I will do my best to keep you honest and not compliment you on the yumminess of your diary. : ) Haha... It's easy to loosen up on the food choices, because, lets be honest, most of the stuff that's less than good for you tastes AMAZING! But we all know you can do it. Start with smaller portions, then try choosing different foods. Anyway, I'm here if you need to gripe about the tough times, and I know you'll be down a stone before you know it.

And I love you for saying ya'll. : )

What are your current goals? Weight maintenance, building strength, fat loss, recomp?

Yeah, I know you know it -- 'cause after all you *have* lost your weight and are in maintenance!!

So what is your plan to get things headed in the right direction?

Hopefully, one more in the same boat won't make it sink.

My wedding dress was delivered two weeks ago and I just opened it yesterday. I unhappy cried when I tried it on. It fits, but looks like someone wrapped two pigs in an ivory sheet. I'm uncomfortable and unexcited about the whole ordeal (and starting to stress because, other than the dress, literally nothing else is planned).

Regardless of personal struggles, you ladies are a huge inspiration. I can praise and/or chastise as needed.

The only thing that got me to really buckle down and not be a slacker on nutrition was deciding to compete in a PL meet and knowing that I would do way better if I went down a weight class or two. So clearly you need to compete!

Ok ladies, I know this is a safe space..

I realised that I've put on over half a stone (7lb+) since my lowest point. This has fluctuated but over the last 3 months has really been creeping on. there are a few things contributing - a total lack of cardio since March, only stronglifts, eating more, etc.

However today I realised that my trousers were getting a leeetle tight to do up.
And my thinking about eating is becoming very irrational - I might start the day with a good plan of action, but a couple of things tip it (eg today a colleague brought in spare coleslaw which I ate before logging, and then realised I'd eaten 350cals of coleslaw!!, then the huz texted to say he was bringing something different home for dinner - turns out to be M&S tapas stuff...) - and my reaction seems to be to throw my hands in the air and my face in the biscuit barrel.

*sigh*

Add to that we are going to friends on Friday night for dinner and in a week going away on holiday, and I seem to have acquired a f-it-all attitude which isn't helping anyone, let alone me!

I know that I should just make good choices for now, but I don't wanna and it's HARD.

I did say to the huz yesterday that I was going to be focused etc - don't think he meant to derail me today but anyway...!

So, this was really just getting it off my ample chest, I don't think you'll have any advice other than 'JFDI' but y'all keep me honest, yo!

Thanks for listening!!

Lydia x

tl;dr

I'm a piggy and it's showing, and I need to woman up and sort myself out! You all rock

Oh dear... You have spied at my scales, haven't you? Actually, I'm up 5 kg from my preferred weight and my smallest jeans, they are beyond contemplating getting over my hips. I just like to eat. It's so easy to gain and so difficult to get your head back into reducing portion sizes, measuring, tracking etc after 2 or 3 years of focusing on reducing.

I'm pretty good at tracking what I eat, just not so good at keeping my consumption under what I burn! I love the food. And it's winter here - stodgy food is comfort food!!

Well, let's just help each other out of boombah phase and get down to where we're happy to eat AND wear the jeans! Goodbye to sugarplum (my tummy) and hello to abs (bahahaha! I never had those things on display!)

Lydia, you must be really tall! I am 5'9" and my butt looked much bigger when it was 40"/103 cm. Anyway, whatever extra weight you have, you carry it quite well.

Goals... I based my goals on this lovely screed (replace * with "u" in link below):

http://www.leangains.com/2011/09/f*ckarounditis.html

Berkhan says, "For women in the 115-155-lb range, the corresponding advanced strength goals are 0.9 x body weight bench, 1.1 x body weight chin-up, 1.5 x body weight squat and 1.8 x body weight deadlift."

The nice thing about this way of setting your goals is if you weigh more, you have to lift more in absolute terms, so it is a small incentive to keep your weight in check. But a word of warning: some of these goals might take a long time to get to for taller women, since we are working with disadvantageous mechanics. Power lifters tend to be short because it is a weight class sport--so if you weigh 148 and are 5'2", of course you will pull more than a 5'10" person who weighs the same. You have more muscle mass and are moving the weight over a shorter distance. It's basic physics:

http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/video/roundtable_tall_athletes

Btw, in case you are wondering about that vid--Rip is 5'8"

P.S. Duh, I solved for x and figured out your height is 5'11".

ha yes I'm just over 5'11" so impressd with your maths!! which is partly why I got to 16st in the first place.. makes it too easy to be complacent!

so.. maths NOT being my strong point.. what should I be aiming for in terms of minimum lifts?

It was easy, since I knew your current weight and BMI

Berkhan's numbers would give you:

0.9 x body weight bench: 165 lb
1.1 x body weight chin-up: chin up with 15-20 lb on your belt
1.5 x body weight squat: 275 lb
1.8 x body weight deadlift: 330 lb

Now, this does not take into account that you are a lot taller than the women he is talking about (probably 5'4", the "average" height). So revise these downward by maybe 10-20% of total lift weight. I am not great shakes at mechanical physics anymore, but I would imagine there is a big loss in efficiency with increased height. And he qualifies this with "women who have been training consistently for 5-10 years". That's a long term goal, in other words.

If you think of this as a 5 year plan, take your current lifts and subtract them from these goals and then divide the difference by 5. Possibly rescale to expect bigger gains early on, as they cannot be expected to increase in a linear fashion over the 5 years.

Height is an advantage for DL only if your arms are long and your legs aren't, I think. You do have to lift the bar higher than someone who is short, because taller people generally tend to be proportioned differently, with longer limbs. I could actually tell you were very tall from just looking at your pics, even before I figured out your height.

In general, height is an advantage in running, jumping, skiing, that sort of thing. Basketball and volleyball, to be sure. It will not stop you from being a good swimmer, either. But I've had too many boyfriends who were north of 6'3" and could not do a single pull-up to think that's an accident. So scale your goals downward, but it is important to have specific goals.

Hello - just want to pop in and say hello and add my support.
x

Songbird you look terrific in your avatar, what an amazing transformation!

My bias would be that you never take a break from lifting, LOL. If you want to keep your food intake steady, you'll need to move more, but if you don't want to do cardio, you could move your calorie goal downwards a little bit.

I may be the sole voice of disagreement here, but so be it.

Lydia - how long has it been since you have taken an honest-to-goodness diet and lifting break? Not 2-3 days, but a solid week of eating to satiation and resting your muscles? Because not being able to control yourself around food sounds to me like your body is trying to tell you something. Strength training is hard. Hard on your muscles, hard on your cells, hard on your CNS. And that's why it's so awesome - but you also need to rest occasionally. And eating at a deficit is the same way. If you have been doing it for too long, and making hard physical demands on your body, eventually it will rebel, plain and simple. Giving it a break every 6-8 weeks can help keep you on track.

At 5'11", your weight seems a bit on the low side to me. Heck, at 5'4" I am 162, and not really planning on losing too much more scale weight (fat yes, weight no). You have made awesome progress in your lifting - but we all have to remember that it takes time! And one day (or week) our bodies might need to hold on to more water and get fluffy, and the next week they might not and will let all that go - but as long as you are consistently lifting heavy and doing a little cardio, you aren't going to gain back what you have lost, fat-wise, unless you start eating WAAAAYYY over your TDEE.

Speaking of, how long has it been since you have calculated your TDEE? I know this is totally anecdotal, but I want to share this with you as an example: I had stopped progressing on my lifts, couldn't recover fast enough, was getting achey. So I took a week off, and I have been slowly moving towards my TDEE - that means I am up from 1900 to 2400. And you know what? I got puffy for about a week, and then the puff went away. I am maintaining at 2400, so now I"m going to go up to 2500 and see what happens. And so forth, until I figure out where I start truly gaining weight (not just water as my cells soak up nutrients). And once I find that number, I'll cut back to a small deficit (nothing over 500 calories). This is just one approach - but I figured out in the last few months that unless I can eat normally WHILE I am losing fat, I will NEVER be able to keep that fat gone. Ever.

Again, anecdotal, my experience, ymmv, etc. - but I wanted to throw it out there that maybe there are other alternatives. Probably not the most common viewpoint you will find on MFP, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

I may be the sole voice of disagreement here, but so be it.

Lydia - how long has it been since you have taken an honest-to-goodness diet and lifting break? Not 2-3 days, but a solid week of eating to satiation and resting your muscles? Because not being able to control yourself around food sounds to me like your body is trying to tell you something. Strength training is hard. Hard on your muscles, hard on your cells, hard on your CNS. And that's why it's so awesome - but you also need to rest occasionally. And eating at a deficit is the same way. If you have been doing it for too long, and making hard physical demands on your body, eventually it will rebel, plain and simple. Giving it a break every 6-8 weeks can help keep you on track.

At 5'11", your weight seems a bit on the low side to me. Heck, at 5'4" I am 162, and not really planning on losing too much more scale weight (fat yes, weight no). You have made awesome progress in your lifting - but we all have to remember that it takes time! And one day (or week) our bodies might need to hold on to more water and get fluffy, and the next week they might not and will let all that go - but as long as you are consistently lifting heavy and doing a little cardio, you aren't going to gain back what you have lost, fat-wise, unless you start eating WAAAAYYY over your TDEE.

Speaking of, how long has it been since you have calculated your TDEE? I know this is totally anecdotal, but I want to share this with you as an example: I had stopped progressing on my lifts, couldn't recover fast enough, was getting achey. So I took a week off, and I have been slowly moving towards my TDEE - that means I am up from 1900 to 2400. And you know what? I got puffy for about a week, and then the puff went away. I am maintaining at 2400, so now I"m going to go up to 2500 and see what happens. And so forth, until I figure out where I start truly gaining weight (not just water as my cells soak up nutrients). And once I find that number, I'll cut back to a small deficit (nothing over 500 calories). This is just one approach - but I figured out in the last few months that unless I can eat normally WHILE I am losing fat, I will NEVER be able to keep that fat gone. Ever.

Again, anecdotal, my experience, ymmv, etc. - but I wanted to throw it out there that maybe there are other alternatives. Probably not the most common viewpoint you will find on MFP, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Re: bolded... That is pretty close to where I am right now. I just increased my intake to 2400 and my lifts haven't budged yet, so 2500 is next.

Though some people might be reluctant to increase calories when bf% is relatively high, so I can understand this, too. No matter how hard you train, if you are increasing your intake to a point where it exceeds your expenditure, you will gain both muscle and fat.

And your point about breaks from lifting is also important. I wouldn't necessarily ascribe all cravings and poor portion control to overtraining/undereating, since for some people it's emotional or habitual, especially if one has lost a fair amount of weight. But it could very well be a sign of overtraining.

And your point about breaks from lifting is also important. I wouldn't necessarily ascribe all cravings and poor portion control to overtraining/undereating, since for some people it's emotional or habitual, especially if one has lost a fair amount of weight. But it could very well be a sign of overtraining.

Absolutely - I meant to mention the tricky nature of the whole thing, but since I was already headed towards a small book, I left it out. For me, the only way to know **for sure** that I was undereating/overtraining was to see if the 'binging' calmed down once I gave my body more food. And for me, it did. At 1900 calories, I had started having uncontrollable urges to stuff my face every time the weekend rolled around. Again, **for me**, it was more about not eating enough than having no self-control. It's important to acknowledge emotional/psychological/habitual factors when trying to figure out our intake, but we have been trained to find it counter-intuitive to feed ourselves if we are overeating. Goes against everything the mainstream diet establishment tells us. But I'll try to stay off that particular soap box for now!

Songbird - as for resting - please read this: http://www.girlsgonestrong.com/deconstructing-the-de-load/

^^^ a great read about deloading, thanks!