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I love this post!...when I was younger, I literally feared nothing!...two times a year, I would drive alone to my home state ( Indiana ),stay alone in motels,or take long walks alone in cities and visit sites that I enjoyed...my husband and I owned a very prosperous hands on business and although we did manage to vacation together sometime, there were many times he would tell me to go off on my own and enjoy my solitude and my family in Indiana without him or the kids putting their demands on me...I loved these solo trips and looked forward to them two times every year...I read late into the night, ate when and where I wanted to and went to events only I enjoyed...it was bliss!..I also traveled with our daughter who was a competitive synchronized swimmer, all over the USA going to cities in every state!....and then some where along the way, I grew older...I didn’t want to spend time away from my husband when realistically we don’t have that many more years together...we will be married 45 years in November and in that time, we have had 12 arguments at the very most...I also started falling over rugs, curbs etc...I became more cautious in public rest areas and gas stations and motels...I called home more when I was away and honestly, I was fearful to be out alone in strange cities and surroundings!...about ten years ago, I put my solo wings away and have only vacationed alone one time since then and it was to attend a wedding and I flew instead of driving...so the moral of this story is...ENJOY your youth...never let fear get in your way of doing things you love because life passes by too quickly...of course be cautious and safe but don’t be afraid!...looking back I wish I had done more!...family and time were a couple of obstacles...I should have finished college when my kids were grown and I always wanted to take flying lessons...I also wanted to do a road trip to Nova Scotia...I am still not a timid little old lady but bad things do happen to some people for no reason...I guess I have become more aware of my mortality and how easily accidents can happen...and I am not as physically strong as I used to be...so go on those hikes,take those trips and enjoy your camper!...you have youth on your side!0
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I am looking forward to a less active week this week. Most of my projects are done or done enough until the weather cools back off. I should not have to eat maintenance calories to help cover for unknown energy expenditures anymore which means I should be able to start dropping some of this 12 pounds of water weight. I am also anxious to see where I am on true weight. I say anxious but I mean I have some mild anxieties over it. I know eating at a mild surplus was a good idea and a very minor weight gain would be a positive result but knowing I have gained AND having all the extra water weight makes it mentally uncomfortable.
I am also looking at a 4 day trip in 2 weeks. It is a family thing and I will be eating out more and in less control of my calories so it would be nice to see where I am before my water weight goes back up again.1 -
I understand all about the mild anxieties over possible weight gain! And if you are like me, you probably visualize that its worse than it really is lol
I"m not sure where I am at the moment, either. I think I had maintenance at least part of the last 2 weeks, but may not have been completely there the whole time, but with water weight gains, its hard to tell. When I look at my daily records it seems that I was there - I got a brief bump up that I expected and from Thursday to Thursday over 2 weeks the weight was around the same, but this weekend dropped, and I know that I am retaining water due to the heat and humidity and TOM finally showing up.
I am ready to be back in a deficit; I find myself wanting to keep losing! Thankfully, even with TOM munchies, the control over the snackiness hasn't been as difficult as I feared.
Thursday I'll drop back to a stronger deficit, though I may go to 1.5 lbs a week instead at lightly active, restart my spreadsheet to track calories and steps, and see where I end up in 4 to 6 weeks. This week is going to be hard to go by because while I had set myself for 1 lb/wk loss, I'm already down 2 lbs from what I recorded on Thursday, but I also know I'm losing water.
I've lost enough weight that its getting very noticeable; even the pastor made a comment yesterday! It's also very surreal for me because I'm almost completely into a size 18W. That one is big for me because that had been my pipe-dream size that I never really believed I'd ever get to. I bought a 1X dress last week that was supposed to be my goal dress, but when I got it home and tried it on, it actually fit and I wore it yesterday! that's part of what is driving my desire to get back to deficit eating and lose more weight - I'm curious to see if I could get to a size 16 or even a 14 before its all over! My waist is down to 41.5" I can't remember for sure where I started but I think it was around 50"? I may need to sign up for premium MFP just long enough to access the long term records beyond a year lol
All the doctor recommendations nowadays are to try to get to 35" waist for a woman; I never believed it was possible for me before, but now I find myself actually flirting with the idea!
I kept thinking that I am now the size I was in high school but couldn't understand why the clothes I was wearing in high school that I did had are too big. I went to a high school that was run by my church, and there are pictures up in the foyer of all the graduating classes. I looked at the picture of my class from 1998 and had an epiphany: I am not at the weight I was in high school at all - I'm a lot smaller now! Fat brain strikes again!3 -
Oh wait - I figured out how to see my starting stats
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I decided to scale back my activity this week. Instead of routinely earning 1400+ calories I am shooting for 1k. I have gone pretty hard for over a month now and I really feel the need dial the volume down from 11 to more like 8. It is still a lot of activity but it won't feel like I am reaching so much... if that makes sense.
It is unfortunate timing since I am coming off a break in which I was eating a surplus. 500 for the deficit, 250 for the surplus, and 400 for less activity is a calorie swing of 1150. I am not struggling on hunger but I have definitely gotten accustomed to the extra 400ish activity calories and formed habits around eating more.
It is probably not unfortunate timing. It is probably a good thing. There is likely an important lesson to be learned here on how quickly I adjust back down when my activity is suddenly less because that will happen.3 -
My activity has scaled back this week, too. I haven't been able to walk nearly as much as I usually do - I think I really only got 1 nice long walk in this week, though I've been making sure to get the elliptical and the cardio in at least. I've just been feeling very tired lately and haven't been sleeping the best. Hopefully, I can sleep in a little tomorrow, though it won't be as much as I'd like since I promised my sister we'd go take a look at a campground that we potentially might like to visit in August, and she's informed me she also wants to go shopping. There's going to be a limit on that, though - I need to mow grass tomorrow!
Thankfully, I'm not having near as much trouble going back to a deficit as I thought I would, though I have also decided that instead of returning to 2 lbs/wk, that I was going to start at 1.5 lbs/wk, which is allowing me an extra 250 calories than before. I still chose to go back to sedentary and just count 75% of all activity and am still shooting for 10,000 steps a day. Days like today, though, are a little frustrating because I know I'll have the activity equivalent of 10,000 steps because I'm going to do jiu-jitsu tonight, but I can't wear my fitness tracker when rolling, so I can't capture that effort with the tracker so my step count doesn't really match my effort. Nothing to be done for it, though, but live with it!
And just as a little rant:
A year ago, Hardee's calorie count for their chocolate chip cookies was around the same as McDonald's: 170 calories per cookie. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and decided I really wanted a cookie on the way home. To keep from having to go all the way back across town to the McDonald's I swung through Hardee's on the way home. But when I got home and looked up the calorie information, Hardee's had updated it and now 1 cookie there was 290 calories! And I ended up eating 2 of the darn things
Hardee's cookie does feel denser than McDonald's, but I wish I had known that before - I wouldn't' have gotten the thing then. So I ended yesterday about 300 calories over budget even after counting back exercise. *sigh* oh well - the cookies WERE good so at least they were worth it, and it's one day, so not even a blip in the long term, I know! 1 -
I really dislike finding out I am wrong on a calorie count that either changed or I misremembered. I try to let it go quickly but for some reason it bothers me more to have my day impacted that way. Maybe it is because it does not happen quite as frequently and it is like a sneak attack on my calorie budget.
Rationally though I know that unless I eat everything in a controlled environment it will happen. Eating all food in a controlled manner though is not how I want to live my life.
Here is my rant:
I was away from home yesterday and I ordered a vegetable wrap and a grilled chicken sandwich which was purchased and brought to me by someone else. I forgot (how could I forget?) that every sandwich in the universe seems to be slathered with mayo which I do not like and also jacks up the calories. So I ate around it and in doing so didn't eat most of the wrap or the bread from the sandwich. I ate mostly just the insides. This means I have NO idea how many calories I actually ate. Oh, and of course, there is no way to properly log it. I ended up using a salad entry and a bread entry to approximate the calories and macros I might have consumed.
Stupid mistake on my part.
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totally agree on the mayo! I like mayo but have learned that I can go without it and not miss it, and you are so right on the calorie count that mayo brings along - 100+ most times, and that's the estimate as there's no way of guessing exactly how much a restaurant employee will slap on a sandwich, especially at a fast food place. Too bad it wasn't on a bun - you might have been able to scrape it off or just toss the half that had the mayo on it.
I leave cheese off most items for the same reason - I like cheese, but really, on a sandwich or in a salad, you don't taste it and it really jacks the calories up. What irritates me is that Wendy's has the best selection of salads and I can really get the calorie counts down, but most of their salads don't give you the option of removing the cheese.
And I hate it when I order one thing, only to pull out and realize I got something else. Yesterday I wanted an Arby's turkey slider with no cheese on my way to go grocery shopping because I was hungry and its probably not a good idea to go grocery shopping when you are hungry. As I was pulling out, I picked my sandwich up to see it was a chicken tender slider and not the turkey one. I couldn't fit the tender one into my budget - the turkey one is 160 calories; the tender one is way higher than that. And the drive was wrapped around the building, so I gave up and went on to the grocery store and stopped at the Arby's in that area and went ahead and got my dinner as a turkey salad no cheese no bacon and a turkey club no mayo no cheese no bacon. Then I took the chicken tender slider to my sister lol
It is irritating when those slips ups happen on the calorie recording front. I've learned to double check restaurant entries every time because their calorie points can drastically change in their updates. Case in point: there is a convenience store called Sheetz in my state and surrounding states that sells made to order sandwiches, etc - sort of like a subway but with a bigger menu. I used to get their grilled chicken on a flat bread because at the time, they said that a 6" sandwich was around 350 calories, which I could easily fit into my budget and be satisfied. Then one day, I went into the store to order the same sandwich and suddenly that 350 calorie sandwich ballooned up to over 500 calories! I double checked their website and sure enough, they had updated and that flat bread that they had said before was around 200 calories was now 350 by itself. So I don't get food at Sheetz much anymore.....1 -
Its a good thing that one off day will not blow a diet, and one off day doesn't matter one whit in the long term as long as its a one off and doesn't become ingrained habit. And I take it as a sign of progress that I can have a one off day and it not affect me nearly as badly as it used to!
Yesterday was a low will power day. I ended up out until evening with my sister; we ate fast food for lunch and dinner because where we were there were very limited options, and I came home and spent several hours on the phone with my best friend and could not resist snacking, including eating a piece of the lemon meringue pie I made for today. I was over calorie limit for sure. However, I do think my activity was higher than what would be judged by the activity tracker I wear since that tracker does a poor job of tracking my steps while shopping - meaning my activity was more lightly active than sedentary yesterday - i was pushing 10,000 steps by midnight. I also pace the house when I talk on the phone, and was not wearing the tracker for part of that time.
Still, I went over calorie count. I made sensible choices when eating out, but it just didn't hold me well and I gave in to the urge to snack. I also admit it was a conscious decision. One part of me was warning to hold back, and that part did still have a partial influence because it kept the snacking from going too far over board, but the part that really just wanted to eat got its way to a point. The part holding back was reminding me of the great successes we had today when clothes shopping - I bought a pair of 16 jeans at Cato's that fits, which means at Catos, I'm in a 16 (not at Walmart in all cases, but since it all depends on the brand, its really hard to judge). I also bought an 18/20 dress there that fit very well, and then got a large shirt at Maurices, and needed a size 0 in the other shirt. I
was amazed and excited and the sensible part of me warned against snacking reminding me that if I want to continue to lose even more I needed to hold the course. But the snacky side of me ended up winning out.
But you know what? I'm okay with it. It was one day. I didn't over eat by 1,000's of calories; at best I may have over eaten by 500 calories maybe 750 though I really doubt it was that much - and my deficit is 750 anyway. So I might have slowed down my progress by 1 day; 1 day is not a big deal. So I find myself being able to shrug, say "meh, I enjoyed it yesterday; now back on track today" and being able to move on. I find that fascinating in myself lol
I may or may not get much activity in today. That long phone call last night lasted well into this morning and since today is church day, my time is limited. And the weather is currently rainy though it may clear a little by this evening. If not, I'll just hit the elliptical this afternoon - we'll see how dinner goes at my moms and whether I find myself needing a nap this afternoon!2 -
Though the self judgement part of me still had to make a snide comment. I bought that 18/20 dress that fit well, the size 16 jeans that fit well, the large shirt and size 0 shirt that all fit well. But the critical part of my brain completely ignored those victories; it wants to focus on the fact that the size 18 jean shorts I bought yesterday at Walmart don't fit. *sigh* Yes, but Walmart's clothing size are not true to size and are all over the place, Ms. Critical, and you well know that, so you cannot tell me that I can't say I'm in a size 18 when I can get into a size 18 80-85% of the time depending on the store and the particular clothing article. And furthermore, one pair of shorts not fitting well does not overshadow the other 5 articles that DID fit well, so sit down and stuff it! Back off and let me enjoy the little boost of confidence that the shopping experience engendered!
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If you fit most 18s, I'd say you are an 18!!!
It's funny, the brand of stuff I like from Walmart is clearly vanity-sized. I bought some size 1X (16-18) sweats and they fit, and there's just no way that's accurate. There is no world where I can wear a 16-18, ESPECIALLY on my bottom half!!! I have some size 24 jeans that fit me tightly, which seems a lot more accurate, and even that might be a stretch. I understand why vanity sizing has come about, and I know it'll never happen, but I wish all brands would go to the same standard.
Happy Sunday!2 -
Oh gosh!...I am loving swimming again, burning extra calories and getting a little extra food without going overboard!...1
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I hadn't done it in a while, but this weekend was a bust. Well, not really a bust because I wasn't over maintenance levels, but I couldn't stick to my deficit. Part of yesterday's problem was that it rained most of the day so there was no opportunity to get my walk in which meant that even though I got in an elliptical session in the afternoon, I was still needing to stay close to sedentary calories. However, my head is now used to having all those extra calories that come with exercise and being active, and so though I wasn't active yesterday (I snoozed for most of the afternoon), I still found myself consuming those calories anyway.
I'm going to mitigate some of the damage by claiming some of those calories today. I know I could just let them go and work on today, but I was over on Saturday as well, and I feel I should limit the damage 2 days in a row will bring. Plus, getting calories in today won't be a problem as tonight is jiu-jitsu night and I'm off today so I can get a walk in as well (was going to mow grass but yesterday's rain has the lawn saturated, so that ain't happening.) Not to mention the yard work and other activity I want to get in today. So I should be able to claim those extra calories from yesterday today and still get enough calories to satisfy me today.
I'm not begrudging myself the lazy day yesterday, though. I'd been short on sleep all last week and I know I was needing it, so I let myself take that 2 hour nap yesterday afternoon. And I still needed a cup of coffee before heading off to evening church services! And to really point out that I had gotten myself too sleep deprived - even after taking a 2 hour nap, drinking coffee in the late afternoon, then having a large tea after church, I still had no trouble falling asleep at midnight when I went to bed, nor did I wake up at all until 6:30 this morning. Apparently, I was really needing the sleep!
However, the scale is being kind to me. though I expected it to be up with water weight because of the restaurant food from this weekend (we ate at Qdoba Saturday evening and that meal was way, way too salty!), I actually weighed in this morning at an all time low - 235.0 lbs!
That weigh in is another reason I'm not sweating going over my calorie limit this weekend 2 days in a row - when I went back in deficit week before last, I ended up with my setting at sedentary to lose 1.5 lbs/wk (I know, I know - I said I'd do lightly active, but I didn't like assuming things, so I went back to sedentary and counting 75% of all exercise). This gave me a calorie limit of 1500 before exercise, which I know is sustainable. However, I weight in on Thursday at 237.2 lbs and today was 235 lbs. Meaning, I'm probably not eating enough calories to cover my activity levels, which as you know has been my ongoing problem for the last 3 months. So over-indulging this weekend isn't a big deal for me and the great news is that guilt is only faintly there.
My one worry is, however, that in place of the guilt that would normally be there because of over-doing it, I can feel an apathetic mood coming on, and that's even more dangerous than the guilt cause I know that's when it all falls apart and my motivation withers. I really, really don't want that happening now! I'm making great progress and 220 lbs is very close!
Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; its been a year now since I finally started losing again, and 6 months since I really started dropping. Falling into apathy is what happened to me about this time the last 2 times I lost a lot of weight. Difference this time, or at least I know this will make a big difference this time, is that I'm aware of it coming on. since I know its coming, I can hopefully figure out a way to manage it this time around. Getting into size 18's helps
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@bmeadows380
I have been feeling apathetic for awhile now. Since my cruise was cancelled it has taken a lot of the wind out of my sails. I needed to get away. Not to mention that I had intended to have a 4 months maintenance/recomp period which was also cancelled when my gym closed. I have been kind of childish about the whole thing.
This is not my first foray into apathy either. I think anyone in a very prolonged weight loss should expect a wide range of states.
I think the key is awareness. I try to compromise with it so I can continue to lose some weight even if it is not my full potential. I have been lucky this time because my estimated TDEE was still too low so while I thought I was being slopping I was still losing.1 -
@bmeadows380
I have been feeling apathetic for awhile now. Since my cruise was cancelled it has taken a lot of the wind out of my sails. I needed to get away. Not to mention that I had intended to have a 4 months maintenance/recomp period which was also cancelled when my gym closed. I have been kind of childish about the whole thing.
This is not my first foray into apathy either. I think anyone in a very prolonged weight loss should expect a wide range of states.
I think the key is awareness. I try to compromise with it so I can continue to lose some weight even if it is not my full potential. I have been lucky this time because my estimated TDEE was still too low so while I thought I was being slopping I was still losing.
@NovusDies I hope that key will work for me this time around. It's really the first time I've been aware of its slipping on so I hope that will give me time to build up some resistance to it. My NSV's are definitely helping in that regard, but I'm still finding myself desiring two opposites with one bringing instant gratification and the other delayed gratification, and I'm weakening toward the instant when I need to hold firm for the delayed.
That being said, however, its quite possible that my problem may not be so much apathy as still not eating enough calories to compensate my activity levels. The last 3 days I have been over my deficit + calories, though thankfully the amount over is coming down - Sunday I was over by around 300 calories; last night it was more like 100 calories. But when I stepped on the scale this morning, I saw a new all time low of 233.6 lbs. That left me scratching my head for sure because my weight in was 237 lbs Thursday and I couldn't see how that weight was water weight especially since that weight was down from the diet break weeks in which I had thought I had been successful in maintaining. I know that 237 lbs was down 2 lbs from the previous weigh in day even though I hadn't set my rate to 2 lbs/wk but I wasn't too concerned because I figured it was a water weight loss from going back into deficit.
However, now I'm down nearly 4 lbs from that 237 lbs from Thursday, and if that's a true weight reading, its really got me scratching my head because truthfully, I should be retaining water after all the out to eating I've been doing in the last several days, and if I was retaining water and this is a whoosh weight this morning, then that means the 237 lbs wasn't a true weight but contained water weight, which means I lost faster than I was expecting based upon my settings.
I'm not going to change anything from what I have now - I'm sitting at 1500 calories as my starting intake, which is sedentary for 1.5 lbs/wk, and I'm adding back 75% of my exercise calories, and I feel like my activity has dropped from what it was before the diet break; with the rain I certainly haven't been able to get my walks in, so activity has been regulated to the elliptical, cardio, and whatever work I get done around the house. But I haven't been keeping the cardio up in the last week, either - I only did 3 videos last week and none so far this week. So where is the extra burn coming from?
I am feeling more tired in the last 2 weeks, but I had been chalking that up to lack of sleep last week. Then again, I caught up on SUnday, slept in yesterday, and still got pretty tired and sleepy-headed by the afternoon; enough that I was reaching for extra caffeine. And I'm feeling tired a lot too, which is making it difficult to get myself moving on what I need to get done.
I"m looking at the calendar, and its been 10 weeks since my thyroid meds were changed. I was going to wait until the first week of July to get my thyroid levels checked because my next appointment with the doctor is July 8th, but perhaps I should go ahead and get that bloodwork done this week; I'm wondering if my thyroid levels have dipped too low for me. Though if that's my problem - I'm actually too low - I'm almost afraid to know what they are; back right after my surgery, the doctor was holding my thyroid levels below 0.01 and I felt fine; so how far under 0.01 do I need to be to start feeling the effects of being hyper-thyroid?!!!1 -
@bmeadows380
It sucks to have muddy water when you are not feeling your best. Remember of the 3 things that could be causing you to be tired eating is the easiest thing to adjust upwards.
It is possible you were losing faster than you realized before the break and still losing some during the break. You keep wanting to tie scale results to a small window of time but it is not always that cut and dry. With me it is rarely that easy. I once had a whoosh that spanned 7 weeks of deficit that was masked by water weight. It is also not that easy to nail down a TDEE for a break. Your BMR is reset higher and there is a strong possibility of NEAT increase.
There is a chance that the new low is due to a lower than normal state of hydration. Typically if I get one I do not expect I wait and see if I stay reasonably around that number the next day or dip back to it within a week before I trust it.
From my view it seems like it is walking like a duck and quacking so I would bet on needing more food...
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*laughs*
Except my particular duck has likely been a hybridized with a goose
The hydration thing could be; I had jiu-jitsu last night and really sweated during the session, and while I drank 2 bottles of water, a 44 oz tea before and a 32 oz tea afterwards, not to mention the other glass of tea before bed, I still may have been under. We'll see where the scale is over the next few days.
Meanwhile, I am making sure to eat back all my calories and not dip under and I'm monitoring the snackiness; going over a little each day isn't going to kill me but I have to make sure that 50 or 100 calories here and there don't become 500 - 800 calories, either. At least not until I can prove to myself that I really need to be eating that man back!1 -
not bad - only over tonight by 23 calories, and that's because I couldn't resist 2 extra prunes while waiting for my cat to eat his supper (I've found that to get him to eat enough, I have to stand there still while he eats; if I move, he follows me *sigh*)
We'll see what tomorrow's weigh in will be. Activity is down sharply because of the stupid rain - I can't walk outside, and I don't get the time or the calorie burn on the elliptical that I can walking outdoors. I did have an extra long cardio session today - 15 minutes longer than usual, so that helped.2 -
I am loving swimming again!...two years ago I had spurs removed from my shoulder and a tear in my muscle repaired ( I have lots of extra body parts lol )... it has taken a long time for it to heal and it no longer hurts...I envy you being able to hike in the woods...I would love that...about every three hundred steps I have to stop for a second but in the water, no problem...btw MFP recorded my exercise calories burned twice today....and btw our dog will only eat her food when we eat lol1
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Today is weekly weight record day. My rational side is seeing a huge success - I went from 237.2 lbs last Thursday to 235.1 lbs this morning - 2.1 lbs lost this week! Childish side is still pouting because it wanted to record the outlier low of 233.6 lbs from Tuesday. I'm putting that side in the corner in time out......
So even though I set myself up for 1.5 lbs/wk loss rate at sedentary in the guided setup, and even though I over ate almost every day this week by around 100 calories, I still lost 2 lbs. I know, I know - how much clearer can my body get to show that I'm still eating to little? lol
But in all honesty, my brain still expects that 2 lb loss rate (except, of course for childish part who is being ignored). I still have a lot of trouble allowing myself to see myself as being lightly active or even active active - or even more truthful, very active. I also have a very hard time with the idea of logging 100% of exercise calories. So I'm looking for ways to outwit myself and get more calories in without the guilt or fear. Which is why I set myself to 1.5 lbs/wk - that gives me extra calories to consume without having to change from sedentary or up my exercise count back percentage. And perhaps it will help me start working towards getting the perfection, irrational side of my nature to accept a slower weight loss rate because I now have 70 lbs or less to go and need to start working toward getting down to the actual 1.5 lbs/wk.
But for now, getting slowed down to a steady 2 lbs/wk is needed, and if playing mental games with myself is needed to achieve it, then I guess that's what I have to do!2
