hands up in the air

Hi Clewless,
Couple things. You have to drink water! Have too! My trick is that I have a 72 oz jug that I fill every morning and I make sure I drink it all during the day at work. I have more before and after work. If you don't like water, squeeze some lemon juice, lime juice in it. But you must drink it. My guess is you're not drinking enough and that can make you hold on to the weight.

Secondly, you have to plan your diet. I have the same thing every morning for breakfast. 2 eggs, oatmeal w/brown sugar and cinnamon that I make from scratch to control the amount of sugar, made with water, and a good amount of fruit...usually berries as they tend to have more fiber. The only thing I swap out is whole wheat toast for the oatmeal.

I have maybe 4 or 5 lunch options and I make sure those are in the house ready to go. Dinner is my only open option, but my husband makes that, and he will make sure that he has the nutritional info so I can figure out how much I can have.

The reason I limit my choices is that a) it's easy to log b) it's easy to plan c) I don't get tempted by things I shouldn't have.

Don't give up! It may take a while for your body to catch up if your eating (and drinking) the right things and exercising right, but it will catch up. You can do this! You really can!!!

Clewliss ~ It's important to remember especially if you are excersising that Muscle weighs more than fat so you could actually be loosing inches but gaining weight. The scale is not the end all be all of everything. I am a seamstress and I count more on Measurements than Weight.

Also Drinking Lots of water is not always the correct thing to do. Yes you need to Drink to insure your hydrated but I've seen quite a few studies out there that you don't need to do the 8 x 8 (eight 8oz glasses of water). This includes flavored waters (and some say coffee) and such but you just need to consider the calorie/sugar content in what you are drinking and make sure you include that in your diet.Water is the "Free" drink, you can have as much of it as you want but like you and like many many others I know we don't like straight water. In the articles they point out that when the Nutrition Board of the National Research Council recommended approximately "1 milliliter of water for each calorie of food," which would amount to roughly two to two-and-a-half quarts per day (64 to 80 ounces) Although in its next sentence, the Board stated "most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods," that last sentence may have been missed so people took the first part of it to be law for a healthy life.

It's important to take one day at a time. I know the feeling of being overwhelmed that is why when I first started I took 1 day off a week where I didn't watch my intake alot and I ate several things that I really wanted that weren't in the diet plan. This gave me a break and I didn't get too overwhelming. I ws up over 200 lbs and I dropped about 25lbs before joining this site with my friends. Also keep talking to people here or your friends in real life (if they are encouraging even is prgress is slow sometimes).

It can take a lot of positive re-inforcement but I know you can do it.

I was with Weightwatchers online. I used the e tools. There you count points, not calories. But the basics are the same for both this site and WW. You have to eat your exercise points and log in what you are eating. The only thing I find different from logging in what you have eaten here vs the WW
E tools is that you see how much sodium you are taking in on this site. I was really shocked! I stay under my recommended sodium intake, but just didn't realize how many things I was eating had alot more sodium than I thought. So that helps me make better choices in choosing more fresh fruits and vegetables vs processed foods.

I've only been at this site for a week, but I am being more accountable than I was after I got off WW, so I'm hoping I'll have my 1 lb a week loss when I weigh in this week.

I keep telling myself, I didn't put this weight on overnight, it's not going to come off overnight. But I've been plugging away at it for a year now (it's harder after you are in your 50's to drop weight), but I'm gonna reach goal. I just know. You can too. Just stick with it. If you fall off one day, get back on it the next.

You have to log what you eat. You need to see what you're eating and how your habits are. Log in advance, if you make your meals at home, you can log for the next day (including snacks). I did that in the beginning.

Also, you have to drink water. If you dont' drink enuf, you'll retain water. Plain and simple.

Measure yourself, as they talked about fat weighing more than muscle, that means really "volume" so a pound of fat takes up more VOLUME than a pound of muscle, which is why you'd see inches going down but no movement on the scale.

Are you eating healthy stuff? Are you putting the right nutrition into your body to fuel it? That's number one. If you're eating 1400 cals of junk, your body can't function. Start with fresh fruits and veggies and lean meat. You may need to measure to learn portion control, and may need a kitchen scale to measure volume. You'll learn after a while without needing to measure.

If you are "so busy" that you can't cook - Smart Ones (weight watchers) meals are good, eat one for dinner and one for lunch. Get bagged salads with all the fixins already in there, eat 1/2 bag for lunch and half for dinner. Eat 1 or 2 packets of low sugar oatmeal for breakfast. Snacks and everything else can be fresh veggies or fruit. Very little actual work involved - but it will keep you under cals and feed your body what it needs.

I personally use the 1/2 bag of salad and the Smart Ones meals for lunches on days I dont' work out and have no extra calories that day... that keeps me under cals and keeps me full. Sometimes I do it for lunch and dinner on those days.