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

I started a kettlebell workout that I found on Shape's website today. Wondering why MFP doesn't have kettlebell anything in their database though, or am I missing it somehow? I estimated my calorie burn at half the amount the Shape site said could be burned per minute. I've had a kettlebell for a couple of years and this is my first time using it for a workout. Looking forward to making this a part of my routine a few times a week!

6.50am and I’m getting ready for the gym. I don’t want to go, in dragging my heels but I know once I’m there I’ll love it.

What’s everyone’s move goals today?

Good morning lovelies! I hope that whatever your plans are for today, I hope you have a great day! I'm heading to work and since I woke up with a sinus headache not really looking forward to it. Today is 270 days of my journey and logging consistently on MFP. For me that is exciting. Usually I would have given up long before now. The difference I feel is having you ladies here for support and inspiration!! Thanks for being here and letting me be a part of this group!! 💞

You are all so lovely. The support and positivity in this thread is so motivating and inspiring. Thank you! And congratulations on all of your efforts and victories.

Today is rest day but I'm feeling very restless, so I may have to do something later. I even managed some sleep, which is generally not something that happens.

Have a great weekend and let's continue to kick bum into next week

Super happy today‼️

Height: 5’4”
SW: 307
CW: 211.4 (-1.8) 1/18
213.2. 1/11
215. 1/6
215.2. 1/2
GW: 160
Jan GW: 205

I’m going to continue trying to walk 1 to 2 miles a day. I plan to continue to get in light exercise. My focus is entirely on maintaining a slow and steady weight loss.

I’ve discovered the magic of “Chaffles”. I found them on YouTube and are trying a variety of sweet and savory versions. They are quick, healthy, and range from 5 to 9 grams of protein per serving.

Have a great weekend! Kudos to those of us enjoying a 3-day weekend‼️🎉

@pamiede I LOVE THAT GRAPHIC!!!

I am only half way through reading here but I am going to stop now and post and go back because there is so much wisdom on this thread. I read and posted on my Snowday Wednesday but this is such a busy thread I missed so much.

@kali31337 nice to hear you had a good week

@RavenStCloud glad to hear you are getting better and hopefully you have a longer weekend to rest more. Always feels good when you leave some for leftovers from a meal. Chickenbake? Haven’t tried that. Sounds like I shouldn’t try it.

@pamiede nice progress to share with friends

@theleadmare I love ribs and have been waiting to have some since before the holidays but I was hungry and had more than 3 ribs. However I had less of the sides.

@sharpdust It is hard when you have to work long days. I think I need to staff a night meeting and of course it is on our Aquafit night. Need to take this 3 day weekend to get food prepared for the week

@aliciap0116 I like the suggestion you gave @shellebelle813 we all need to take a break from eating at a deficit once in a while. I often find I lose when I eat more calories after staying with my calorie goal for a while. We have to fool our bodies into not lowering our metabolism when we diet. Also thanks for the resolutions summary. I like Hidden Brain when I hear it on the radio. I should listen to it regularly as a podcast.

@damaddox each person is welcome because they bring something to us all. So thank you for joining in. 37 lbs is such an accomplishment and shows you know how to do this. Not that we don’t hit challenges. I didn’t adjust my calorie intake when I went back to work fulltime and didn’t get exercise everyday so now I am trying to find a way to lose without as much calories. Hope your knees heal well

@speyerj I used to not read the replies that others had to posts but I realized I was missing a lot doing that like your talking about serial starting. When I first started on here I vowed I wasn’t going to gain it back and was going to lose it slow and healthily. It turned out that th 1st slow 20 pounds were lost by eating below my BMR (what you need if you were in a coma). Then I had a had a terrible plateau and the next 20 was lost slow and healthier. But when I wasn’t able to exercise daily I gained it all back. I am really struggling to turn it around. I keep having to fight gaining when I lose focus but I keep fighting.

@mmdeveau your posts is filled with lots of gems. I decided that if I didn’t like coffee enough to drink it black I didn’t like it well enough to drink it. However I unfortunately decide that about espresso. I recently have switched to double talls over Grande Lattes with 2% milk for most of the week. On the weekend when we have time to brew our house blend I drink filtered coffee black. I have also heard that your bladder does adapt if you start to drink more and are patient. I envy you running. I didn’t C25K a few years ago and ended up loving to run too. Then I threw my knee out (other exercise) and they say I shouldn’t run due to arthritis. I am hearing now that running can help arthritis. Hmmmm. Enjoy restaurant week

@lilann1961 I identify about starting out and not making it through the month and I too am putting posting on here more often a priority for me now too.

@BrownSugar Love your secret. Last year my son sent us on a cruise and I realized what I was giving my husband for his birthday/Christmas/anniversary present (all in December). I got him a 3 concert series to the Symphony we enjoyed that winter and spring. On the cruise he kept wanting to listen to all the music shows and I said why don’t we go to concerts more. I like Tennis too.

@Tarzan I learned something recently about not eating too. I was able to do Christmas Eve at home for my extended family. I got exhausted when making the last dish that is done at the last minute. I thought I am getting too old to make this meal anymore. I sat down and had dinner with everyone. As they left they were sorry about leaving dishes. We said don’t worry. I got up and saw how much there was and announced to my husband and youngest who lives at home we will just refrigerate the perishables. Ince it was a buffet that was still a lot. My husband was exhausted so my daughter and I did it. I realized I wasn’t exhausted anymore. I had a good breakfast that morning but hadn’t eaten the rest of the day. I wasn’t exhausted from the work it was from not eating enough that day. I am not too old yet.

@shorepine I like that you are focusing on just 3 goals. Sometimes a few days break can help you lose once you focus again

@LovelyChaos just starting is enough

@bluffgirl67 I don’t always cook by recipe but I will put post my notes below.

I had a good rest of the week.

SW 266 (but I sometimes peak above this)
Jan Goal weight get securely in the 250s

Jan 1: 263.4
Jan 17: 262.4

6000 steps on non Aquafit days or take a walk this week, I go to aquafit 3 days a week
Log meals daily I have been doing well with this week
Record weight daily Did well with this lately
Chart stats weekly I am up to date
Log exercise yes
Water 5+ cups close but room for improvement
Post on this thread weekly and check it daily as possible. I posted Wednesday and today and read posts between.


I am off to take my almost 93 year old Mom shopping today. Glad its a 3 day weekend for me. Then I plan to finish reading the rest of the posts I missed and post my Chili con Carne y verduras recipe.

Hey! I’m in!

I’m 238 and have tried over and over to get down to 170 and a healthy BMI. Mostly just want a healthy BMI.

My goal this year is to stay consistent. That’s something I hardly do anymore.

@pamiede wow! such good progress in 2019 and a good start to this year too.

@theleadmare Hope you feel better soon

@Tarzan good progress this week

@bluffgirl67 I hope your leg is feeling better and congratulations on making it to onderland!

@rhain good week!

@torihudson6 it is harder to get yourself to exercise with stress and anxiety but you are right it helps. Good job going all week.

@Terytha It won’t be long now

@orangequilt everyday is weigh in day for me.

@CLAWSMITH congrats on making it to 50 lbs loss! Not to mention going down a size- nice!

@Becomingmybestself130 I identify with your 2nd goal. That is really helpful for me to not eat out but with work, commute and trying to get to exercise it is challenging.

@momx4hill My sister from France has been here for a while so we have had extended family celebrations. This weekend is the 1st without a party.

@Chica7677 sounds good!

@MsDollyDimple I get up on Saturdays and go to an Aquafit class at 8 AM. During the week we have to get up at 6 AM just to make it to work on time so we exercise evenings 2 times at least.

@Candyn617 great logging

Went to Aquafit today, spent time with my Mom, looking forward to having a weekend without too many engagement. We finally got tickets to Little Women so that will be some fun.

Weekly Weigh In:
SW: 272
12/30: 255.5
1/6: 253
1/14: 253
1/19: 251

January goals:
-Attend ALL kickboxing classes: so far, so good! Finished the first week and I’m slowly adjusting to the continuous soreness haha, but it’s the good sore, where you know you put in some work.
-Continue logging all my food honestly and accurately: doing well here! I’ve stayed under my calorie goal often, I just struggle with sodium.
-Lose 5 more pounds and hopefully inches as well with the kickboxing—so close! I think I can do it.

I weighed in a little early this week forgetting I had delayed last week, but I’m still pleased with the number. I hit the 25lb mark! I almost cried in my bathroom. I haven’t consistently been in the 250s in an extremely long time. I can’t even remember when I was in the 240s, so I’m looking forward to that. I just feel so happy right now, like all the hard days have paid off. I’ll be back to reply to everyone later! Have a happy Sunday

@Tarzan37 – I used to be a regular Shape reader, but they had an editorial change and that person decided to fundamentally change the format of the magazine. I wasn’t into to the new format, though I’ll still pick it up off the magazine rack every once in a while if I see something of particular interest. I have found awesome routines on their websites, though. I’m not sure why MFP doesn’t have certain exercises in its database. I have another app I use to track my workouts and since MFP doesn’t count calories for strength workouts I don’t plug them into MFP. I also add my own descriptions for cardio workouts.

@pamiede, @amethystEFC, @stefsc1, @MuttiNM – losing 100 pounds is such an achievement and also so emotional. I’m happy for all of you, and sorry if I forgot anyone else who has lost so much or is so close. For me it is a mixture of things: pride at sticking with this long enough to have lost so much; weariness because there’s more to lose; wonder at how my body could have carried 100 pounds for so long because I know I couldn’t carry that amount right now; and a bit of beating myself up by asking myself how it is possible that after saying I’ve lost 100 pounds I could have more to lose. Maybe you don’t think these things, but if you do you’re not alone. I’m trying to focus on the positive, and I hope you do that as well!

@bluffgirl67 – First, congratulations on getting to onederland! Second, I was able to find a link to the Phit-n-Phat podcasts on her website: [url=" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/losing-100-pounds-phit-n-phat-com-real-diet-talk-from/id1233384453"] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/losing-100-pounds-phit-n-phat-com-real-diet-talk-from/id1233384453[/url]. You can listen to her podcasts on your computer via this link. I reiterate my warning for all: she uses explicit language in her podcast. It can be quite a bit if you have a low threshold for the amount of it you tolerate before you find it off-putting. I have a high threshold myself and find her overall message to be important, but your mileage may vary.

Height: 5'6"
SW (09/08/2019): 239.2 lbs
January SW (1/1/20): 202.4 lbs
1/5/20: 199.2 lbs
1/12/20: 195.6
1/19/20: 195.4
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 – Check. I even got myself outside before the snow hit here. It was snowing for the last 15-20 minutes of my long run and it was getting slippery on the trail. It was also 23 degrees outside when I went out. No matter, I put a thermal layer on underneath my usual layer, a thermal outer hoodie jacket, gloves and a warm headband. Both layers were wet from my sweat when I got back home.
• Core exercises at least 3 times a week – Check.
• Take better care of my skin in hopes it will start to regain its shape. Keeping the faith with this one. I’m hoping my skin is in a forgiving mood this time and will mostly bounce back though I think I’d be unreasonable to expect that it will be perfect.

This was another exciting week of ups and downs, on the scale and in life. I had a tremendous loss last week, then within two days was back up at 199. I felt I was following my plan. Now it was TOM at the beginning of the week, but I still discount that because I’ve never had issues with it before. I do think I was unnaturally low last week and I think that’s more likely to be the reason for most of the rebound. I’m happy to be down 0.2 pounds this week when all is said and done. I don’t take any forward progress for granted.

I do want to mention something in brief, and only because it relates to two factors that seem to be intangible but also play some role in weight gain or loss: sleep and stress. For the past month, I’ve be dealing with a neighbor who is complaining about my alarm clock playing too loudly. This neighbor is bipolar/schizophrenic, which I learned second-hand via another neighbor who was told by the complaining neighbor’s mother. I don’t know if the person is off her meds, but I didn’t need to be told she had a psychiatric diagnosis because her behavior clearly indicates it is the case – at least to me, with training and experience dealing with it in patients. In order to counter her spurious claim, for the past two weeks I’ve been sleeping on my couch and using my (somewhat ineffective) phone alarm to wake myself up. I actually have a seven-page document to submit to the local police for a harassment report, and based upon my own follow-up on the issue I am looking into my responsibility for reporting a potential abuse situation, as the problem individual is terrorizing her 83-year-old neighbor to the point that the older woman does not want to leave her home to take a walk around the community as she usually enjoys. There’s even more…but like I said I want to be brief. I got a partial resolution at the condo board meeting earlier this week, but I do not think it’s over. I am moving back to my bedroom today and will start using my alarm again tomorrow.

I did survive my night out during restaurant week, and will likely have additional adventures this week. I’m going to paraphrase something I read in a book one time which reflects a perfect description of the Philly restaurant scene: Philadelphia may live in the shadow of New York City and be deemed inferior in many aspects, but Philly is no sulky second sister when it comes to restaurants. The best restaurant in the country right now is here in Philly, and there’s no end to the fine independent restaurants found throughout the city. I pointed the visiting consultant to this small Italian restaurant – Barbuzzo – because they have a fabulous, fabled dessert called the Salted Caramel Budino which is a must eat if you go to this restaurant. Every other course was spectacular as well. But when I logged the meal, I had to use my best estimates to enter all the things I ate that night, except the Salted Caramel Budino. That’s right, this non-chain restaurant’s dessert was actually already in MFP’s database! But thank goodness for restaurant week, because the dessert served as part of the prix-fixe menu was half the size or even a bit less than the full-size, 512-calorie dessert! I had my eye on the prize the whole meal – I had leftovers from the first two courses but there were no dessert leftovers!

I also want to go into C25K a bit more. I love C25K because I am mostly type-A and I like the timed intervals and the weekly (if you choose) progression. But if you’ve ever read other threads about C25K, I think you’ll find plenty of stories of people who realized they’d been doing some version of C25K all along. Sort of like what @Hurleyhurley does but probably not as adventurous, as a lot of the stories are about how they’d run an additional block or to the next telephone pole to advance. I also love C25K because there are a number of apps you can use as you run to cue each interval and play your music as you work out.

I have done a lot more with this program to tailor it to my own needs. If I’m going to be running or mostly running 10 miles a little more than three months from now, I need to be increasing my distance and endurance. The C25K workouts are about 30 minutes, at least in the initial weeks. So what I do is I take the “guts” of the work out – the intervals sandwiched between the warm-up and cool-down – and I repeat them to get a longer workout. Currently I am working the week 3 intervals. During the week, when I am on the treadmill and am limited to an hour at most if working out in the morning before work, I repeat the guts for 2.5 times or five 9-minute intervals. When I ran yesterday, I repeated the guts 3 times and if my phone hadn’t crapped out I would have done a small part of a fourth repeat. My objective yesterday was to cover 6 miles, so I wasn’t as controlled by time.

One of the other things I’ve done with C25K is use the intervals for other workouts in the gym as a means of increasing my performance for that machine. I’ve found this website useful when following C25K on any machine: c25k.com/c25k_treadmill.html. The chart on that page also helps understand what I mean by “the guts” if it was hard to follow my description above.

I’ll end this huge post here and wish everyone well this week! January is a long month it’s hard to believe there’s almost two weeks left, plenty of time to work towards and meet goals!

So far behind on this thread, am skipping foward. This week was a rough one at work, never home before 10pm, not getting/taking lunch, first week since I've started that I haven't stuck to my gym schedule. We're snowed in currently, though working on breaking free from the garage. With the lack of workouts, I've at least stuck overall to a decreased calorie intake for the week. I've been kind of stuck on the same weight more or less for 10 days, but am happy to see the drop this weekend finally. I was soooooooo close to -25 pounds today, just another .4 to go. Overall I'm bouncing around the trendline in a steady decline, so am happy about that. I am proud that with a rough week where traditionally I would have said fudge this, I have accepted that the workouts didn't happen, tried to be good with my diet, and am going to get back to my exercise goal this week and try to stay positive. So hard when you are mentally and physically exhausted from going full bore 16 to 20 hrs straight daily all week. I took yesterday off entirely from life, slept, played my piano, played video game with hubby, with the goal to fix my mind. I'm in a better place today, I think.

Hope you all are doing well. I've missed reading the threads. Have felt like I haven't seen anyone but my staff in a week.

Starting Weight: 310
Jan 1 - 289.7
Jan 5 - 287.7
Jan 12 - 289.7 (gar)
Jan 19 - 285.4 (woot)

One of the things I'm personally trying to do, along those lines, is to view the dietary changes I am making as akin to the ones that I had to make to get my IBS under control. This is just a condition I have, and to manage it, I have to eat a certain way, and that's just the way it's going to be for the rest of my life. And I accept this and am okay with it, and with the restrictions it puts on me, and I know I can live a good and happy life with these restrictions.