The aftereffects of being on the front lines are showing!

Luvmyhubby222
Luvmyhubby222 Posts: 149 Member
edited December 2020 in Introduce Yourself
HI! I am an RN who has been working entirely too much during this pandemic and not taking care of myself. Getting my first shot of vaccine tomorrow (yippee!) , and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel has me super motivated knowing that this COVID nightmare will eventually end!
Looking for friends to motivate and occasionally kick my butt. I run about 3 times a week (always have, great stress reliever for me), but want to drop 20 lbs in the next 6 weeks or so.
Any advice? Anyone in the same boat? LET"S DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!
(Stay safe!!)

Replies

  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,442 Member
    Thank you for what you do!!!

    Advice? - 20 pounds in six weeks is a little fast. If you only have 20 pounds to lose, it should take at least 20 weeks to lose it healthily. Slow and steady wins this race!
  • Luvmyhubby222
    Luvmyhubby222 Posts: 149 Member
    I think I mis-mathed....how about 12ish pounds in 6 weeks? More better? :) Anyone want to do this with me?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,972 Member
    Luvmyhubby222 wrote: »
    I think I mis-mathed....how about 12ish pounds in 6 weeks? More better? :) Anyone want to do this with me?

    Still a pretty high deficit, truthfully, if 20 pounds is all you have to lose. Depending on your age, overall stress level, and general robustness physically, it can probably be done without *huge* health risk if your nutrition is really excellent.

    Is your goal to take better care of yourself, or to lose the weight as fast as possible?

    It's still a 1000 calorie deficit every day. If you're the USDA's "average woman" who maintains at 2000 (which is doubtful, could be high or low), you'd be netting 1000 calories . . . which is really not very much.

    I'd suggest (for someone with a busy, stressful life, and not obese) something like half a percent of current body weight weekly, or therabouts, as a reasonable target. More than that could be workable for someone with, say, > 50 pounds to lose, or maybe even for a super healthy 19- year-old with virtually no other stressors in her life (though I'd be encouraging the latter to go slower so as to dial in long-term healthy habits, rather than jumping into faux-urgency extreme dieting that treats weight management as a project with an end date followed by a "return to normal" that's an on-ramp to regain, and possibly future cycles of destructive yo-yo dieting).

    I'm sorry if this all seems harsh. I don't mean it that way. Truly, sincerely, I do care. I feel very cynical and curmudgeonly, having watched friends go down that kind of yo-yo path (with generally bad weight & health results once we all reached later life), and having made a bunch of misteps along the road myself. (I'm 65. I'm lucky to be as healthy as I am. Part of it, I suspect, was not getting on that yo-yo merry-go-round. Instead, I stayed fat for years - also not the greatest plan - and lost back to a healthy weight at age 60.)

    If there's a project to be done to take care of oneself, IMO it's experimenting with finding and grooving in sustainable new daily habits that lead to maintaining a healthy weight permanently, and letting the loss happen with a reasonable calorie deficit as part of the experiments along the way.

    Best wishes. (I'll stop hectoring you now. 🙂)
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,413 Member
    Listen to Auntie @AnnPT77 She knows whereof she speaks.

    In a nutshell, the closer you are to normal
    BMI, the slower weight comes off. You burn fewer calories as your weight decreases.

    The rule of thumb is that a pound is 3500 calories. Two pounds a week is 7,000 calories, or 1,000 a day.

    That means you need to either eat 1,000 less
    than maintenance per day, or excercise an additional 1,000 calories a day- which puts you well into athlete territory, or a combination of the two.

    Go into it with a more reasonable expectation- half or quarter pound a week. That way it’s both sustainable, and you don’t get frustrated and quit before you reach your goal.

    And remember, reaching goal is not a ticket to fall back into bad habits.

    Thanks for all you do!
  • Luvmyhubby222
    Luvmyhubby222 Posts: 149 Member
    OK, I will slow it down. Promise. Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I think I am just so impatient to have this all behind me/us. Anxious to feel like I have some control over something after fighting this monster for almost a year, and just so tired. But I will behave. ;)

    Anyhoo-any suggestions on a group I could join that combines healthy life style/weight loss and running? Would be fun to check in occasionally with like minded folks. :)
  • VickyEltonGreen
    VickyEltonGreen Posts: 116 Member
    Luvmyhubby your focus and "impatience" has probably been the gift that got you through this time. First thank you for everything you do on a daily basis. I know you have heard it before but you are our unsung heroes on our front lines of Covid. Wishing you all the success as you press reset and focus a little bit on you too. Well earned I am sure.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,972 Member
    Luvmyhubby222 wrote: »
    OK, I will slow it down. Promise. Thank you all for the helpful feedback. I think I am just so impatient to have this all behind me/us. Anxious to feel like I have some control over something after fighting this monster for almost a year, and just so tired. But I will behave. ;)

    Anyhoo-any suggestions on a group I could join that combines healthy life style/weight loss and running? Would be fun to check in occasionally with like minded folks. :)

    Good show!

    I'm not a runner (I'm a rower), but in case you haven't seen it yet, I happened to notice there's a thread over in Fitness right now where runners seem to be sharing links to various related MFP groups/threads, and MFP friend-seeking.

    Direct link:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10818045/calling-all-runners/p1

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