At Goal & Successfully Maintaining. So Why Am I Doing This All Over Again?
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springlering62 wrote: »Sorry. Seems we’ve fallen off the earth! My husband and I have what are surely (and blessedly) the world’s mildest cases of Covid. Thank heavens we were vaccinated. I’m almost embarrassed to call this “Covid”. I’ve had colds that were waaaaay worse than this.
Anyway, calorie adherence is out the window for both of us right now.
I’m just going with the flow. I figure my body will ask for what it needs and I’ll deal with any gain or loss when it’s over. Oddly, I feel thinner, even though I’ve been couch bound the last few days and had one or two gobbley days. I think the mild fever and the (worst part) instantaneous soaking dripping sweats burn a lot of calories.
Otherwise, I’ve found the mystery to calorie burning while napping, and just need to bottle and share it, and then use the proceeds to get DeVol to come and do my kitchen. Wow! Lots of time to watch HGTV and am mesmerized by For the Love of Kitchens!!!!
It's great to hear from you. I hope you are both feeling better soon.1 -
springlering62 wrote: »Btw guys like you are good to have around.
At one point we had four microcars and a two car garage. We could get all four in the garage, but it inevitably involved drama moving cars around to get the one we wanted out.
Al looked at us like we were morons and said,”They’re tiny cars. Why don’t you just park them all in the driveway at an angle and back out the one you want?”
😶
I can’t believe that pic is still online. The internet never forgets.
In the 90s I had a Geo Metro, which was light enough that my coworkers (no idea how many of them) were able to pick it up and move it to a different part of the parking lot. Freaked me out!
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springlering62 wrote: »Sorry. Seems we’ve fallen off the earth! My husband and I have what are surely (and blessedly) the world’s mildest cases of Covid. Thank heavens we were vaccinated. I’m almost embarrassed to call this “Covid”. I’ve had colds that were waaaaay worse than this.
Anyway, calorie adherence is out the window for both of us right now.
I’m just going with the flow. I figure my body will ask for what it needs and I’ll deal with any gain or loss when it’s over. Oddly, I feel thinner, even though I’ve been couch bound the last few days and had one or two gobbley days. I think the mild fever and the (worst part) instantaneous soaking dripping sweats burn a lot of calories.
Otherwise, I’ve found the mystery to calorie burning while napping, and just need to bottle and share it, and then use the proceeds to get DeVol to come and do my kitchen. Wow! Lots of time to watch HGTV and am mesmerized by For the Love of Kitchens!!!!
Glad it's mild! Yay for the vax!0 -
Well, we are in Day 11 of the World’s Mildest Case of Covid right now. Really, I’m embarrassed to even call it Covid. Just ridiculously mild symptoms and lingering fatigue hanging about.
Placed an order for grocery delivery to hold us for at least a week or longer, in a pinch.
Tried to make an effort not to get anything different than usual, to keep us both on calorie track.
I foolishly weakened and bought some cookies and custard tarts. Not the greatest idea since a.) I still don’t have an “off switch” even now, and b.) one of the strangest Covid symptoms I’ve had is sudden, random, gnawing hunger. Not a good combination.
So the tarts are all gone, but most the cookies are safely in the freezer, where they pose less of a threat.
BL is completely untempted by either cookie or tart.
The problem throughout this has been getting calories into him at all. If I don’t make it, he’s not going to eat it, and I just haven’t been up to cooking much the past few days.
I did make an amazing (and easy) pizza from scratch, which he happily devoured, so that might be the go-to for the next couple days. I can load his side up with cheese and pepperoni, and go lighter on my side, using some prosciutto, which he doesn’t care for.
Just treading water right now til this darned bone weary fatigue passes. But hey, considering the alternative…….
BTW, did you get vaxxed? We are SO grateful we did.
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My partner's brother and whole family got COVID from their unvaxxed two year old grandson. (Rest of the family was vaxxed.) SIL said it was like a bad cold and she'd hate to have experienced it unvaxxed. Brother also had vertigo.6
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You are inspiring! I did Noom and lost 30lbs, have gained 10lb back after a few months of not doing Noom and not logging foods. I was starting to gain while I was on that program and got burned out of logging everything. I’ve done many diets and am discouraged with gaining weight back. I really want this time to be different and would welcome any advice at how to maintain weight loss as well as not eat in the middle of the night. I believe connected with positive like minded people will be beneficial. Have a great weekend everyone2
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I hope you all are feeling much better!
LORD JESUS guide 💟0 -
@springlering62 - I hope you and your husband feel better soon, sending major hugs and chicken noodle soup thoughts your direction. Also, thank you for this thread. I've been around for a while, but managed to fall of the wagon pretty hard thanks to the pandemic and trying to finish a masters degree (over in December). Reading this thread 1. is entertaining, and 2. has reminded me how to get back in the saddle. Following the thread for sure, for motivation (and to keep tabs on when y'all are feeling better).8
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talltrees500 wrote: »You are inspiring! I did Noom and lost 30lbs, have gained 10lb back after a few months of not doing Noom and not logging foods. I was starting to gain while I was on that program and got burned out of logging everything. I’ve done many diets and am discouraged with gaining weight back. I really want this time to be different and would welcome any advice at how to maintain weight loss as well as not eat in the middle of the night. I believe connected with positive like minded people will be beneficial. Have a great weekend everyone
@talltrees500 , you mentioned discipline in another thread. Discipline doesn’t have to be unpleasant, or a chore. There’s a degree of discipline necessary simply to maintain habits, like making the bed, brushing your teeth, keeping the counter clean. If you can turn the discipline into a habit, it just becomes second nature. No time to even think of it as being a hassle.
For me, the best way to obtain and maintain weight loss was just to make logging such a habit that I do it without even thinking about it. I accept that I’ll be logging for the rest of my life, so making logging as easy as possible for myself was key to making it an automatic habit.
I sat a lot of the same foods, at the same weights. I take advantage of saved foods and also the suggested foods.
For example, I eat a giant salad several times a week. All I have to do is enter the word “mixed” and mixed greens automatically pops up, along with suggestions for carrots, radishes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, dressing, steak, chicken breast, olives, feta, halloumi- all my usuals. All I have to do is click click click through the list and lunch is sorted in seconds.
I’ve learned to enter recipes as “meals”. It takes a little time to enter a new recipe, but once saved, i can easily adjust serving size, add apple and cinnamon to my basic muffin “meal”, copy a meal I’d like to tweak without ruining the original, and so on. It also allows me to rename meals. I do this often for a large complicated recipe that I might freeze leftovers. Makes it easier to recall “lasagna 9-25-21” in case I have a question when I pull it out of the freezer a month later. And when I remake the recipe in a few months, I can easily tweak quantities.
The “meal” function allows all this. The recipe function doesn’t. I don’t even use “recipes” any more.
When I freeze meals. I use the Sharpie I keep in the spoon drawer and write “lasagna 9-25-21 package=1/3 recipe @ 1300 calories” on the ziplock bag. That way I simply add .17 of the recipe to my diary. (That’s half for me, half for hubs.)
Creating habits also helped with the urge to eat later. I always have a cup of fragrant chai latte between 8-9pm, and eat my dessert at 9. That’s it for the day and I’ve just trained my brain to accept that. It effective 95% of the time. That other 5% I figure I really must be hungry and need it, so my body gets it.
For some reason, a fragrant, spicy hot drink satisfies my appetite for hours. I make a simple iced coffee that does same (def not a pre-bedtime drink!)
Rereading this, talking about “my brain”, “my body” sounds wierdly third person, but it really is like a seargent who has to have all the company working efficiently to function as a whole.23 -
Thankyou for this thoughtful and helpful response. I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I will need to log foods the rest of my life. Food is a vice and quite frankly an addiction for me, and like any addiction I can’t “Just eat like everyone else” (people who do not struggle with emotional eating). I think greater acceptance of myself and what I will need to do to form healthy habits will continue to be needed. I’m coming to terms with stress related to final stages of my divorce (just waiting for judge to sign, yeah😀), as well as need for improved self care. I teach Mindfulness to my clients, however, practice it much less than I’d like. I appreciate your post; I found it very helpful and inspiring. Feel free to add me as a friend😊8
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BL and I went for a (safely distanced) walk through the (empty) Union cemetery yesterday after dinner.
I mentioned that his legs and bottom are looking thinner and he perked up and started strutting. But then he turned to me with a worried expression. “My face is getting thinner. I’ve lost my double chin.” (Truth! By golly, it was gone!!!!) “But when does my belly start getting smaller? Is there an exercise I can do to shrink it?”
Oh, boy, I thought. Here we go……..textbook MFP.
You can’t target weight loss. The body is going to do what the body is going to do, so you better be happy with what you get. Genetics can play a large part. Everyone experiences weight loss in different locations, usually the last place they wanted. Belly is usually the last- and slowest- and hardest- to go.
He looked at me thoughtfully (and disbelievingly) and said,”Oh well. I’ll be happy with the double chin for now”.
Note to self: Explain NSV in next lesson.
BTW dinner was grilled chicken, homemade Mac and cheese (yay, freezers!) and zucchini noodles. We couldn’t figure out why it was sooooo good and then we realized, we’ve been on quick’ish Covid rations for a while. Thank God for real food! Hoping our tests come back negative today because I swear this man will have a mental breakdown if he misses his Sunday apple fritter again. He’s been conniving all week how to get the bakery to leave a box outside for him. Fritter Withdrawal. Its not pretty.19 -
springlering62 wrote: »@talltrees500 , you mentioned discipline in another thread. Discipline doesn’t have to be unpleasant, or a chore. There’s a degree of discipline necessary simply to maintain habits, like making the bed, brushing your teeth, keeping the counter clean. If you can turn the discipline into a habit, it just becomes second nature. No time to even think of it as being a hassle.
This is golden. And so SO true. You really only need enough "discipline" to repeat the behaviour until it becomes a habit.
I didn't start working out until I was 48, prior to that my only deliberate exercise was walking. I quickly figured out that if I tried to schedule workout time in the evenings, more often than not I could come up with really great excuses why I just couldn't do it that night. But I also wanted nice strong bones so I knew I needed to work out. I switched to early morning workouts. There are no convenient excuses when I've just rolled out of bed for the day.
The first time I went on vacation after starting my new routine, I felt something was off. I MISSED my morning workouts. They got my blood moving and all the kinks worked out and I was kind of lost without them. They were now a habit.9 -
BL explained to me at length this morning why he’ll only need two pair of smaller pants til he “loses all his weight. “
Not a bad plan, says the lady who blew through four wardrobes.
Ugh, says the lady who’ll have to keep those two pair washed regularly.
Seriously, when losing large amounts of weight, the first few sizes take forever to drop. But then they start coming off boom! Boom! Boom!
Invest as little as possible in those interim sizes. They are going to be baggy and ill fitting much faster than your larger sizes were.
So many people reach their first goal and reset goal. I reset my own several times.
When I reached my original goal, I went a little crazy. There was no way I could even visualize myself getting any smaller.
But as I continued my weighing, logging, and exercise, the weight continued to fall off. To my joy/horror, I was out of those clothes within two or three months. I made the mistake of getting new clothes again, a little more cautiously, but I still couldn’t visualize myself any smaller. I eventually went from a 22/24W to a 2/4. I went from XL to S so fast, it was literally only a few months. I’ve salvaged some of those interim clothes to use as loose jammies.
The smaller you get, the faster those sizes are going to peel off.
Many MFP’ers report that once they do reach final goal, even though no further weight comes off, clothes continue to get looser as their body rearranges the furniture.
This is particularly true if you’re doing recomp.
BL ultimately decided to order four pair of pants. He guessed at his size, going down 4 inches in waist. I can already tell the new ones will be too big. That can be a happy discovery for him, although it’ll mean baggy drawers for another few weeks as he goes through the exchange process. 🤦🏻♀️
BTW, also noticed this morning that his shirts are hanging better, too. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 That’s a win!!!
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God yes clothes. Every season all new things. It is so bad and so many are still hanging around because work to donate. Even thrift stuff got expensive.2
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Thanks, Springlering62. Your post to tall trees was so inspiring….it was just what I needed to hear, too, as I am working to lose the last 20#.1
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springlering62 wrote: »BL explained to me at length this morning why he’ll only need two pair of smaller pants til he “loses all his weight. “
Not a bad plan, says the lady who blew through four wardrobes.
Ugh, says the lady who’ll have to keep those two pair washed regularly.
Seriously, when losing large amounts of weight, the first few sizes take forever to drop. But then they start coming off boom! Boom! Boom!
Invest as little as possible in those interim sizes. They are going to be baggy and ill fitting much faster than your larger sizes were.
So many people reach their first goal and reset goal. I reset my own several times.
When I reached my original goal, I went a little crazy. There was no way I could even visualize myself getting any smaller.
But as I continued my weighing, logging, and exercise, the weight continued to fall off. To my joy/horror, I was out of those clothes within two or three months. I made the mistake of getting new clothes again, a little more cautiously, but I still couldn’t visualize myself any smaller. I eventually went from a 22/24W to a 2/4. I went from XL to S so fast, it was literally only a few months. I’ve salvaged some of those interim clothes to use as loose jammies.
The smaller you get, the faster those sizes are going to peel off.
Many MFP’ers report that once they do reach final goal, even though no further weight comes off, clothes continue to get looser as their body rearranges the furniture.
This is particularly true if you’re doing recomp.
BL ultimately decided to order four pair of pants. He guessed at his size, going down 4 inches in waist. I can already tell the new ones will be too big. That can be a happy discovery for him, although it’ll mean baggy drawers for another few weeks as he goes through the exchange process. 🤦🏻♀️
BTW, also noticed this morning that his shirts are hanging better, too. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 That’s a win!!!
I kept a lot of too small clothes in the attic and as part of prepping to move have been going through them. I got rid of ones that had elastic ruined by the heat of the attic, ones that were just clearly too young (I'm 54), and crop tops. No matter how much weight I lose, I have no expectations that my very large fibroids will shrink enough to make crop tops a good choice.
I'd had them kind of sorted in "one size too small," "two sizes too small," and "this is a long shot but I can't bear to get rid of it." I've lost 30 pounds this year and blew by some of the "one size too small" already. But a lot of pants that used to fit me when I was last at this weight no longer do due to these fibroids. I'm still spending a lot of time in stretchy pants that I also wore at 20 pounds heavier.
I've also kept office clothes, which may be pointless, as at this point I would prefer to work remotely, as I did for 9 years before the pandemic, or work at a job that does not require nice clothes. I also fantasize about, if I do end up with another office job, dressing in monochrome like Rachel Maddow and just not worrying about wardrobe all that much. I do have a lot of scarves I could use for some variety.
While writing this it occurred to me to try on my gardening jeans, which I have probably not worn since April. They are nice and baggy, except for the waist. Thanks, fibroids. I may need to look into some maternity pants. My fibroids should shrink when my estrogen levels plummet after menopause, but I'm not there yet, despite my mother, aunt, and sister having gone through it when younger than I am.4 -
This is rather a random thought and I suspect this won't be the same for everyone, but although I gained back all the weight I lost the first time (which I've now mostly lost again), I actually still fitted (or squeezed) into the clothes I had bought at my goal weight. I think this was because I was still exercising and the weight came back in different places from where it had originally gone from. So for me at least the relationship between clothes size and weight is not straightforward.6
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speaking about clothes...I still haven't lost the 17lbs I gained over the last year so I'm going to buy 2 new pants & will save the smaller sizes I have in hopes of them fitting again but I'm not going to stress over it. This may be the size I'll stay though I've been working on it for a while now1
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There’s a lot to be said for timing.
I totally miscalculated how long it would take the chicken soup to cook in the pressure cooker last night. I forgot there’d be a (unexpectedly long) preheat and that I’d need a few minutes at the end to add and cook the barley.
As a result the soup wasn’t done til after 8, while the loaf of bread I baked was done and cooled by our usual 7pm dinner time.
You can guess what happened there.
Ironically, BL was able to stay within his calorie goal.
Me, who gets waaay more calories than him, not only went buck wild with the bread, but then said “aw, F It”, and pulled the giant bakery cookies out of the freezer.
While I constantly shower him with advice, BL has more sense than to say anything to me, bless his heart.
I keep waiting for his iron control to break, but it just….doesn’t. I think maybe I should ask him to create a post how he does it?!12 -
And so the student becomes the master8
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