Good morning-September arrived on my weigh in day It’s been nuts trying to move two daughters out to college ( yesterday) university ( Sunday) and keep the third one calm while she tries to figure out her next steps post grad. Eating went out the window nutritionwise but I managed to keep the calories roughly under control Only one glass of red wine all week. So here are my day one stats including step count.

Highest weight 165
Starting weight 152
TODAY 149
Goal 140

Steps
08/25 4501
08/26 6232
08/27 5832
08/28 4850
08/29 4601
08/30 6070
08/31 4056 ( plus a 1 km walk forgot to wear the fitbit 😆)

Todays goal-finish packing. Eat a vegetable.
💗

I’m having a somewhat normal week with being off work. I’m able to focus on myself, which is NICE. I’ll need to find balance in the weeks to come all the way thru Mid October. I don’t like it when my health goes on the back burner. I feel like that is what happens when I’m in full-time work mode.

Hope002
PW 187.4
CW 187.0

Thanks for sharing @lennoncpa! I’m likely one of those sugar addicts who has a hard time eating sweets in moderation. Once I get started it seems to be a daily thing where I eat more and more of it. This September no sugar group is helping me get back in check and on track. I don’t think I want to cut it completely out. I want to control it where I stay under my daily ADA recommendation levels for women.

lennoncpa wrote: »

In November of 2018 I posted a commitment to this group to give up all sweets - and I have done that perfectly ever since! I usually allow myself a piece of birthday cake each year - but another one of my downfalls is that I love "nuts" - so this birthday - which was last week - I treated myself to a bag of nuts. I know that many of you are thinking - "but nuts are good for you". Yes they are - in moderation. My problem is I can't eat them in moderation - if I buy a can - I eat the whole can. If I buy a bag - I eat the whole bag. It was the same situation with sweets - except that I had to give those up completely as I just couldn't seem to limit myself without having binge attacks!

This...really spoke to me! I can't have croutons in the house because I'll just destroy them. It's my weird, can't control myself around it, food. I'm working to be able to have chocolate, crackers, etc in the house and am managing them ok, for the most part. I can't do the same for the croutons!

Good morning evening, WNM! Welcome to all the new ladies & gents!

I'm Melanie and I'm from Kansas. I’m the other team Co-captain. Truly, Ashley, @minstrelofsarcasm, does most of the heavy lifting (literally, too, as she...well, lifts). Ashley is the good example. I'm...the other one (horrible warning?).

I was always was skinny (no, not thin, skinny, all knees and elbows). At 18, I weighed between 110 and 120 at 5"6'. Maybe. When I got married at 24…I weighed maybe 160. But I was a happier person. I've got none of the reasonable reasons for gaining...no kiddos, just the husband. I got out of school (no more climbing those KU hills all the time), started working more sedentary jobs, started eating more, snacking, until about 5 years ago August, when I found myself weighing in about 230 and my six sixteens were too small. I bought a couple pairs of 18 pants from the thrift store and joined MFP.

I lost ~70 pounds in about a year and was pretty pleased. But I wanted another 20 off...and it didn't move. And things got a bit crazy with my husband's family (we won’t talk about that—it always leads to crazy-pants ranting)...so I decided to maintain for a bit and then come back. What came back was most of the weight. So...now I'm here and working on losing 60 pounds (40 of the 50 I 'found' and the 20 I never lost).

My special snowflake challenges
I'm fairly significantly asthmatic (on meds all the time), have terrible allergies and connective tissue issues (not enough collagen, too stretchy, lots of joint slippage). Last August, I acquired some vertigo problems (or, maybe they just got worse)... I think it is sinus related and many of those problems have now resolved, after switching ENT’s. July was a struggle vertigo-wise, as was last week, and I’m off coffee as a result (this is very sad…I LOVE coffee, my dive into a half-calf cup last week was clearly a bad idea). The point behind saying this is not woe-is-me, it is that a lot of exercise people promote is bad, and sometimes dangerous, for me.

Mostly, I walk. I do a bit of yoga now and then (though it isn't recommended with the connective tissue thing...but feels good. Love up and down dog...) and have pilates vids I do sometimes. I should do these more and strength training (can be good for connective tissue issues) but I'm still not there yet. A few times a year, I go all out at gardening (it is that time of the year, if only it would stop raining...I keep thinking I will do some YouTube LesMills BodyFlow videos…I like those a lot. But haven’t done it. Still. Thinking. About. It…yes, for four months now.

My 2021 Goal
My 2020 goal was Wonderland…but that was before the asthma insanity of the end of November and three rounds of Prednisone. Did NOT Happen. I’m there ish now. So…WOOT! I was 199 two weeks ago but weight fluctuations and water weight and stress eating put me a bit higher than that right now (yesterday I was 3 lbs lighter than Sat weigh in). It will come off.
I have a closet full of size 10's that I want to wear.
Back to Wedding Weight (165) before the end of the year. Maybe lower...

Daily goals:

• Walk at least 30 minutes a day or do an exercise video.
• Get back to doing core exercises every day.
• 80 oz of water or non-alcoholic liquid a day, mostly water. (I don't drink much in the way of alcohol generally, but just clarifying...long, ugly family history of substance abuse makes me very cautious)
• Cut down on sugar and junk food (reducing sugar is generally helping, I turn into the munch monster when I eat candy...see: cookie monster's blond sister...). I haven’t joined the challenge officially. But, like Les Mills…I’m thinking about it.

The peanut M & M’s at my desk are gone. So are all the jelly beans. There are a few cookies. A few granola bar ish things…

I want to congratulate all our losers from August! I am super proud of all of you! 😊 And several of you have maintained, which is terrific, too. Not seeing losses or not seeing the losses you want can be disheartening. Don’t give up! Think of all the things you have accomplished…you can do anything you put your mind to!

Welcome to the team newbies! I’ve sent friend requests to all of you (many have already added). Looking forward to getting to know you all!

This evening I spent a couple hours reading an Ethiopian cookbook. I've been cooking Ethiopian style food for 25 ish years now and this cookbook has explained things I wondered about but did not fully understand. I shall be making more Ethiopian in the near future to test these ideas. Was super amused by the author referring to a fairly common leaf men chew in Ethiopia, and other parts of Africa, called khat. It is used similarly to chewing tobacco in the States (which I think is kinda gross, being very anti-tobacco, but, hey, everybody has their thing). Anyway, this is amusing for me because when I was still working in the Correctional system (dark ages), one of the trainings I built for staff was about designer drugs and new drug trends mentioned khat (circa...2015? wait, now is the dark ages, what with covid...what does that make 2015?). This training (and the documentation used to create it and all references provided to me) made it sound like the next big drug epidemic...the author of the cookbook makes khat use sound like a bunch of old men sitting around shooting the breeze having a coffee. It's all about perspective.

@seltzer_lover so Your downfall is croutons! We all have our “thing”! Don’t you think?? I live alone nowadays as my kids are grown and out of the house and they laugh when they come over and my refrigerator is empty except for vegetables and hummus. I don’t have to do any sneak eating living alone so I just don’t keep those trigger foods in my house. By the way, are you really a seltzer lover? That’s actually all I drink. Either sparkling water, club soda or seltzer! San Pellegrino being my favorite!

Nice loss @ljdanny and @dbrinkmeyer !

Racherjh
Weigh in Friday
Pw:143 lbs
Cw: 144 lbs.

I’m feeling okay with this. I’m cutting back on sugar for the month. I’m thinking next week I’ll see a loss of at least one or two pounds.

Kandi3570
PW 172.8
CW 171.6

Steps this week. ???? I’ll give a count but my fitbit is losing charge quickly so it’s not correct.

Steps this week 46664

Melaniedscott
Sat weigh day
PW: 206.2
CW: 203.3

And that is after eating and entire order of Phad Thai for dinner--I usually aim for half but I was very hungry last night.

Weigh Day
Username: 1theresamcvean
Weigh-in week: Week 1
Weigh-in day: Friday
Starting weight: 177.4
Last weigh-in: 148.6
Today's weight: 147.6
Loss to date: 29.8

dbrinkmeyer wrote: »

dbrinkmeyer
PW 187
CW 185.6
Steps 21788

Tracking is helping me stay on task. I lost that weigh since Sunday. My calorie limit is 1350 and since I have been tracking it on Sunday, I'm staying under my goal and actually not minding this at all.

When I went to Unleash the Power Within in 2018, it didn't really surprise me to learn that I had a HIGH need for variety, but I didn't really attach it to a conflict with weight loss.

I can't STAND eating the exact same menu over and over. I like to take advantage of foods that are on sale that are on my approved to eat list. I like using left overs instead of wasting them just to stay on my menu.

This week I learned that I could "plan" my food ahead for the day and adapt if I go over or under so that by the end of the day I didn't overeat and didn't feel deprived or hungry.

I hope the next 7 days go as well.

Great weigh-in!