@MzCara148 I think Dad was so worried because there had been a recent news article about a couple getting attacked on the Appalachian trail this month. But if I had to wait to do anything until I had someone to do something with me, I'd never do anything! I just try to take sensible precautions - stick to a local trail (don't take the ones that go way out into the wilderness), make sure that someone knows where I'm at, what trail I'm on and roughly when I expect to be back, and then, because I was in a no-cell phone area because of a radio telescope nearby, I dug out my little hand radios and made sure they were working and left one with mom.

I liked the hiking because it was so much more varied. I wasn't walking in front of a bunch of people so I didn't have a bunch of people staring at me like when I walk the back streets at home, and the grade varied from level to very steep so I got a real workout in climbing up those steep slopes and coming down the other side! Plus I just like being in the woods. Walking on a walking track or a treadmill or even the backstreets at home is so boring - the same circuit endlessly. It takes all I have (when I still had the gumption, anyway) to get in a 45 minute walk on a track like that; I hiked 3 hours and didn't even think twice about it!

Not my typical update this time around, because I'm retaining fluid this weekend pretty badly - yesterday, I wore a ring that is normally extremely loose, but yesterday it fit fine, so there's my proof on the water retention, which did help a little in dealing with the devastation the scale triggered at first!

I'm trying something this week. I know that I've been derailed for quite a while and can't seem to get myself to stay under my calorie limit. Back when I started this round in 2017, I had read a book on the 8 week blood sugar diet, where the writer claimed that eating 800 calories a day for 8 weeks would help an obese person get blood under control, lose weight, yadayadayada. I thought I'd give it a try as it wasn't long term (I figured short term couldn't hurt, right?) I quickly found in just a few days that I couldn't sustain 800 calories a day; my energy levels plummeted and I found myself getting the shakes, so I slowly raised my calorie limit up until I found MFP, figured out that at 375 lbs, my maintenance was around 2800 calories at that weight, and upped my deficit to 1800 and proceeded to lose 100+ lbs.

Unfortunately, I lost my momentum by the end of the year, plateaued, and have been struggling to maintain for the last 18 months and have slowly regained 30 lbs of what I lost, which is frustrating to the extreme. I can't seem to get back into the successful pattern I had at first, and can't figure out why.

Thinking back on how I started the successful period, I noticed there was one benefit from the couple days of fasting experiment: my hunger levels dropped. I've noticed this before when I've fasted during the day (such as having to wait for fasting bloodwork in the evening instead of getting it done first thing of a morning). The problem, of course, is making myself stick to an all day fast, especially around 10 am when the hunger gets really strong. I know that if I can will myself through that period, that hunger will drop off as evening approaches, but my will power has been pretty dead lately, so other attempts at fasting have stalled. For instance: I'd determine I was going to fast, but would quickly start compromising with myself, allowing myself to have something around lunchtime, a snack, or give in and eat a dinner, and before I knew it, I'd eaten well over 1500 calories that day and blown the fast.

So I've determined that today, I'm going to fast from get up to bed time and have no more than 100 calories today (and that's because I can't stand straight black coffee and need my unsweetened almond milk). Of course, when I determined to do this yesterday, the desire to compromise started, but so far, I've held firm to it and seem to have slightly more will power to stick to it today (we'll see if that lasts as the day progresses). Tomorrow, I think I'll introduce maybe one meal, or perhaps a small breakfast and a dinner, and skip lunch. I'll try to keep this pattern up this week, slowly working my way back up to 1500 calories, and see if this little experiment will help me get my hunger under control. Because I have noticed that after eating at a lower limit for a while, my body gets used to that and I find that the amount I used to eat to be too much. I think that's why the short periods of fasting may work.

Course this weekend is going to be a challenge as I'm going camping, but hopefully, if I can get my hunger back under control by Friday, I won't be as tempted by the food as I was during the cabin trip, and the extra calories burned by all the walking I'll do won't get eaten up (literally) by extra hunger drive afterwards, so hopefully, I won't lose the benefit of the extra activity.

Anyway, I'm at wits end and since everything else I've tried to get myself back on track have failed, including the medication route from my doctor, I'm going to see if I can't get this to work. Wish me luck!

MzCara148 wrote: »

Starting Weight: 321 in 2018
Goal weight: 161
Current Weight: 309.4
Next Major Goal: 271 (where I fell off the wagon last year.

I am 3 weeks into my reboot. I am finally starting to get past the point where I am starving all the times, the blood sugar crashes where I get the shakes and break out in a sweat are passing - so that’s all good. I am working a Noom program at the same time I am logging here, so fire away if you have questions.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel for the whole month of July with the hubs and my chicklets. We are driving from the East Coast to San Francisco and back again. So I have no clue how I am going to make that work. But I have got to try. So here I am, giving it another go.

Travel is a killer! I gained 5 lbs in May because of being out of town so much and in an area where there weren't many healthy options to be had. But keep trying! and be forgiving of yourself; even if a day isn't completely perfect, look for the little victory points along the way; that goes a long way to keep yourself going and not giving up!

BettJo64 wrote: »

It's been a hard few weeks as far as loss for me. Just when I see the scale drop a few...the next day it's back up a few and more. And I'm doing so well with my foods and walking within my abilities at this time. I feel great about everything else...but this mind game with my scale can STOP any time now!!!

@MzCara148 is right - water weight is a bear and can sometimes be to the tune of 6 to 8 lbs. It can be so disheartening when you think you're doing everything right and your body's retention of water masks your success. But hang in there - keep an eye on the over all trend; you're doing fantastic!

BettJo64 wrote: »

@MzCara148 and @bmeadows380 Thank you, ladies, so much for understanding and quieting down my frustrations. I hope to see that scale move down soon though. I need even the tiniest loss just to boost my spirit again.

@BettJo64 Oh honey, I know the frustration all too well - just go back and read some of my epic whiny posts and you'll see why I call myself the resident Eeyore lol

@BettJo64 I do that whenever I get more active - spend a day working in the house or outside, and the next few days will see a jump in the scales, not a loss, even though I keep to the calorie deficit. I guess its water retention, perhaps due to pushing my muscles to work more than they are used to?

My Starting Weight: ~375 lbs (01/01/2017)
My goal: 220 lbs (This would put me in the obesity stage 1 category)
Milestone: 260 lbs (this would put me below the 40 BMI mark for being morbidly obese or stage 3 obese)
Current Weight: 290.4 lbs 6/21/19
Loss this Week: -0.3 lbs
Total loss: -84.6 lbs


What's Working/What Needs Work: It's a loss, even its a small one, though I think the actual loss was higher than that - however, I'm a lot blocked up right now in the plumbing, so to speak, and TOM should be starting today, both of which are resulting in water weight gain. I also haven't been sleeping very well this week, and I've noticed that on days where I get under 5 hours of sleep (like last night), I usually retain water into the morning, so all those factors have come together against me.

However, even with the over eating last weekend (because though I mitigated some of the damage with bike rides and long hikes and walks, I still probably went over maintenance those 3 days), I still showed some loss, so I'm happy!

The all day fasting thing once a week seems to be helping. I fasted a full day last week and was found I was able to stay under my limit every day until Friday and the start of the camping trip. Monday, when I came home from the camping trip, I stayed under 1500 calories for the day, and actually was under even more because I didn't count back the exercise calories associated with mowing my grass, weed-eating, and the work I was doing in the yard that evening.

I tried to do an all day fast on Tuesday to help account for the over-indulgence over the weekend, and made it until evening. But I began doing some heavy housework that evening - vacuuming, mopping the entire house (and I have no carpet at all, so I have to mop every room), and sorting and cleaning up my spare room for my cousin to use this weekend, and found myself getting shaky, so I made myself a ham wrap and allowed myself to eat a can of peaches because I apparently seriously needed the food for the activity I was doing. So instead of being an all day fast, I ate 1 meal which kept me to under 800 calories for the day. Again, I did not count back any exercise calories at all that day either, which means I was probably closer to something like 300 net for the day in actuality.

I was really proud of myself yesterday - I stayed under 1500 calories for the day, despite spending the day out of town for work! So even with eating out for 2 meals, I kept control of the need to snack and stayed under!

Tonight, I'm taking my cousin out for dinner and a play for her birthday, so I only had apple juice and my usual almond milk and splash of creamer for breakfast, and will try to skip lunch all together or at least only have vegetables to save as many calories as I can for the dinner as we're going to a restaurant that doesn't have calorie counts. I can approximate the best I can, but its a fancier place so I doubt they're going to have much that is very diet friendly, though I plan to stick to salad and stay away from saucy items.

Tomorrow we're going to the local Renaissance Festival and I'm not even going to bother trying to count calories there. However, the festival grounds are on a hillside, so walking up and down that hill all day long should help a lot! And one day, after being so good all week, I know won't kill me, and I can pick a day for an all day fast next week to help cover any extra calories I consume.

so anyway, I may have finally latched onto something to break me out of this horrible plateau I was in; next weekend, I think, may be the full tale because TOM should be over and hopefully, I'll drop this extra water weight and can see what my true weight is. wish me luck!

Beauty1726 wrote: »

@BettJo64 thank you! And it's true especially when there MIGHT be a diagnosis of me not being able to lose weight. 😩

@Beauty1726 I would seriously question any diagnosis from a doctor saying you cannot lose weight. A medical condition can make it very difficult, but never impossible, and there are inspirational stories out there of folks who succeeded. There are a lot of myths floating around concerning weight loss, metabolism, insulin, etc and I've found that the general medical community oftentimes is way behind on the current research or easily buy into unfounded theories in areas outside their expertise.

there is a lot of good information here from folks who keep up with the times, though I know how tricky it can be to sort the reliable information from the rampant misinformation that is out there. Look up "Starvation Mode" for an example; that's a myth that has been around for a very, very long time. (though too bad it isn't true; then the answer would only be to stop eating completely! lol)

I was told by an endocrinologist that because I had PCOS and thyroid problems, that I'd never lose weight. I lost 90 lbs in 2012. I did gain almost all of it back, but I then proceeded to lose 100 lbs in 2017. It certainly wasn't easy, and my brain can be an insidious enemy that constantly confounds my efforts, but I've proven to myself that it's not impossible!

I think doctors should be looking for ways to help their patients figure out the underlying cause that blocks them from losing weight, because most of us don't "want" to be fat and are incredibly frustrated because we can't figure out why we can't seem to get anywhere in weight loss efforts. It certainly is incredibly insensitive and unhelpful to tell us that we're just being lazy gluttons. I'm finding in my own case that the actual fight isn't physical; it's mental, and the worst battles I have is with my will. So I need to focus on ways that can help me bolster my will power.

Sorry for the rant lol I've been where you are with a doctor's comments, and know how defeating and demoralizing that can be! Weight loss isn't easy for anyone, whether you're trying to lose 100+ lbs or that last 10; we need all the encouragement we can get!

You can do this, though, and you've got our support in helping you figure out the plan that will work best for you!