Women 200lb+, Let's Seize the Day This September!!!

Age 54 Height 5'9"
Highest weight: 240
Lowest weight: 127

CW:239
9/1:
9/8:
9/15
9/22:
9/29:

Highest weight 105.5kg (aug 2018)
Lowest weight 94.7kg (Mar 2020)
Goal for end of month 98.0kg
Start of month 99.6kg

Goals
💛 To keep average cals for the week under 2000
💛 To keep snacks under 25% of cals
💛 To plan meals in advance for the week
💛 16:8 - intermittent fasting
💛 Mediterranean eating
💛 Using non food ways to manage my emotions

Goals for September, and the rest of the year.

Weigh food, whenever practicable - log foods
I can make reservations at the pool now, so aiming for 3-5 times per week in September if i can get the slots.

Current weight is 218 ( I met my short term goal in August). I believe I am back on track.
Goals:
Weight 210 by the end of September
Weight 200 by the end of October
Weigh 190 by the end of December.
Weigh 180 by the end of February.

Take A1C test in January - goal of 5.7 or lower.

Age 35, Height 5'5"

CW: 211.8
9/1:
9/8:
9/15
9/22:
9/29:

I am a multi-tasker that tends to get overwhelmed by making too many goals at once. I plan to make one small goal per week and add a new goal once the previous one has been met.

Week 1 goal: To log my food and drink every meal, every day.
Week 2 goal: To continue nutrition logging and make exercise a habit by making sure to get at least 15 minutes of activity each day.
Week 3 goal: To continue nutrition logging, exercising 15 minutes each day and cut back on alcohol by only drinking 3 nights a week.
Week 4 goal: To continue nutrition logging, exercising 15 minutes, cut back on alcohol and add strength training to my daily workouts.

I'm always looking for accountability buddies. Feel free to add me as a friend!

Hi ladies, joining you all again for September. Thank you, RavenStCloud, for creating this space and everyone joining in. You all inspire me so much!

SW: 250 (8/2020)
CW: 243
GW: 150
age 27, 5'3"

My September goals:

- Avoid binge eating. To support this goal, I'm going to have more healthy snacks throughout the day. After a great week I did binge eat on Saturday morning. A surprise to absolutely no one, it was unsatisfying and just felt wrong. I did some reflective writing about it to process and define my goals here.

- Incorporate small portions of "forbidden" feeling foods to prove that I can enjoy them in moderation within a healthy lifestyle. Getting control over my diet has been empowering but there are deeper emotional factors to address.

- Develop a gentle daily fitness routine. This will free up calories for snacks and support my over-all health.

- Walk at least 3x per week for fitness and exposure therapy to address my agoraphobia.

- Experiment with vegetarian and vegan recipes. They are healthy, budget-friendly, and I would like to be as conscious about my consumption as possible.


Summer wrap-up:

Just getting through it is enough for me. Outside of my personal journey this has been an incredibly difficult year for us all. I hope everyone is staying safe and your families too.

I lost 7lbs in August and feel pretty good about that. My face already looks different! It totally makes me feel motivated to keep going.

NSV today...putting away my family's groceries and and not being tempted to woof down all the chips, candy, cookies, and other snack foods right away. They're mainly for others but I'll enjoy a little later on as it fits into a well-planned day.

Notes about healing my relationship with food and how that's factoring into weight-loss:
[content warning for readers sensitive to disordered eating i.e. binging and guilt]

Some might consider my food-related behavior as too controlling, but it's necessary right now as a preventative measure to disordered eating. I don't yet have the ability to manage "sometimes foods" without that turning into binge eating. Even if it doesn't, the temptation can trigger a lot of stress.

So for now it's less mental gymnastics for me to just eat pre-planned meals focused on nutrition only; not that I don't enjoy aspects of them too, but a nice salad is not a chocolate chip cookie. The natural consequences of overeating a nice salad is temporary fullness with the benefit of vitamins, fiber, protein, etc but on the other hand, overeating cookies sets back my weight loss efforts big time and makes me feel sluggish, sick, and mad at myself for choosing short-term comfort over long-term health and joy. I don't just mean a few cookies here and there...it would be most of the box, as a habit.

When I envision a healthier future for myself it includes no forbidden foods. Instead I have a trusting relationship with myself and my body, secure in the knowledge that I can and will take care of it without depriving myself either. Food is nourishing to my body, mind, and spirit without the emotional struggle.

-
Thanks for reading. Let's do our best this September!
Sassy

Summer wrapup: We're moved and settled in. This feels like our house now and not "the new house" so much.
Boyfriend is talking with a large insurance company about employment in their IT division, and Girlfriend has started her college classes for the fall. My eldest son's welding classes have started.

I think September and October are going to be when I firm up my exercise program. I've got a lot of good habits started at home with meds compliance and eating on schedule so I don't get too hungry and fall off my plan. But my yoga practice at home is spotty at best, and I really want to start going to the gym, and I'd like to put an exercise bike in the house so that I can throw some riding in to build up stamina or deal with restlessness. The bike and the gym membership are waiting for Boyfriend to have an income again, but I can do the yoga right now, so I'm going to start with that.

I've also started back into contact with a friend of mine whose books I have process edited in the past. She's very interested in the novel series I've been futzing around with for 20 years, and so she will help me and I will help her. I've worked on both her romance novels and her science fiction ones, and she sent me a new science fiction one last night to look over for her. This is work and while she often gives me a bit of money from her advances, it's mostly unpaid, it just helps us both.

I think I've done what I wanted to this summer. I got moved, and I got my routines reestablished in the new house. I'm doing much better with basic self-care, and have lost enough weight that I feel more energetic and have more daily stamina, despite the arthritis and torn tendon in my ankle.

Overall, this fall I want to keep on with the weight loss, and possibly take it back up to two pounds a week. I suspect exercise will help with that. Keep on with self-care, keep on with helpful habits and routines, and add in a longer and more focused daily yoga practice to deal with the stiffness and the soreness of the chronic pain condition. In terms of numbers, if I can lose at two pounds a week, that would put me at 243 at the end of September, 235 at the end of October, and 227 at the end of November. 221 pounds would be 75 pounds lost, and that would be a FABULOUS present to myself in December.

Hi Everyone, I'm new here. Ashley.

Age 34, Height 5'2"
Highest weight: 296lbs
Lowest weight: 138lbs

CW:293.2
9/1:
9/8:
9/15 (halfway mark assessment):
9/22:
9/29:

Weekly goals (exercise):
🌸 Hit 6,000 steps each day
🌸 Take dog hiking once a week

Weekly goals (diet):
🌸 Stick to calorie goals
🌺 No candy
🌸 No McDonald's

Weekly goals (mental):
🌸 Less phone in the morning and night
🌺 Set the timer for uninterrupted work sessions (stealing this)
🌸 LESS than 50 hour work weeks (just started a new job in May and been working 70+ hrs/week)


💜 Message to myself: work isn't the most important thing 💜

September is our 6 year wedding anniversary and 12 years together anniversary. I was 170 pounds on my wedding day and felt I was a "fat bride". I want to feel like myself again and do this my own way without a certain "program" that might not work for my life or lifestyle right now. We have a wedding to attend at the end of October and I'd like to feel a lot better about what I see in the mirror by then.

Age 35, 5’1”
SW: 224.2 (August 2020)
CW: 220.4 (August 31, 2020)
Goal 1: 200
Goal 2: 180
Goal 3: 160
UGW: 130-140

September Goals:

-Continue to take my dog on longer walks in the evening
-Complete a minimum of 3-4 runs/workouts of at least 30 minutes per week
-Continue to log my food daily
-Do weekly meal planning for the family to avoid last minute bad decisions
-Try cooking two new meal recipes for the family

September is the point in the year where I establish my routine and get back on track. The kids are returning to school next week, my own school starts tomorrow, my husband is back at work, and it is just a "fresh" time of year for us. So I have set some attainable goals, nothing crazy, in hopes of having a successful month.

Once school starts, my routine will be easier to manage. I drop the kids off at 7:55am, then I can workout/run, shower, have breakfast, log my planned food for the day, and then work on my own school work. After I pick the kids up from school, they have therapy (autism) 3-4 afternoons per week, I will make supper, then we do our evening walk with our dog before winding down for the night. Alternatively, I may get up earlier and workout/run and then shower before waking the kids at 6:45. It will just depend on how I am feeling in the morning. In the winter, I found I liked getting up earlier to workout and then start my day from there, but when it is fall or spring, I prefer to run or bike outside so I leave that for later in the morning. Either way, I have a plan in place and it is just up to me to follow through on it.

Name: Jane
Age: 55
SW: 286.5 (6/3/19)
8/31 weight: 169.7
Maintenance Weight Range: 167-173

Weekly tracking:
9/5:
9/12:
9/19:
9/26:
9/30:

September goals:
Maintain my weight between 167 and 173
Log food daily
Row or Run at least 6x's a week
Get at least 45 "active" minutes a day
Get at least 10,000 steps/day

I always love the thought provoking questions that Raven St. Cloud posts at the beginning of these threads:
How was the summer for you? Did you accomplish what you'd set out to?
I was thinking about this this morning and I am really proud of what I accomplished this summer:

• Hit what I thought was my goal weight of 180, then 175, but I'm still losing. Just yesterday, I hit a low that put me at a BMI of 25 and the feeling was so good, I moved my "maintenance" weight range down a few pounds to try to stay there.
• I ran a half marathon! Who would have thought that I could ever do that?
• I learned to row in a single shell and found a new community, a sport that I love that I can do into my 80's, and learned so much about what I am capable of - particularly overcoming fear.
• Today, I rowed in a racing shell! That was a really big deal. They are very tippy (think kayak tippy) only unlike a kayak, they aren't easy to get back into. So it requires very good form to maintain your balance on the water. One of the coaches pushed me to push myself today and I am so glad I did.
• I'm a size 10!! Again, mind blowing. I was a 2x/24 in most clothes at the start of last summer.
• I learned to cook lots of new foods - especially Thai, Vietnamese and Korean recipes. It's been a lot of fun!
• I grew closer to my youngest daughter - our relationship transformed from mother/daughter to adult friends as COVID forced her to move out of the dorm and back home. I'm sorry she isn't having the college experience she had dreamed about, but we are all coping well.

@iloveeggnog - I am so proud of you for opening up, sharing and participating. I hope you find sharing your journey therapeutic, motivating and inspiring. I know it has helped me so much!

I didn't quite make my goal for August, but I'll keep setting ambitious goals - so shooting for 10 lbs again. I need the push!

September GW: 191.4
8/31: 201.4 lbs
9/7:
9/14:
9/21:
9/28:

Non-scale related goals: I started a 4-week training program on my bike. I've been easing into the bike by doing shorter rides, and I think I've been psyching myself out of doing longer ones. Every day in this program has me riding longer than I have been thus far. First day was today and I survived! It includes a fitness test, so I hope I'll be able to see some measurable difference in fitness by month's end - and hopefully some accompanying pounds down. There are only 3 scheduled rides this week, so I need to figure out what my game plan is on non scheduled days. Maybe some light strength training? I kinda would like to do some additional cardio, so I might do some of the shorter recovery rides on those days. If it feels like it's too much I think I'll switch back to walking on those days nothing is planned in the program. We'll see how it goes.

@eliezalot Yes I'll definitely look into inserts if the shoes don't help.
I WISH I HAD MY GYM AND A ROWER OR SOMETHING!!!
Super frustrating to want to work out and as much as I hate running (and I'm bad at it) I'd rather run than do nothing.

Struggling a bit with food tonight. I'm a night time snacker and I'm trying not to but I want to eat all the things tonight. Toast and ice cream and oreos and chocolate ....
Planning on going to sleep soon because I can't eat while I'm asleep!

@cupcakecrusoe - if this was a group for avid long distance runners you could apologize for giving basic running advice. Otherwise you're good in my book
I'll have to pay more attention to my stride - I've always felt like I "plod along" when I run so I very well may be landing on my heel or flat on my whole foot. I'll definitely look into this!

Taking my kids and one of their friends to the zoo today which means lots of steps and controlled eating (because I can only eat what I bring). Then his mom is coming over and we're getting Indian food Today will be a balancing act for sure!