I did it!
 

Two hours later, walk is done. Of course I had to get on my case because instead of giving myself props for walking the 5 miles I was irritated that it took me so long. Hello? Didn't I just start walking again? But of course I am hard on myself and I expect myself to already be running crying out loud. Unbelievable! :seeingstars:

5 miles is amazing! My goal is to make it to 2. I know I can do 1 but pushing myself to walk 2 without stopping feels scary. Gonna give it a go with all of this good inspiration!

Tiger - You need to give yourself a hug and a huge pat on the back for getting back into the routine of walking and taking better care of you! Good progress!

Weighed in this morning, and I have 1 pound to go until I reach my 1st personal goal.
Im having my oatmeal now, and my pre workout drink, and it off to the gym in a bit.

I have not lost one ounce this week but nor have I gained.

Given my current state of mind; I'll take it.

Congrats to all on your own journey through the minefield of healthy eating.

Regards,

I weighed this morning ..the scale said 250 and a very small oz.to the neggative..this is the lightes ive been in a long time.ony 50 more to go from 303 that I started with.Im getting there one pound at the time.

My weigh-in is tomorrow and I'm kinda excited because I know I lost the 2 pounds I gained last week and might have lost another 1/2 -1 lb or so.

Just got back from the Farmer's Market and some yard sales. The yard sales sucked - It has rained off and on for several days so the only folks out were people that wanted $8 for used sweatshirts. :|

Farmers market yielded peppers and onions, yellow squash, jalapenos, plums, and a few peaches. :)

Congratulations on the accomplishments this week. And thank you for sharing the good news on today's weigh-ins and your ability to maintain. As I was reminded in this thread, not gaining is also good thing! :)

And thank you for the encouragement and support.

Someone mentioned those Quaker Oats rice snacks in here, didn't they? I finally tried them and they are SO good. I'm not a sweets-person, I can easily do without dessert or chocolate or ice cream or sweet drinks; but salty & crunchy is my weakness. These snacks are really good substitutes for chips or pretzels etc.

I was feeling pretty guilty at the beginning of the week because I had a 2oz gain. I know 2oz is tiny, and under normal circumstances I'd not have batted an eyelash.......but I had exercised really hard last week and the reason I didn't have a loss was that I went to a party with copious amounts of champagne (my achilles heel :| ) and I undid all of my hard work the week before. Guilt really motivated my choices this week. I've been attempting to be very self-disciplined (a major task in and of itself). I've made good food choices all week and prepared most of my meals.

And I completed Week2-Day3 of the "couch to 5k" program! I had to do a bit of remedial run/walking at the beginning of the week after my hiatus last weekend. I feel great about what I've accomplished -- but I'm really worried about the next step - next week the running intervals leap from 90sec to 3min. :| I'm trying really hard not to be self-defeatist, and think positively. But my god, this is hard!

I'm starting to look forward to the mid-to-late Autumn when I switch to exercising at the YMCA again; and I can get back in to a few classes. I feel like, if nothing else, this interval training is improving my endurance and lung capacity.

Hey all,

I ran into an article today that seems to back up something I’ve been doing that has been incredibly helpful. Have a look if you are interested.

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives...in-weight.html

Just to share how I came to using the fewer meals strategy:

When I began my series of experiments to find what would work for me I bought into the concept that 6 small meals per day would help keep my hunger levels down, energy up, and give my metabolism a jump start. This must be true for a lot of people or it wouldn’t be such a popular tool. I found the opposite to be true for myself; physically I was always hungry and never got to be satisfyingly full, it had no effect at all on the scale and I thought I was just getting it wrong. Psychologically, I couldn’t ever get my mind off of food; between planning, preparing, cooking, eating, and cleaning up after 6 feedings a day it seemed like that was all I was doing, and it pretty much was.

I finally decided that based on self-testing I would eat two large satisfying meals and if needed for hunger management a third smaller one as well. It worked like a champ! I have time to do other things in life, really enjoy my meals instead of being afraid of how soon it would be over and how I was supposed to be happy with my meager portion, and it actually boosted my performance both in terms of energy and on the scale. For me the mind game was sort of like it would be quitting cigarettes while hanging out in the smoking section. It helped to just get away from it and move on.

Naturally there is a caveat.:readfineprint:

My portions are very controlled but basically meal sized instead of snack sized, same overall amounts but eaten half as often twice as much type of thing. A really key issue for me has been nutrient density as the article points out. When it comes to satiety 200 calories of something like lite ice cream does not fill you up like 200 calories of lentils or eggs or berries, an absolute world of difference.

I’m sure many of you will think I’m nuts and that’s okay. This is in case there is someone else in here that struggles with this the way I did. It’s okay to try things even if it seems counter-intuitive (or counter current trend) to help yourself make good life changes. I heard somewhere that "you're only as good as your last meal", and for me that is true.


:balloon:

I gotta share!

I grabbed a bag of these a few weeks ago at Sam's Club:

http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/sams..._size_200x200$

It's a frozen mixed berry blend and is AMAZING as a smoothie! I have been ignoring it in the freezer since I bought it and decided that today would be the day. I loaded up about a cup of berries (only 80 calories!!) and put in about 1/2c of vanilla greek yogurt, and then added a splash of OJ. It was SO SO good and thick! The only thing I would do differently is that I'd probably use half as much of everything because I ended up making too much and it took me all day to eat it :)

Most of my smoothies lately have been "white" smoothies with a banana base and this was a nice change with it's deep purple color and thick texture!

Good Evening Everyone,

I went to the gym in my apartment complex tonight and I did a total of 45 arm curls between working out on the exercise bike and treadmill. I burned over a 100 calories on the exercise bike alone!

I'm going to switch it up between power walking and doing the arm curls...

Have a good night,

Zimmy

Holy crappola!
 

Weigh-in day today revealed a 5.2 pound weight loss!!!!

I got the nasty little note from WW telling me that I was losing too fast and to slow it down. Hey, that's the 2 pounds I had gained last week plus another 3-pound loss. I have been watching it pretty hard this week and put into action all of the stuff I said I was going to do last week.

Moved more.
Drank more water.
Got more sleep.

It worked!

WHOOOHOOOO!!! That is awesome Medusa!!!! Congratulations! Keep them coming or I should say going! lol

Well...I made the decision and took the plunge...

Yesterday was day one of the new eating plan....much more lean protein, non-starchy veggies, healthy fats and whole fruit....much, much, much less grains and starchy veggies.

It was an exercise in thinking differently and making different choices.

Scoote and I went out to breakfast since she had been told to eat a very hearty breakfast before her 2 day "liquids only" fast before a medical test and was craving sausage gravy and biscuits. We went to Bob Evans....where I would usually indulge in sausage, biscuits, hash browns, etc. Instead I had sirloin steak (small) and eggs, subsituted fresh fruit for the potatoes, and limited myself to half a biscuit (just enough to sop up the egg yolks). It was delicious, and easy...just not what I'd usually order.

Lunch was a big salad with lean turkey, tomatoes, carrot, lettuce, cucumber....very easy on the dressing.

Dinner was a slice of very lean ham...in a shallow pan with an extremely large serving of broccoli and a little carrot...in enough water to steam and heat it all up.

Snacks were yogurt and fruit.

My fasting blood sugar this morning was 106...a good number.

This while be a big change, but it's a very healthy step for me, particulary with regard to the diabetes. And, I'm sure it will result in some weight loss as well...always a good thing. :)

This sounds terrific, it sounds like you are using something like the glycemic index as a guide; though I do not have diabetes I understand this can work very well. I know that when I dropped grains from my eating my energy went through the roof and losing weight became much simpler. Re-educating the palate takes time, no doubt about it, but the results can be dramatic.

Congratulations on the new plan. :thumbsup:

Um, I have a confession.

I haven't eaten a plum in over 30 years because my Granny gave me one when I was a kid and it had a worm in it.

I saw a lady eating one at work on Friday and the deeply bluish/purple skin looked so good that I had to go out and get some. Well, let me just say - NEW FAVORITE!

And I checked the nutritional content and plums apparently only have 30 calories each? Also, they are chock full of antioxidants and Cancer-fighting goodies!

YAY for the PLUM!

I am back from vacation and back in the gym! Protein shake for breakfast this morning followed by an hour with my trainer in the ring. Going to be spinach salad with grilled chicken for lunch, then back in the gym this evening for a conditioning class. The serious training has started. A little over 60 days to get ready for this fight. I so DON'T want to get my ass kicked!