New Year, New Me!

Hi, my name is Stephanie. I would love to join the group. My current weight is 186, I'm hoping that's due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I was at 180 prior to the four day weekend. *yikes, six pounds* My goal for the end of the six weeks would be a ten pound weight loss. I don't know if I should go off of 186 or 180, but since the scale says 186 I will go with that. So at the end of this challenge I would like to be 176.

I am the mother of three, two boys and a girl. I have two mastiffs. My husband is in the navy and we currently live in Hawaii. I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. I am just ready to be healthy and enjoy this journey that I am on, even if it does cause a few tears.

Hi Mimi,

Glad to see you in this challenge again. I'm sorry that you're going through hard times...stay strong! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help!

Hi Mimi,

Glad to see you in this challenge again. I'm sorry that you're going through hard times...stay strong! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help!

Thanks Maria! I really appreciate your support. :flowerforyou: Doing this challenge with you and the others is actually the thing that's helping me the most right now, and seeing everyone's progress inspires me and helps me to hang on. I've still been struggling with the eating all week, and only managed to exercise 1 day this week because work has been so busy, but I'm going to try to get back on track with both eating and exercise tomorrow.

My biggest thing is I eat a little more on the days I work out, and usually I workout at night. Lately I've been pushing myself at the gym and come home super hungry and eat (usually a few bowls of cereal). My buddy who just hit his 100 pounds lost mark suggested a protein shake at night after I workout. Not a ton of calories, and it seemed to fill me up tonight. Here's hoping I get out of my eating funk!

During the workout hard working muscles use glucose (usable energy) and glycogen (stored energy) for energy. As such, there is a point at which blood glucose levels (available energy) and glycogen levels (stored energy) get so low that intense exercise can't continue. There just isn't enough available energy for your muscles to use.

So what happens is that the hormone cortisol is secreted, this is your body's "stress" hormone and it has very catabolic effects. What cortisol does is eat up muscle tissue for protein and convert it into glucose. A process called gluconeogenesis ensues, producing glucose from these amino acids in the liver. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue.


The post-workout shake prevents this. It also allows insulin to be released, this is, as most of you know, one of several anabolic hormones in the body (if you are a natural trainer especially, you want to maximize the release of all your body's anabolic hormones through all available methods).

So, whey protein is your best protein source at this time because it is absorbed quickly, what is the best carbohydrate source? Well, we want a high glycemic carbohydrate source. This term refers to carbs that are high on the glycemic index (70 and above rates as high).

The Glycemic Index is a measure of how quickly a food raises blood sugar and hence insulin levels. Normally, it is best to eat lower glycemic foods so as not to initiate an insulin spike (55 and under rates as low). But post-workout, the exact opposite is true.

During the workout hard working muscles use glucose (usable energy) and glycogen (stored energy) for energy. As such, there is a point at which blood glucose levels (available energy) and glycogen levels (stored energy) get so low that intense exercise can't continue. There just isn't enough available energy for your muscles to use.

So what happens is that the hormone cortisol is secreted, this is your body's "stress" hormone and it has very catabolic effects. What cortisol does is eat up muscle tissue for protein and convert it into glucose. A process called gluconeogenesis ensues, producing glucose from these amino acids in the liver. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue.


The post-workout shake prevents this. It also allows insulin to be released, this is, as most of you know, one of several anabolic hormones in the body (if you are a natural trainer especially, you want to maximize the release of all your body's anabolic hormones through all available methods).

So, whey protein is your best protein source at this time because it is absorbed quickly, what is the best carbohydrate source? Well, we want a high glycemic carbohydrate source. This term refers to carbs that are high on the glycemic index (70 and above rates as high).

The Glycemic Index is a measure of how quickly a food raises blood sugar and hence insulin levels. Normally, it is best to eat lower glycemic foods so as not to initiate an insulin spike (55 and under rates as low). But post-workout, the exact opposite is true.

My name is Mimi. I'm 46 and an engineering manager at a semiconductor company. I'm pretty good about exercising -- I do 45 min (~6.6 miles) on the Stairmaster every day, and if I have time I try to get in 2 full body weight training sessions each week as well as some calisthenics. But work gets in the way a lot of the time, and a lot of the time I end up having to cut back on the weight training and calisthenics. But my Stairmaster workout is sacred!

My big problem is stress related binge eating, and earlier this year I gained back ~20 of the 24 lbs that I had lost last year because of all the stress. I was doing really well on getting the binge eating under control after I joined the Thanksgiving Challenge (which Mandy also organized) because Mandy did a great job of keeping everyone motivated, and because it was really motivating to work on the challenge with such a great group of people. I started the challenge at 136.8 lbs, and my goal was to lose 7 lbs and be 129.8 lbs by the end of the 7 week challenge. I did much better than I had expected, and by the end of week 6 I had lost 8.8 lbs and was 128 lbs!

But the day after the week 6 weigh-in (which was ~2 weeks ago), my boyfriend and I decided to break up. We've been together for 9+ years (we've been living together for the past ~8 years). We've tried for a long time to work out various problems, so it wasn't a surprise, but making this final decision was emotionally devastating and my eating went completely out of control. Since then I've been struggling with stress related binge eating, and have had bad binges on many days during the past 2 weeks. The only good thing is that I managed to keep up with my exercise routine on most days.

Earlier last week I had started to get the binging under control, but a few days ago some stressful things came up and I ended up having bad binges every day for the past few days. As of this morning I was 136.8 lbs -- which was my exact weight at the beginning of the Thanksgiving Challenge! Though my weight is probably 4 - 5 lbs higher than actual due to water retention from the binges during the past few days, I suspect that I did regain ~4 lbs from all of the binging during the past ~2 weeks.

So my starting weight is 136.8 lbs, and my goal is to be at 129.8 lbs by the end of the challenge (this is the same goal weight that I had for the Thanksgiving Challenge). Right now I'm struggling with getting my eating stabilized, and I'm hoping that focusing on this challenge will help me do that.

Hi Mimi,

Glad to see you in this challenge again. I'm sorry that you're going through hard times...stay strong! Let us know if there is anything we can do to help!

Thanks Maria! I really appreciate your support. :flowerforyou: Doing this challenge with you and the others is actually the thing that's helping me the most right now, and seeing everyone's progress inspires me and helps me to hang on. I've still been struggling with the eating all week, and only managed to exercise 1 day this week because work has been so busy, but I'm going to try to get back on track with both eating and exercise tomorrow.

Mimi - we are here for you, hope you keep pushing along and doing what you can to stay strong. I've been struggling with my eating since the weekend before Thanksgiving, but have been busting my hump to try and break even. My biggest thing is I eat a little more on the days I work out, and usually I workout at night. Lately I've been pushing myself at the gym and come home super hungry and eat (usually a few bowls of cereal). My buddy who just hit his 100 pounds lost mark suggested a protein shake at night after I workout. Not a ton of calories, and it seemed to fill me up tonight. Here's hoping I get out of my eating funk!