Struggles on the road to health

I always had problems like that when I was on bc - so I guess I'm not one to ask. I think it's best to talk to your dr. Because I found that things change and bc scripts change, and maybe it's time for you to change since you have lost so much.
 
So once again, I'm stuck. 170 seems to be an evil number in my weight loss journey...I can't get below it.

It's weird...over the weekend I can get on the scale and it'll read 168...or even 167. Then by Monday it's 170, and it stays there all week. So I just leave the ticker alone since I weigh 170 the majority of the time. Still haven't figured out what I'm doing wrong, I guess. Frustrating...

Oh, and I found some muscles I didn't know about on Saturday. And they're still screaming for help.

The husband, his brother and I went into our back yard to rake up old leaves and pecans that have been collecting forever. They were raking, and I was in charge of filling bags with the piles of stuff. We didn't have a shovel, so I had to squat down and fill the bags by hand. With gloves, of course. When I got tired of squatting, I stood up and bent over.

It took a few hours, all together. No problem, I thought. Sunday was fine, but then I woke up Monday and couldn't walk...because it's hard to walk without bending your legs. It's still hurting, though not as much now as it did Monday. I've been working out, still...just taking it a little easier, with less resistance on the bike. The elliptical is fine, once I get going. But for a few days now I've been having to sit, stand and do everything without fully bending OR straightening my legs.

It sucks. Next time, I'm raking.
 
Ouch!Ouch!Ouch! Raking is really hard work and it works all sorts of muscles we forget about.

Sorry to hear about the scale not working in your favor. Mine seems to do that too. I just keep chugging along - somethings got to give right?
 
So I'm thinking more and more the sweet 'n low is to blame, for taking too many calories OUT of my diet. I'm giving it one more week, and one more box of sweet 'n low (since we've already got it), since I'm told it sometimes takes the body a little time to readjust to sudden changes. Then, at the end of another week, if there's still no weight loss, we're back to sugar in tea so I can see if that's the difference. If so, then I'll gauge how much I'm drinking, and then add those calories to my diet if/when we switch back to the no-cal stuff.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Today I killed it, working out. Did 25 minutes on the elliptical, then took a break and hit it for another 15, which makes the most time EVER spent on the elliptical for me. whoo hoo!! And my legs aren't 100 percent better, but I'd put 'em at about 95 percent. I'm off tomorrow (yay for vacation days!), and it's Easter weekend so it's all good.

I made some chicken enchiladas last night...or really all day yesterday, in the slow cooker. Best enchiladas EVER. Who needs beef? The worst part of the whole meal were the tortillas I used, and even those can be substituted for whole wheat next time. Good meal. Tonight's spaghetti (one of my favorites!) I'll have to be VERY careful not to overeat.
 
Still stuck. 170 is an evil number. I guess after this week I'll have to start messing with the calories...eating more to see if that works, or eating less to see if THAT works.

I've nearly reached the "I don't care anymore because I can't lose any more weight" point, which is BAD!!! I'm SO trying not to get there, but it's frustrating!!

Oh, and the husband was sick last night, too. We went to his granny's for Easter, and I think he ate too much rich, buttery food. It hit him around 11 last night, and he was finally able to stop running to the bathroom at about 1 am. He's not hungry at ALL today, so we don't know if it's gone yet or not. He had to go to work anyway, though. So I guess we'll see eventually. So today I'm tired since I was awake with him all night, and went to work out this morning. It's going to be a long day.
 
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It sounds like you are at the ever dreaded plateau stage! It helps to switch things around - cals, exercise, etc.

Sorry to hear you dh had a bad evening last night. Hope he's feeling better.
 
Increasing evidence...

Ok, so I've been having this other problem recently that I, for some odd reason, never tied in to my weight loss problems. Until today.

For the past several weeks I've been having problems with what I've come to learn are sudden drops in blood pressure at times. Mostly first thing in the morning, and lasting off and on for several hours. During these "episodes," I stand up or get up from lying down, feel very light-headed and dizzy, and even get a black "curtain" that blocks my sight. I won't say "blacking out," because I haven't passed out. I just stand still for a moment, and it goes away. If I don't sit still for a while, it'll happen again when I stand or sit back up. But it goes away and doesn't happen again after a couple of hours.

It got BAD on Saturday, though. I did the normal, brief dizzy spell with the momentary loss of full sight. Then I was fine, and went to take a shower. I was rinsing my hair with my head tilted backward, and pulled it up suddenly when water and soap got into my eye, and had another episode of dizziness and the "black curtain." Only this time it didn't go away rapidly...it stuck around until I had to lean on the shower walls to stay steady until I could get out, grab a towel and sit on the toilet. My sight cleared, but was blurry for about five minutes, and I had a buzzing in my ears. I was also nauseated to the point where I thought I was going to have to throw up in the bathroom trash.

It finally went away, though, and I haven't had a problem that big since.

So my mother-in-law has been a nurse for 20+ years, and I finally got to talk to her about it today. Her first thought was an inner ear problem, but since this has been going on without any other symptoms of that type of thing for several weeks, she ruled that out. Then we remembered that, in my annual blood tests over the past two years, my glucose level has been abnormally low, even with the required "fast" before the test. That was before I started eating less, working out and losing weight.

She believes that my blood sugar is crashing at night, since I don't eat anything between dinner at 5 or 6 pm and breakfast at 7 am, and causing hypoglycemia, which can cause the sudden drop in blood pressure/dizziness/etc. I've been experiencing.

She said to eat a snack in the evenings, before bed. But I'm wondering if I shouldn't just go on ahead and jack up the calories some...researching now to see how many I should be eating....
 
Not changing the ticker yet, but the scale started going down over the weekend. Started at 170 last week, and the scale this morning said 164.

We'll see how things balance out by Wednesday, though. For the past several weeks I've had one or two pound fluctuations...down to 168 over the weekend but back to 170 on Monday. This is the largest fluctuation, and the longest it's stuck around. How's it even possible to drop six pounds that fast, this late in the game?

Trying to vary my workout as much as possible. Hitting the elliptical at some intervals...starting at a lower resistance for a few minutes, jacking it up a few notches for about a song on my Ipod, turning it down and going slower, etc. I'm having severe burnout again on the bike. I want to get on the treadmill but the last time I did, I didn't feel like I'd had any kind of workout, at all. I did 4+ mph for 25 or 30 minutes...didn't break a sweat. Putting any incline on it makes my shins hurt BAD, though I know that'd up the intensity. I've also found zero indication that treadmill workouts burn calories to the extent of the elliptical, or even the bike. Judging from one calculator (on sparkpeople), it would take me 40 minutes on the treadmill at a solid 15 minute mile to burn as many as 20 minutes on the bike will. Not sure I have time for that....

And speaking of time...the lady who opens the little gym I go to can't get to work on time to save her life. She's a nice lady, but she's supposed to open up at 6 a.m. Every day it's 6:15, at the earliest. Which puts me at work later than I want to be, and makes me rush through things more than I should. Well, she informed me this morning that in a month they're changing the hours to start at 7 a.m. Which means I can't go in the mornings at ALL because I won't have time to get any sort of workout in before I have to be at work. Evenings aren't an option on Monday, most Tuesdays and Thursdays, or really most Fridays.

Guess I'll have to find something else to do. Or cut down on my days.
 
Oh, happy day!

I went ahead and changed the ticker...165!!!! That means I'm finally, officially within the "Healthy" BMI range with a 24.7. For the first time in at LEAST 10 years.

Five more pounds to my goal!!! The lady at the workout center and I were talking this morning about what I'll do then. I'm thinking I'll possibly still go four or five times a week, but slowly integrate at-home stuff into the routine as I find videos to do, or buy equipment (like we plan to). I'm also wanting to get into yoga some, or pilates.

Anyway, the new routine after the last five pounds will include something along the lines of about 30 minutes of cardio MWF, with weights concentrating on the lower body and midsection, and lighter cardio T and TH with focus on the arms. At least that's the plan for now...it's subject to change.
 
Awesome on the weight loss!!! :cheers2: :hurray::hurray:

You should really get checked out. It could be a number of things regarding the dizziness/blood pressure thing. And if your blood sugar is dropping that much, you really need to your sugar levels tested.
 
I definitely need to talk to a doctor, SweatPea....eating the snack at night isn't helping with mornings. I'm not doing it as much, or as badly, now, but it's still happening....


On another topic...I'm totally stressing out right now!! They're calling for severe storms with baseball sized hail and maybe tornadoes tonight. Which sucks. There was a storm cellar we WERE going to when the weather got bad, but it's all the way across town. It only takes about two minutes to get there, but when the tornado sirens are blowing and everyone's going crazy, that's NOT when we need to be out driving anywhere. Nobody on our block has a cellar that's usable, and our house is constructed about one step higher than a mobile home, so we'll be blown away if one hits. Not sure what to do....
 
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Well, we survived. I took the police scanner home from work and made the mistake of turning it on while the storm spotters were out. They were seeing all kinds of scary stuff, so we hurried through dinner and went to my mother-in-law's house, closer to the cellar, since it was obviously going to get bad. We left the house to near-sunny conditions.

What in the world?! Seems as though our spotters are clueless. I told my husband listening to their spotting during storms must be kind of like looking up your symptoms online when you're sick......you listen or read too long, and you think you're about to die from nothing.

So anyway...I'm bony. I realized this recently. I no longer have the comfy padding around my rear end, hips and shoulders I used to have. It's getting uncomfortable to sleep on my sides (which I have done since birth really) because I can feel the springs into my hip bones.

Maybe it's time for a new mattress....
 
I'm not liking bony much...I'm thinking IF I can lose the last five pounds, I'm done and will start with maintenance.

My biggest problem on the immediate horizon is the changing hours at my little gym. They're going to start opening at 7 am, instead of 6 am, on April 14. Which means I can't do nearly as much as I do now in the mornings. It'll hurt me to not get to work at 7 am, but I can work with coming in at the normal time (8 am) if I have to, on that one day. We'll see.

But I'm going to have to break down my workout some, to make the weight sessions shorter. I want to do cardio every day, I think, until I get the last five pounds off. But then what? Drop to cardio three times a week?

And as far as weights go, starting next week I want to get into the routine of doing the upper body workout MWF and legs T/TH...no time to do 'em all three times a week, anymore....grrrr....
 
What will the last 5lbs give you?

Changing around your cardio and working on figuring out maintenace calories is a agreat start...

I'm not sure i'd lessen the weight sessions, bcause you do want to retain your strength -and weight training gives you so much for your future health (that osteoporosis prevention for wheny ou get older is a big one) but maybe they oculd be made more efficient so you can do as much in less time...
 
With the last 5 pounds I'll be at 160 and a healthy BMI of less than 24... :hurray: According to the "ideal weight calculators" I'll still be at least 10 pounds overweight for my height, but oh well....

What do you mean by "more efficient?" Right now I'm kind of all over the place, so any tips would be greatly appreciated....

At 160, my calorie total to maintain that weight comes out to 2390. Wow that seems like a lot. But that was calculated at a 27 year old, 5 foot 9 inch female at a moderate activity level (30-60 minutes of exercise 3-5 days per week).

One of my biggest questions has been how do I STOP losing? Just slowly up the calorie level (with healthy foods, of course)?
 
I think there's a thead or two on maintenace but yeah that's pretty much it - up your calories - til you get to the point where you're not losing anymore... the nutriion stickied threads have links to the harris benedict formula (or google it) which will givey ou a general range to shoot for...

Have you read the workout threads in the exercise forum? the stickied threads -t hat shoudl give you a lot of direction as to what you should be doing with weight training... read those and check otu the videos attached..
 
Dang I wish I had to worry about "not losing". ;) Glad you survived the storm. And yeah, get a new mattress they wear out sooner than you think they do. I thought my last mattress was just fine. But then we bought one anyway, and I felt like I needed a step ladder to get up on the new mattress - that was how much the old one was worn down. LOL
 
We ended up getting a mattress pad, SweatPea...and I can see what you're talking about, with the difference in height. I didn't realize how worn our mattress had become 'til I put this one inch thick pad on it. I can tell a difference!!

I woke up this morning with serious anxiety about my little gym!! This is my last week before they open at 7 am, instead of 6 am! I wasn't sure WHAT I was going to do, because I can't get a workout WITH weights in three times a week in an hour, and still make it to work by 8 am.

But I came up with a solution...I'll do cardio in the mornings, beginning at 7 am, five days a week, for now...and on MWF I'll go back in the afternoons and do a weight routine so I don't have to rush through. It'll be a pain to go twice, but until we can get a set of weights and stuff at home, it'll have to do.

I still intend to lift three times a week, but cardio may drop down to 3 to 4 days a week, once the goal is met. But always a three day minimum, at least 30 minutes, on cardio...

The husband is sick, as well. Big whining baby. I had the SAME thing he's got a couple of months back, and still had to go to work, come home, clean up and cook dinner. And did it. He couldn't function all weekend long. Big babies...that's what men are. When they're sick at least.
 
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