Thank you! 😁

@NerdyScienceGrl, glad you followed the trail of breadcrumbs!

@kentp1985, welcome from a fellow Brit!

lauriekallis wrote: »

Hi @chrissyiojijoij - you are a person of few words!

Hi. I wrote some stuff but got nervous and deleted it haha

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

lauriekallis wrote: »

Hi @chrissyiojijoij - you are a person of few words!

what chrissy lacks in words, I make up for in them

Lol. Thanks.

conniewilkins56 wrote: »

chrissyiojijoij wrote: »

lauriekallis wrote: »

Hi @chrissyiojijoij - you are a person of few words!

Hi. I wrote some stuff but got nervous and deleted it haha

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

lauriekallis wrote: »

Hi @chrissyiojijoij - you are a person of few words!

what chrissy lacks in words, I make up for in them

Lol. Thanks.

Don’t be afraid to share here….no one ever judges or shames you….everyone here has had a lot to lose or are still losing….please join us!

Thank you.

No I haven’t lost 175 lbs. yet. Ive lost about 145 over time. I weigh 175 lbs. now. My doctor is happy where I am. I’m short -5’2” and shrinking so I need to lose more.
Let’s not get into loose skin. Naked I look like one of those Shar-Pei dogs! Luckily my husband of 46 years says he will keep me.
Another thing we have in common is we live in the south. I’m in Texas where it’s still humid and near 90 ever day. Been here 30 years and still hate summer. Winter is magnificent though.

Oops - I’ve been married 47 years too. Just had another anniversary recently.

Hey, I'm shorter!!!🙀 172.25 cm, so there!

Hello Everyone,

I'm Jen. I have been searching for groups like this and found this one on the message boards. The posts and encouragement from NovusDies to others made me want to check out this group. I have always been a roller coaster yo-yo dieter and have always been slightly overweight all my life. A few years ago I joined Spark People and learned the math behind calories and it finally "clicked". Of course, I went on the 1200 calorie diet that was suggested. I stuck with it, since I was a yo-yo dieter, I was used to going on a diet and limiting what I could and could not eat. I actually lost 51 pounds and was ONE pound away from reaching my healthy goal weight. Unfortunately, I got tired of eating the same thing all the time -salad for lunch and skinless chicken breast and broccoli for dinner- so I stopped tracking calories and walking. Over time since I went back to my old-habits I put on the weight again. I also have quit smoking since then, so I have additional weight from that now as well. Another factor to gaining my weight was the abusive marriage I was in, which continued after the divorce. My son is now 18 which has allowed me to basically end 90% of all contact with my ex. Needless to say, I am at the heaviest I have ever been and I got back up to my pregnancy weight.

I am not sure how much to share, which to be honest it is a tad bit uncomfortable, however, changes cant be made unless I admit there is a problem, right? I am finally over being angry and depressed at myself for gaining weight like this, and I am ready to get healthy. I have lost 6 pounds (by just tracking and eating at home), but I have 85 pounds to go at the moment, so this is going to be a long process for me.

I am going to continue calorie counting since it makes sense to me and the math clicks with me. Well to a point, I understand I need a deficit to lose weight and I understand that my BMR is the constant "control group" and the calories-in that I eat daily would be the variable or "test group" which is compared against the BMR. It gets a little foggy when I think in terms of CICO to create the deficit because my brain wants to add that up. For example calories-in would be 1500 and calories-out thru exercise would be 300 that leaves me at a net of 1200. My brain thinks that is still a positive number and I need to exercise and burn 1800 to add the numbers together to create a 300 calorie deficit (1500 minus 1800). However, I think I need to add the BMR number to my net calories of 1200 and compare that. Let's have the BMR be 1700 that would create a 500 calorie deficit against my net calories of 1200. I think I understand it that way, but in a flash, everything can go foggy again. I just need to continue to learn more and over time I will understand this better.

I read in the message boards this lady who is a retired dietician says that as adults we don't spend money nilly-willy without looking at our checkbook balance, so we need the same principle when it comes to calorie counting and the amount of food we eat daily. That totally made sense to me and made me realize that I will need to count and track calories for the rest of my life.


I am not going on the 1200 calorie diet this time around. I am actually trying to learn how to set my "maintenance" calories now. Which is difficult since I am not sure exactly how to do that. However, what I have done is taken the healthy weight range for my BMI that MFP says I should have, and then I plugged those numbers in the BMR calculator. So I took BMR numbers for 130, 140 and 150 pounds and times that by 1.25 to set my calorie range. Right now I have my calorie range goal set at 1500 per day.

I also plan to make sure I always net 1200 calories as I am getting ready to start getting back on my treadmill. There was a couple of times I woke up when I was on the 1200 calorie and I got so weak I could not stand up and felt like I was going to pass out the second I got out of bed. Those two incidents happened when it was that time of the month and I was also walking 3 miles a day on my treadmill. I think my body wasn't getting enough calories because I was afraid to eat back my exercise calories. Needless to say, I don't want to do that again, and there was other times if I was late eating a meal I would start to feel weak and get the shakes, so this time I plan on making sure I always net 1200 a day.

Wow, I have typed a lot more than I planned to. I am planning to lose 2 pounds a week, that is my weekly goal and from what I have read 2 pounds (at the maximum) a week is a safe number to lose. Which at that rate this is going to take about 10 months to a year to lose, so I am in the long haul and looking to find a group with people needing to lose weight over a period of time.