peacemongernc Member

I often say that it feels as if gravity has so much less power over my life! I just feel more buoyant. I lost 130 pounds.

I just had a consultation with a surgeon yesterday. I have a couple more scheduled with other surgeons in July. I lost 130 pounds between December 2011 and December 2013 and have had a whole lot of lose skin around my abdomen and on my thighs... thighs are by far the worst. I'm leaning more and more toward going ahead with…

I'm not the person who you are addressing, but I am on the same page as her about being happy fat and smaller. For me, I started losing weight as a by product of wanting to be healthier. I didn't really have a weight loss goal... I picked my goal for MFP based on my vanity and some vague ideas about what I might look like…

My iron is typically about 50%, too. My potassium was really low! Then I realized how many foods didn't include the potassium on MFP and started adding it up myself. I started figuring out the actual amount of potassium that each food ought to have, then added a potassium tablet entry to my food log to reflect the…

I went cold turkey on sweet tea about 9 years ago. I switched to unsweetened, so I didn't have to give up the caffeine, but my addiction to sweet tea was serious. I struggled with cravings for NINE months straight, and then they got better. Once I got past it, I was really, really over it and now I don't want it at all. At…

I'm so glad I read this! I also always loved cold weather, but for the last few years I FREEZE most of the time! It is encouraging to know that it may not be my weight, but my diet, and that I might get warmer one day. :) Although, I was cold over the holidays and I packed on about 10 pounds, so maybe this is my new…

Ah, vanity! Yes! I don't mind telling people how much I've lost, but I usually pause and get brave a second before I mention what I weigh. That is much easier now that I'm under 180 than when I was over 200! I've lost about 124 pounds, as of today. But the really silly thing is how I came up with my goal weight. When MFP…

I had a discussion about this with my doctor yesterday. I told her I was going to eat maybe 100 cal above maintenance for the few days when I'm prowling the house for food instead of fighting it so hard, and try to eat as nutrient dense as I possibly can... eating more nuts and berries and things that make me feel better…

weight

This isn't going to sound so great, but one of my most favorite lunches is roasted sweet potatoes with black beans. On Sunday afternoon I dice several sweet potatoes and dice a vidalia onion and put them in a cast iron frying pan with a little bit of bacon grease, and stir them around, and put it into the oven for around…

I have PCOS, too, and I was very disappointed with the nutrition advice I got from everyone... expert or not. I got so fed up I decided to figure it all out on my own, as if I was reinventing the wheel. It is the only thing that ended up working for me. It has taken years, but I'm gradually figuring out what works and what…

3500 calories is a pound of FAT? I hadn't heard that... I just assumed a pound of weight, but that makes sense. So how many calories is a pound of muscle? If I'm losing about 75% of my weight as fat, but 25% as muscle (which seems to be how it is going), that might account for the difference I am finding between my…

I'm SO happy to see other calorie math doers out there! I feel like such a geek when I start doing those calculations. A couple of years ago when I was just using the desk top version of MFP, I spent more than an hour adding up, one day at a time, 6 months of my numbers to figure out my TDEE. The math has kept me sane when…

If you can find the brand Kalona (http://www.kalonasupernatural.com/our-products/cottage-cheese/organic-cottage-cheese/), and it can be a bit hard to find, you will become an ADDICT. I swear. I have never been able to handle cottage cheese, and even the Organic Valley, 4%, cream top, grass fed cottage cheese is a little…

I don't know if you have a realistic goal, BUT if you decrease the carbs to 40% or less, and you increase your fat to a minimum of 40%, AND you cut out 100% of your "added sugar" (added sugar, not sugar naturally occurring in fruits and vegetables and milk), you'll drop water weight more quickly. Well, what I mean is that…

I weigh at the same time every day, wearing the same thing. I can eat below maintenance, everyday for a month, eating mostly whole foods and exercising at least 3 days a week, BUT my weight fluctuate within an 8 pound range. On any given day, my weight will fall anywhere within that wide, wide window. Once it even jumped 8…

I didn't know that "whoosh" was actually a term for it... I call it that. When I first started losing weight I had a whoosh of about 8 pounds every month. No loss for three or 4 weeks, followed by 8 pounds in just a few days. As I've gotten smaller, it has translated into much smaller whooshes and, strangely enough, bigger…

My weight is like that. It is typical for me to fluctuate 3 to 8 pounds every few days. I'm 5' 6", around 185, and 47 years old. My weight has been fluctuating like this ever since I started tracking it when I weighed 305 pounds 4 years ago. It is really hard to figure out when I'm losing and when I'm gaining or if I'm…

I did a good bit of research on this when I was nursing my kids. This is the party line, but it turns out that it is a little more complicated than this. There is a difference in the milk of a woman eating a nutrient poor diet and the milk of a mother eating a nutrient rich diet, especially with regard to the water soluble…

I agree. I've had a trainer tell me the same thing and I tried it for about 6 months. I just felt like crap, quit losing weight, and didn't like my food anymore. So I dropped my protein down to about 20% to 25% of my calories and upped my fat to about 40% and I feel SO much better! But I believe that this is an individual…

When I cut those things from my diet, I always drop weight quickly. If it coincides with the ending of my period, it isn't unusual for me to drop 7 to 10 pounds in 6 or 7 days. I figure it is all inflamation weight, or something like that.

I retain about 2 pounds of water when I'm working out enough. I retain much more than that if I eat added sugars or a lot of grain-based foods... actually about 5 to 8 pounds!! It has been my personal experience that it takes me about 4 to 6 days to lose the accumulated water weight that comes from added sugars and grains…

I just got my vivofit2 yesterday and sent y'all (veeedot and deediddygee) connection requests. I'm not exactly sure what happens with connections, but I guess I'll see! So now do we challenge each other, or just know that someone is seeing it when we don't meet our goals, or what? My garmin connect username is peacemonger.

Before, at 304 (actually, I'm down to about 294 already in this picture). I was 44, and had been over 200 since I was 19 years old, and hovering around 300 since I was 24 years old. This first picture was taken in January or February of 2012: https://facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151091365938314&l=f211d9765f Afters:…

I kind of do both, but that's because I'm not a rule follower. I aim, most days, for about 140 calories under maintenance, because technically I need to lose more. I lost 125ish a couple of years ago, and sort of stalled. But I'm happy where I am, so that's okay. So anyway, I aim for about 140 under maintenance, and…

Yes! I've never heard anyone else say this, but it is true!

I did it!!!! I'm so stinking proud of myself I could almost cry. 3 years ago I was down about 15 pounds from a starting weight of 304. Today I range between 177 and 187. And today I ran about 1.5 miles in 20 minutes. I swear, I don't even recognize my life anymore! Thank you all for your encouragement and wisdom!

Thank you for your input! I'll just keep plugging away. Shannon

I did W2D1 yesterday and I'm really proud of myself for being able to do it! It was HARD for me. But not nearly as hard as was warranted by the fear I had built up over it. That second 3 min stretch was a stretch. I've been running on a treadmill and had hoped to be able to do this run outside because I thought it would be…