Women 200lb+, Let's Jump-Start This January!!!

RavenStCloud wrote: »

SW: 260lbs
CW: 229lbs
Height: 5'7

💙Happy New Year, ladies!!!💙

I have so many plans for 2020 and I'm excited by this new chapter in my life.

My New Year's resolutions are to start creative writing again (I've found a writing buddy), start relearning a second language (I'm meeting with tutors next week) and to get back into shape and lose weight so I can start hiking in the spring and keep up with a hiking group (plan in progress).

My January Weekly Goals are:
1. Go to the gym x4
2. Pack my lunch for work x5
3. Cut out chocolate, soda, and juice from my diet
4. Record all meals x7
5. Stretch/mediate before work x4

Happy 2020, everyone!!! 💙

Great goals! And I will tell you now...you will save a BUNCH of money, too, packing that lunch everyday. Nice side perk.

Happy 2020 everyone!

I'm excited to make it happen this year for me. 2019 was not the greatest, for my health. I gained 20 lbs, going from 195 to 215, seriously slacked off on the exercise for weeks on end (so not like me). Somewhere toward the end of 2019, I figured out things needed to change. I bought a used treadmill from a friend and started clocking regular exercise again. The tread has been great because I can easily hop on it in the evenings or when I'm chilling with the kids, without needing to find childcare or leave the house. I slowly lost 5 lbs over a few months time. And, in November, I decided to bite the bullet and come on MFP. I say "bite the bullet" because I have been tracking my food on and off for years and sometimes get a little too obsessed with it. But I decided it is the only thing that really works for me, so I'd like to find a way to track my food without becoming a crazy person. Balance... here I come.

SW: 210 (11.14.19)
CW: 207.6
GW: 165
GW for January 2020: 201

Losing over 5 lbs in January is going to be tough but I've got to make some progress and commit to myself that I can do this. Otherwise, I feel the inertia will take me down.

Other January goals:
-Exercise 5x a week and include 2 strength workouts
-Diversify my exercise a bit- incorporate swimming and spin class
-Log my food everyday in January
-Eat sweets and cheese only in moderation. I don't want to have to avoid certain foods, but these two things tend to be triggers to overeating for me. I need to learn how to eat them in moderation.
-Limit alcohol to only 1x a week

My overall resolutions this year:
- HEALTH: Get to a healthy weight (for me, this means losing about 40 lbs)
- FAMILY: Plan lots of fun family adventures and focus on having a good work-life balance
- FINANCE: Make a budget and stick to it!
- FINANCE: Reduce credit card debt by half!
- FUN and RECREATION: Get a kids' horse and get my kids riding
- FUN and RECREATION: Go on our first family backpacking trip!
- SPIRITUAL: Walking meditations in the forest or beach, at least once a week

I'm hesitant to make resolutions really, since last year I made three and only achieved one. But it is always nice to take the time to think about how you want your life to go and write it down, it's hard to measure success with these types of things.

Happy New Year!

Hi.

SW - 214

My goals for the New Year is to stay on the course. I have gone up and down twice this year. I would really like to stay down and keep it off. So I am working on it one day at a time. I didn't get to this size overnight and I can't lose it overnight.

I hope to make the gym, working out, better sleep habits and drinking water all a priority. It has worked for me in the past and I slip back into old habits.

The weather cooperates on the weekends I plan on cycling with my bike club. It might be a warm winter and I can ride outdoors with friends. I really like outdoors. Looking at nature.

I want to use my cell phone less. Connect with people more face to face. Less social media, less news. Just less of the stimulants we have to escape from life.

This year was a very challenging and crazy year and the end was almost a mind blowing experience. So I look forward to taking care of me all the way and enjoying life as it comes.

Happy New Year and lets make it happen.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Today was a great day because I made my GGGGOOOOOAAALLLL for 2019 which was to be under 240 pounds!!


My goals for 2020:
1) Get off of blood pressure medication.

2) Stay patience. While I still have 64 pounds to loose I must stay patient and remember this is not a sprint..it is a marathon I will run for the remainder of my life.

3) Fill this book journal! In my previous life I was an avid reader of manuals, rules and regulations...constantly having to memorize and testify to what I’ve said, done and analyzed. Now I want to read all the books I’ve purchased, started reading and stopped reading because I had to read something else.


4) Continue my current workouts but add swimming (I gotta learn how to swim first).

Happy New Year!!!

Hello ladies, Happy 2020!

Height: 5'6"
SW: 236.4 (9/8)
12/31: 205.8
1/8:
1/15:
1/22:
1/29"
1/31:
Dec Goal: 198

My goals for 2020 are to reach my goal weight of 155 (healthy BMI), establish a regular cardio and strength routine, learn how to meditate, and become more purposeful in my personal and career life.

Non-scale goals for January:

• Cardio 4 times a week
• Strength 2 times a week
• Water at 96 oz
• Intermittent fasting 16/8 cycle
• Explore meditation apps

So excited to be with you all on this journey!

SW: 235lbs
CW: 235lbs
Height: 6' 1

No resolutions for me, just aspirations:
1. Eat more whole foods
2. Eat mindfully
3. Be more mindful of my wine/alcohol intake
4. Be kind to my body; fuel it well and work it well, too! MOVE MORE!
5. Be good, positive, healthy role model for my kids/family!

Happy 2020, everyone!!!

SW 105.5kg (aug 2018)
CW 96.4kg

goals for 2020

to get under 90kg,
to change my relationship with food
to handle anxiety better

goals for january
to get under 95kg
average weekly cals under 1950
average weekly snacks under 23%
meditate 3x week
run 5k


looking forward to supporting eachother this month and year.
Great pics of your run @BrownSugar174 , great running plans @speyerj
For the meditators, if you don't know it already, I recommend the Insight Timer app, it has so many great guided meditations on there and I particularly like some weightloss ones by Natalie Benns (I don't know her, she doesn't pay me!!).

@Deanner03 You can do this. Your still here and that’s what counts! {{{HUGS}}}} to you!

Wait! ONEderland! I just got that @bluffgirl67 😂😂. I’ve seen it a few times but the lightbulb just clicked on...well it’s a new year😂😂

@BrownSugar174 Congratulations on reaching your 2019 goal. I did not reach my weight loss goal but I did lower my A1C out of the diabetic range past pre-diabetic and into normal. So I am pretty proud of that. I am on two blood pressure medications that I am hoping to come off of. Good luck to us both on that goal!

Happy New Year!!!

Thank you @RavenStCloud for this group!!!

SW:315 lbs (per my doctor/annual checkup)
CW:239

Jan goals:

I’ve learned that weighed doesn't matter as much to me as inches and other NSV victories!

That being said:

Walking 4-6x’s a week
Keep up with my face and skin routine.Weight loss has brought a TON of new changes to my skin😳
Find new vegetarian dishes to create.

Cheers ladies to a fantastic new year and new beginning!!

Happy New Year! Warning, very long post ahead. Sorry, but I hope some will find it helpful!

Height: 5'6"
SW (09/08/2019): 239.2 lbs
January SW (1/1/20): 202.4 lbs
January GW: 195 lbs
GW: 150 lbs (then reconsider)

My goals for January are:

• Cardio for 45-60 min, 5-6 times a week, 3 of the sessions Couch-to-5K workouts
• Advance in the Couch-to-5K plan to Week 3 workouts. I plan to repeat each week of workouts 3 or 4 weeks, depending on how my lower-body joints are holding up
• Core exercises at least 3 times a week
• Lose 3 inches in my measurements
• Lose 7 pounds
• Take better care of my skin in hopes it will start to regain its shape. If I don’t say it I won’t do it.

Looking forward to these milestones in January:

• Onederland for more than a day or two. I was 199.8 lbs for the last two days of 2019! I thought I would bounce up this morning after yesterday’s eating. I know I’ve got a lot of stuff in transit.
• Re-achieving my 100-pound weight loss from my original weight-loss efforts in 2013-2014.
• Signing up for the Broad Street Run in May (see more about that below).

As you may have noted, I read a lot. Many years ago, I picked up a book for beach reading and it actually surprised me a bit. The book is “Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me” by Rachel Bertsche, and the premise of the book is that the author made one change in accordance with a particular celebrity’s purported routine to see if she could change her body, her lifestyle, her marriage, etc. It’s actually a more serious book than I thought it would be, and had a lot of good ideas for me at the time. I pick it up every now and then to renew my sense of inventiveness regarding how I can change my own habits. While reading a few weeks ago, I came across a passage that had never struck a chord with me, but it did this reading. It’s what you see below and yes it is long but I think relevant for today and this month.

“Ego depletion is the idea that we only have so much willpower to draw from, so it’s harder to stick to our resolve later in the day, once we’ve already made a number of good decisions. In his 2012 New York Times article, journalist John Tierney writes about this phenomenon with regard to New Year’s resolutions. ‘Most people are not going to keep their resolutions all year long. They’ll start out with the best of intentions but the worst of strategies, expecting that they’ll somehow find the willpower to resist temptation after temptation. By the end of January, a third will have broken their resolutions, and by July more than half will have lapsed. They’ll fail because they’ll eventually run out of willpower, which social scientists no longer regard as simply a metaphor. They’ve recently reported that willpower is a real form of mental energy, powered by glucose in the bloodstream, which is used up as you exert self-control…To be more successful, [Tierney] says, people should use their willpower less, not more. As in, don’t force yourself to resist M&Ms, just don’t keep M&Ms in your house. Control your environment. ‘Instead of fending off one urge after another,’ he writes, ‘[successful resolvers] set up their lives to minimize temptations. They play offense, not defense, using their willpower in advance so that they avoid crises, conserve their energy, and outsource as much self-control as they can.’”

One thing that strikes me as important for people wanting to lose a large amount of weight is the fact that we definitely have a long road ahead, compared to those who have lesser amounts to lose – however you want to define it, for me it is those who have more than 50 pounds to lose and those who have less than that to lose. Willpower seems to work for the most part for many of the people who have lesser amounts to lose, and it frustrates me when someone who has lost “a lot of weight” will give me advice about the “easy” things they did to lose weight with cleanses, supplements, etc. I smile and nod and return to what works for me, but I’m dying to scream, “I’ve lost more weight than you ever have, I know what works for me, please leave me to it!”

Most if not all of us on this thread are in it for the long haul. We know in our situation willpower runs out, and we need something to fall back on to keep ourselves moving in the right direction. I definitely need to outsource some self-control by establishing a routine and planning in advance. For me, I rely on meal prep and having a huge (and I DO mean months) stock of prepped main-dish meals so for any week I prep sides like rice, pasta or vegetables plus maybe make a fresh meal or two during the week at dinner to mix it up. It means I never have to think about lunch, I always bring something healthy and pre-portioned to work with fruit or vegetables on the side. And in terms of working out, I do get a bit of momentum that keeps me doing something every day.

I live alone, so for certain it’s easy for me to plan this way. But I hope that passage is insightful for you as it was for me. Find a way to do something different for yourself, it could make a world of difference!

About the Broad Street Run: I hope the next bit will not spoil the movie Brittany Runs a Marathon for anyone so I put this bit at the end - feel free to skip it! I saw that movie in the theater and I cried for a lot of the movie. I am not Brittany, though I nearly feel I could be - the real woman behind the story is from Philly and my “marathon” is really a 10-mile race in Philly held each May, the Broad Street Run. I have wanted to run this race for six years now.

In January 2015, I had been running a fair amount for about half a year. I ran 6-mile runs without thinking and felt great. If you knew how much I’d always hated running, you’d know that was a miracle itself. The sign-up for the run is at the end of January. You may not know much about races if you’re not a runner, but the Broad Street Run is 1) a very popular race (the current 10-mile record finish time is a Broad Street Run time and the overall course is downhill so people looking for their own PR sign up for this race in droves), 2) a lottery entry system, and only 80% of the people who sign up get in. If you do not get in the race, you are deferred; if you do not get in the race via the lottery two years in a row you are guaranteed to get in the third year. You read that right, it could take three years to get into this race.

The second week of January, I ran my usual run prior to my shift at work. At that time, I was still working 12-hour night shifts as a bedside nurse. I thought I felt a weird twinge of pain in my left hip during the run, but I was able to finish and get to work. As soon as I stepped out of my car, I knew something was off because I had a great deal of difficulty putting weight on my left leg. I shook it off, and as I walked the pain lessened but never really went away. I worked my shift, and over the next week the pain persisted so I made an appointment with an ortho doc for their earliest office appointment – about 5-6 weeks later – to get it checked out.

In the meantime I dialed my workout back. I was walking on the treadmill and using the elliptical at the gym. I was working my 12-hour shifts in the hospital, 3-4 nights a week. I signed up for the Broad Street Run and I did not get in.

Then I went for my appointment. I had a stress fracture in my pelvis. And even though the evidence was right there on the x-ray, I had trouble accepting it because of my level of activity. Currently, I’ve got other stuff going on in my lower limbs, including avascular necrosis in my right foot which seems to have calmed down, but now you know why I say I want to spend time progressing slowly in my running routine. I have the Couch-to-5-K program completely bastardized to suit my training. But this is already an overly-long post so if anyone wants to know about it I can put it in another post.

I can tell you the last thing anyone wants to hear in this situation is the following: “Oh, a stress fracture! Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t get in the Broad Street Run then, it must be God’s will!” Really, it was God’s will that I should suffer a stress fracture? Can the good lord at least be so kind as to allow me to help myself? The restraint it took not to punch those people in the face was remarkable. I could have deferred my entry and ran the next year, and who’s to say I wouldn’t have been able to run that year?

I am determined to enter and “run” in the race this year, even if it ends up being a walk/run for me! (I've been told that there are people who race-walk the entire course.) Registration opens at the end of this month and I will be signing up!

I hope everyone else is thinking about their “marathon” and planning how to reach their goals!