The aftereffects of being on the front lines are showing!

Luvmyhubby222

HI! I am an RN who has been working entirely too much during this pandemic and not taking care of myself. Getting my first shot of vaccine tomorrow (yippee!) , and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel has me super motivated knowing that this COVID nightmare will eventually end!
Looking for friends to motivate and occasionally kick my butt. I run about 3 times a week (always have, great stress reliever for me), but want to drop 20 lbs in the next 6 weeks or so.
Any advice? Anyone in the same boat? LET"S DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!
(Stay safe!!)

quiksylver296

Thank you for what you do!!!

Advice? - 20 pounds in six weeks is a little fast. If you only have 20 pounds to lose, it should take at least 20 weeks to lose it healthily. Slow and steady wins this race!

AnnPT77

Hi, and thank you for all you do, for all of us (directly or indirectly) as an RN, especially but not exclusively during these difficult times!

I'm not a very encouraging MFP friend (more of a forum gal), but wanted to offer some words of encouragement . . .

. . . and maybe a word of caution, if a li'l ol' lady may be so bold?

Twenty pounds in 6 weeks is over 3 pounds a week, which is pretty fast unless that's just a down-payment on a much larger long-term goal. Usually, I wouldn't be concerned, if someone much younger than me wanted to lose kinda fast for a short time (though 3 pounds is very fast . . . .).

However, from sad personal experience, I know that losing weight fast can be a health/energy/well-being risk, because that big a calorie deficit is a physical stressor. (Twenty pounds in six weeks means hitting 1666 calories daily below maintenance calories, and many women's maintenance calories are 2000 +/- a few hundred). Losing too fast (but slower than that) at first, I got weak and fatigued, and it took several weeks to recover. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

As a nurse, you know that stress is cumulative, that all sources of physical, emotional and mental stress add up to take a toll on the body. I have to believe that as an RN - even with that wonderful vaccine now happily creating good antibodies for you - you're under a good bit of daily life stress, and need to be pretty strong/energetic to do your job (and I assume you have a non-work personal life to keep up with as well, plus your running).

I wish you every kind of success and happiness . . . but maybe consider taking that loss just a little bit slower, since you mention wanting to take care of yourself?

I mean this in the kindest possible way: Try to imagine that I'm your concerned old internet auntie (because I'm for sure old enough!). Best wishes, sincerely!

Luvmyhubby222

I think I mis-mathed....how about 12ish pounds in 6 weeks? More better? Anyone want to do this with me?

AnnPT77

Luvmyhubby222 wrote: »

I think I mis-mathed....how about 12ish pounds in 6 weeks? More better? Anyone want to do this with me?

Still a pretty high deficit, truthfully, if 20 pounds is all you have to lose. Depending on your age, overall stress level, and general robustness physically, it can probably be done without *huge* health risk if your nutrition is really excellent.

Is your goal to take better care of yourself, or to lose the weight as fast as possible?

It's still a 1000 calorie deficit every day. If you're the USDA's "average woman" who maintains at 2000 (which is doubtful, could be high or low), you'd be netting 1000 calories . . . which is really not very much.

I'd suggest (for someone with a busy, stressful life, and not obese) something like half a percent of current body weight weekly, or therabouts, as a reasonable target. More than that could be workable for someone with, say, > 50 pounds to lose, or maybe even for a super healthy 19- year-old with virtually no other stressors in her life (though I'd be encouraging the latter to go slower so as to dial in long-term healthy habits, rather than jumping into faux-urgency extreme dieting that treats weight management as a project with an end date followed by a "return to normal" that's an on-ramp to regain, and possibly future cycles of destructive yo-yo dieting).

I'm sorry if this all seems harsh. I don't mean it that way. Truly, sincerely, I do care. I feel very cynical and curmudgeonly, having watched friends go down that kind of yo-yo path (with generally bad weight & health results once we all reached later life), and having made a bunch of misteps along the road myself. (I'm 65. I'm lucky to be as healthy as I am. Part of it, I suspect, was not getting on that yo-yo merry-go-round. Instead, I stayed fat for years - also not the greatest plan - and lost back to a healthy weight at age 60.)

If there's a project to be done to take care of oneself, IMO it's experimenting with finding and grooving in sustainable new daily habits that lead to maintaining a healthy weight permanently, and letting the loss happen with a reasonable calorie deficit as part of the experiments along the way.

Best wishes. (I'll stop hectoring you now. 🙂)

springlering62

Listen to Auntie @AnnPT77 She knows whereof she speaks.

In a nutshell, the closer you are to normal
BMI, the slower weight comes off. You burn fewer calories as your weight decreases.

The rule of thumb is that a pound is 3500 calories. Two pounds a week is 7,000 calories, or 1,000 a day.

That means you need to either eat 1,000 less
than maintenance per day, or excercise an additional 1,000 calories a day- which puts you well into athlete territory, or a combination of the two.

Go into it with a more reasonable expectation- half or quarter pound a week. That way it’s both sustainable, and you don’t get frustrated and quit before you reach your goal.

And remember, reaching goal is not a ticket to fall back into bad habits.

Thanks for all you do!

Luvmyhubby222

OK, I will slow it down. Promise. Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I think I am just so impatient to have this all behind me/us. Anxious to feel like I have some control over something after fighting this monster for almost a year, and just so tired. But I will behave.

Anyhoo-any suggestions on a group I could join that combines healthy life style/weight loss and running? Would be fun to check in occasionally with like minded folks.

VickyEltonGreen

Luvmyhubby your focus and "impatience" has probably been the gift that got you through this time. First thank you for everything you do on a daily basis. I know you have heard it before but you are our unsung heroes on our front lines of Covid. Wishing you all the success as you press reset and focus a little bit on you too. Well earned I am sure.

AnnPT77

Luvmyhubby222 wrote: »

OK, I will slow it down. Promise. Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I think I am just so impatient to have this all behind me/us. Anxious to feel like I have some control over something after fighting this monster for almost a year, and just so tired. But I will behave.

Anyhoo-any suggestions on a group I could join that combines healthy life style/weight loss and running? Would be fun to check in occasionally with like minded folks.

Good show!

I'm not a runner (I'm a rower), but in case you haven't seen it yet, I happened to notice there's a thread over in Fitness right now where runners seem to be sharing links to various related MFP groups/threads, and MFP friend-seeking.

Direct link:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10818045/calling-all-runners/p1