Weight-Loss Summer Shake-Up Challenge Chat Thread

Weight-Loss
Finally getting a few minutes to chat a little. It really has been a busy couple of days for me!!!

Jake - I am sure that you will be in excellent shape for your move back. There is something about the concept of doing exercise plus tightening up our nutrition that makes us all look so much fitter and healthier - irrespective of whether we are trying to lose just a few pounds or quite a lot of them. We are not going for one of those "lose weight by wasting away" approaches - we are treating our bodies more like nature intended. I am sure that your friends will not believe how fit and healthy you look.

Kirsty - Its great to meet you. I am pleased that the challenge is timed right for you and is focussing on the areas that you had already identified. I cant wait to hear what exercise you are doing. We all need a little persuading at times to do that exercise - but it makes all the difference in the world. Not only does it make us look better in itself - but it causes us to burn more calories which in turn allow us to eat more healthy calories.

Cord - It certainly does sound like your food and exercise is going well. I am sorry that you are low - but we all need a little "me time" and if you do all that overtime you are depriving yourself in this area. Also I am sure that there are studies about night shift leading to low feelings. I am no expert - but I do remember my husband telling me all about it when he was working shifts. I remember he bought a light box because there was some theory that the lack of daylight contributed towards problems. It may be worth you doing a little research on the concept of light boxes and whether they could help.

I hope that you get the weightloss that you would like - but I can warn you that there is a danger to comparing one person's weight loss against another. The fact is that we all come to try and lose weight from different backgrounds and are in different situations. The best thing is if each person tries to do the best that they can. I would hate anyone to get demoralised - particularly when they have been as successful as you have been - 33 pounds so far is fabulous.
 
Omega said:
I hope that you get the weightloss that you would like - but I can warn you that there is a danger to comparing one person's weight loss against another. The fact is that we all come to try and lose weight from different backgrounds and are in different situations. The best thing is if each person tries to do the best that they can. I would hate anyone to get demoralised - particularly when they have been as successful as you have been - 33 pounds so far is fabulous.
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Oh, don't worry, I'm not really serious about it. It's just for my own personal fun. I'm actually quite happy with my rate of improvement and activity (as long as I don't focus too much on all the people on this forum who work out 2-3 hours a day, eat perfectly, and lose huge amounts of weight). I just thought it would be fun if I could match or even pass her. I'm thrilled with how well she is doing, and she is equally thrilled at my accomplishments.

Yesterday was a pretty decent day overall. For me it is much easier to eat lots of fruit than lots of vegetables, but I'm trying to keep a balance between the two.
I was too worn out from the night shift to get my full planned workout done, but half is better than none, and it was the more intense half. 45 minutes on the heavy bag. Normally I follow that with the same time on the bike, but I had to get my daughter to bed, and after that I was too tired and decided to get adequate sleep for a change. :)
 
That's good Cord. I had visions of you getting disillusioned and giving up in disgust - all for a few ounces.....

As far as the hours of exercise goes - no-one should compare themselves to me. I found that I had to do a terrible amount of exercise to get the speed of weight loss that I wanted. I am a PCOS lady that means that my hormones arent set right and I gain weight easier than other people and find it harder to lose weight. Well - I wanted a normal type of rate of weight loss when I found that I was actually losing weight - so I just kept increasing the exercise more and more until I got it. On hitting goal last month my priority is to decrease the exercise in stages to a point where I am not losing or gaining. I have recently reduced down to 6.5 miles each morning and I am keeping an eye on how my weight reacts...

Well done on the 45 minutes of exercise. Both fruit and vegetables are really beneficial to us. I eat less veg than fruit - but I reckon that I eat A LOT of fruit. I just love the sweetness. I figure that if I am eating plenty of fruit and veg I havent got room for a lot of things that are going to harm my weight. Also - if I have a lot of fruit - I find that I am not so worried about not having some of the sweet things that I used to have (and are still eaten in front of me by my husband).

Night shift is tiring so I am not surprised that you were worn out after doing it and extra shifts too. Sleep is very beneficial. :)
 
So my day today was not all that enjoyable... it started off okay, seemed like it would end well but fell apart...

I'm working days this week, very unusual for me but I'm saving my vacation time for decmber and Jamaica. I was up at 4:00am, hit the gym, did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and 30 minutes of weights.

Rainy for the morning, s I didn't expect to get out and exercise later. Well, It cleared up, so I took my kayak out after work for another 45 minutes.

Got home, went into the basement to switch laundry over and ended up sloshing through water to get to my washer. Nope, not the washer, the septic backed up :ack2:

Spent the remainder of my night digging out the septic, getting a truck in here to pump it and paying out most of my vacation fund to get an emergency plumber in.

Couldn't wash anything or use the bathroom until late, so I ate out and had really poor choices. The only saving grace is the extra exercise I got in today because my food was not good...

Now I have to refill the vacation account before December - not as easy as I wish it was.
 
Ooh, sorry man, that sucks.

I hate septic problems (okay, is there anyone who likes them?). Extra bummer that it ate into your vacation fund.

Kayak - I just bought one! Haven't had a chance to try it out yet, though.
 
Karl - that is really bad news. Yuk - is the only word for the whole situation - having to deal physically with the mess of it - and it really adds insult to injury the fact that it took your holiday fund.

The fact that you made some less than ideal food choices is a minor issue - since we all have days where that happens. The fact is that as we have discussed before - all that exercise would mean that you had quite a lot of calories sitting in the bank (irrespective of your normal happy range) so may even have ended the day in deficit. I am absolutely positive that you will still have a solid deficit for the week to earn you some weight loss.

The only positive spin that I can think of for the whole thing is that you have now got your most unpleasant exercise session for the whole year behind you.

I know that you have posted that you work hard - so am sure that you will manage to top up the holiday fund before December.
 
momma4alex said:
Hey everyone, Its me heather. I have been here almost 2 years.. off and on of course.. with having a baby and losing a few in the last few years. Plus the 4 months of living in the hospital with my oldest son,alexander. So yeah.. I'm 26 will be 27 on thanksgiving day.. hoping to be at least 225 if not lower by then. Since my goal is to get to 225 by the time my baby, cameron turns a year old.

My goals right now besides what the challenge has laid out for us is to exercise at least 30 minutes a day and to drink at least 96 oz of water a day.

If you have any questions about me or my kids please don't be shy.. ask away.. i'm not really that shy when it comes to questions and I'll let you know if i feel offended or uncomfortable.. with something..
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I hope that you make it to your goal. It is great that you have continued working on your project - and didnt disappear completely from the forum with the second pregnancy. It can be all too easy to give up as a task that is "too hard". This was my problem for over twenty years - I would try and then give up. Although we have never been in the same forum crowd - I well remember reading of your plans to surprise your man when he was abroad and not seeing you for months on end.

Your pregnancy has naturally delayed your project - but for the very nicest of reasons. I know exactly what it is like being on a long term project - we set targets for later in the year. Most of mine I just missed. The last stage of getting to my goal weight took for ever. If I were you I would try to focus on some closer milestones - as I find that lots of little milestones encourage you and give you a boost on towards the next one - I would be looking to see what weight gives you a BMI under 45 if I were you. Naturally I would celebrate hitting getting into the 220s too.

It is great that you are working at your water. I work on mine too. It is not as easy as it sounds to someone who hasnt done it themselves. It can be all too easy to think "I always drink plenty - and liquid is liquid - one area that I dont need to bother with!..." Most people that think like that get a surprise!.
 
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San - that sounds a great deal at the gym - with membership giving all the classes thrown in for £20. The cheapest gym near here costs quite a bit more than that and has no classes during the day. I cannot really do evening classes because Rod would feel abandoned and not be happy so I would never go. The only one that does daytime classes costs about four times that and is not really an option financially.

My hubby is exactly the same as yours then - a few pounds heavier than last year (BMI of 54+) and sits on the couch - but in my case he is eating ice cream, cream sundaes or crisps..... He can happily sit like that watching me on the treadmill! I love him and wish that I could motivate him to rescue his health before it is too late. I am constantly aware that he is exactly the same age as his father was when he died of a heart attack due to severe morbid obesity. This actually spooks me more now than when I was the same size - I kind of figured that we would last to about the same age as each other and just have a shorter life span to everyone else.

I can easily understand you being twitchy about sunscreen. We have all become a lot wiser about things like using sunscreen than we were when we were young. The problem with wisdom after the event is that you cannot go back and undo what has been done. If we could no-one would need to lose weight - we would just go back and replay until we managed to not gain it. I have a vision of us all playing "Groundhog Day" reruns of life until it finally went right. All we can do is try our best to get sunscreen, food choices, exercise and the rest of life as near to right from today onwards. No-one can do better than their best. We also have to forgive ourselves for the times when we know that we have got it wrong.

That is a brilliant tip that you gave Jake (and the rest of us) about shopping at the market late in the day. I hadnt even thought of that. I spend a fortune on fruit and veg. When at home I pay Tescos prices for a lot of it too - which is not cheap. I am always pleased to pick up a bargain when out walking and I see something. When I am up in Newcastle I know where the wholesaler is and they are happy to sell to the public. I always buy a box of apples and a box of veg when we are there. It is amazing how quickly I get through them too. Normally both boxes are empty within two weeks. I am going to check out our local market to see if I can copy your idea (I will have to work out what time they pack up so it will take a little investigation...).

I am sorry to hear that your back is killing you after the gardening. Hopefully it will get better soon.

We all have weeks when we do not get the reduction at the scales that we know that we deserve. You have been at this game long enough to know that it should come in time - but we do not always get the reward immediately.
 
Well - I am a daily weigher and my Monday weight was up (I cannot be bothered to update my ticker so it is not on there). I put on 1.4 pounds by my excesses on Sunday - but as I said I did eat cheese and I always see a gain if I do that. I am just hoping that I can clear it off quickly.

The fact that I am doing this challenge helped me because I fed Monday data through fitday and kept things pretty tight (on the low end of my happy range of calories). I could so easily have not bothered because today (Tuesday) will be difficult to track - so I probably wont.

Slimming World are having a party tonight and we all take along a low syn thing for the buffet. The SW program has lists of free food that are low GI/ low GL and then you are charged syns for things that are considered less filling / nutritious and you have a daily syn allowance. The concept is that almost all the food that you eat is taken from the free food list. Basically the food in the buffet should be filling for the amount of calories used and therefore low calorie. One problem with buffets still remains - and that is that you dont know what you have had and it is not easy to guess. Filling it in on fitday becomes a nightmare - so I have decided not to bother.

Monday went well although was busy. I have my keep fit class on a Monday and I did my walking outdoors because we are having a heatwave. I always walk slower outdoors so
6.5 miles at approx 3mph = 2hrs 10 mins.
1 hr keep fit (class is actually 1hr 15mins long but I reduce to remove admin time etc to get a time that I am actually exercising).

5-a-day was no problem - with 1 banana, 2 pears, numerous apples. For my evening meal I had salmon which I served with salad because of the heatwave. This was a plate piled high with lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, spring onion, red onion, red pepper, celery.
 
Cabbie, sorry to hear about the mess and that it ate into your holiday funds! :( Hope you manage to fill them up again! And no worries about the food choices - I think everybody understands that after something like that, you want to treat yourself to something, no matter if it is 'bad' for you or not. Plus - one meal hardly makes a difference, and as Margaret said, you probably burned a lot of extra calories that day, so nothing to worry about. :)

I've been doing okay with my 5 a day and exercise so far - I mostly eat fruit, usually plums or peaches with my breakfast, nectarines or cherries for a snack, berries and banana with yogurt for lunch, then salad or veggies with dinner. My main problem is that I eat very few veggies - sweetcorn, beans, carrots and peas. I can't eat broccoli, cauliflower or sprouts - and I don't mean I don't like them, I mean I can't eat them at all. Even having them cooked anywhere nearby makes me gag. Always has. I remember Christmas dinner at my sister-in-law's house, and she made brussel sprouts with it. The rest of the dinner was lovely (according to everybody else), but I wasn't able to eat any of it because just the smell of the sprouts made me physically sick.

I really need to find some more veggies, and ways to make veggies, so I can have more of them. But to make matters worse, I'm a horrible cook, so that doesn't help....*lol*

I've done my 45 minutes eliptical every day, plus some resistance training and more gardening (I dug out a 6 foot hedge and dragged it down the road to replant it in a neighbours garden, so I think that counts as exercise). It's really hot and humid here though, so yesterday I wasn't sure I could do the full 45 minutes. After about 30 I felt as if I would fall off the machine! *lol*
Swimming today, so that should be better! :)

Margaret, your husband sounds a lot like mine to be honest. Rob (that's my hubby's name) must be about....I don't know, but I am guessing about 430 lbs. He keeps saying that he needs to lose weight, and he has done in the past, but in the most unhealthy way. 500 calories a day and excessive weight training. It worked for him, but as soon as he went back to 'normal', he piled on the pounds. I was hoping that maybe seeing me lose weight and feeling better and all of that would make him seriously give it a try, but no. :(

And it's the same with evening classes here - I'd love to go swimming at night, 8 - 10 pm, two hours of adult swimming instead of just one, but he'd definitely pull a face about it, and it's bad enough as it is. So it all has to be during the day. *sigh*

And it wasn't actually the gardening that caused the back problems. I have ongoing problems with my back, I just thought that with losing weight they would at least get better, but unfortunately the opposite has happened. Oh well....I guess I'm still healthier altogether, so I'm not complaining! :)
 
San - sorry to hear about your ongoing back problems. I used to have problems with my back when I was big - but it is great now - it was worse than this when I was in my twenties!!!

All that gardening most certainly counts as exercise - think of all those calories you were burning. It is not like we only start burning calories when we put on our gym shoes!!!!

All that fruit sounds absolutely delicious. I already eat half the fruit in the western world and my mouth is watering thinking of some more that I would like to have. I wouldnt have believed it possible but I would actually prefer to eat some kinds of juicy fresh fruit than chocolate a lot of the time - especially in the hot weather. Not that I get much chocolate these days I may add!!!

You should certainly avoid the vegetables that make you feel sick. I am the same way with the smell of tea - there is no way that I could face trying to drink it. Last spring I was in a challenge that Kimberly was setting and one of the things that she wanted everyone to do was drink green tea. I just couldnt face it at all. Luckily there was an alternative task which I did. Almost everyone else drank the tea and thought that it was easy. It actually amused quite a few people who thought that ALL English people love drinking tea!!!

There are tons of other kinds of vegetables out there. Vegetables are actually so healthy that it is a good idea to widen your knowledge so that you know whether you like or not a whole load of things. I only tried celeriac for instance over the past winter. Many of us only ever try the vegetables that we were given by our mothers and didnt find revolting. That means that we live our lives only ever buying a tiny subset of the range of vegetables out there. I used to think that I didnt like spinach because I was given it once as a child and didnt like it. Rod thought he didnt like it for the same reason. Then in Greece a friend gave it to us and we suddenly realised that we both really liked it. The funny thing is that taste can change as you get older too.

In my experience cooking is just a matter of practice. When I was young I was a terrible cook. Then we kind of needed to eat so I needed to do some cooking. I got a very basic cookery book and followed some instructions and things started turning out a lot better. I cant do a lot of fancy stuff - but can manage fine regarding basic home cooking. Lets face it - a lot of that fancy stuff is high calorie anyway and we are better off without it.

Whenever I have tried to do something new I have checked on the internet or asked around.

I hadnt cooked butternut squash satisfactorily until this past winter when one of the women at Weight Watchers told me that the secret with pealing butternut squash is to put it in the microwave first. It peels much easier after it has been cooked - then peal, deseed and chop up and cook in the pan.

Our men sound like a pair - Rod and Rob!!!! Maybe one day they will both follow our example. I am sure that Rod would quite like to lose weight - but he is waiting for the magic wand method. He likes his treats too much to not have them (every day - quite a few of them actually) and he does no exercise. We all know that the magic wand method doesnt work - if it did we would have done that instead of coming here...
 
In many respects, my wife used to be the female doppelganger to both of your hubbies actually. Now that she has had the surgery, out of necessity, things have changed.

The interesting part is that she is a study in contradictions. She has no problem being on a beach in just a swimsuit, but is incredibly phobic about her looks (read that weight), with regard to a gym. She has a membership at the same gym as me that she has yet to use because she is self conscious. She is beginning to come around now though. Since she is virtualy melting away right now, she is gaining some of it back.

Then there is me... who has to exercise like a damn demon to get anywhere :(

Anyway, I hit the gym this morning for a half hour, then rode my bike for 41 minutes. Got up at 4:15 and was showered and at work by 7:30 after accomplishing my exercise. Not used to doing this day shift thing, but I'm making it work as well as I can for now.

Missed the veggies the last 2 days, but will defininitely get them today. Heck my lunch salad probably counted as a whole day's worth...

With any luck the weather will hold out and maybe I can even do some more kayaking this afternoon after work.
 
Hello, fellow babies.

Yesterday was mixed for me. Food was all right, no problem getting the 5 a day, although I didn't feel like cooking dinner and instead bought fresh-from the-oven chicken pies. Yum.

Exercise not so good. Got a 30 minute walk in for my lunch break at work, which was nice. Had originally planned to get some weight training done in the gym that evening, but I had forgotten that it was my wife's book club night, so I had to look after our daughter. Add to that the fact that I kept feeling more and more sick as the evening progressed, and I didn't get much done.
During my daughter's computer time I went downstairs and got 20 minutes in on the old Total Gym - didn't feel too bad but I had to stop to get her to bed, and afterwards I just felt wretched.
Still - 50 minutes total, which is not completely awful.

While I was at the playground with my daughter in the afternoon, I tried a pull-up on the monkey bars. Didn't come close, but did manage a flexed arm hang for about 3 seconds, which is an improvement.
Sometimes we have to take these little victories where we can find them. :)
 
Cord, I have this urge to do a pull up that gets me now and again, but lemme tell ya... Us big dudes - we just ain't made for that yet... I feel ya though!

Did manage some push ups recently though, thats a start.

Got me some kayaking in again tonight, boy do I love my toy!
 
Omega your right i should look at what weight would get me under a bmi of 45. So i did.. according to the ticker thing if i get down to 237 or lower i'll be outta of the 45 for bmi.
 
reluctantcabbie said:
Cord, I have this urge to do a pull up that gets me now and again, but lemme tell ya... Us big dudes - we just ain't made for that yet... I feel ya though!

Did manage some push ups recently though, thats a start.

Got me some kayaking in again tonight, boy do I love my toy!
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We just picked up a paddle and some life jackets - hopefully I will be on the water this time tomorrow!
 
Ugh anyone know exercises i can do that won't kill my chest? I have bad asthma and the last few days my chest has been hurting if i try to do push ups or things like that. anyways.. i am now outta school so my time will be taking care of my two boys and exercising and food control.
 
reluctantcabbie said:
Then there is me... who has to exercise like a damn demon to get anywhere
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I suspect that there is a whole crowd of us here that has come to the conclusion that we have to exercise like demons to get anywhere. I have long said that I reckon that I am the world's most unlikely athlete. I reckon that we are a team of them!
 
Glad to see everyone on here who is taking the challenge seriously and making it work daily.

And thanks for the tips on buying produce. I won't be able to use them this week, but I'll have need in the coming weeks, and I have no doubt they'll be a big help in saving money but still eating healthier.

Well, I haven't actually DONE anything as of yet. Couldn't do the 5 a day (really, poor doesn't begin to describe it), but that'll change next week; I love fruits, so it won't really be a problem. I'll have to push to eat any vegetables, but I'll do that gradually.

I blame my youth, but I just can't get into this whole "work" thing. I don't really do much at work, compared to some people, but I am so mentally exhausted afterwards that I rarely have energy for exercise or anything like it. Luckily, I have the next two days off and me and some friends like to train on Thursdays, for hours on end, so I still think I'll make the max 5 hours, but not in the best way. Weekends warriors (as I've heard them called) who exercise on the weekend only for several hours don't do as well as those who do much less exercise but on a daily basis. But I'm hoping the momentum will keep and I'll be able to do my exercise daily once my work week starts again.

Well, there's my update. I haven't done anything yet, but I won't let that stop me before the challenge has even really started. I've given up on enough weight loss tries; too many for even my relatively short life. Here's the time to get it right. I'm looking forward to putting a good post tomorrow about my 5 a day and a satisfactory amount of exercise.
 
Kyoropaladin said:
I blame my youth, but I just can't get into this whole "work" thing. I don't really do much at work, compared to some people, but I am so mentally exhausted afterwards that I rarely have energy for exercise or anything like it.
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This I understand completely. My job is extremely undemanding (except in the case of an emergency), so I mainly just sit on my ass at my position. Just because a job isn't strenuous or busy (perhaps especially when it isn't busy) doesn't mean it isn't tiring. It is tiring just to be tied to one place for 8 hours, and not be able to go do what you want, or even leave the room. I get worn out from just being stuck there.
 
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