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

**Height 5' 4"
SW: 216.8 (10/10/2019)
CW 1/1: 202.6
1/10: 201.2 (-1.4 month)
1/17: 199.6 (-3 month)
1/24: 198.6 (-4 month)
1/31:
Jan GW: 198
GW: 150
Jan Goals: Cardio/elliptical 5/week (1 done)
Strength and Yoga 3/week (2 done)
Water 8c/day (5 done)

My first of the week 197 is hiding behind water retention but that's ok. I was able to start strength training and got a little walking in which is worth it. On top of that the weather has triggered a migraine so feel like I was ran over by a truck. I'm going back to bed. Hope y'all have a great Friday and will catch up later. Oh and @aliciap0116 the Halo was good. The flavor was like an almond nougat. I think I liked the chillycow better but that was probably because of all the chocolate decadence.

I really feel good now doing weight work. There's a sort of collected competence in the muscle groups now...hard to describe, but I definitely feel it both in and out of the gym. I'm looking forward to being a strong woman and being big, not through bulky fat, but through muscle. Yeah, that works for me.

Height: 5'7"
SW: 254 (4/7/19)
End of 2019 Weight: 246.7
1/3- 245.1 (-1.6)
1/10-245 (-0.1)
1/17-243.9 (-1.1)
1/24-246 (+2.1)
1/31-
Final GW: 165 (then reevaluate)

So, yeah. Not a great week here. I do think I'm retaining a lot of water right now, so hopefully that high number at weigh in this morning will be short lived. Still starving in the evenings here. I'm going shopping today and think I will look into protein shake options.

In better news, I've lost 1.5" off my hip measurement since last recording that, which admittedly was some months ago, but still it's an improvement!

Hi everyone! I have been catching up with the posts and am really happy I have finally found such a great group with such amazing supportive people.
@snaileatsplants I am so sorry to hear of your suffering. I have been in similar situations of abuse. I feel like I am not working towards losing my identity but working towards becoming a stronger and healthier person. Taking care of myself is empowering my. Healing my negative thoughts and criticism towards myself is very healing for me. I find as I work towards healing myself in one way it is effecting other areas of my life. I had to try and move past the past and all the pain that goes with it. It doesn’t happen over night and I see a therapist. You can’t let those who abused u have that power over u and keep u in a place where u are unhealthy. I am finding that I am not losing myself but finding a new part of me. Finding someone who has hope. Finding someone who has positive goals and someone who can have happiness, love for herself and a sense of new found peace. I never had love for myself or thought that I was worth anything better. I had zero self esteem and confidence. I am finding as I heal and work on bettering myself and my health, I am realizing I deserve better and that I am worth feeling better an am slowly learning to like myself which leads to better self care. Realize u are a valuable person in this world that deserves good health. Your aim doesn’t have to be to lose a ton of weight but have better health and to feel good about yourself. I also second what @aliciap0116 and @theleadmare said very good advice!

@Caseyloupuckett hi! I wish u luck! I hope your doctors figure out the issue and u feel better soon.

@GroverBlue78 we all have been there and slipped up. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was great that u kept up with the dancing 💃

@L2HS I agree with the others that u might want to recalculate your calories if u don’t feel comfortable

@aliciap0116 those snacks look great!!

@speyerj thanks for sharing. I can get so discouraged with just a little gain. I’m aware that the scale will fluctuate but when it does I always question what I did wrong and get upset even when I have stayed on track. I drive myself crazy thinking about everything I did the past few days and where I went wrong. So I can get obsessed especially since the last two weeks I have been gaining .5# every other day. It was driving me crazy. But I kept doing what I needed to do and it finally started to go down. Today I was actually up .3# but I know it was because I had a lot of salt and didn’t get enough water.

I’m sorry if I didn’t reply to everyone. I tried my best. I missed weigh in Wednesday so I’ll post today.

SW 326 highest
SW 220
CW 216.3
GW this month 211-212.5
GW 140

Thanks 😊 I hope everyone has a great weekend!

@theleadmare, good for you for starting strength training! I know what a huge leap that is for you, based on what you'e told us so far. I'm so glad it's going well!!

@bluffgirl67, calling out you too for strength training, which I think is a recent addition to your repertoire. And losing 4 pounds is 3 weeks when starting a strength training program is fantastic.

@Tarzan37 , hope that whoosh comes for you. But what a difference in your hips! You might have dropped a size!

Good afternoon everyone!
Wow, if I don’t get on here regularly, I get so behind! Sometimes 40+ new posts…my goodness! I have read all of them but really don’t have time to respond to any of it.

Since it’s the weekend, I am going to try and reply to some of you, because I have some input on some of the discussions 

Any way…not a great week and I could go on and on about it…but right now I am just posting my weigh in. The only thing I can say about this week is I am really starting to figure some things out about me and this journey and I am learning everyday what works for me!

Anyway…here it is…a gain …but I am confident it is residual water weight from my trip and a little indulgence and lack of planning this week! May not make it to my goal this month but I will be happy with any loss and that is what I am shooting for by next week.

January goals – weigh in on Fridays
OW – 276.6
Starting weight for January - 252.2
January GW – 246.2 (6lbs)
1/10 – goal 250.7 – 248.8 – I had gained some over the holidays, so it really is only a 1lb loss for me technically
1/17 – goal 249.2 – 247.4
1/24 – goal 247.7 - 250.0
1/31 – goal 246.2

-3 Workouts at the gym – I will work out at 6:30am on Mondays and Wednesdays. Fridays @ 4:30pm. – this was a no go – left out of town on Friday and didn’t return until Monday evening and was tired…and Wednesday was a bad day
- Hike or Bike ride on Saturday/Sunday – did take a walk when I was out of town

- Water intake – I will drink two 32 oz containers of water at work. Use my soda stream for the remaining 32 at home. 96 ounces a day – check! Got all water in when I was out of town as well!

- limit alcohol only for special occasions – my special occasion was this weekend…but I drank entirely too much!

- Eat out only once a week –– ate out two days (technically three) – I ate out one day during the week and then we went out while I was in GA. I split the dinner in half and ate it the next day hence the third eating out


Again, I hope to get on this weekend and reply to some of you! You guys are rocking it!

Today was the first day kickboxing felt really hard, I had a hard time keeping up and it made me get all in my head. I know it was just me being hard on myself, but I felt awkward and like people were staring at me, which they were not. They usually take it easy the first week for the new people so we can learn all the moves and then afterwards they start creating their own class plans and pick it up a bit. So, today was a taste of that. But I did it! And I feel proud of that. All I can do is keep trying and learning in class.

@sharpdust, I hope you feel better soon! So much illness is going around.

@theleadmare, that sounds like a yummy dinner! I hope the back pain gets better soon. Also, I am trying to work towards being strong, too. It's a good feeling. Makes you feel powerful.

@Caseyloupuckett, food poisoning is horrible, it really takes you out. Feel better soon! We are all here to fight with you.

@Candyn617, I would be so excited if I saw that prediction too! I'm sure it feels amazing.

@bluffgirl67, I hope the headache gets better soon, I know how hard migraines can be. Also, great loss! I'm so excited to see you in the 190s, I know how hard you've worked.

@Tarzan37, great loss in the hips! Sometimes the scale doesn't show us the numbers we want, but it's always motivating to see the loss in other ways.

@mfpphoenixx, great loss! In the past I had a horrible scale obsession, I'd weigh everyday and it really messed with my mental health. Eventually I stopped and I can only weigh once a week because otherwise I will fall back in that pattern.

@Lasmartchika, we all have off weeks, especially during that TOM. You got this.

@mmccloy12, I hope this weekend is a nice reset for you.

@Aerohead21, I recently started school again as well, it definitely can throw a wrench in plans. it is hard to pack food that is going to store well and taste good reheated, I snack on apples and nuts and wheat thins sometimes.

The buttons next to my food list that allow you to remove items from your diary reappeared this morning! Hooray!

Yesterday I decided not to track anything and just give myself a break after the discouraging gain. I didn't do too badly and actually did track everything except for evening snacks. One of those snacks was a package of cookies from the Safeway bakery that turned out to be very stale. I took it at the universe's way of telling me no to those! Ha! Returning them to get my money back today and back on track as well.

Oh, and I also found protein powder on a great sale at Costco yesterday, so I will start playing around with ways to add that in each day. I guess they have a bunch of recipes on their site!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

A very intense week at work after my 3 day weekend. So I am going to post 1st then get caught up with all of you. My weight fluctuates alot so I am looking for lower peaks and lower valleys. I am coming down from the lower peak this week and my last valley was lower too. I will post at my next low. I was so busy at work that I got out of my night meeting so it meant I got to go to Aquafit that night instead.

So I have been doing better at logging
Not doing better at checking in here
Have stuck to my exercise schedule but haven't upped it but today after Aquafit this morning I am meeting my sister who is in town from France for a walk with her grandkids in the Jaanese garden.
We will make healthy Chinese hot pot tonight for Chinese New Year's (my family is bi-racial).
We have been doing well at not eating out as much
I had some success at tweeking breakfasts.

More later.

Y'all!!! I was good all day and had almost 800 calories left for supper, so you know what I did?? I ate almost half of a Domino's thin crust Hawaiian pizza. And I only feel a little guilty because I do still have 47 calories left for the day.

So much I want to say, but I’ve got to make this one really brief since I’ve got to get on the road and I have a lot to do before then. Just a couple things I remember from checking in during the week.

@aliciap0116 – I hope your knee is feeling better. If it is serious pain when bearing weight, see someone. When I had problems this summer, I was surprised that I had so much water in my knee, but in that case it was an easy fix, and I was able to ease back into my routine. I think you also said something about Phit-n-Phat and her philosophy about tracking food intake – not sure because it wasn’t a direct reference so I’m guessing. For those who do not listen to the podcast, the host is a weight-loss coach. She does not have her clients weigh or measure food, nor does she believe in calorie counting. Instead, she takes a full behavioral approach and has them eat mindfully. I disagree with not weighing and measuring and calorie counting. I think those activities are cognitive tools that help people educate themselves about serving sizes. I do agree with the behavioral training, too, but in addition to the measuring and calorie tracking. I don’t want to be weighing and measuring every morsel for the rest of my life, so at some point the behavioral training needs to take over.

@snailseatplants – sorry to hear everything you’ve been through. I agree with those who suggested seeing a therapist – the psychology of abuse it so difficult to work through on your own. I’m glad you have been able to accept your body as it is. My only advice would be to keep an open mind about the weight-loss process, and I hope it can be something where you learn to love your body no matter what it looks like, because it is yours.

@KeriA – I might eventually have the same situation when I will need to give up running, but for now I will live it up as long as I can. When I was diagnosed with avascular necrosis in my right foot, I told them “cadaver bone. My expectation is that I will be able to run again.” That’s not what happened. It is a condition I need to manage, though. And in addition to that, I’ve got a ruptured ligament in my left ankle, a bad left knee (though the right is not great either), and a cyst on the bottom of my right foot. I still run because of the way it makes me feel and because I can. Luckily I also enjoy swimming and biking, so I’ve always got those activities to look forward to!

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
1/26/20: 193.4
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. Had a great C25K week 3 walk/run yesterday. I really did want to run in the rain yesterday morning because it always seems to rain on the day of the Broad Street Run. And I did run for a bit while it snowed last week. But it really was raining much too hard, so I went out after the torrential rain and found part of the trail flooded and impassible. At least I was able to get about a 2 mile loop out of it and I ran/walked for 3 times.
• Core exercises at least 3 times a week – Check.
• Lose 3 inches in my measurements – Measured today, only lost 2 inches.
• Take better care of my skin in hopes it will start to regain its shape. Not as good as previous weeks, but this week was a trying week for many reasons, and this week will be difficult as well.

Happy with a 2-pound loss this week. If I seem so ambivalent lately, it’s because I’ve learned not to trust the 190s. In the past I’ve somehow gained 10 pounds while sitting in the low 190s and despite following my plan and have found myself over 200 again. It’s where I stalled for a seemingly interminable plateau. When I finally got below 190, I maintained at 188 for a bit, and that would be my “lowest weight” since I was in my 20s. I am not partying right now about exceeding my goal for this month, because I would not be shocked to find I’ve gained 3-4 pounds overnight and find myself fighting to get back down for the rest of the week. I would not be surprised to find myself over 195 pounds on January 31st despite my best efforts.

So what I have been noticing recently is that I seem to whoosh on Saturdays and Sundays, only to bounce back up 2-3 pounds on Mondays or Tuesdays. I do weigh later in the morning on Saturday and Sunday because I have that luxury. But on weekdays I need to weigh before I go to the gym, so I’ve got to weigh around 4:30 AM. But the conditions are the same. After first void, before eating or drinking. I might have a second void on weekends before I step on the scale. The only other factor I can think of is that I usually get a good amount of sleep on Fridays. Hmmm.

I’m a little hesitant about moving to week 4 of C25K. For me moving from week 3 to week 4 is a big step, one that I’ve never really seen anyone comment on. Week 5 is the one people panic about because they see the 20-minute continuous run at the end of the week. However, during week 3 the ratio of walking to running is 1:1 – meaning 50% of your workout time is running or walking. During week 4, the ratio of walking to running is 1:2 – meaning that 67% of your workout is spent running. That’s a big increase!

So, about sleep: I said I would move into my room last week and ignore my neighbor’s complaints. I didn’t get to it last Sunday, and then Monday I had another compliant forwarded to me. She’s escalated to also complaining about my bathroom fan, my dryer, and the water running when I take a shower. She’s also tracking my comings and goings, which is stalking. I spent the better part of the day at work one day composing a response, and told the management office in many, many words that I was entitled to live my life as any normal person would be able to. My father also all but begged me to report her behavior to the police, so I went to make a statement on record. I’m still not back in my room, and I’ve got other things going on right now so it may be another week of sleeping on the couch.

I’ve been awake since very early this morning. On Monday, a cousin I’m close to passed away. I’ve been baking for the wake. Brownies, cookies, etc. I’m also going to make chili and salad. My cousin and his family aren’t exactly known for eating a healthy variety, so I’m bringing it to the wake. I’m also making a large quantity of everything, mostly double batches. My family is big and my cousin was pretty well-known. I expect that there will be a big turnout for the wake. Or a lot of leftovers!

Five more days! January is a long month – and this year February is one day longer than usual! Keep working towards this month’s finish line, it’s in sight but we’re not there yet!

@mmdeveau - you've had a great month! You already exceeded your goal or January. It makes sense that you would weigh less on the weekends, as it is further from your last bite and last sip of water than the unseemly hour of 4:30 a.m. Just accept it for what it is and if the mid week gain bothers you, don't weigh mid week. Weekly is enough to measure progress. Daily gives you more data about how much your weight fluctuates. It's interesting, but is really just noise.

As you may have read, I'm also working my way up to a 5K. I'm not using the C25K app, although I've used it in the past. My plan also uses interval training, but adds a minute to the running time for each week. Week 1 was run 1 minute, walk 2 X 5. Each week added more time to running, less time to walking. This week I'm up to 7 minutes run, 30 seconds walk x 4. When I can do 9 minutes x 3 with a 30 second break, I can do a 5 K. When the intervals are as short as 30 seconds, its really just psychological - there isn't time for your heart rate to recover. You actually can do a 20 minute run at this point. But it does seem like a big leap from interval training. But go at a pace that feels comfortable. You are stronger than you realize. Just 5 months ago, you spent your days carrying an 45 extra pounds. That was great training for the athletic feats you do today.

And I am sorry to hear about your cousin. I hope the wake brings good healing, evokes happy memories and allows your family to grieve.

I am crushed! Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash!

@KeriA You're right. Today's weight: 200.6

The scale is taunting me now. =P

That's fine though. A drop is a drop and onederland is right there at my fingertips. I know what I need to do and I am gonna be there for my birthday, which is 3 weeks away.

And then I'll probably pop back up a bit because birthday cake. But that's ok too.

Well, I'm not going to really worry about the scale number til Wednesday, but I feel incredible. Physical confidence is up, my personal self-confidence is up, and my boyfriend says he can see in my body that I've lost weight. I know just from the way I feel that I've been shifting poundage over to muscle and that's why the overall progression downward has slowed, but the surge in confidence and energy has been totally worth it.

I told someone about it today and they couldn't believe it was that simple. But it is. So I will continue simply eating within my calories and I'll get up and go to the gym tomorrow just as I do every day. Tomorrow is legs and core. Whee!