Need to Lose 100 LBS -Robins Thread !

nsk1951

JNettie73 wrote: »

@nsk1951
My friend and I had a similar conversation about shoe size the other day. He had asked if I noticed my foot size shrunk as I lost weight, that was his experience. That was also my experience, I went down 1/2 size. Foot size isn't something I necessarily think of changing with weight loss but it certainly does happen! I am happy to hear your shoes are fitting more comfortably.

My May goals are similar to yours. To refocus on my habits. I am not going to put a lot of emphasis on getting the scale to move. If it happens I will be thrilled. If it doesn't then I take comfort in knowing I am making the changes I can and it will move when ready.

Gee @JNettie73 ... You probably didn't mean it this way, but it READS to ME like you believe my shoe issue is because of my weight. ... it isn't. But I'm glad your feet got smaller as you lost weight. And I am also very happy to be able to fit into my shoes. As long as the Edema stays at bay I will be OK.

As you've said, you've made great strides in the past 2 years, so taking some focus off the scale movement is a mental release that is probably just the ticket! For me ... I find that, at my geriatric age, I focus on health more than my waist size! Although, definitely I like a slimmer profile! That image is one I'll never give up striving for because it's also a measure of my insulin resistance! The flatter the belly, the lower the a1C! ... (LOL)

Melwillbehealthy

@JNettie73 thanks! I finally did it and can reference someone. I feel so accomplished. Sometimes, I’m actually shocked at how dumb I’ve become. Lol

Melwillbehealthy

@nsk1951 I hope your comment about insulin resistance is true. I’m almost completely focused on losing weight for my health too. However, it will be nice to lose the big belly!

Melwillbehealthy

I’m so discouraged. My weight jumped up 2 lbs. overnight and I fear it’s a real gain.

Melwillbehealthy

I don’t know what to think. I’ve been within calorie range before the 2 lb. Increase.

JNettie73

@nsk1951
My apologies. I certainly did not intend it to read that way.

@Melwillbehealthy
I wouldn't worry about the 2lb increase. That happens to me from time to time. A lot of things can effect it and cause our weight to fluctuate. Just keep doing what you are doing and you will see that will change. If by chance it doesn't then you may want to revamp what you are doing. I find I have the most success when I use my food scale to measure out everything.

Melwillbehealthy

@JNettie73 the last couple of weeks have been strange with weight loss. I’m still up a little and still counting calories. I will be more vigilant however, as sometimes I guess amounts. Time to use my kitchen food scale. I feel like my body is resisting losing weight. It’s weird. I have a lot to lose, (100+) so I’m surprised at how hard it is at this point. I expected that to happen later.
I like to cook, and yesterday tried to make a spaghetti dinner with spaghetti squash…a delicious recipe I’ve used before. Well, I made it but used the wrong type of squash. It tasted awful! Again, where are my brains going? Maybe if I lose weight I’ll get smarter. My dad believed that if you were a little bit hungry it sharpened your senses.

nsk1951

Saturday check in ... UGH!

@JNettie73 .. I apologize to you that I took your remarks in a personally sensitive manner. You keep up the good work you have been doing! Had I been able to keep myself on plan 20 years ago I wouldn't be hitting 80 years old and stilling trying to figure it all out.

@Melwillbehealthy ... I wish I had some positive experiences that worked well for me to offer up as suggestions to you, like Nettie can do. However, all I can do is say ... don't ever give up trying and searching for the thing that works for you.

JNettie73

@Melwillbehealthy
I have fallen victim to guess the amount as well. That is the slump I am in right now. Hence why it has been quite a while since the scale has moved for me. I get it. For me, it is time consuming and a tedious task. I really need to get better with that so I see the results I want.

My other issue I struggle with is how to log food when we eat out. I try to do the best I can and pick something in the diary that I think is fairly accurate. But there is no way for me to truly gauge the calorie content and how much I eat. When this happens I just do the best I can and chalk it up to being one of those days. Perfect example, yesterday late afternoon my daughter had a spring fling at school. We had gone and planned to go out to dinner after. While there we met up with my neighbors, they had the same plan. The kids got to talking and asked if we could go to dinner together so we did. I suggest an Indian fusion restaurant that is amazing. They have never been before as they have not lived here very long. I ended up getting a basket of naan for the table because I knew everyone would love it. Then for myself I ordered Alu Baingan (eggplant and potatoes in a onion tomato gravy). It was amazing. I ate half of it and took the rest home. I truly have no idea how many calories were in that dish and how much I ate so it is all a guesstimate. Thankfully those days are not a regular occurrence.

I did have another NSV though. After dinner we took a walk around the corner to an ice cream shop. They do have vegan friendly ice cream here that I can eat. However I was honestly full from dinner and had no desire to have any. I was proud of myself for resisting the social eating trap.

@nsk1951
No worries at all. You advice of not giving up trying and searching for something that works for you is spot on. We are all built differently and have different life styles. What works for one person may not work for another.


Yesterday was a gorgeous day here. I had gotten my workout done early and was able to enjoy some time outside. I cleaned out all of my bird baths and feeders then replaced with all fresh seed and water. (My mosquito man was here yesterday spraying for ticks so I wanted to make sure the birds were completely safe as I forgot to take everything down before he sprayed.) All afternoon the orioles were hanging around eating the oranges I put out for them! I have been trying to get them to come to my feeders for 2 years now and they never have until this year. The only difference is I moved the location of the feeder. I love bird watching. It brings me a lot of peace and joy. Yesterday I also did some weeding in my garden beds. Today I plan on working in the gardens more. Tomorrow I think we are going hiking.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Melwillbehealthy

@nsk1951 your advice is right on. I will never give up. I feel like my whole future depends on this. It does for health reasons. I spent some time this morning figuring out what might work better, faster for me. Now, I just have to implement my ideas.
@JNettie73 I think eating out puts one in a tough situation re: calorie counting. I do most of my own cooking. Your dinner at the Indian restaurant sounds delicious. I love eggplant. I don’t know of any Indian restaurants around here, but I’m sure there are some. It sounds healthy to me. I’m going to see what I can find.
I made roasted mini potatoes last night, broccoli and hot dogs. My daughter brought her 3 kids over for dinner and I had to whip something together fast. I supplemented with fruit and she made fresh banana bread. The kids ate everything. I ate what I wanted and logged everything. I was within range.
Today my weight is still up but I lost on the scale this morning. I will just keep plugging away at it.
I’m wondering if I need to lower my daily calorie intake. I’m not sure that I can. I think realistically
it’s low enough.
I think I hate my scale! ( I know, you’re not supposed to hate anything). Lol

EssePi117

Hello everyone
It is my first day here, and I thought it would be nice to introduce myself and tell my story. I am a young woman with PCOS, a family history of metabolic disorders, and I have been struggling with my weight since I was a chubby child. I was actually born overweight, and only started to lose it when I was a teenager. However, I never reached my goal and as I started eating normally again I gained even more weight than what I had lost. I remember those years as a nightmare, I started suffering from eating disorders, I was miserable and no one around me seemed to mind. I suffered from anorexia, then bulimia, and finally binge eating disorder: this ruined both my mental health and my metabolism, and during the pandemic I have gained so many kilos that I can't seem to lose. I have seen several nutritionists both when I was a teenager and as an adult, but the diets only worked for a few months and as soon as they modified my regimen I started getting fat again. The last doctor put me on a liquid diet for a month, I only lost 2 kg and it caused me anemia and a severe vitamin B deficiency. I felt awful! I have recently found out I have a benign mass in my thyroid, and I was prescribed supplements for that.
I know that my life sounds pretty miserable, but I was blessed with a wonderful boyfriend and am about to get married. I want to give my body another chance to get healthy and be in perfect shape for a future pregnancy. I am more motivated than ever and I thought that since so many nutritionists have failed me, maybe I could try to listen to my body and lose the weight on my own.
I have been a pescatarian for 10 years, I struggle with cravings when I am on my period and the most difficult moment of the day for me is lunchtime: that's when I get out of work, I have no time for a proper meal and a long commute ahead of me. I try not to snack on anything, but when I get home I am literally starving. In the morning I have breakfast, but there's really no time for a quick snack while I am at work.
I am mildly active, I walk about one hour everyday with my dog, but rarely have the time to do more than that.
I have just bought my first scale and measuring tape, years ago my therapist told me I shouldn't measure my body, but I think I am much more mature and balanced now. I am still scared of those numbers, but honestly I need them to establish my tdee and calorie deficit, and to track my progress and make sustainable adjustments over time. I have roughly tried to calculate my body fat percentage (turned out to be 54%) and tdee, it should be around 1700 kcal. Of course I will have more precise data when I will get the scale. I have started eating 1200 kcal/day and I know I shouldn't go lower. I would like to start exercising a bit more as soon as I have more time, but I am scared that I will get hungry and eat too much. I try to have a regimen that is very similar to the various diets I tried: proteins at every meal, no carbs for dinner, lots of vegetables, only healthy fats... I just try to vary it, dieting was very tiring because I got sick of eating the exact same things every week.
Any advice is absolutely welcome, thank you for taking the time to read this!

Melwillbehealthy

@EssePi117 Wow, you’ve certainly been through a lot. I think you are in the right mindset to tackle this’ beast’ of an issue. I applaud you for your attitude towards getting healthy while you’re young. If I only knew then, what I know now, I would have focused more on my health when I was younger, and avoided the pitfalls of aging.
I can’t think of any device that could add to what you already know. I guess, never give up. Sometimes, I think it takes a bit of trial and error to see what works that you can live with.
Best of luck!

nsk1951

Happy Mother's Day to everyone who considers themselves to be a mom.


I am a mom to a son who is fast approaching retirement age, so happy day to me also. ... Well, he told me today that he can, in fact, retire now if he wanted to but wants to work longer yet cause he likes his profession. But that would be 'early' retirement! LOL!

I made a really tasty meal for myself today ... a pasta skillet dish that I make variations of on a regular basis. It's chock full of vegetables, depending on what is on hand. Today's was based on bowtie pasta that was cooked al-dente' and added to a skillet full of lightly cooked vegetables. I didn't use any cheese in todays dish, but often times finish such a dish off with grated parm or romano and a sprinkling of torn basil or minced parsley. The vegetables were cooked on a small base of extra virgin olive oil and consisted of: garlic, onion, celery, carrot, sweet peppers, baby bella mushrooms. All the vegetables had been sliced to strips about as long as the pasta shape. I only used a little salt and pepper for the seasoning because I used a quarter cup of left over pasta sauce and some pasta water for the sauce, which was flavorful ... and I added a cooked and cut up hot Italian Sausage patty to to the skillet to finish with the pasta and 'sauce' after I added it all together. Such yum .. and so colorful. It felt like a real treat for me on this special day.

It made a pretty full skillet so I'm saving the leftovers to turn into something different for another meal by adding baby spinach and one or two other ingredients to the leftovers. On another day!

JNettie73

@EssePi117
Welcome. Thank you for sharing your story.
I am a big fan of taking body measurements and progress pictures once a month. I find being able to see the changes help. There are some months where the measurements or pictures don't show the progress that you are hoping to see. You would have to be okay with this and not let it discourage you. Over time though you will be amazed by your progress. I would not recommend doing those more frequently than that. I used to be someone who weighed daily and took measurements weekly. It was becoming an obsession for me so I had to set limits for myself.
i was vegetarian for a number of years. Over the past two years I have transitioned to WFPBNO (whole food plant based no oil) for health reasons. I've been fully vegan (WFPBNO) for about a month now. Giving up cheese was the most challenging for me, hence why it took me so long. Now I don't even miss it!

@nsk1951
Happy Mother's Day to you too! I hope you had a lovely day. Your pasta dish sounds delicious.

mnwalkingqueen

@laurenmo279- Welcome!

@Melwillbehealthy- the exercise will come for you… 30 days for habit to form. At least you got the food down. I have the exercise down but not the food.

@nsk1951- I’m glad that you lost that pound and that you’re feeling better with your feet. I love your plan for me on focusing on your habits.

@JNettie73- I like your goals for May and good job so far.

@EssePi117- Welcome. You have been through alot and thanks for being so open. My only advice is slow and steady build routines. I’m my own mess in progress 😉

AFM:
Wow, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I checked in. So weird that mentally when I turn 50 I feel like all these things are changing instantly. I think because everybody was telling me how to be so aware of body changes at 50 that they were just on my mind more than normal and so I noticed things. One thing that was happening is I didn’t want to be bothered by anyone almost started to go into a depression again, so then I really know what that feels like and I’ve been putting all my energy into being out in the fresh air as much as possible. Hence not being on my phone as much, so not really, realizing how far behind I was with everybody’s posts.
My doctor put me on a second medication for my blood pressure and it’s still not coming down. I am actually still wondering if there’s more going on now that I have paid more attention to things with my body. However, my uncle is on for blood pressure medication‘s, and his blood pressure is still so high that if he wasn’t on medication, they would put him in the hospital instantly . Maybe it’s just hereditary and poor choices and food.
I realize for myself I start to do too much at one time and I do good at it for about a month and then I think I get burnt out and I mess up a lot. For example, when I started in January, I was exercising, doing really good about keeping a food journal, I was listening to podcasts that were positive and help me with my weight loss. By March I was just exercising every day, and everything had fallen off.
none weight related Epiphany this week… I was the first person in my family to own a house and I bought my house because I assume that’s what you were supposed to do get a good job by your house the American dream. Being a broke homeowner sucks constantly have to choose between doing things I love or fixing things in my house, and I will say the last few months the money has went to doing things I love. I’ve actually been contemplating selling my house and going back into an apartment however Riley is a pain in the royal but sometimes so I don’t know if that would be a good idea either.

nsk1951

I'm struggling lately and allowing my tendencies to 'hide out' to rule my days ... and it's finally getting to be a bore. So hallelujah that this means soon, maybe even tomorrow ... I will be able to muster myself into starting doing some things that I have been building up my desire to do.

One of those things is to rearrange some furniture placements throughout the apartment. That desire also follows along in my pattern when coming out of a depressive mood. I'm still feeling sad about what triggered my mood, but I am glad to see that I have been able to maintain my current weight maintenance instead of gaining during this emotional set-back period. The thing that has helped me to come to grips is an acceptance of the facts. The sad and awful facts that someone I love very much is ... no, I cannot say it. That will make it too real; I need to toughen up a bit more before I can voice it.

The other thing that has helped me is to be able to come on here and say something about it.

Melwillbehealthy

@nsk1951 I’m so sorry you’re going through an awful time right now. Congratulations on not gaining weight during such a stressful time. It’s tough.

I think I’ve turned a minor corner with my weight loss. It’s starting to move in the right direction again. It’s been going up and down for the last month. Sometimes, I think that having diabetes really slows the weight loss. I’m still counting calories and will never give up.
I’m going to Ireland and England in a few weeks. My plan was to lose about 10 more lbs. before I leave, not just for vanity, but to be able to take less drugs with me. I can’t possibly lose 10 lbs. at my slow rate of loss. I feel like I’m taking an arsenal of drugs and wonder how I’ll be treated at the airport.

nsk1951

Thanks @Melwillbehealthy ... Going to Ireland and England sounds like such a wonderful adventure. I've always loved books set in Ireland and Scotland and would have liked to have been able to visit there when I was younger. I hope you stay the steady course in your weight loss efforts and not do any things extreme to shed those 10 pounds. Have you done much traveling where you had to bring meds along? If so, you probably know to keep them with you on your carry-on instead of in the luggage you check. ... Back when I was new to traveling (I did a lot of it for work), I made the mistake of putting my medications into my luggage for a trip to LA and my luggage was 'lost' ... it found it's way back to me 5 days later and during that time I had no meds! ... What a scramble that was to get some 3000 miles away from home!

Saturday Check-IN .. My weight is down this week from last week, but the scale is on an uptick this morning from what it was 2 days ago. I know what caused it ... the food I selected to eat ... This reminds me of a friend I once had. We dieted 'together' as buddies. The friend weighed themselves on Friday and Monday morning, before getting dressed. It was always down on Friday and back up on Monday by pretty much the same amount all the time. ... I always remind myself that what I eat is as important as the amount I eat.

Melwillbehealthy

@nsk1951 well, I’m thrilled today I weighed myself after having 4 kids here for the last two days( sleepover); and cooking them their favourite meals I lost 1 lb. I’m not doing anything drastic. Still counting calories. I don’t expect to lose that particular 10 lbs., but I hope to lose some more in the next 3 weeks before I leave on my trip. I’m quite excited to be going somewhere. I haven’t travelled in a long time, probably close to 20 years.
I have never travelled with meds before. It’s a new experience for me.
@mnwalkingqueen I’m still struggling to add the exercise, but I believe it’s making a difference in my weight loss. I’ve added some swimming, and will go to the gym later this morning.
Cooking tonight’s dinner is a little problem as I’m going babysitting at dinner time. Not sure what I’ll do yet. Babysitting my youngest granddaughter, Betty, who’s 5 yrs. Old. I’m giving the parents a chance to watch their son play baseball. Betty’s sweet, but distracting.
Last night my hubby and I met friends at a nearby diner. Honestly, there was very little I could order off the menu. It was all fried, heavy food and several varieties of milkshakes. They didn’t sell soup, there’s a lettuce shortage so I couldn’t buy a salad . I ended up with a delicious order of pemeal bacon. I was happy with that.

nsk1951

Soon it will be time to grocery shop. I've been using up the food stored in my fridge and freezer and supplementing with pantry items to round out my meals with concentrated effort. This weekend I started to defrost a pork tenderloin package that's been in the freezer since last autumn. And now I am trying to recall the recipe I was thinking off when I bought that meat ... hunting through my collection ... and am not hitting on it. It'll make enough protein for me to need to eat it as my animal protein source most of this week ... and I also have some green cabbage wilting away in the fridge that's been crying out to me (yes, I can hear it squeak!) every time I open the fridge door ... some some sort of combination of those two. I think I can shop this week to restock much needed fresh produce supplies as I only have enough left for 2 more meals. PS .. salad bowls

It should work out that I will run out of protein in the freezer by the time the Farmer's Market opens up in the parking lot across the street from my apartment building ... and I sure hope the farmer with the free range chickens and eggs comes back this year! It's too early in the growing to season to expect produce, so that'll still have to come from the grocery store.