40+ Club: Hop Into Spring With A Fit Bod

Hi everybody!

Time for Friday check-in. I had a good week. Cutting down on the carbs really helped me this week. I'm still not weighing or measuring myself. I just know I spent the entire day yesterday in a suit that has been, at times, a little small on me lately, and I wasn't the least bit uncomfortable wearing it for the day. :happy: That makes me happy. I also think I just look better....a little less puffy than I was looking. I also had some great workouts this week. I only have two more weeks until I end this 90 day cycle of STS. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown doing this program. I'm going into my heaviest lifting next week (90% of my one rep max), which I always find fun, but a tad painful too. :noway:

Swissmiss, I'm so happy to hear you heard from your daughter. I hope she makes it to you safely, even if you won't be there. I hope you have a great anniversary and take the time to sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself. And don't worry about what you are eating!!

lalalady, great news on the clothing! I think putting on clothing I never dreamed of getting into again and having it fit is the absolute best feeling in the world. MUCH better than anything the scale has ever said to me, that's for sure!

duffy, enjoy your trip! I, too, had heard about that report. It kind of goes in line with the book I'm reading right now (Younger Next Year). I find it interesting that there have been so many articles this year about exercise, and too many of them are contradicting each other (exercise to maintain weight vs. exercise doesn't help to lose weight). Anymore, I just focus on what works for me...which is lots of exercise...and leave it at that.

singfree, I hope you have a great weekend. Sounds like a busy one, but it also sounds like it should be wonderfully fun!

LittleSister, welcome! Congrats on the weight loss so far. :drinker:

paulkj, I highly recommend P90X. If you do try it, I hope you enjoy it.

tron, sorry to hear about your snow! That seems like a pretty late snow for those parts, but maybe I'm wrong. Hope you get spring soon.

No big plans here for Easter. We're supposed to have decent weather this weekend, so I might try to get in another run. But, other than that, I think we'll stay pretty quiet over here, and try to stay away from unhealthy food!

Hope you all have a great weekend. Happy Easter! :flowerforyou:

Hello everyone!!! Sorry I've been MIA lately. It is amazing how much there is to do after returning from a vacation. I feel I need to go on vacation again. :laugh: :laugh: Well, I lost a pound this week. I was expecting more because I thouht some was due to water retention from the trip but I guess that was not the case. But I am happy for the loss...I just hope it keeps getting lower. This week I did all my workouts, have been drinking a lot of water and ate pretty clean except for 2 cookies, couldnt resist. :grumble: I just don't know what else to do to lose this weight and keep it off!!!! I am getting frustrated. So frustrated that I have been contemplating using supplements. :noway: But just the thought of it scares me since some of them can have really bad side effects and risks. I just hate the fact that I don't look as lean as I should when I exercise so much and eat well most of the time. :sad: Your thoughts/ideas are appreciated.

Tron, have a great vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sure you left already so sorry you might not read this on time. But I am thinking of you. I hope your foot keeps getting better. I am dealing with a similar issue right now. I keep having this little pain/discomfort on the top of my left foot. If it is not one thing is the other. :sad: I keep "ignoring" it but the thought of a stress fracture is in the back of my mind. I have had them before and I know the only way to heal is to rest it. I just dont want to cancel my Zumba classes right now. Congrats on finishing ChaLean Extreme!! :drinker: I am finishing the second wk of Lean tomorrow, Sat. So I have 2 more wks and then I will probably do a month of the lean for life phase.

Welcome to all the new members!!!! The more the merrier!! :drinker:

Swiss, I am so glad you heard from your daughter and they are doing well. Happy Anniversary!!! :drinker:

Stiring, Sing, Tron, Cardi, Tex and everyone else, HUGS!!!!!! HAPPY EASTER!!!!

Sheroud, I will contact you. I live off Westover Hills. When I was running in the area I would go up Westover Hills, to Wiseman, to the Hyatt and around. Nice but tough route!! :noway:

My daughter and grandbaby are here this weekend. So we have a few things planned.

:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

Happy Friday everyone... I hope everyone has a great Easter. Zebras I'm a bit ticked off too... after all I have done this week I never lost either and it looks like I have !!
Feel really good about all I have done today... went for a 5k run outside this morning... carried all the patio furniture up to the balcony from the tool shed, clean a pile (small one) of dirt off the sidewalk the city left there when they plowed snow this winter up onto our sidewalk, swept the garage, cleaned the truck, restacked very large logs of firewood that had fallen down over the winter, and did 2.5 hours of yard work at the mom in laws!! And I still have energy left!!! WOW this feels so great!!!!!! Although I am sure when my head hits the pillow tonight I will be out. Well all time for a shower... I think I have deserved it!!!
Angel

I just don't know what else to do to lose this weight and keep it off!!!! I am getting frustrated. So frustrated that I have been contemplating using supplements. :noway: But just the thought of it scares me since some of them can have really bad side effects and risks. I just hate the fact that I don't look as lean as I should when I exercise so much and eat well most of the time. :sad: Your thoughts/ideas are appreciated.

My husband has hold of one of my arms and is trying to pull me out the door to do our weekly errands. But before we go, I just wanted to address this for alf.

I am going through something very similar right now. It seems no matter how hard I try, I can't get back to the way I looked/what I weighed back in October. And it has been bothering me for months. I've decreased my calories. I've increased my workouts. I've increased my calories. I've increased my workouts more. I've changed my macronutrients. I've taken in more water. And yet, when I step on the scale or look at myself, I'm not completely satisfied with any of my results.

And here is the conclusion I'm coming to. I was able to lose the weight, and I've been able to keep most of it off for a year. But just because I was able to lose the weight doesn't mean that my body is actually happy at this weight. I would love to think being able to lose the weight would be some indication that my body would find a happy maintenance mode, but it hasn't. I'm struggling to maintain right now, and it seems if I take two or three days 'off' (off from eating very clean or off from working out), I gain weight (and I don't mean water weight....I mean weight I can't lose). And I'll be honest, I've been doing some pretty drastic (aka not-so-smart and/or downright silly) things when it comes to my workouts trying to get the weight off.

I have finally come to the conclusion that being this weight is not worth it if it takes this much work to maintain it. In other words, I have no desire to live like this for the remainder of my years. In fact, I would argue that I can't live like this the rest of my life.

I think if you were to use supplements to get back to where you want to be/think you should be, you might find that once you go off those supplements, you'd be having the same struggles all over again. Now, I know that I haven't eaten perfectly clean for the past six months, and it is easy to blame myself for my weight gain (did I really need to eat all of those Christmas cookies?) But for the past three months (since the first of the year), I've actually been tracking the number of days I ate perfectly clean vs. those I had some less-than-ideal food. And in the 90 days that have passed, I've eaten less-than-ideally less than 20% of those days. In other words, I'm doing pretty good when it comes to controlling myself and my eating given that I'm in maintenance mode. In those 90 days, I've not taken more than one day off a week from fitness, so my fitness is good. I've been monitoring my calories most of the time, and have stayed within my calorie allowance on all of the days when I didn't have any less-than-healthy foods. Yet I'm not happy with my results. And, again, I feel a pressure about it/an unhappiness about it that I don't want to live with the rest of my life.

So this is what I'm going to do (and I spell this out just as food-for-thought more than anything). I've got this conference in Hawaii in a couple of weeks, and I'm trying to stay as lean as I can for that so that I can actually fit into the clothing I need to wear to the conference we're attending (I didn't buy clothes of all sizes on my way down the weight ladder, so I'm pretty restricted when it comes to clothing, especially at the smaller sizes). When we get back after the conference, I'm going to put myself on another 'diet'. This time, though, it is going to be a maintenance diet.

I've given this alot of thought over the past 4-6 weeks, because I want my maintenance diet to be something I can live with the rest of my life. I've laid it out for myself what I think is a reasonable daily calorie intake, what I think is a reasonable workout schedule, and what I think is a reasonable amount of sweets/treats I can live with. I've determined all of those baselines from how I feel given those things (over-exercising vs. under-exercising, over-eating vs. under-eating, over-eating sweets vs. under-eating sweets, etc). And I'm going to leave it up to my body to see how it reacts to that. I could gain weight/size. I could not. I don't know. I will continue to monitor my calories. I'm going to continue to eat healthy about 80% of the time, but I'm not going to obsess about either. I'm going to continue to work out hard. But I'm NOT going to do any of that with a pressure of trying to get back to a weight/stay at a weight. I'm going to do all of that because I've decided that is the way I will feel the most healthy and that is how I want to and can live my life for many years to come.

It isn't easy staring at my tiny little jeans and thinking 'I might not be able to wear these ever again', but at the same time, I've become so concerned about fitting into those tiny little jeans that I'm not enjoying my life as much as I want to right now. And I don't think that's good either. I don't think life has to be enjoyed with food (far from it as a matter of fact). But when (as an example) old friends we haven't seen in years ask us to dinner, I don't like my first thought being 'I hope there is something there I can eat', and that's how I feel right now.

I know this is long, but I feel like I have learned so much over the past few months. alf, I just don't want to see you go down the same road I've been down these past few months because it hasn't been good for me. But having gone through it, I can say with all honesty that being happy and healthy is SO much more important to me than the size jeans I wear. So please ask yourself 'Are supplements really worth it?'

Hope this doesn't sound preachy! :flowerforyou:

Now I really must go. Congrats to those who lost weight this week. I hope this finds everybody well.

I have tried the supplements and have not found them to be of any use. Only eating healthy with fewer calories and lots of exercise will burn the weight off of us.

I have a confession to make. I have not cared one bit about eating healthy for the past two days. My husband and I have been away celebrating our anniversary. We had huge steaks, wine and chocolate.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!! The Easter Bunny didn't leave me a basket full of candy BUT he did get me a kettleball... How sweet was that.

Sing... Your an awesome person! Thank you for always being so supportive.

Swiss... Happy Anniversary

Happy Monday Everyone:

I hope you all had a good holiday.

Well, I ate a big salty meal yesterday. I definitely worked off the calories, lets hope the salt gets out of my system quickly before my next official weigh in!

Happy Monday!!!! :laugh: :drinker: Weekend was great as far as spending time with family, especially with my granddaughter. Oh my, she is a handful!! :laugh: But she does much better with me alone than when her mother is around. :noway: Eating was horrible, of course, but Hakuna Matata, it is in the past... :laugh:

Sing, you are so right and I am going to adopt your "Tony Horton" attitude. I appreciate your motivation, support and words of encouragement. But I cannot let my guard down or I will go back to the weight I was 2 yrs ago... My plan right now is to increase my workouts and increase my protein intake, also cut down on my coffee consumption and replace it with green and/or white tea. I still have no desire to log in my foods. I am not sure if that is very smart but I will continue testing this approach.

Zebras, focus on drinking lots of water and limit salt intake the next couple of days...

Tron, great for you!!!! There are a lot of articles and kettlebell workouts in the internet. :drinker:

Julia, WTG on your weight loss...you are doing great!!! Are you still not exercising? What are you doing to lose the weight? You always report weight loss...

Have a wonderful day!!!! :flowerforyou:

I really have to make up for this past weekend. Way too much of a good thing. I did, however, ride my bike for the first time yesterday. Went about seven miles.

My daughter, her husband and their two children moved in with us on Friday. They lived in Kentucky. My daughter already has a job and we are hoping her husband finds one soon.