Steps
12/1 5,111
12/2 7,719

Wk 1 - Sun, Dec 3
PW: 174.0
CW: 173.6
Gain/Loss: -0.4

SW: 178.8 (started May 2023)
LTD: loss 5.2

Hello Shape Shifters!

I’m Patrice, a 57 year old woman from Alexandria, VA. I work at the intersection of education and other systems — e.g., health, mental health, employment, and independent living — mainly for children with developmental delays or disabilities but not exclusively.

My husband and I have been married for 33 years, and we both grew up in Boston, so we’ve maintained a strong connection with our friends and family members there. We lived in Japan and Germany before we had children, which allowed us to travel within Asia and Europe a bit. We still enjoy traveling wherever we have the opportunity.

We also stayed in Japan for about a year when our two sons were very young. They are now ages 22 and 23 years old, so they live near their universities most of the year and return home during some of their school breaks. I’m gradually adjusting to the ‘empty nest.’ Part of that transition incudes downsizing a lot of the stuff that accumulated while raising children. I’m slowly decluttering and making space for this new phase of life and future experiences.

Improving my health/fitness level is a major focus of this transition work, as I reestablish my ‘identity.’ I’ve always been active, but it was more difficult to find time for exercise and plan health meals that everyone would enjoy while trying to balance school, sports, and community activities while also fulfilling work, business travel, and other daily commitments. So, this has been a period of adjustment and still requires dedicated practice.

I joined MFP at about 168 pounds when the pandemic hit our area and I decided to concentrate on improving my health to increase my likelihood of surviving if I caught the virus. My work was still very busy because we had to shift in-person health services to Telehealth and teaching moved online, which required lots of changes, but I was also able to step back from many volunteer responsibilities. I actually enjoyed the slower pace of family life, cooking and hiking with our sons, etc. but I recognize that this period was very difficult in many other ways.

I met my weight goal of 125-130 after about 18 months, and shortly after joining this group. I joined the F2F challenge around May 2021, and reached 125 in August or September of that year. I was able to maintain my goal for about a year but got off track when I had to shift my primary focus from nutrition to support some family members. I’ve gradually gained back about 10-15 pounds over a period of a year or 18 months.

Last week, I had a ‘wake-up’ call because I’m approaching an overweight BMI. So, I’ve made some positive changes over the past couple days. I’m looking forward to keeping the momentum going forward. My rowing group can’t take a boat on the river in the cold weather but our winter conditioning workouts start on Tuesday after a month-long break. The new schedule is the motivation I need to establish a new routine!

Best wishes to our team and welcome to all the new Shape Shifter members! Onward!!

Zaxa2021 wrote: »

jessicakrall8 wrote: »

Zaxa2021 wrote: »

My name is Julie, I'm 35 years old, married, SAHM to two year old twins, living in Arizona.

For my diet, I've recently been playing with OMAD, but I'm not sure if that is working well for me. I think I'm going to give it another week before reassessing and deciding if I should continue with it.

My goal is to solidly get to 133 this month (I saw it briefly a couple of months ago, but it didn't last long).

Heya Julie...what is OMAD? Just curious...running after 2-yr-old twins is all the exercise plan you need, some days, right?! LOL Bet they keep you hopping!

Love your goals for the month! WTG!
Jessica

OMAD is one meal a day, a variation of intermittent fasting. The idea is you eat all of your calories in one meal, and don't eat the rest of the day. I'm having hard getting enough calories at the one time and then I derail later so it's not working too well for me. I'm playing around with my meal, trying to see if different macro allotments work better.

I struggle because I'm in the kitchen all day (or so it feels), preparing food and feeding the kids and doing dishes. It's hard for me to just forget about food, so I'm hoping just eating once will shift the focus off of eating outside of my eating time. But I might have to come up with a new strategy because this hasn't been working to well so far.

Thanks for the explanation...I understand what you mean about wanting to forget about food. Feels like I'm always planning for the next meal. I'm doing intermittent fasting with 2 meals a day during an 8 hr window and then fasting for 16. I can't say I do it all the time...I'm sometimes hungry in the morning at work and I'll have oatmeal. I have a horrible affinity for the mcmuffins at McDs though...UGH! Try to only do that once a week, but can't say I have a solid handle on it...

Jessica

Sunday weigh-in
143.2
PW 140.2

Steps 11/27 (sorry, I don't know how far to go back! 1,597
11/28 769
11/29 649
11/30 11,548
12/1 12,285
12/2 27,681

Okay, I'm generally not technology-challenged, but can someone tell me the most direct way to find these threads? I rarely spend a lot of time on this app, but I find it time consuming and kind of stressful even with the thread bookmarked. I have to click so many places just to get to my bookmarks! I'd be more reliable about posting if it weren't for that! I'm still aiming for 10k steps a day.

Date: 11/01
Username: Murdog3t
logged food: ✅
under calories: ✅
20g net carbs : ✅
30 min exercise 🏋️: ✅
30 min walking 🚶‍♂️:✅
10 min Meditation 🧘✅
Steps: 9317
Water: 88

Today’s Goal: 🪵 🍲, 18 hr fast, Read cohort 📚 study, turn off my devices 1 hr before bed 🛌.

Username: Murdog3t
Weigh in day: Friday
Goal weight:140
SW: 161.8
11/3: 159.2
11/10 156.6
11/17. 156.6
11/23 156.6
12/01 158