i shared this with the hubby.

Next day was sushi for lunch... WHOOPS! Talk about a carb overload! My body was so out of whack from it that I pretty much came home and crashed from feeling so sluggish. We walked A LOT though (good part about Vegas I guess, you gotta have a car to get ANYWHERE because it's so spread out but everyone wants to walk the Strip when they get into town) and my legs are STILL hurting today, almost 3 days later.

All in all a decent week - hopped right back on the wagon as soon as they left town, which is something I would've had soo much trouble doing before! I'm making sugar cookies today too (baking itch!) and I think actually MAKING them for the first time is actually working wonders to stop me from eating them.... 3 cups of sugar and 2 cups of butter?!?!?! HOLY CRAP!!!! :ack2: Guess I'm bringing those in to the coworkers xD Lol.

YAY i get to update my ticker :hurray: Amazing what little things like that do to reinforce small successes! :D
 
Last edited:
Thanks, Trusylver! :)

Gaaaahhh I am so sore. I've officially banned myself from taking the elevator at work so everyday involves at least walking up 4 floors (8 flights of stairs) at least twice - plus the random other times i need to run around to do stuff. My legs were screaming at me the first few days but by now I think they're just resigned LOL. Plus I tried "graduating" from the turbo jam 20 min workouts to the 45 min one - W...T...F!!! I probably was only able to complete about 60% of it - not because I couldnt keep up, but because I couldnt follow what the heck they were doing a lot of the time! Being coordination challenged + a semi dance workout video = Bad freaking news LOL :willy_nilly:

I have a mini-goal of dropping out of the 230s by my next weigh-in on Monday. A friend of mine weighs 400lbs and is going to do O-band surgery here within the next few months. It kinda put things into perspective for me - at one point I was so discouraged about EVER being able to lose weight that I considered the surgical method too. I didn't realize until I did my research that the O-band would still probably take 1.5-2 years to make you lose the desired amount of weight, in addition to cutting out a ton of stuff from your diet more or less permanently and STILL costing a pretty penny out of pocket. Funnily enough, the kicker was the 2 year timeframe...if I can sit there surgically controlling my food intake for that long...why the hell can't i stick to it on my own willpower and do it in a healthy, consistent way for the same length of time?? It's so funny how any medical "implements" invariably give me the hope that things will be faster...or just easier in general...because given 2 years, I WILL succeed, surgery or otherwise. And with my needle phobia it isn't going to be surgery.

So, goodbye 230s, hello 220s - I CAN DO THIS!!! :)
 
Last edited:
YAY i'm so excited - i've been generally sore this week from working out, climbing the stairs at work, doing chores around the house, etc...I've even caught myself dancing along to the radio while cooking! (Hey no laughing - every calorie counts! :blush5:) But tonight when I did Cardio Party, I managed to pretty much follow the program through the entire 40 minutes - only stopped 2-3x and that was just to re-orient myself because some parts are still too fast-paced for me to follow along to. BUT i can feel myself getting stronger because I completed it with energy to spare! :party:

Oh and I turned down homemade sugar cookies today - and four berry icecream from Sam's Club. Eek. That stuff is so good that it's wrong..:piggy:

Weigh-in for Spring for April tomorrow morning. FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!!!!
 
:beating: Thank you invino, I really appreciate you stopping by! I'm really supposed to be taking today as a rest day but I think I'm still SOOO psyched about seeing my first "real" weight loss that I'm going to do a quick 20 min workout tonight too...LOL. Just to get the blood pumping and to stay in the groove of working out :) Wow...never thought I'D ever say that! :svengo:
 
Felt kinda worthless today...and just readying your journal makes me remember that I can do this ..and im gonna have bad days ..and thats no reason to quit ... soo THANK YOU !!! You saved me from myself today ! :p

P.S. Keep up the great work !!! You totally an inspiration to all of us !
 
*Chantelle said:
My only problem is that I'm super goal oriented and can be pretty impatient...I know there's NO way the weight is going to fall off overnight but wow, do I ever get bummed out when I weigh myself in the mornings and don't see a change! That's a major mindset obstacle I'm trying to overcome, too.
Click to expand...

Hey there :) Try not to weigh yourself everyday (if you do), I struggled with my relationship with food in the past and starved myself and was OBSESSED with the scale. If I didn't lose I would get depressed and then binge, so i know how bad it can be to do. I realize now that it is best to just weigh yourself once a week to know where you stand and make sure you are keeping on track, normal fluctuations happen in the body and from one day you could be up 5 pounds just in water weight and the next day be 2 pounds down from losing a lot of water, so honestly once a week is best.

You sound like you are doing great, and I know you will continue to succeed :)

Good Luck!!
 
*Chantelle said:
My only problem is that I'm super goal oriented and can be pretty impatient...I know there's NO way the weight is going to fall off overnight but wow, do I ever get bummed out when I weigh myself in the mornings and don't see a change! That's a major mindset obstacle I'm trying to overcome, too.
Click to expand...


Yep. I still have this problem. Ive been working at this for MONTHS. Some days I'm fine, and I know that all this effort will pay off down the line, but some days, bad days, I just want it all done. NOW.

The old saying holds true, "its a marathon, not a sprint". I started measuring myself over the course of months, and although I still weigh in daily, I think its a much more stable measurement of progress.


Keep up the admirable effort, it will be worth it!
 
Chantelle,

Thanks for stopping by my journal. I wanted to come over and see how you were doing.

You're doing great! Congrats on your success...just remember to take it one day at a time.

ttyl,
Fit
 
:beating: Thank you guys for the motivation ... I wish I could tell you how much it helps keep me on track and my head in the right place, given how much of this road I have left to travel. For the first time though, I'm really starting to think that yes, I CAN DO THIS (sans peppy blonde cheerleader-ness! Lol).

muzik - HANG IN THERE hun! Believe me, I'm having my fair share of days where working out sounds like the worst thing on earth, but promise yourself you'll give it 10 minutes... by the time that 10 mins is up, you'll want to add another 5..and another 5... and before you know it you'd have done your workout for the day! I still have to cheat my brain like that LOL, but it works :p

Andy & shawnnam - So I'm not the only one that has a love/hate relationship with that silly scale, huh? :D I think I have some kind of morbid fascination with seeing how my weight fluctuates over the day, but absolutely, the past few weeks have taught me that I simply can't take each day's weigh-in as a true reflection of my efforts for the week. But you know what? At least I don't approach that silly bathroom instrument with a feeling of absolute dread anymore... which is such an incredible feeling to me. I've always hated scales with a passion; now I'm in a competition with it to (hopefully) see it drop EVEN A LITTLE each week lol. Maybe it won't always happen but I kinda have to turn it into a fun little game before I drive myself crazy with obsession thinking "OMG, is that ALL i lost this time???"

-------

So, it's pretty much been a month since I started this, and it's interesting watching how I've changed. The habits that I've been trying to cultivate one by one are slowly taking on a life of their own - DH and I wake up at 5am on the dot now (i even got up at 4:50 on Monday - before my alarm went off! :willy_nilly: Breakfast is an absolute must, and I haven't set foot in an elevator in about 2 weeks ... stairs, baby, STAIRS!! The scale is, admittedly, not going into a downward spiral as quick as I'd like, but my clothes are fitting so much better, I'm not out of breath as much running up 4 flights of stairs (now I just get winded on the 3.5th floor rather than before reaching the 2nd :eek:) and DH can't stop commenting on how much my complexion is....glowing. That still kinda makes me laugh, it's so Jackie Collins but he swears it LOL.

Bottom line is, even if it takes me 2 years to lose the weight...I love seeing the gradual changes, I LOVE the way it makes it feel, and more importantly, I love that in putting myself first for a while, even if it's just for an hour to do my workout, that I'm going to be a better wife and mother (eventually) for my family.

----

Confession time: The GIGANTIC box of cookies in the kitchen has been calling my name all week... somehow louder than the 3 boxes of See's Candies that someone brought in. I finally gave in today and had less than a quarter of an oatmeal raisin one... you know, it was really good but i didn't react to it the same way I would have before... prior to this I would've eaten the cookie JUST TO EAT THE DAMN COOKIE... this time I had a little, REALLY enjoyed it, then went back about my day. :hurray: Willpower WHAT WHAT!!! :D

(and this entry is successfully taking my mind off the remaining quarter cookie sitting on the counter. Which I am NOT going to eat!!!! :smash:)

Have a great Wednesday everyone! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top