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Summer Weight Support Thread/ July-Aug-Sept

2K views 13 replies 4 participants last post by  SweetSilver 
#1 ·
Welcome! Or Welcome back!

[I hate the "new thread" editor and I'm too lazy to copy and paste from a real one, so I will post this and switch to the "reply" editor. No idea why the difference, or why all these editors are so lame. :shrug )
 
#2 ·
This is the old "Weigh-In" thread that started as an alternative to the weight loss challenges. In Spring's thread, posting our weights was thrown out the window due to our various challenges, and it became almost purely a support thread by the end.

Either is fine! Post your weight, often or rarely, or NEVER. Or, share your challenges losing, maintaining or even gaining weight. We all have different goals and different obstacles, but we all have each other. Use the support offered here to help keep you on track, or get you back on track, or simply to keep you company while nursing the bruises you sustained falling off the wagon.

Tell us about your victories, and we will be your cheerleaders! :joy

Use this thread in whatever way is most helpful to you. It is open through the end of September.

See ya!
 
#3 · (Edited)
I was out of town last week, and tried my best to continue being calorie conscious. This morning I am back to counting as best as I can because I have had such good success. I did weigh myself this morning, and it was right where it has liked to be. Not bad for a week out of town and not counting!

In case you didn't read the Spring thread, I am counting calories to try to stay in the recommended amount to maintain weight for my size and activity level. And it's hard! 2000 calories leaves me hungry, and I've lost some excess pounds in the process. Most days I hit around 2300 and I feel better. I'm not even "dieting", and I am shocked at how hard it is, and surprised at how great the results are.

At this point, after two weeks, my body is fairly well "reset". I can often feel just a little hungry without having my brain harangue me to eat immediately, and it has learned to eat enough to satisfy but not fill up, or to fill up and then wait long enough to digest fully. It really puts you in touch with what your body is asking for, and not what your brain is begging for.

But reverting back to old ways is so easy, which is why I am continuing.

I've dropped dairy, at least for a while. I had a mocha for the first time in a long while-- with plain milk rather than half-n-half or cream. It's amazing how bad it made me feel. I know I have a lactose sensitivity but thought I'd learn enough of the intricacies of how my body reacts to get away with yogurt and most cheese, etc. But that day I felt so bad I remembered how bedraggled I felt before I discovered how many food allergies I had and how much better I felt when I eliminated them. It's time to throw off dairy and see if that affects my motivation levels, which are often in the pits.

Which is the weight I feel because of anxiety, and which is the weight I feel caused by my body trying to kick off food it doesn't like? I'm hoping to find out.

This morning I had a bowl of quinoa, plain, "lite" coconut milk, raspberries and 2 tsp brown sugar. It was pretty tasty, and I didn't really miss my yogurt and frozen berries. I can't have quantities of any milk substitutes, so eliminating dairy is about eliminating all those foods that rely on it, and this morning I had my coffee black. Coconut milk is often indigestible, but a few tablespoons on my quinoa wasn't too much. (AND, the total for breakfast is a tiny bit less than what my usual breakfast was. Those tiny reductions start adding up!)

I don't have a particular goal for this season. I'm hoping to see 130 one morning, but I look good and feel good and it is not too difficult to maintain this weight, so I need not to obsess that it's still a bit heavy for my frame. Whatever. I'm doing great. I need to keep doing great-- that is my challenge.
 
#4 ·
Please count me in there !!!!!
I really really need to stop finding excuses ... my challenge is accepting that a lot of the time i knowingly eat much more than what my body needs ... am hoping to be able to learn to respect my inner voice a little bit more !!!
Am off travelling for 3 weeks tomorrow ... in a way it should be easier foodwise since i'll stay put in the same place AND will be by myself in a flat with a kitchen ... time to really start taking a better care of myself, with not the usual distractions (leading me to poorly thought out choices !!!). I'll have time to exercise too ....
I may not step on some scales until the 24th ... i'm 63.7 kg for now, ideally i'd like to get near 58 kgs by the beginning of September, so that's about 12 lbson my wish list ....
 
#5 ·
How is everyone? Summer busyness is here, so I haven't checked in for a while.

Calorie counting became boooooring, as it will do, but my body has remembered how to survive for two hours without a snack (turning into a meal). I am learning to balance my schoolwork with sticking with exercise as much as possible. I don't want going back to school to make me lazy again after I worked so hard developing good exercise habits. It's just the beginning, so I will be challenged to hang on to my current success. I long for my walks, but I have to put those o the backburner and prioritize my yoga, since it doesn't involve leaving the house, and chores.

So far I am hanging on to the progress I made when I started the calorie counting a few weeks ago. I'm sure I will eventually drift back to old habits, but this has been encouraging. If I do revert, I have a little more confidence that I can readjust things again.

Feeling optimistic.
 
#6 ·
Hello again, .... i didn't switch on the computer for the whole 3 weeks ... and couldn't remember the new password i had choosen (...again ....) so had to reset a new one for today (... hoping i ca.n remember that one better now !).
Sleep has been erratic lately .... i came back late last night ... will step on the scale tomorrow Monday morning !
 
#9 ·
I've had a nice drop in weight, but a lot of it was due to three depressed weeks. I had the scale down to my "normal" weight, and was enjoying a decrease in cravings to just eat regardless of hunger, then this hit. Everything I ate sat in my stomach and it felt awful, so I ate less and less. I had to stop weighing myself because I didn't want to confuse things. Some nights I couldn't stay asleep my stomach was growling so badly, and I knew I needed to feed myself something.

But I learned a little bit about the issue of depression and not eating. It is very much a sense of control when you don't have control. It is not wanting to feel something inside your stomach any more than you want to be touched outside. It is, in the lowest moments, a crisis of whether you deserve sustenance or whether there is even a point. Mostly, it's feeling bad with food to digest. Blech.

I won't say what I got down to, because I don't want to reward myself, but I did relearn self-control: both in refraining from eating more than I need, and making sure I eat when I need to. My initial reduction in calories a while ago, to around 2000 calories, probably 2300, was difficult, but it became easier and I didn't feel a lack of energy from it. I'm not counting anymore. Boring as f***, that, but necessary for a time.

I removed dairy for a while because I had a mocha with real milk in it that made me feel like crap. I missed it terribly for a week, mainly my yogurt and berries in the morning. Once again, I stopped wanting to eat breakfast. Just, ew and blech. After 3 days of enjoying something different, I started dreading breakfast and had a hard time choking anything down. Then I added my yogurt back in to no ill effect, and I'm enjoying breakfast again. Go figure. Now breakfast is that and black coffee. I think remaining dairy-free after breakfast has helped considerably in keeping the weight off. Who knew cheese could be so fattening? :eyesroll

The happy ending is that now I'm feeling better emotionally and my appetite is coming back, I'm so far been able to maintain most of the weight loss. Unfortunately, school has me swamped, and I've done one hour of yoga in 6 days and no walks. I can feel myself dissolve into mush. I am not liking it at all. Fortunately, by the end of the week I will be over the worst of this.

Hope everyone is hanging in there.
 
#10 ·
Hello SweetSilver ...i cannot believe it's been month since i last signed up (yes, i had to re set yet another password ...i don't know if it's just the normal ageing process, side effects from some of my medications, or the sheer exhaustion due to the heat wave ... but i worry that "my brain is going ...")

i went away for 2 weeks, refused to shop/cook/wash up for others & informed them that i would dole out cash every other day for their food shopping whilst on holiday (since i was on holiday too) ... it went rather well in fact, except that DH let youngest one buy icecream for breakfast (they shopped "as a team" since she's a bit young to manage her cash yet ...) but i couldn't say anything (= cannot have it both ways ... i had tons of free time & mental free time too !!!)

actually took up to running 20 minutes every morning which also meant that i was not irritated feeling i had to wait ages for everybody to spend half of the morning dozing of and then the other half of the morning getting washed/dressed/eating breakfast ... then on the second day of our holiday, i was offered a week long free pass to a relative's new gym (and another one the following week) so i also swam 12 out of 14 days PLUS i sometimes walked for hours by the beach = i lost 4 lbs, whilst treating myself to nice extras every now and then, but then usually eating by myself WITHOUT STRESS ....

have been back home for 2 weeks, have kept on the running (now have a buddy who wants to run in a park so she drives us there !!!) but probably put back on the weight i had lost & i'm not ready so step on the scale for now ... only managed to go swimming 3 times since our return and one good long walk. Finally got the bug going around and had a low grade fever for a few days so mainly rested (appart from the very early morning run).

i suppose i must have toned up still because i have been able to buy a few nice outfits (mostly in charity shops in the UK ... the thrill of the search ...cannot be beaten !!!) and they hang better on me still ...

... temperatures are so much higher even at night so most days are a struggle to accomplish the minimum i wish to tackle, i have had major sleep issues again, therefore my food intake has not been so reasonnable again ... plus have had to deal with some heavy emotional issues at home & with extended family (a close family member passed away, but some of the family relationships are so so weird & due to various mental health issues, not all of them properly diagnosed nor treated/stabilised.... that it's been rather complicated to get round to even just basic discussion about the organisation plans for the funeral ... i now feel i have done all that was in my power so that DH could work things out to the best possible outcome in the various travels he's going to undergo - he had plans to travel already, so it won't be such a massive change in the planning, it's just the getting people to coordinate that is maddeningly difficult ...). i'm not going, my children are not going either (2 years back, one relative was suddently "des-invited" from the church service for another funeral ... i just cannot believe that people are quite normal in their head when they start behaving in that way .... it just stresses me to think that these people are my and my children's relatives ...)

Am going to try and stop dealing with all that for now & try to concentrate more on my own needs & the back to school stuff to get ready for the children ... i WAS planning to do more housework since i wasn't going to be able to swim as much as i did early August & i thought it would help with the weight loss ... but it's far less motivating so that strategy didn't work much (yet) ... From what i experience in early August, what is needed for me to loose a bit of weight quite comfortably is 20 min jog, half a mile swim and a couple of hours of fast walking per day ...
now, .... i have spent more time reading, taking naps when i was having the sniffles, caughing, having a bit of a fever, also too much time at the computer ...

Don't know yet how i'm going to tackle my sleep rythm disturbance .... Cross fingers that things will fall into place as September rolls in and a routine falls back in place ....
 
#11 ·
Welcome back! We've been out camping for a few days, and I have to deal with overeating aftermath (camping makes me eat for some reason).

If you lost four pounds while doing all that exercise, that translates into a much bigger loss than what the scale shows. Congratulations!

Disinvited to (from?) a funeral? Do people do that??? I had no idea.

I've been able to hang onto most of the recent weight loss, but I need to ease out of this camping phase. Calorie counting tomorrow, and for a few days until I'm back on track.
 
#12 ·
I'd love to join in here!

I need to lose about 60lbs right now. I've been through 6 very difficult pregnancies and several other really major health problems and at some point I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Everything was so hard and eating became something that made me feel better. I'm really not sure I could have done things much different during that time, but now I'm having to try to undo the consequences of all those years.

Not sure exactly what I'm going to do. My husband just bought me this ridiculously expensive Arc Trainer which is similar to an Elliptical but easier on the knees (which is a requirement for me because I had Lyme Disease and it went undiagnosed for so long that significant damage to my joints was done) so I'll be using that and I'm also in the process of figuring out how to change my eating habits.

I know I have a long road ahead of me but I'm so ready to feel better
 
#13 ·
Welcome @hennesseyheart ! Glad to have another person on board.

I've been doing very well maintaining, but I'm going to need a support thread for this school year. I'm determined to not gain weight, but I can tell my appetite is up and my willpower down.

I'll be starting a fall thread soon. Look for the link here!
 
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