Need to Lose 100 LBS -Robins Thread !

@Nikion901 - thank you for your post, it was awesome and necessary. Sword and Shield!
@River314 - My sister started gardening and now she hardly has to buy veggies once the garden comes in. However, not everyone has garden space or time (tho you'd be surprised what you can grow in containers). If you have a smart phone download the grocery store apps for stores in your area, it will help you find the fresh fruit, veggies, and meats on sale, much easier than going from store to store. Set aside money for your own food - if you aren't healthy, who's going to take care of your family? They can do without some cookies and chips so that you can have your healthy food, and since you do the shopping (?) you get to decide how the money's spent.

And don't be too proud to go to your local food pantry. Often local farmers will donate fresh eggs and produce to food pantries (my sister does), and if there are other things that you can't eat but your family can in your food pantry box, then you will have more money freed up to spend on what you need. That's what the food pantries are for, to help struggling families feed themselves. If things ever get better, you can repay the service you received in volunteering or with donations. @badnoodle & @BinaryFu gave you some great advice too. I'm saving that list from BadNoodle too, it's very helpful!

I love the idea of gardening, but was recently forced to downsize, and now live in an rv. So space is nil right now. Maybe once I get established in the park, a garden in pots may be possible. Until then, some of this advice I can definitely follow. I saw some ideas that will help me out of the rut I've gotten into. Full steam ahead!

Slow tonight, but it's Friday night and everyone's busy. Just wanted to say I had a good day today, below my target calories and got in a long walk at lunch, so I'm feeling pretty good. This weekend if the rain holds off I'll get some yard work in, which is twofold good - burning calories and keeping busy and out of the kitchen! Plus my sister was kind enough to do some food prep for me - packaging some meat I got on sale, cooking and packaging a head of cauliflower and broccoli, and best of all, cooking a roast for me and packaging it so I can have it already cooked. I can't do much cooking at my house because the food odors give DH problems breathing, so my sister kindly does some for me at her house. I have the best sister!
Well I updated my weight, I'm back up to 197. I really have to just take it one day at a time, make sure I get exercise every day, and spend less time in front of the TV so I'm not tempted to mindlessly snack. So I think I will make a "Tracy-do" list for myself, of stuff I want to get done (as opposed to what my DH wants me to do, which are 2 different things, LOL), and work on it one at a time. That will keep me busy and not eating. I'm 6 months behind my goal for this year, and if I don't do something now, I'm going to be tempted to give up and I don't want to do that.

As a side note, I'm past ready to give up on this Misfit Shine. The first one gave up the ghost after just 6 months, and the company was kind enough to send me another one free. I've only had this one for about a month and it's already doing what the 1st one was doing, which is refusing to sync and update my activity. Plus last time it DID sync, it only gave me credit for 600 steps for an entire day, when I know I walked at least a couple of miles. Does anyone have a recommendation for a RELIABLE and accurate fitness tracker that has a good app and tracks more than just steps? Ideally I'd like one that's waterproof so I can swim with it, and if it tracks heart rate and has a watch feature it would be even better. But I don't want to pay $500 for it either......

Wishful thinking I guess. Well, if anyone has any recommendations, I'd like to hear them anyway.
Tracy
TX

@GOINSTD12 - Tracy, Do you really feel that an activity tracker is a necessary appliance to lose weight and get healthy? I don't. I think the money you spend for one of those things is better spend on a gym membership that you will use, or for affording better quality food, or occasional paid services that make life easier. Well, that's my feeling on it anyway. But then, I don't have any extra cash available to be able to rely on convenience appliances like smart phones, fitness trackers, notebooks, etc. I still have a land-line telephone! LOL

@flabflipper314 - Hi, and I hope this thread gives you the impetus and feeling of being involved in a group to help with your need and desire to lose weight. I'me in my 70's and have had knee, and skeletal issues for the past 50 years, so I can feel where you are coming from. And I agree ... it is much harder to get and stay trim when you have mobility issues. There is something else to consider, however ... and that is the fact that is recently being confirmed in media I have read ... it is easier to stay slender than to get slender because our own body fights us. Our body wants to stay the same and will work toward that end. We can lose weight, often not as much as we would like to lose, and then the body will just stay there and over time will start to regain again. That should be a sobering lesson to anyone who is currently careless with their food intake and is starting to pack on pounds. For those of us whose 'ship has sailed' and we did, in fact, get heavy/ier than is good for us ... we need to forever keep up the struggle to keep the momentum going. It's like a chronic illness that will be with us for the rest of our lives, and the sooner we recognize that we can never 'go back' to careless eating and sitting around instead of working our muscles hard on a regular basis, then we will remain or go back to being much larger than we want or should be.
.... So .... this is not to discourage you. It is to throw cold water onto any thoughts floating around in your head that once you finally lose some more weight you can rest on your laurals because you won't be able to ... so don't start now!

Hi I'm new to this discussion. I was able to get to about 160 before my wedding in 2014, that is lean for me. Then I got pregnant in October and had my daughter July of last year. I gained a lot and I'm now sitting at about 260. I hate my body and I need to get back down to 160ish. I can't be confident or happy with my body when I'm overweight. I've been eating clean for about a month now but only got really serious this past 2 weeks. And my body does NOT want to let the fat go. I didn't lose anything this past week despite my calorie deficit. I have a background in personal training and nutrition... I know how to do this but it's not working like it should and I'm so overwhelmed by having to lose so much. The most I've had to lose before was about 40lbs.

I need to get a treadmill or something but we are broke and of course it's hard to get in any cardio with a baby.
Here for support mostly

flabflipper314 wrote: »

@GOINSTD12, I don't think that I have ever given an indication that there is any thoughts floating around in my head that once I finally lose some more weight I can rest on my laurels......
....
Oh, and I do agree with you that it's like a chronic illness. For some it's a matter of discipline. For others it goes much deeper and food is an addiction that we fight. Unlike drugs or alcohol, we can't detox and go cold turkey on food. No pun intended. lol So there are those issues for some of us. I'm happy that you have the drive to be healthy. I'm hoping to get that drive.

It wasn't GOiNSTD12 that said those things ... it was I ... and I didn't think you really had any thoughts floating around about resting on your laurels ... you only said "That gets me discouraged and I break down and eat unhealthy things sometimes." .... good luck

flabflipper314 wrote: »

Nikion901 wrote: »

flabflipper314 wrote: »

@GOINSTD12, I don't think that I have ever given an indication that there is any thoughts floating around in my head that once I finally lose some more weight I can rest on my laurels......

It wasn't GOiNSTD12 that said those things ... it was I ... and I didn't think you really had any thoughts floating around about resting on your laurels ... you only said "That gets me discouraged and I break down and eat unhealthy things sometimes." .... good luck

I apologize @GOINSTD12. I'm still trying to figure out the order of things with the quotes. And Nikion, I'm very sorry for misunderstanding your post. It's so easy to misunderstand in text because there is no way to hear how a person is saying something. Usually I take that into account when reading on message boards. Re-reading what I typed, I see that I was being very defensive. I was reading your message as a finger-wagging at me telling me I'd better wake up and smell the roses if I think when I reach goal I can go back to the way I was before. I sure know that's not true.

I guess I'm not getting off to a very good start here. A bit nervous about doing this, but thank you for being so gracious. There was no good excuse for the tone of my post. Have a wonderful evening.

Don't worry about it ... reading my post quickly I could see why you took offense at it. I'm just sort of bummed out lately because my own body is struggling to gain back what I previously lost and I've, naturally, grown an interest in reading topics about how our own bodies fight us to retain their original status once we've gained.

It's something I always suspected ... otherwise why would there be so many of us who are 'starting once again' on the weight loss journey. Those articles I find (some of which came from MFP blog Hello Healthy) helped me to feel better about my self and understand better why the old habits I thought I'd replaced with better ones were resurfacing after a lengthy struggle to maintain my loss. I was on the verge of giving up myself and had to pull deep inside myself to come up with any will power to keep at this. And so do many of my sister-women on here also.

@goinstd12 I have a jawbone Up Move. it's not waterproof and doesn't do heart rate monitoring, but it is good for steps, and i payed $30 on Amazon, and another $5 for the wristband attachment. It has a watch feature, it tracks sleep and food, syncs with MFP. I don't like the food tracking, it's a weird part of the app but it will drag over things from MFP. It "rates" your food, and i don't agree with their system, so i ignore it completely. I had a smoothie and it only gave it a 2 out of 10, like really? But the steps and sleep parts are great for $30 spent.

celtikgirl wrote:

It is rewarding to see the numbers on the scale decrease, and difficult to realize that there is still a long way to go. Every once in a while someone will compliment me on my progress. I'm learning to take the compliments with some level of grace, but in the back of my mind I am thinking about the 75 pounds I still need to lose - not even half way there yet... so much more work to do...

I wrestle with the same thoughts, celti. I've never been in the community part of MFP even though I've been a member for years. I really need some uplifting. I have lost 45 lbs, but it took me two years. I've never lost this slow in my life and it's because I'm not very mobile anymore with bad knees. I want to lose more weight before I get them replaced so the rehab isn't as hard on me. I have other health issues also affecting my mobility, so sometimes I get down thinking that I'll never get there. I've tried to NOT think about my goal as getting knees replaced. Who wants to have a double major surgery. That scares the heck out of me.

Anyway, I'm hoping that when we get down and start thinking negative thoughts, we can all help each other to celebrate the good in our lives and the wonderful creatures God made us regardless of how much we weigh. Let's do this!

Had an interesting article come into my email today that I thought might be informative to others on here. It's about your diet personality ....
http://www.everydayhealth.com/weight/diet-personalities.aspx?pos=2&xid=nl_EverydayHealthManagingDiabetes_20160522

Niki the article was very informative and I could see parts of me in some of the sections. I tend to be an emotional eater at times. Going forward I will remember to think before I eat and to realize that my emotions are fueling my desire for food. That happened to me yesterday. I went to a friends house for lunch and to meet her fiancé, who was visiting from California. She is moving in June. Please understand that I was not feeling well yesterday, very tired, headache etc. When I arrived at lunch and realized that everyone she invited was a couple many newlyweds. I just wanted to cry since I am still single and it still bugs me, even through I know it shouldn't let it. It also didn't help that this would have been the last lunch/ event at her house. Needless to say, I could not wait to leave and get home. By the time I got home, my head was splitting and I was very tired. I ended up eating a lot of junk food then napping. It was a long night. I was not hungry, just trying to make myself feel better. Needless to say it did not work since I did not feel better. I was just overstuffed. The only positive from last night was I did go out for a walk in the rain.

Weight loss is a journey and as we loss weight our bodies will fight us since they like to stay the same and will resist change. This is one of the reasons that our bodies adapt to a regime and we need to change things up occasionally. I was talking to my trainer recently about going back to doing the things I did when I first started this journey since they worked for me and right now nothing seems to be working. Granted, I am talking about doing the things I did about 5 years ago. She told me that I don't want to go backwards since those tricks will no longer work for me. I need to move forward and to challenge my body more often. So now, we are working on strength training but in combination with movements and I suppose to do 4 hours of cardio on the weekends. It is helping but there are times when the hours just don't work for me. From what I can figure out, we need to change up the routine to keep our bodies guessing.

This should be another busy week for me but hopefully it will be productive.
Sunday- GYM workout Done
Monday- trainer
Tuesday- after school meeting maybe a walk
Wednesday-day off- exercise in the morning then Blue Angels performance
Thursday- Day off- exercise or bike ride
Friday- Climbing
Saturday- bike ride

I hope everyone has a great week.

Lauriek70 wrote: »

Niki the article was very informative and I could see parts of me in some of the sections. I tend to be an emotional eater at times. ....

Weight loss is a journey and as we loss weight our bodies will fight us since they like to stay the same and will resist change.

Laurie ... back when my son was just a teenager and I was only 40 pounds over my ideal weight he made a kid-type comment about my weight one time (I was always on a diet so the food topic was frequent) ... he said something along the lines of "well, at least if we have a famine I won't have to worry that you will die cause you have extra on your body to live off of". This was around the time he was learning human biology and had just learned that the body is always trying to keep itself safe. I only wish that it was still only 40 pounds that I needed to lose instead of twice that amount.

It's Monday! I'm checking in, my scale went down today! I've lost 24lbs, want to lose 20 more, or more would be great too!

Good morning everyone.

Happy International Day to End Obstetric Fistula!

”If my heart could do my thinking, and my head begin to feel,
I would look upon the world anew, and know what’s truly real.”
~Van Morrison[/ u]



Tom

@badnoodle - you are sooo funny! Hah! I had a successful day yesterday too, unlike my normal Sunday which is usually practically comatose, I got up in time to go to church, I ate then took a nap, then got up and mowed the yard (riding mower) for more than an hour. Then I made dinner (warmed up the roast my sister made for us on Friday) and had a glass of wine. Took the dog for a walk and got in 1.57 miles (MMF). Got to bed really early (1:30) and slept for 10 hours! Wow, I felt sooo good when I got up today! Food wasn't too great (should have tracked first before having the wine and some other things) but I burned around 500 calories in activity so I feel pretty good about my day. Now, to be more consistent, then maybe I can stop going UP and start going DOWN!
Tracy
TX