New Year, New Me!

Balanced_Life

Hi Mimi,

Glad to see you in this challenge again. I'm sorry that you're going through hard times...stay strong! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help!

Thanks Maria! I really appreciate your support. :flowerforyou: Doing this challenge with you and the others is actually the thing that's helping me the most right now, and seeing everyone's progress inspires me and helps me to hang on. I've still been struggling with the eating all week, and only managed to exercise 1 day this week because work has been so busy, but I'm going to try to get back on track with both eating and exercise tomorrow.

I've been strugling as well this week! Work is settling down a little bit so I've had more time but now I got a yukky cold...excuses, excuses...right? There is always tomorrow...

A quote I saw recently that really stuck..."I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday" :happy:

It sounds like we've both been facing some challenges! Its good that work has calmed down for you a bit...but I'm sorry to hear that you caught a cold. Take it easy for awhile and give yourself time to recover, so that you can get over it faster. :flowerforyou:

That's a great thought to keep in mind!

Balanced_Life

Dave,

Have you ever tried desert gum? When I want to eat late, I drink a full glass of water and chew on some apple pie desert gum...yum!

Maria - that sounds good! I'd like to try the apple pie gum -- who makes it?

My favorites so far are the Trident Layers Wild Strawberry and Trident Layers Green Apple gum.

The mint chocolate chip ice cream gum is AWESOME!!!

Joe - I agree! Is your gum made by Wrigley's?

Balanced_Life

During the workout hard working muscles use glucose (usable energy) and glycogen (stored energy) for energy. As such, there is a point at which blood glucose levels (available energy) and glycogen levels (stored energy) get so low that intense exercise can't continue. There just isn't enough available energy for your muscles to use.

So what happens is that the hormone cortisol is secreted, this is your body's "stress" hormone and it has very catabolic effects. What cortisol does is eat up muscle tissue for protein and convert it into glucose. A process called gluconeogenesis ensues, producing glucose from these amino acids in the liver. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue.


The post-workout shake prevents this. It also allows insulin to be released, this is, as most of you know, one of several anabolic hormones in the body (if you are a natural trainer especially, you want to maximize the release of all your body's anabolic hormones through all available methods).

So, whey protein is your best protein source at this time because it is absorbed quickly, what is the best carbohydrate source? Well, we want a high glycemic carbohydrate source. This term refers to carbs that are high on the glycemic index (70 and above rates as high).

The Glycemic Index is a measure of how quickly a food raises blood sugar and hence insulin levels. Normally, it is best to eat lower glycemic foods so as not to initiate an insulin spike (55 and under rates as low). But post-workout, the exact opposite is true.

Thank you for the advice!

Ditto! Good info!

Balanced_Life

My name is Jess, I'm a toddler teacher in a preschool. I'm getting married this coming year and I really want to look my best on our big day! As of right now I weigh 146.7lbs and by the new year I would LOVE to weigh 140lbs

Welcome to the group!

Balanced_Life

My name is Mimi. I'm 46 and an engineering manager at a semiconductor company. I'm pretty good about exercising -- I do 45 min (~6.6 miles) on the Stairmaster every day, and if I have time I try to get in 2 full body weight training sessions each week as well as some calisthenics. But work gets in the way a lot of the time, and a lot of the time I end up having to cut back on the weight training and calisthenics. But my Stairmaster workout is sacred!

My big problem is stress related binge eating, and earlier this year I gained back ~20 of the 24 lbs that I had lost last year because of all the stress. I was doing really well on getting the binge eating under control after I joined the Thanksgiving Challenge (which Mandy also organized) because Mandy did a great job of keeping everyone motivated, and because it was really motivating to work on the challenge with such a great group of people. I started the challenge at 136.8 lbs, and my goal was to lose 7 lbs and be 129.8 lbs by the end of the 7 week challenge. I did much better than I had expected, and by the end of week 6 I had lost 8.8 lbs and was 128 lbs!

But the day after the week 6 weigh-in (which was ~2 weeks ago), my boyfriend and I decided to break up. We've been together for 9+ years (we've been living together for the past ~8 years). We've tried for a long time to work out various problems, so it wasn't a surprise, but making this final decision was emotionally devastating and my eating went completely out of control. Since then I've been struggling with stress related binge eating, and have had bad binges on many days during the past 2 weeks. The only good thing is that I managed to keep up with my exercise routine on most days.

Earlier last week I had started to get the binging under control, but a few days ago some stressful things came up and I ended up having bad binges every day for the past few days. As of this morning I was 136.8 lbs -- which was my exact weight at the beginning of the Thanksgiving Challenge! Though my weight is probably 4 - 5 lbs higher than actual due to water retention from the binges during the past few days, I suspect that I did regain ~4 lbs from all of the binging during the past ~2 weeks.

So my starting weight is 136.8 lbs, and my goal is to be at 129.8 lbs by the end of the challenge (this is the same goal weight that I had for the Thanksgiving Challenge). Right now I'm struggling with getting my eating stabilized, and I'm hoping that focusing on this challenge will help me do that.

Glad you're back for this challenge! Sorry to hear about your issues. We're here to support you. Thank you for being supportive of us.

Thanks Kelly! I really appreciate your support. I'm also glad that we'll be doing this challenge together!

henney16

12/2 Weigh-in = 227.8

Scale was really acting up today. Normally when I weigh in I get the same thing over and over again. Today it was jumping around from 227 to 228.4. I got the most at the weight posted above. We will see next week depending on where I am at that point.
Note to self - stop eating like crap just because you work out!

Dave

ratsyroo

First week weigh in at 148.2.
Only a .2 loss but glad to finally see a loss after two weeks of losing/gaining the same pound! I'm thinking I might actually have lost more, but the sodium I had over the past few days have me retaining water. =o/ Gonna work hard this next week, watch my sodium , drink more water, and get back to my daily workout schedule.
Hope you are all doing great this week! Looking forward to seeing all your successes! =o)

ratsyroo

12/2 Weigh-in = 227.8

Scale was really acting up today. Normally when I weigh in I get the same thing over and over again. Today it was jumping around from 227 to 228.4. I got the most at the weight posted above. We will see next week depending on where I am at that point.
Note to self - stop eating like crap just because you work out!

Dave

My scale was doing the same thing! When I first got on it, it was saying I was up a pound! But after four more times of getting a consistent number (of a.2 loss), I went with that. And I also have the same mentality--"I worked out hard today and burned lots of calories so I can go eat whatever! Get me a burger and ice cream!" Hopefully, we'll both stop this kind of thinking! Good luck this week

mobskee

Maria - that sounds good! I'd like to try the apple pie gum -- who makes it?

My favorites so far are the Trident Layers Wild Strawberry and Trident Layers Green Apple gum.

The mint chocolate chip ice cream gum is AWESOME!!!

Joe - I agree! Is your gum made by Wrigley's?

It's made by Extra (Wrigley's) the same brand that the mint chocolate chip ice cream gum. It's kind of hard to find the apple pie flavor...brown packaging. I hope that helps!

ratsyroo

My name is Mimi. I'm 46 and an engineering manager at a semiconductor company. I'm pretty good about exercising -- I do 45 min (~6.6 miles) on the Stairmaster every day, and if I have time I try to get in 2 full body weight training sessions each week as well as some calisthenics. But work gets in the way a lot of the time, and a lot of the time I end up having to cut back on the weight training and calisthenics. But my Stairmaster workout is sacred!

My big problem is stress related binge eating, and earlier this year I gained back ~20 of the 24 lbs that I had lost last year because of all the stress. I was doing really well on getting the binge eating under control after I joined the Thanksgiving Challenge (which Mandy also organized) because Mandy did a great job of keeping everyone motivated, and because it was really motivating to work on the challenge with such a great group of people. I started the challenge at 136.8 lbs, and my goal was to lose 7 lbs and be 129.8 lbs by the end of the 7 week challenge. I did much better than I had expected, and by the end of week 6 I had lost 8.8 lbs and was 128 lbs!

But the day after the week 6 weigh-in (which was ~2 weeks ago), my boyfriend and I decided to break up. We've been together for 9+ years (we've been living together for the past ~8 years). We've tried for a long time to work out various problems, so it wasn't a surprise, but making this final decision was emotionally devastating and my eating went completely out of control. Since then I've been struggling with stress related binge eating, and have had bad binges on many days during the past 2 weeks. The only good thing is that I managed to keep up with my exercise routine on most days.

Earlier last week I had started to get the binging under control, but a few days ago some stressful things came up and I ended up having bad binges every day for the past few days. As of this morning I was 136.8 lbs -- which was my exact weight at the beginning of the Thanksgiving Challenge! Though my weight is probably 4 - 5 lbs higher than actual due to water retention from the binges during the past few days, I suspect that I did regain ~4 lbs from all of the binging during the past ~2 weeks.

So my starting weight is 136.8 lbs, and my goal is to be at 129.8 lbs by the end of the challenge (this is the same goal weight that I had for the Thanksgiving Challenge). Right now I'm struggling with getting my eating stabilized, and I'm hoping that focusing on this challenge will help me do that.

SO glad to see you back with us for this challenge, Mimi! You can do this....just seeing you back for a challenge shows your determination. I know we're going to seeing great success for you this month! Hope things are getting easier for you as the days go by.

mobskee

Ok. I'm at 206.5...only one lb gain....could have been so much more :laugh: I was up 4lbs on Monday

Thinspiration8212

Are fridays the weigh in days?
If thats the case then:
12/2: 146.7

Mandalicious

Hey, friends!
Last Friday's weight: 128.5
This Friday's weight: 127.0 (still 2 lbs up from my lowest a few weeks ago)
Strolled my boys 4.0 miles this morning, did 90 minutes of yoga. I am with you, Dave - I need to STOP over-eating just because I worked out!!!!

Working on our spreadsheet - still need today's weights for Sandy, Stephanie, Mimi, and Kelly. I will post it tonight (along with a note on the forum with the URL).

And one question - anybody up for a push-up daily challenge again? I haven't done them consistently in almost two months and I need a reason to get with it! I am setting a personal goal to be able to do 20 push-ups by the end of this week. Anybody else want to join me?

henney16

Hey, friends!
Last Friday's weight: 128.5
This Friday's weight: 127.0 (still 2 lbs up from my lowest a few weeks ago)
Strolled my boys 4.0 miles this morning, did 90 minutes of yoga. I am with you, Dave - I need to STOP over-eating just because I worked out!!!!

Working on our spreadsheet - still need today's weights for Sandy, Stephanie, Mimi, and Kelly. I will post it tonight (along with a note on the forum with the URL).

And one question - anybody up for a push-up daily challenge again? I haven't done them consistently in almost two months and I need a reason to get with it! I am setting a personal goal to be able to do 20 push-ups by the end of this week. Anybody else want to join me?

I'm down for the pushup challenge Mandy. I slacked off with the mini challenges last time and am pissed at myself because of it. I'll do 20 per day (or more)!

ssbarfarkle

Sorry for the delay, gang! 191.6 this morning. Wasn't 100% committed this past week do I am happy with that loss.
Thanks & have a great weekend all!!

MarineWifey09

Well I am SLIGHTLY late for this. My current weigh in is 124.4....That's what I ended last week with. My name is Wimberley, I am from Texas (go Cowboys and Texas Longhorns!!), however I currently reside in Hawaii at Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kaneohe Bay! My husband is a Marine. We are both 23 and have been married a year and a half together for about 4 and a half years. I graduated college in 2009 w/ a bachelor's in History and plan on the road to being a High School History teacher soon. I am looking for a job and doing the house wife thing. It is so much harder here on the island to find a "good" job than it is back in the mainland. While I am in unemployed status I am trying to get to my goal weight of 118-120. I have a small body frame and am only about 5 ft 2 or 3 so I do not need a lot of weight on me! Just want to be toned and healthy. Good luck everyone on this challenge. Since I am late (took me a minute to get time to sit down and find the thread) I will weigh in tomorrow morning (Saturday). Sorry for the mess up Mandy! Good luck everyone on this group challenge!!!!!

Wimberley

kmvp08

Hey, friends!
Last Friday's weight: 128.5
This Friday's weight: 127.0 (still 2 lbs up from my lowest a few weeks ago)
Strolled my boys 4.0 miles this morning, did 90 minutes of yoga. I am with you, Dave - I need to STOP over-eating just because I worked out!!!!

Working on our spreadsheet - still need today's weights for Sandy, Stephanie, Mimi, and Kelly. I will post it tonight (along with a note on the forum with the URL).

And one question - anybody up for a push-up daily challenge again? I haven't done them consistently in almost two months and I need a reason to get with it! I am setting a personal goal to be able to do 20 push-ups by the end of this week. Anybody else want to join me?

Hi Mimi, put me down for 165. Yes, I'm ready for the push challenge! Thank you.

Balanced_Life

Weight loss goal: 7.0 lbs
Weight loss total: - .8 lbs (Week 1)

Week 0: 136.8 (

---

) -- starting weight
Week 1: 137.6 (+ .8 lbs) -- binging problem


I'm embarrassed to report that I gained .8 this week. I'm lucky that it wasn't more, since I had stress induced binges every day this week (some days worse than others) and only managed to exercise on 2 days since work was really hectic. This week has basically been a continuation of the binging problems that started when I broke up with my boyfriend ~3 weeks ago.

My emotional state has still been unstable this past week and I was much more susceptible than usual to binging because of work stress. But that's no excuse to binge for 3 weeks, and I need to get my act together (Mandy, thanks for giving me a kick! ).

Everyone, thanks for all of your support -- I appreciate it more than I can say. :flowerforyou: Starting tomorrow, I'm going to get back on track with my exercise/eating plans, and focus on making that weight do down by the next weigh-in!

Balanced_Life

First week weigh in at 148.2.
Only a .2 loss but glad to finally see a loss after two weeks of losing/gaining the same pound! I'm thinking I might actually have lost more, but the sodium I had over the past few days have me retaining water. =o/ Gonna work hard this next week, watch my sodium , drink more water, and get back to my daily workout schedule.
Hope you are all doing great this week! Looking forward to seeing all your successes! =o)

Joy -- good job! A loss is a loss. Sounds like you have a great plan for next week!

Balanced_Life

12/2 Weigh-in = 227.8

Scale was really acting up today. Normally when I weigh in I get the same thing over and over again. Today it was jumping around from 227 to 228.4. I got the most at the weight posted above. We will see next week depending on where I am at that point.
Note to self - stop eating like crap just because you work out!

Dave

Good job on being down from last week! This coming week I'm really going to focus too -- let's do it!

Balanced_Life

Maria - that sounds good! I'd like to try the apple pie gum -- who makes it?

My favorites so far are the Trident Layers Wild Strawberry and Trident Layers Green Apple gum.

The mint chocolate chip ice cream gum is AWESOME!!!

Joe - I agree! Is your gum made by Wrigley's?

It's made by Extra (Wrigley's) the same brand that the mint chocolate chip ice cream gum. It's kind of hard to find the apple pie flavor...brown packaging. I hope that helps!

Maria -- thanks! I'll look for it next time I'm at the store. By the way, the Key Lime Pie gum (also by Wrigley's Extra) is also really good.

Balanced_Life

My name is Mimi. I'm 46 and an engineering manager at a semiconductor company. I'm pretty good about exercising -- I do 45 min (~6.6 miles) on the Stairmaster every day, and if I have time I try to get in 2 full body weight training sessions each week as well as some calisthenics. But work gets in the way a lot of the time, and a lot of the time I end up having to cut back on the weight training and calisthenics. But my Stairmaster workout is sacred!

My big problem is stress related binge eating, and earlier this year I gained back ~20 of the 24 lbs that I had lost last year because of all the stress. I was doing really well on getting the binge eating under control after I joined the Thanksgiving Challenge (which Mandy also organized) because Mandy did a great job of keeping everyone motivated, and because it was really motivating to work on the challenge with such a great group of people. I started the challenge at 136.8 lbs, and my goal was to lose 7 lbs and be 129.8 lbs by the end of the 7 week challenge. I did much better than I had expected, and by the end of week 6 I had lost 8.8 lbs and was 128 lbs!

But the day after the week 6 weigh-in (which was ~2 weeks ago), my boyfriend and I decided to break up. We've been together for 9+ years (we've been living together for the past ~8 years). We've tried for a long time to work out various problems, so it wasn't a surprise, but making this final decision was emotionally devastating and my eating went completely out of control. Since then I've been struggling with stress related binge eating, and have had bad binges on many days during the past 2 weeks. The only good thing is that I managed to keep up with my exercise routine on most days.

Earlier last week I had started to get the binging under control, but a few days ago some stressful things came up and I ended up having bad binges every day for the past few days. As of this morning I was 136.8 lbs -- which was my exact weight at the beginning of the Thanksgiving Challenge! Though my weight is probably 4 - 5 lbs higher than actual due to water retention from the binges during the past few days, I suspect that I did regain ~4 lbs from all of the binging during the past ~2 weeks.

So my starting weight is 136.8 lbs, and my goal is to be at 129.8 lbs by the end of the challenge (this is the same goal weight that I had for the Thanksgiving Challenge). Right now I'm struggling with getting my eating stabilized, and I'm hoping that focusing on this challenge will help me do that.

SO glad to see you back with us for this challenge, Mimi! You can do this....just seeing you back for a challenge shows your determination. I know we're going to seeing great success for you this month! Hope things are getting easier for you as the days go by.

Joy - thanks so much! I really appreciate your support. :flowerforyou: I'm also really glad that we're doing another challenge together, and I'll do my best to justify your faith in me! I'm sure you'll do great too! Let's make it happen!

Balanced_Life

Ok. I'm at 206.5...only one lb gain....could have been so much more :laugh: I was up 4lbs on Monday

Maria - I was also glad that I didn't gain more than 1 lb! :laugh: I hope your cold is getting better.

Balanced_Life

Hey, friends!
Last Friday's weight: 128.5
This Friday's weight: 127.0 (still 2 lbs up from my lowest a few weeks ago)
Strolled my boys 4.0 miles this morning, did 90 minutes of yoga. I am with you, Dave - I need to STOP over-eating just because I worked out!!!!

Mandy -- congrats on the loss! And great job on keeping up with the exercise!

And one question - anybody up for a push-up daily challenge again? I haven't done them consistently in almost two months and I need a reason to get with it! I am setting a personal goal to be able to do 20 push-ups by the end of this week. Anybody else want to join me?

I'm in!

MarineWifey09

I'm down for a push up challenge!! I need the motivation!

Mandalicious

Hey, everybody! My husband and I have been fiddling with our website trying to figure out why the first spreadsheet won't publish. Here's our stats in an awful format! Mfp user name, name, start weight, week 1 weight, goal weight. We'll keep working on it today! So sorry!

henney16 Dave 228.8 227.8 221.0
Mandalicious Mandy 128.5 127.0 123.5
ratsyroo Joy 148.8 148.2 144.0
mobskee Maria 205.5 206.5 199.0
Balanced_Life Mimi 136.8 137.6 129.8
MarineWifey09 Wimberley 124.4 124.4 120.0
kmvp08 Kelly 164.0 165.0
ssbarfarkle Sandy 192.2 191.6 185.0
sm423 Stephanie 186.0 176.0
Thinspiration Jess 146.7 146.7 140.0
kyodi Joe

mobskee

Hey, friends!
Last Friday's weight: 128.5
This Friday's weight: 127.0 (still 2 lbs up from my lowest a few weeks ago)
Strolled my boys 4.0 miles this morning, did 90 minutes of yoga. I am with you, Dave - I need to STOP over-eating just because I worked out!!!!

Working on our spreadsheet - still need today's weights for Sandy, Stephanie, Mimi, and Kelly. I will post it tonight (along with a note on the forum with the URL).

And one question - anybody up for a push-up daily challenge again? I haven't done them consistently in almost two months and I need a reason to get with it! I am setting a personal goal to be able to do 20 push-ups by the end of this week. Anybody else want to join me?

I really enjoyed the mini challenges....would love to join you!

mobskee

Maria - that sounds good! I'd like to try the apple pie gum -- who makes it?

My favorites so far are the Trident Layers Wild Strawberry and Trident Layers Green Apple gum.

The mint chocolate chip ice cream gum is AWESOME!!!

Joe - I agree! Is your gum made by Wrigley's?

It's made by Extra (Wrigley's) the same brand that the mint chocolate chip ice cream gum. It's kind of hard to find the apple pie flavor...brown packaging. I hope that helps!

Maria -- thanks! I'll look for it next time I'm at the store. By the way, the Key Lime Pie gum (also by Wrigley's Extra) is also really good.

Mimi you should see my desert gum arrangement at work lol...I have like four different flavors :-) I love the flavor of the key lime pie but it seems like that one looses its flavor very fast. Orange Creamcycle is also a good one.

mobskee

Ok. I'm at 206.5...only one lb gain....could have been so much more :laugh: I was up 4lbs on Monday

Maria - I was also glad that I didn't gain more than 1 lb! :laugh: I hope your cold is getting better.

Hi Mimi,

Thank you for checking! I feel so much better this morning. I swear sleep is the key to a fast recovery! I'm actually thinking of going for a walk!

mobskee

First week weigh in at 148.2.
Only a .2 loss but glad to finally see a loss after two weeks of losing/gaining the same pound! I'm thinking I might actually have lost more, but the sodium I had over the past few days have me retaining water. =o/ Gonna work hard this next week, watch my sodium , drink more water, and get back to my daily workout schedule.
Hope you are all doing great this week! Looking forward to seeing all your successes! =o)

Glad to see you in another challenge! Let's do this :drinker:

So glad to see that you lost!!!