*Snowflakes to Sunshine* Week #12 Discussion 3.25.11

I'm going to continue to follow the motto: Work smart, not hard when it comes to my workouts in the gym. Just like with food, everything in moderation, well the same is true for my workouts. Your body needs a day to rest and I am going to make sure I don't go full speed ahead without a resting when my body tells me too.

Also, I am still trying to eat a serving of fruit and vegetable with every meal. A half of apple or a bundle of grapes with my cereal or oatmeal, toss a banana or strawberries in with my protein. Usually I'll have a salad or stirfry to up my veggies with dinner. The last few nights, I could have done better, but I did what I could do. I am also drinking water with every meal. Ideally, I would like to drink 20 oz, but even if its just 8 oz, that would be good.

A quick tip on drinking more water. In the morning after you brush your teeth, drink a glass of water. When you brush your teeth before bed, drink a glass of water (trust me, you won't wake up in the middle of the night) or just keep a glass of water on your night stand so you can drink in the middle of the night if you wake up thirsty. If you do that, you have a guaranteed 2 glasses of water and you only have to get in atleast 6 more throughout the day.

Well that's my say. I will try to be more vocal this week. But for now, I have to get my daughter off to school.

Very excited to see 2.6 pounds gone this week!!!! I am now in the 140's (just barely) :laugh: I am simply amazed how quickly I am loosing weight this time. I lost about 40 lbs a couple of years ago and it took me about 9 months. To date I have lost 25 lbs in about 3 months!! I know the difference has been my exercise. My HRM lets me know exactly how many calories I have burned. I have been pushing myself to burn 500 calories a day 6 times a week and I am so excited about the results!! No all I need is warm weather

Hello Fellow Snowflakes, Good morning! :flowerforyou:

I lost 1.4 pounds this week, 158.2 pounds (Im thrilled) I was going up 1 1/2 pounds after I tried to switch up my routine to eating more calories 1350 and exercising less from my 2 hour walk to 1 hour, The reason was because I was losing to quickly. So since the gain my plan is to go Back to what I was doing before. I will add some more calories though, between 1200 to 1385 is my game plan depending on how much I exercise for the day.

Thank You Leela for the Water Tip ...... Fantastic Idea!!

I need help eating those veggies, I have been terrible with that & the water this past week. I Have to try harder :frown:

My workouts...

1} Walking everyday of the week ( 2 or 1 hours of walking each day)
2} Weight lifting 30 minutes 3 times a week
3} I also burn calories at my Cleaning jobs. But when I work 4 hours I usually calculate 1 to 2 hours depending on how hard I worked that day

Second half of the challenge and I am all fired up! I only lost half a pound, but in the first have of the challenge, I gained and lost the same 3 pounds, so I am happy to have two weeks consistently down.

I am in-love with my workout routine at the moment. I am at the end of Week 2 of Couch 25K. I've been doing yoga and of course, throwing in the zumba. This last week, my mantra was "Save the Muscle, Burn the Fat. Keep it gritty". It sounds silly, but when I am doing my running intervals and want to stop, it keeps me going. My body has been really responding well to Couch 25K. I can see the progress in the cottage cheese already-- the booty has less ripples, my thighs less dimples. I still have a long way to go, but I am encouraged.

My plan is to focus on more protein and more fruit and vegetables each meal and to work out at least 5 days between Saturday and Friday. I am actually going to cut back on the soy and the beef. (TMI ahead--the tofu, edamame and beef have had the plumbing clogged the last two weeks). I finally noticed the pattern. So the focus is going more toward more fish (low mercury of course;)

Happy Friday, Snowflakes!

This week was another big 'ol zero on the scale for me, but I wasn't surprised since it was the first week of solid working out and it was an emotional week all around. There were a few important lessons learned this week:

1. Plan my meals!
2. If I'm going to have a cheat meal, then make sure I only make a really small amount instead of a huge pan which means I end up eating the entire pan all week long
3. My carb eating is out of control and my protein isn't high enough

Next week my routine returns to normal and that means I should be able to get in 3 days of yoga plus my weights. The snow should be gone and I'll be able to hit the bike path and officially start my C25K program.

Those that have me as a friend know that I just lost my job and even though I'm stressed about not having any money and all that goes along with that, I am very excited at the thought of having no money for bad groceries and time on my hands to workout and focus on getting over this massive plateau I've reached. There is a silver lining in every rain cloud!

Bumping for later

BUMP!

Very excited to see 2.6 pounds gone this week!!!! I am now in the 140's (just barely) :laugh: I am simply amazed how quickly I am loosing weight this time. I lost about 40 lbs a couple of years ago and it took me about 9 months. To date I have lost 25 lbs in about 3 months!! I know the difference has been my exercise. My HRM lets me know exactly how many calories I have burned. I have been pushing myself to burn 500 calories a day 6 times a week and I am so excited about the results!! No all I need is warm weather

That's awesome. You're doing great! I can't WAIT to get into the 140s! I haven't been there since I was about 12!

So 173.8 today (between 173.6 and 173.4 yesterday, the scales couldn't make up their mind), 174.6 last week and 175.5 the week before. This after three weeks of really unexpectedly large losses (4, 2.5, 2.5 pounds) with no major changes to my calorie intake, eating well, going cross-country skiing, and no large meals out.

I'm not frustrated about the slowdown but do wonder what gives, and there are two observations that come to mind.

The first is psychological. When I started out I didn't have any goals, except for the general "get fitter and drop weight". For the first 8 weeks or so I didn't have my own scales, and the ones I was weighed in on at the gym seemed cruelly high -- so I used mostly those that are in the locker rooms, which I discovered to be quite a bit less precise and, also, 5 pounds or so lower than that medical scale on the gym floor. The reason -- the gym floor scale had me start at above 100 kg, and I couldn't really face that. So for a while I put my starting weight to 220 pounds (100 kg). Only after getting my own scales and looking at a friend's scales, which both agreed with the gym floor scale, I accepted that, yes, I'd been even heavier than I thought. Anyhow, what does it mean for goals? One was getting below 200 pounds -- I worked on that during the last weeks of 2010 -- and then the second was to reach 175 pounds, where the label switches from "obese" to "overweight". That was the big one. I REALLY wanted to get out of "obese". And I wonder that slowing down with my weight loss RIGHT when I've reached the "overweight" BMI range is really a coincidence.

The second is a discovery about alcohol. My partner and I have been drinking more regularly than I used to. I'm talking one single 3-4 oz glass of red wine with dinner or one shot of whisky before bed, nothing more, and not both. I always counted the calories and stayed below my targets, but can't help thinking about what I've been reading about alcohol metabolism. In the simplified way I understand it, alcohol gets metabolised to acetaldehyde, and the latter is used by the body as an energy source before all other energy sources (body fat, carbohydrates, mostly). I've read about studies showing fat metabolism going down substantially after alcohol consumption. So I'm wondering, even though the absolute calorie intake wasn't excessive, if taking breaks in fat metabolism is really such a good idea. I'm not completely stopping, but I'll chart if overnight weight loss correlates with whether or not I had a glass of wine.

There are other factors -- for example the body fat measurement on our current scales has gone down while the weight stayed the same, and also I'll go to the store in a few days and try out a size 12 pair of jeans (of a style where I know that size 14 fit me very well a month ago). Things are good, no reason to be disappointed. If anything, a 1 lb per week loss might be the healthy way to go from where I am now -- even though it lacks the gratifying speed of the first 5 months of my journey.

bump for later

To get more veggies in your diet, add extras to just about any sauce or casserole meal. I throw spinach in just about everything, and I add squash to numerous casseroles and soups (great in chili.) I also replace pasta with spaghetti squash in tons of dishes. Tomato sauce is great because it has 2 servings of vegetable in a serving of sauce already, and then you can add just about any veggie to it as well. I often just add a full bag of frozen mixed veggies to my sauce, serve it over spaghetti squash, and get like 4 vegetable servings in one dish!

Best of luck to everyone!

Tell me more about spaghetti squash!! I've heard about it so many times, but never tried it! How do you cook it?

A recent addition to our diets, we love spaghetti squash. You can cut the squash in half, remove the seeds and loose threads in center, and either boil for 10 minutes, or place the halves open side down and bake for 15-20 minutes. Then, with a fork, shred the "meat" of the squash away from the skin. It will come off in spaghetti-like shreds, and only a thin, tough skin is not used. Then I use it with every conceivable topping. A recent suggestion from an MFP forum was to put a wedge of Laughing Cow Swiss, some garlic, and Parmesan cheese on each serving and it's like alfredo sauce. I added chicken and mushrooms and it was delicious. I've had it with just butter, just Parmesan, or under chili, spaghetti sauce, even under stir fry! It has a very mild, slightly sweet flavor that blends well with just about anything. The texture is not like pasta, being a little crisper, not at all sticky, but if that change doesn't bother you, you'll love spaghetti squash.

bump

To get more veggies in your diet, add extras to just about any sauce or casserole meal. I throw spinach in just about everything, and I add squash to numerous casseroles and soups (great in chili.) I also replace pasta with spaghetti squash in tons of dishes. Tomato sauce is great because it has 2 servings of vegetable in a serving of sauce already, and then you can add just about any veggie to it as well. I often just add a full bag of frozen mixed veggies to my sauce, serve it over spaghetti squash, and get like 4 vegetable servings in one dish!

Best of luck to everyone!

Tell me more about spaghetti squash!! I've heard about it so many times, but never tried it! How do you cook it?

A recent addition to our diets, we love spaghetti squash. You can cut the squash in half, remove the seeds and loose threads in center, and either boil for 10 minutes, or place the halves open side down and bake for 15-20 minutes. Then, with a fork, shred the "meat" of the squash away from the skin. It will come off in spaghetti-like shreds, and only a thin, tough skin is not used. Then I use it with every conceivable topping. A recent suggestion from an MFP forum was to put a wedge of Laughing Cow Swiss, some garlic, and Parmesan cheese on each serving and it's like alfredo sauce. I added chicken and mushrooms and it was delicious. I've had it with just butter, just Parmesan, or under chili, spaghetti sauce, even under stir fry! It has a very mild, slightly sweet flavor that blends well with just about anything. The texture is not like pasta, being a little crisper, not at all sticky, but if that change doesn't bother you, you'll love spaghetti squash.

Awesome!! Thanks for the tip! We'll try it out this week!

Weighed in at 222 again this week. March is just not my month. I'll enter it into the spreadhseet on Monday as of right I only have my phone to login. Keep up the great work!

i'm happy to see another 3.2 loss. i have not been working out as i picked up full time shifts at the hospital where i spend 8 to 12 hours running around on my feet. i think picking up more shifts at work helps because when i'm home i get anxious and want to binge. haven't had as many urges at home since i picked up more. maybe i'm more satisfied working?

anyway, way to go everyone