40+ Club: Beating The Winter Bulge

Tracy, great!!! And congrats on losing 23 lbs!! :drinker: I came across this article and wanted to share it with you and others.

http://www.realage.com/tips/a-savory-way-to-steady-blood-sugar

It is from realage.com. I like that site a lot. It is from the 2 doctors that appear on Oprah a lot. I believe they have a section just for diabetics. :flowerforyou:

I want to join the club... I need the support as my diets usually last 2 days....lol

I'll be 41 on Friday and would like to join this thread. Doing really well in the first two weeks of clean eating and am hoping to keep up the motivation. Is there a way to bookmark this thread so it is easier to find and check in? Thanks! Trina

Hi, I am new to this website (starting week 2) and have reached a point that my health dictates I change my lifestyle. I just turned 40 in December and I have never been a healthy eater. I love to eat out (and do most nights), I cannot stand most vegis, I have an easy gag reflex with certain textures of food....I love salads (lettuce, cabbage, spinach, little bit of carrots, dressing, tomatos), cheese, and breads.

The reason I have to make a change now: Genetics, my 3 uncles all had their first heart attacks in their late 30's, both of my aunts have had multiple bypasses, my grandma and grandpa both died from heart disease, my mom (the youngest) has pleurisy (sp)....and my cholesterol is over 400....which my doctor says is not what we should look at now because my triglercerites are over 700. I have been on medication for 10 years now, and chose to go to the doctor as little as possible. Guess I should have went, I would have known that the lipitor was not working for me.

I just moved to california (away from all my family and friends), my husband is out to sea, my son stayed in washington state (going to college) and my 15 year old is starting to stay to herself more. The cool part is that she is a health nut (always has been, she became a vegetarian at 10 years old because of things she read, checked out recipes for food and always helps cook her own food), so she is very good at keeping me in line. Tonight we went out for mexican and she would now let me have any cheese! It was irritating at first but totally thanked her for it. She also pushes me to get active...she has been doing the Jillian 30 day shred and now I am on day 2! I started playing tennis 2 days a week last month and try to be a little active every day. I didnt excersize for many years before this though so i am out of shape and about 50 lbs overweight.

I suck at this so I am hoping that joining this group and this website will be motivating for me! Being away from my home (WA) is making it even harder! I want to eat because I am so bored, and I spend about 4 hours a day in front of the tv or computer!!!

UGH! Anyone else in this type of situation out there???? I want pizza every night....and california has this devil of a place called in and out burger that is unbelievably good.

Jenny

Hi Though I'm not new to the site but would like to join this thread - first few months with mfp were great with me as far as healthy eaitng goes then i faltered ...... now trying to get back after gaining a few pounds. I will be 42 in Feb and wanted to get some motivation to manage eating in winter . I love peanuts and walnuts and there zooms my calorie count :grumble: I wish I could just give away my pounds in charity ! how I wish that was possible !!!1

Good morning everyone!!! Wow!!!! :drinker: :drinker: I am so excited to see all these new members!!!! :drinker: A huge welcome! As Sing said this is a great group. We are very helpful and motivate one another. There are some very knowledgeable people in this thread about exercise and clean eating. Stick with us!!!

Trina, I try to eat clean at least 80% of the day. Sometimes I eat clean 100% but I feel happy with my 80% minimum most of the times. That is way much better than before. I just finished my favorite breakfast of steel cut oats with non fat milk, blueberries and chopped almonds. I prefer walnuts but I ran out. :grumble: Another member, Stiring and a few others, also focus on clean eating. :drinker:

Lookgreat, try to go back to what you did last time you were using this site. Maybe those few lbs you have gained are just water retention. Drink lots of water, that is very important. I also love to eat nuts. I eat them almost daily. Just measure them and make sure you log them in. That keeps you more accountable. If it is a major problem then dont buy them or limit them. But nuts are very important part of a healhy diet so dont cut them out, just limit them.

alidasturn, welcome, just ask us anything, we will help you. Tell us more about yourself.

jmuch, I want to congratulate you for all the positive things you are doing for yourself!! :drinker: It is great that your daughter takes care of herself and is also helping you out. I am not a vegetarian, I love to eat meat, but I choose leaner cuts of beef (anything loin), pork (loin), skinless chicken breast, skinless turkey breast, and fish. So those are good choices if you decide to eat meat. If you want to follow a vegetarian lifestyle just make sure you are consuming all the nutrients you need. Is your husband in the Navy? My husband is retired ARMY. When he was away on duty I would also use that time to take better care of myself. Take advantage of the wonderful weather in CA and go out for walks at the beach, window shop, hikes, etc. Getting back to exercise do things that you enjoy at the times you can be consistent and take it from there. We are here to help you.

My husband is off today so I took the day off. I am sure we will go somewhere to eat, I will choose healthy!!!! I am teaching Zumba tonight, I can't wait!!! He is going with me to take pics and video.

Have a wonderful day!!!! :flowerforyou:

Hi Swiss Miss,
Thanks for the tips!
Have you tried any of the vegetarian "chicken" wings? Morningstar Farms makes a good one and Quorn also makes a tasty one. I dip them in a tiny bit of Marie's low-fat blue cheese dressing and they are wonderful! Even people who eat meat love them when I take them to parties. Enjoy!!!
Trina

Duffy:

In reference to #3 on your list:

Is it really considered snacking when you are probably eating 6 small meals a day? I think there's a big difference between someone who is careful and spreads their meals out versus some who eat 3 squares and then decides to have a snack. That person probably isn't really aware of how many calories they are taking in.

thanks singfree! your post did a good thing for me today....i am about to leave early to pick my daughter up and I was thinking about grabbing some fast food....but i will eat before i go:-)

Welcome to all the new members!! :drinker: It's wonderful to meet so many new people here.

jmuch, my husband is in the Air Force, and we just moved from California to Korea in early November. I completely understand how difficult it is to think about weight loss during a move. I struggled through this last move, especially with the holidays. For me, the important part was getting back on track when all of the turmoil was over with (which, for me, was about New Years Day since we finally had gotten all of our household goods in just a week prior to that). I struggle with a little bit of sadness being so far away from my family. Just this week, my mother celebrated her 80th birthday, and my sisters and I had planned a huge party for her. The party went on (with great success!)....but without me. I've done this thing (military spouse) now for 20 years, and we've lived most of that time in overseas locations. But no matter how many times I do it or how used to it I should be, it just never is easy being so far away from home. What I try to focus on, though, is making sure I am strong and healthy and fit so that when my husband does retire from the military, we are able to enjoy all of the things in the US....like spending time with neices and nephews.....as we can without health concerns. I'm from Colorado originally, and my 'dream' is to return to Colorado some day and once again enjoy the fresh, mountain air that was so much a part of my youth. But I won't be hiking those Colorado mountains at 50 (which is only a few years away!) if I don't take care of myself today. So, hopefully, you can find something to focus on as well. And if you ARE going to eat fast food in California, In and Out is probably your best option. I don't know where you are in California (we were in LA), but what I loved so much about California was that there was every option known to mankind for health food there. Boy, do I miss that!

tracy, I don't have diabetes, so I can't help you with that. It sounds like you are doing great, though, and I hope you can stabalize your blood sugar levels soon. But just a word about the sugar recommendations on MFP.....ignore them. I know that sounds bad, but MFP sugar recommendations really seem to be based on ADDED or PROCESSED sugar, not ALL sugar. Unfortunately, the site isn't set up to read only added or processed sugar, so if you eat one piece of fruit a day, MFP will show you as being over in sugar. So, for me, that reading is completely worthless. If you are eating healthy sugars (like in the form of fruit), and avoiding overly processed foods (including carbs), I wouldn't worry about your sugar levels as they relate to your weight loss. I don't know what you need to pay attention to regarding your diabetes, so I have no advise on that. But in terms of weight loss, going over in sugar grams on MFP....as long as they are healthy sugar grams....is not an issue. I'm always over by at least 50 grams a day, and I lost 45 pounds.

zebras, I hear you about being sore! I'm still trying to get back to where I was before the move, and each day I find a muscle sore that I didn't know I even had. :laugh: But I also know if you stick with it, you'll be back to where you were in no time at all. Just stick with it as best you can. Three or four days a week is absolutely great!!

duffy, thanks so much for your continued information on this program. Of those points you listed, the only one I'd have troubles with is the dairy. I don't actually eat much dairy, but I do eat at least one serving of it a day (and I'm sure that is way more than he recommends). I find it interesting that he says not to snack. There is so much conflicting info out there on meals, and I understand both sides of the argument. I think it is important to go with what works best for you. Personally, I've decided to cut out all snacking and go back to three meals a day. I just prefer eating that way (because it helps me control my calories better to have them in meals). But I know alot of people (like you) are the opposite. But I'm with zebras on that one....I don't know that you could consider it 'snacking' if you truly eat 6 'meals' a day. Please keep posting about this and thanks again!

All here is going well. I'm in my third week of STS and continue to feel really strong. Where I have noticed the most significant improvement over last year when I was doing this program is in my chest. I credit P90X and Insanity for that. Like I said earlier, my goal last July was to do at least one of these workouts doing all of the pushups on my toes. Well, I have done all of the workouts and all of the pushups on my toes....and with relative ease. :noway: So I'm much stronger there than I thought I would be, that's for sure. Now biceps are a different story. :ohwell:

This is day 19 of back to eating clean. I weighed myself again this morning (a week after the melt down :happy: ), and I am happy to report I've lost three of those pounds I was complaining about. I knew I was retaining water, and I knew better than to step on the scale.....but I did anyhow. What can I say? I'm still about six pounds heavier than I was before the move, but I'm okay with that. I'm not trying to lose weight now, which is good. But I really want to keep my eating as clean as possible to see if I can't get back some muscle definition. Whatever I'm doing is working because my husband was gone for a week and thinks I look much leaner than when he left, so............

Again, welcome to all the newcomers! Please keep posting. I hope everybody enjoys the rest of your day. Wednesday here in Korea is starting off relatively mild (40 degrees), but with heavy rain. Maybe it will wash all of the snow away. I hope. I just hope it doesn't then turn around and decide to freeze. :huh:

:flowerforyou: Good job, stiring...losing some of the weight. Do you think that you will continue to lose the rest of them or stay where you are?

singfree, I tend to have tendonitis all over my body. I have it in one elbow and both knees. It does take a long time for the pain to leave and then I will do something to make it come back. One of my knees is so bad that I have to wear a support.

2BLean, I forgot to mention your photo in my earlier missive! :embarassed: I agree with alf. You certainly don't look like you need to lose more weight! I did Athletic Step for the second time yesterday, and I did much better with it. I was tripping over my step the first time too, but this time did MUCH better and really enjoyed it. And, yes, I'm sure you remember the STS pushups. I even did the Elmo pushups yesterday (for those wondering, that is doing pushups with your arms on a stability ball.....tough stuff because it is so hard to control). I'm not saying I did them well though....but I did them.

Swissmiss, I'm not sure I'm going to lose anymore weight. I'm not going to try to, but if I do....I do. I weighed in at 104.8 this morning, and I think that is really a good weight to me. I'm pretty much back into all of my clothing right now, and that makes me happy. My measurements are still a little up (about 1/2 in the hips and about 1 inch in my waist), but I can live with that. I really want to focus on my overall fitness and finding the balance that was missing in my life much of last year, and I don't think I can do the latter if I'm stressing about the few pounds I gained. I have to remind myself that I'm still over 15 pounds below my initial goal (120) and over 5 pounds down from my 'no kidding this is as low as I can get goal) of 110. So.....I'm pretty happy with where I'm at given everything.

hisangel, you burned that many calories playing Wii tennis?!? I LOVE Wii tennis. Looks like I need to be cranking up that machine this afternoon. On this very gloomy day, a round of make believe tennis sounds like fun. Sounds like you are doing really well right now. Congrats on everything!!

Off to play some tennis......:happy:

So glad I joined this thread, it is great to see the posts from everyone and to hear all the great stories of work outs and weight loss!

Stiring - I lived in Korea several years back, are you at Osan? It sounds like you've got a good plan for work outs with your WII and such. It is not easy to live overseas so far from home, hang in there!

Thank you to Singfree for all the positive thoughts!

Good morning! :drinker:

Duffy, what is the name of the program you are following? How do you feel physically after following it for 3 wks? On the elbow question, my left shoulder bothers me a little since starting CX and I remember it did towards the end of my first round. My right knee is also bothering me lately. I am telling my body is just falling apart!!! :noway: :grumble: :laugh: It sucks to get old. :laugh: But I refuse to slow down!!! I have way too much energy!

Karin, my son is 16yrs old and has autism but he seems to be more severe than yours. He will be 17 in May. He is pretty much non verbal. I worry about his future a lot. That is something that can bring me down to tears in a second. But then I pray and try to stay positive. :flowerforyou:

Stiring, 3 meals a day? I could not do it!! :noway: I am so used to eating every 2-3 hrs and I am truly hungry every 2 hrs or so...my stomach growls and everything!! And I just hate the feeling of being very full after I eat a large meal. Even if it is a large healthy salad with lean protein, etc. But we do what works best. Congrats on eating clean for 19 days wow!!! That is phenomenal! You continue to be an inspiration to me.

Sing, what kinds of foods do you eat? You might be already eating clean at least 80% daily. Don't be so hard on yourself, you are doing great!!! I was telling my husband yesterday that what I focus more is clean eating but that I know it does not have to be 100% effort. And he said that he thinks I eat clean 100% of the time. It is nice of him to think that way but I don't. When I want fries and it has been a while and while meaning 2-3 wks not months, I have my fries and get the craving out of the way. Same with ice cream, juicy burger, etc. This system has worked for me and I feel pretty happy about it.

Zumba Report!!!! I had 19 students last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :drinker: :drinker: :drinker: So much fun!!!!

:flowerforyou: