Chat and accountability 3/17/14

howie6267

Hi all, I have belonged to other websites like this where we would try and help each other. I know you can comment on individuals status and such here but I always liked the idea of having a weekly chat going that was just for support and telling people how you did for the day or week. You know, things like did you meet your goals, did you lose, maintain or even gained. I found it helpful to have one place to go and chat and get support. If you all like the idea then we can keep it going and start a new one each Monday with the subject above and new date. If no one post we can just let it go too. lol

montana_girl

I love this idea! So I'm in!

I know this group hasn't been as active as it was, but maybe we can nudge Carol to mention it on the show.

I'm having a pretty good week. I am finally, after months of gaining more than losing, getting back on track with eating and exercising. Had to hit bottom to get there, but that and the weather change has put me back in the right mind frame.

I do have a bit of challenge for the rest of the week. My husband is going out of town for a few days and I have a habit of overeating (and binging) when he is gone. But I'm being proactive this time. I have meals planned out, I have several friends who are going to text me occasionally, and I'm going to go to an additional Weight Watcher meeting to keep me motivated. Hoping to get through the weekend with minimal physical and emotional damage. :laugh:

Tomorrow is my weigh in day (at my regular WW meeting) and I am hoping to see a loss at the scale. At this point, I will take any loss... even .2!

carolssalva

Hey guys! I love this idea! This forum is not very well known and that is my fault. I keep mentioning that we can friend each other but I forget about the group! I will for sure mention it on the next recording.

I have already recorded the show that comes out on March 24th. So you'll hear it on the show that releases March 31st.

The only thing is that I hope I can check in on Mondays regularly. I am DROWNING in my Masters program, the kids activities, getting out a weekly podcast and work.

But I really believe in this kind of thing. I just signed up for an 8 week weight loss challenge that also has checking in so you guys just forgive me if I'm spotty about it. I am FINALLY on a roll here and I want to keep up as much momentum as possible. The accountability is huge. I'm grateful for you guys and will do my best.

So that is what is working for me since last week: I joined that challenge and you earn points for all kinds of things. I have been forced to get more sleep, take a multi vitamin, drink tons of water and exercise 45 a day. It's killing me but I feel great about it. No change yet on the scale but it is coming, I can tell. I am still pretty low carb but working in a Carb Nite each week.

Great to see you guys are doing well. Keep up the great work!! We can do this!!

howie6267

Don't worry Carol it's just a weekly chat so whenever you can pop in is fine and if you can't it's fine. Stacy I am listening to the podcast you did with Carol, good stuff. I know exactly what you mean by binging while your spouse is away. That is the hardest time when you're alone, I am an emotional eater too. You can do it and I will expect to hear a good report today and tomorrow.

I went to my men's bible study last night and they always have a snack. One of the guys brought in brownies and was being really nice and said you can eat these, they are sugar free. LOL I wanted to tell him I would rather have the real stuff without the crap substitutes but I didn't. They were very good but I am trying to cut out as much processed food as I can. Now of course if you look at my food diary I am not a fanatic about it but I'm just trying to improve things. I have not had diet soda on a regular basis for a couple years. Once in a great while I do have one but I don't drink anything but water for the most part and then beer on treat night. lol

Keep up the good work!

howie6267

Is there a way to get emails when someone post to the group or posts? I am not receiving notifications from these post. I looked in settings but the email settings don't seem to include group comments.

TJ_Gauthier

Howie, this sounds like a good idea. There doesn't seem to be any way to get notifications, but if a friend posts in a topic, it will show up on your feed. Would you mind if I friended you?

This week, I started the same challenge that Carol mentioned. It's gone well this week with me getting perfect points, so far, but I haven't lost anything. Which is a bummer, because the week before the challenge, I lost 4.5 lbs. Too bad I had to send in a picture of the scale and couldn't fudge it! lol. Hopefully next week will be more positive. I have exercised more this week than I have in a while, which is definitely a plus!

montana_girl

Was down .4 this morning! Might have been more, but I drank two cups of water before I remembered I was weighing in today.

Howie, thanks for asking about my evening! I did great last night! It's funny, I used to think I was only one that did the "sneak" eating thing when their spouse/significant other was out of the house, but over the years I've learned it's a fairly common problem. I do better when I ask for help ahead of time. But if I think I can get through the weekend without asking for help or thinking I have it under control, then I fall back into that old habit.

I have been diet pop free since April of last year. I've had it two or three times since, but those times it was diet 7up when I had stomach issues going on and the only thing that sounded good. I did crave it quite a bit for a month or so, but recently I've come to realize that when I want to drink a diet pop, it's more the act of having it then an actual craving. I find I want it when we go out eat because I always had a diet coke or pepsi with my meal. And I find myself wanting it for the pure action of just having it.

TeeJay - Good job with the challenge! I almost signed up as well, but I'm just now getting back on track and felt the challenge would be to stressful at this point. I thought I might get too hard on myself if I didn't get the points or slacked off. Besides, with as well as you are doing, I wouldn't have had a chance! :drinker:

TJ_Gauthier

Well, this is from Wikipedia "1 US pint of water weighs 1.04375 pounds.", so you could call it 1.4!

I'm kind of using the challenge to force me back on track. I started to get straight last week, after a few months of not-so-good choices, which explains the drop last week. Carol didn't mention it until WEDNESDAY, so I was really just kinda thrown into it, lol. But, I'm glad I did it. Hopefully, I'll get a new wardrobe out of my prize winnings!

I think this challenge has made me decide to give up the coke, too. I already stopped getting them at restaurants, a couple of years ago, but that's mostly because I can't stand paying 3 dollars for a drink when water and lemon are free. I will still drink them at a fast food "restaurant" because it's included, though. But, hopefully, I'll cut that out, too. I haven't had fast food in a few weeks, that I can remember.

howie6267

I sent you a friend request TeeJay, good job on trying to cut the coke. Fast food was a hard one for me to give up but I really don't even crave it anymore and if I do get it because of time it does not taste good to me. Except for Subway I still love Subway. I get all the veggies on a sub when I get one. Lately I have just been doing salads there though.

Glad to hear you are doing good Stacy. I saw your post about eating out alone. I don't mind it because I like to people watch anyway.

What is the challenge you and carol are doing TeeJay?

howie6267

I'm down 2 lbs this week and Kimberley(GWAndroid) is down 1. My short term goal is to be below or at my wedding weight of 310 by my birthday on June 2nd. This should also put me down another size in pants.

We are coming up on the weekend which traditionally for us is the hardest time to eat healthy. You all have a good weekend and be good to yourselves. We have a treat day once a week and that is today so don't look at my food diary today. lol Generally we try to keep it to one meal in the evening and try not to go over 1000 to 1200 extra calories. I used to eat what ever I wanted on this day but the older I get the less that works. LOL

I don't think I would want to workout at Planet Fitness. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/national/gym-tells-woman-shes-intimidating-guests-toned-bod/nfGWc/

angelaneale

I love the accountability idea! I'm starting to think I've been adding too much fat to my meals. I'm definitely not fat phobic but I feel like I should be getting much smaller by now with a lower fat percentage. I keep hovering around the same percentage and I stay within the same 2 - 3 lbs. For next week, I plan on adding just enough fat to cook with and for flavor and that's it except for my BPC's and smooties. I want to have them satiate me until lunchtime so I know some fat will be required. Maybe I'll add half the fat as usual in them.

My diary is open so feel free to take a look. I welcome your opinions on whether you think my issue is or isn't the fat. Be advised that I don't claim to eat perfectly. I'm mostly NSNG (No Sugar No Grains) w/some weekly alcohol included. Last night was the first time I've had any grain (other than alcohol) since Christmas. It was at Tijuana Flats and I think it was a fried flour tortilla with cream cheese, cheddar and jalapenos. I'm not sad about it either, they were good! Ha ha! It looks like I ate a burrito bowl (called a noritto) with rice, but I did not eat the rice. I just couldn't find anything in the database to show "without rice." Nothing agains the rice it's just not very appealing to me.

montana_girl

Good morning and happy Friday!

Howie - Congrats to you and your wife for the weight loss this week! Good job!

Like you, my hardest time is over the weekends. It's easy to stay on track during the week because I have set routine and my eating and exercising plan is part of that routine. But being home and near the kitchen all day on the weekends makes it much harder.

I'm still doing good with my husband gone. I went out to eat last night (our normal Thursday night treat) and had a wonderful dinner. Love the restuarant because the wait staff is awesome so I never worry about "eating alone." Kept busy during the evening so no boredom eating! Yea me! LOL

Today will be a bit of challenge because I'm off from work today, but I have made a pretty intense list of things I would like to get done (most of which I've already done) and then I plan on scrapbooking throughout the day. And to make sure I get my steps in, I plan to do at least 5 minutes on the treadmill every 60 minutes.

Angela - I admire you for giving up sugar and grains. Grains/carbs are something I have yet to cut back on, but my plan is to work on cutting back on carbs once I get back to my goal weight. So I will be coming to you for advice when that happens!

TJ_Gauthier

I weighed this morning with a whopping loss of .4lbs! lol. I don't know what happened, but it'll work out in the end. I plan to do a juice/smoothie thing next week, so that will probably help alot(even though it's probably just all going to be food/water weight).

Howie, the challenge is an 8 week Weight Loss Challenge. Each week, you earn points for various healthy things, such as drinking enough water(at least 64oz, in this case), getting 6+ hours of sleep, no sweet treats and such. We had to pay to enter,and the top points and most % weight loss wins portions of the entry.

Stacy, I have a similar problem with eating when I'm alone. I used to think I wasn't a bored eater, but my wife left for the weekend, a few weeks ago, and I almost constantly snacked. It made me realize that I actually do do it. I used to make belts on my Friday afternoons(I only work 1/2 days on Fridays) while listening to podcasts, but I ran out of material, so I need to find SOMETHING to do. The scrapbooking and hourly walk seem like a great way to stay busy. I haven't completely given up grains, but when I do eat them, I usually regret it soon after. I never thought I could feel so bad just from eating a bowl of spaghetti, until I stopped eating it with noodles.

I have a bachelor party in New Orleans this weekend, so, hopefully, I can control my food choices, but I will most likely feel like crap on Sunday! We'll see where this takes me.

howie6267

I wish I could have joined the challenge, maybe next time. Teejay what plan to do you follow. Your calories are really low for a guy and that surprisingly can make you not lose. You may want to up your intake to be around 2000 a day. angelaneale I was looking at yours and it would seem your fat intake is decent but your calories can be high sometimes, I would keep it around 1600. I know you guys probably are not calorie counters but that is just my observation based on what I do. I'm not a low carb paleo follower. I just try to eat fresh food as much as I can and stay withing 1800 calories with one treat night a week. I also watch my fat intake but am thinking of raising that a little but with calorie counting it won't go much higher. I follow the DASH diet or American Heart Association, they are the same thing.

TJ_Gauthier

I think they do them quarterly. You could probably ask Carol for the details.

I do my own version of what I call Walmart/lazy paleo. I try not to eat most of the grains and wheat, but don't mind the potatoes and some of the things paleo folks would gasp at. I am mostly just trying to eat meat and veggies, less potatoes, but some occasionally.

I don't really use MFP for calorie counting anymore. I basically just track to make me feel bad about putting "brownie" or something. It makes me think about what I eat a little more. Its a pain in the butt when you cook most of your own food, so I just find things that describe what I made, and chances are they are nowhere near accurate. Especially with this challenge, because one of the point earners is logging.

howie6267

LOL Lazy Walmart Paleo that is a new one. I find logging becomes pretty easy if you do it right for a month you will probably have most everything you eat entered and then you can just copy. I have meals saved and recipes saved and pretty much am just grabbing from those to log. Give it a try it really does help and becomes easy.

TJ_Gauthier

I Do need to make more recipes on here. That would help tremendously.

montana_girl

@TeeJay - Hey, don't knock the .4 weight loss. Be excited it was loss and not a gain! :happy:

Made it through 3 1/2 days of my husband being gone and no overeating. Did have a few minor slip ups, but nothing I'm going to worry about. Overall, I did awesome! (Yep, I'm tooting my horn... this is a HUGE deal for me! LOL) My husband should be home late tonight, but then he leaves again on Wednesday, thenI will have 5 days to get through. But having success this weekend will help a lot. As will being accountible here and to my friends. Amazing how much smoother this went when I actually asked for help! :happy:

Maybe we could do some type of recipe exchange to help TeeJay out... Find an easy to make, not very many ingredient recipe that we love and post it on here (maybe start a new thread for it...). My husband does a majority of the cooking, but when he's gone, he makes sure that I have some of those type of recipes on hand since I'm not as into cooking as he is! :laugh:

howie6267

Good for you for doing so well Stacy! It's always easier when you are being accountable to friends. That sounds good with the recipe sharing. We went to Mimi's Cafe tonight and I had a Poulet A L'orange Crepes that was really good and pretty low cal and somewhat lower sodium. I also did some heavy hiking today, lots of hills. Hope you all are having a good weekend.

TJ_Gauthier

I would love some recipes!

I had a friends bachelor party in New Orleans last night, so it was a good weekend, but not healthwise, lol...
We had Krystal Burger for dinner and McDonalds for breakfast with plenty of adult beverages in between, but we woke up and swam in the hotel pool for a good while, so that helps!