starsandowls Member

Me: 17 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 20 I have a high stress job in a field where people are prone to "compassion fatigue." If you don't know what this is, it's when people in certain jobs have given all the compassion that they have got, with the result that they become cynical and burned out. It happens a lot with people in…

Me: 13 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 16 Didn't binge, but came close. Victory, I think.

Me: 12 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 15 Things seem to be going pretty smoothly, but I worry that something stressful will happen and I'll end up binging.

Me: 9 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 12 Been reading the book "End Emotional Eating." It seems to be helping me.

Me: 5 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 8

Just joined the group - if there's an intro thread I should post on, please PM me. I didn't see one, but I want to be respectful of the group. Me: 4 Binge: 0 Days binge free: 7

Last month, my family had to go to England because my husband's mother died unexpectedly. The entire time we were over there, I think I mostly ate oatmeal, coffee, slabs of Dairy Milk, endless little sachets of McCoy's cheddar and onion crisps, chicken nuggets, the occasional ready meal, and every meal out involved…

Generally, people don't lose a ton of weight once they start taking thyroid medication. That would require a huge over correction. Thyroid hormone replacement fixes your metabolism so it fires at a more normal level, but it's still up to you to lose the weight. At the moment, my levels are technically hyper, and it's…

Wow, thanks - that's an awesomely detailed answer, and I feel like I have a Plan for if the Fitbit alone does not get me off this plateau. I was super stressed for a couple of months (sick child, eventually hospitalized, now perfectly fine, thank God), and I went from losing five pounds a month to losing two pounds in two…

When I got pregnant, I ended up with several herniated discs. I had other issues before - scoliosis and a spinal fusion - and my spine just couldn't support the extra 60 pounds of baby weight. I thought that it would all magically go away when my daughter was born, but it didn't. I was in pain most of the time, and the…

If you do yoga correctly, it will build strength very effectively. The problem is that it might be very hard to learn to do it correctly unless you're already starting from some body positioning knowledge. For example, part of doing yoga right is making sure that you're squaring your hips and shoulders when you need to. A…

Going from zero activity to sixty minutes in your first session is a recipe for injury. I would suggest starting off a little more gently, possibly just walking to start off, and when that starts to feel like it's nothing, then begin to work in all this cross training you're suggesting. Your calorie goal isn't an upper…

I think you're putting a lot of psychological weight on food, and that might be something to think about. Food isn't really addictive the way nicotine and heroin are, and I think expecting any one thing to make you "feel fulfilled and happy" is setting yourself up for failure. There's no one way to eat healthy. It may take…

Alcohol based anti-bacterial spray, as some have mentioned, but if you get the stuff that has a nice herbal scent, it makes it even better. There's one made by EO in lavender (they also have peppermint) that has fixed my stinky shoes before. You really have to spray it in there very thick, but it works. I sprayed a pair of…

I noticed that you eat a lot of carbohydrates and not a lot of protein. A calorie is a calorie, buuuut you've said you estimate, and the problem there is that you're more likely to underestimate when your body isn't getting the nutrients it needs. You're also more likely to binge if you aren't getting what you need. You…

I don't think it's most people's "destiny" to be overweight and unhealthy for life. You look pretty young; you've got time and motivation to change. If you want to think it terms of destiny, believe it's your destiny to get healthy now and enjoy the next 40+ years! (Personally, I think that some people use "destiny" and…

I find that some days are just better than others for what I'll call with a wink "sports performance." Not getting enough sleep, being close to needing a meal, being at different parts of my cycle, being stressed about something totally unrelated, having had a big or acidic meal beforehand, all of these things and more…

Homemade tortilla soup with 1/4 oz. shredded Mexican cheese mix and 6 oz. strawberries... comes in at 334. The soup recipe is on Epicurious. I don't do the fried tortilla part; I just use 1/2 oz tortilla chips instead. I do homemade soup and fruit most days. Other days, I do some sort of fancy salad. I get really…

I think you need to pick one or the other. Either you follow Weight Watchers rules or you don't. If you pick and choose, you'll sabotage yourself. Weight Watchers, and other diet plans where things are "free" or you only count some things, are set up around assuming you eat a certain number of calories worth of the "free"…

Jealousy is an ugly thing. I was at a professional luncheon meeting a little while back. One of the women at another table had been working for months to get back in fighting form. She's a runner, and her legs are pretty phenomenal. She's tall, her waist must be in the low 20s, and she has long, muscular legs. She looks…

I found that when I underestimated my exercise calories or didn't eat the full amount, I would wake up at midnight or 1 am and not be able to sleep until I'd had something to eat, usually a 120 calorie cereal bar. If I ate the extra 100 or so calories during the day, no problems. I'm not as aggressive with my calorie goals…

I've heard it's more an extra skin issue than a fat/muscle issue, and for some women, losing the body fat and increasing muscle will do the trick, but for others, only plastic surgery will fix the "mother's apron." (I really hate that term. Ugh!) The skin elasticity also comes into play because the skin isn't holding the…

I've tried a variety of "cheat" options. Giving myself a whole day off is bad news for me - it led to binging and giving up on trying to change. Personally, I manually set my net cals to 1300, and what I actually aim for is 6 days in the 1200-1400 range and one day in the 1200-1800 range, each week. That's basically a…

I'm down a little over 15 pounds from the beginning of the year, when I had to hold my breath to get my jeans zipped up. Now they keep slipping down, and I have to wear big T shirts or I'm... not decent when I sit down.

Good advice from previous posters. I have a seriously messed up lower back myself, scoliosis and herniated discs. My hip muscles were very weak, possibly from the compensating for an unstable spine that my body did by itself. The most effective treatment I've ever had for this, including using Nautilus machines and seeing…

It really depends on how you cook it. Raw, boneless skinless chicken breast is 31 calories per ounce, and a lot of the chicken breasts in the US are 8-10 ounces each, which is about 250-300 calories. If you just in put "chicken breast" in MFP, you're going to get TONS of people's additions to the database, which are going…

I always log. For me, it keeps me honest. Otherwise, my scum bag brain has tendency to forget, when someone offers me dessert at lunch, that breakfast consisted of a waffle the size of my head, covered in syrup, with half a pound of sausage and a fruit salad. It's also like one of the previous posters said - it's always…

That's a question for your doctor, not untrained strangers on the internet. :-)

Maybe you aren't ready to commit. It's okay if you aren't. If you try and fail, your nutrition might be a little better, but your mental state will be worse, because you'll feel bad that you didn't keep up the good eating, and you might be more likely to say, "Forget it, I can never lose weight, I'll always be the way I…