The Great Loose Weight Thread

[LongTom]

Thanks, John and Asukaru.

Family walks are nice. Enjoy!

Whatever I did to my foot has finally subsided, so I can do the 3/4 mile leg between the train and work on foot again. That's a relief, because I still need all the exercise I can get. Also, the amount of time I spend commuting each day annoys me no end, unless I can turn it into "productive" time by exercising and by studying on the train.

[Rogue Mermaid]

My exercise also took a weird turn. While I jogged my mile, my boyfriend rode along side me on his Honda 50 mini-motorcycle.

The neighbors gave us some weird looks

[LongTom]

Weights today. (Finally; been putting it off all week.)

Done with Java! Woohoo! Now I have less excuses to shirk the weight workout in the evening. (Though there is that ship model that has been waiting since my last birthday...)

[William Brand]

Still losing the pounds. I'm going to need a belt soon.

[Asukaru]

I had to go do the same thing the other day - I may not be loosing the poundage I want to, but I must be loosing the inches.

Switched from doing the slimfast thing to Weight Watchers - I was missing solid food and I'd heard good things from fellow coworkers so we'll see how this goes.

Can't wait till the semester is out so my friend and I can start hitting the gym three days a week instead of just the two.

[Shipwreck John]

Still losing the pounds.  I'm going to need a belt soon.

I may have to send ya mine. Got it yesterday, but if I gain another pound, it won't fit

[blackjohn]

Since I'm sore, I'm going to count all the yard work I did yesterday as exercise. With that, I may not do real exercise again after my upcoming stress test. Yes, stress test. The other day while attending a dry-rum for an upcoming training class on how to chart piers, I had this incredibly intense pain in my chest. It felt like someone reached into my chest and grabbed my heart and didn't want to let go. As I sat there debating whether to tough it out, go back to my cube, go home, whatever, it got worse. Then I got really dizzy, so I put my head between my legs hoping it would go away. No such luck. At that point I said, "hey, I hate to break up the meeting, but could someone call 911, I think I may be having a heart attack."

Long story short, after two blood tests, a chest x-ray, a cat scan, and so on, there is no evidence of anything wrong with me. Other than mild age related brain atrophy, but then, we knew that already didn't we.

I have had a few weird similar pains the last few days, but nothing anywhere near the same level of pain. So... like I said, I'm going to take it easy for awhile, keep myself low-stressed, and maybe drop out of society and go tend sheep on a mountainside with my wife and kids.

[Hester]

Yeah, I did a couple hours' yard work yesterday...

... but then I blew it by eating ice cream and fast food all weekend.

However, tomorrow I intend to get my 40 minutes of walking in, and buy lots of fresh fruit, veggies and fish down at the shops.

In the meantime, I bought some looser jeans, which I hope I can shrink in the dryer when my willpower finally kicks in.

Cheers, Hester

[LongTom]

Whoa, John! You take good care of yourself.

I took the family to Disneyland this week, and gained 2 or 3 pounds back, but I was expecting as much. Back on the regimen, come Monday. Hopefully the rib sprain I got last week will not get in the way of the weight workout too much.

[blackjohn]

I kinda thought I had been, but I guess not.

I'm still feeling odd... but I seem to be able to do stuff without keeling over dead. I went on a school field trip with son #2 yesterday, and walked around with him on my shoulders for a good half an hour or more. Then went for a mile+ walk around the neighborhood yesterday evening. But I've been having dizzy spells and weird pains ever since. Oh well. Whatever. Stress test scheduled for May 16, hopefully that'll figure out what's up.

[Hester]

Put your feet up and take a break, Blackjohn. Keep well!

Cheers, Hester

[Asukaru]

Story time - I sew my own garb, and back in February I had sewn a couple of skirts together to wear at faire. Yesterday while running around site with my boyfriend and friends, I noticed that my skirts kept falling down and I proceeded to trip on them.

So, I guess I may not be loosing the poundage I want, but at least I'm loosing inches. Plus I also noticed that thanks to the elipticals my calves and outer thighs are pretty much rock hard now.

It made me happy. Proof that all the time in the gym is doing something. Now if only the dieting would work - though I'm suspecting the stress level at my job isn't holding that up a bit.

[Charity]

Lucky you :)

I'm too much alone feeling lonely and bored sometimes too i guess and I'm too much of an emotional eater but i so hate to walk through the city looking in the shop windows feeling miserable all the time.

I again want to try and loose weight but i fear it'll be a disaster once more, but..i keep trying..

[blackjohn]

Put your feet up and take a break, Blackjohn.  Keep well!

Cheers, Hester

Thanks. I don't suppose the 4 hours it took me to cut the grass with my push mower counts as taking a break does it?!?!?

Gotta post some pics of my adventures in shopping yesterday. I scored BIG TIME on a very expensive pair of 1680s shoes!!!

[LongTom]

Yesterday I bicycled 18 miles in the hills with a buddy. Got home from that and my littlest one wanted to go riding too, so we went out again for maybe a mile, on the flat.

Congrats to Asukaru on the inches lost. I wouldn't worry about the numbers on the scale for now. It sounds like you are in the phase where you are building muscle, which is denser than fat. Even if the scale doesn't budge another ounce, you are still improving your shape, in every sense of the word.

If you start feeling discouraged by what the scale says, and react by really bearing down on the calorie intake, you can put your metabolism into a starvation panic, at which point your body actually starts sacrificing muscle mass in order to make up the missing calories -- in preference to fat mass, which under those circumstances it considers emergency rations of absolute last resort. (Arrgh! Stupid bodies!) A good trap to avoid.

(hmmmm...rock hard calves and outer thighs, you say...can't help wondering if we are eventually going to get treated to "after" pictures....?)

[LongTom]

... but then I blew it by eating ice cream and fast food all weekend.

At least one diet program I've tried (Body for Life) actually recommends one "free day" off the diet each week. The theory is that that prevents your metabolism from getting the idea that the outside world is experiencing a famine.

It also helps keep you from feeling too deprived, since on that day basically anything goes. (Okay, within reason. "20,000 Calories Under the Belt" may be a bad idea...) It may also help with willpower during the week, to be able to say "okay, I'll hold off on the cookies 'til Sunday," rather than "never? hell with this, this isn't worth it."

This seemed to work for me. (though I had to back off on their very aggressive weight workout because it gave me tendinitis. I'm doing my own weight scheme, but their diet scheme, and it's working.)

[LongTom]

I'm too much alone feeling lonely and bored sometimes too i guess and I'm too much of an emotional eater but i so hate to walk through the city looking in the shop windows feeling miserable all the time.

I again want to try and loose weight but i fear it'll be a disaster once more, but..i keep trying.. 

You've certainly come to the right place. As blackjohn says, we can do this together.

I can sympathize about eating for reasons unrelated to hunger. My thing is to eat while I read, which is a bad idea because it's too easy to consume a whole box of something without paying attention. I have had to put myself on an eating schedule: breakfast-snack-lunch-snack-dinner. The good part about it is that this works out to only about two to three hours between opportunities to eat.

[Charity]

That's a good schedule, ever having trouble keeping to it?

I enjoy the idea of doing it "Together" , living alone is the big problem.. it's hard to keep the discipline alone but friends are doing it too..though their living a bit away doesn't help either.

I want to try and be a little less tired before my vacation to England this year though, maybe in two months or so, even if i loose a little it may help :)

[LongTom]

That's a good schedule, ever having trouble keeping to it?

Ohhhhh yeah. I get tired and cranky in the evening, or hungry earlier than planned in the morning, and out comes an extra snack. But I can keep it going maybe 3 days out of 4.

I enjoy the idea of doing it "Together" , living alone is the big problem.. it's hard to keep the discipline alone but friends are doing it too..

Me too. For a while I was doing weights and skating with a friend, but our schedules changed, and it just fell apart. It's hard to keep going when the only person who is paying attention to whether you do or not is you. That's why I really like blackjohn's virtual workout buddy system here. Just knowing there is somebody listening helps. (And that you are expected to report in regularly! )

I want to try and be a little less tired before my vacation to England this year though, maybe in two months or so, even if i loose a little it may help :)

Welcome to the group. I look forward to hearing about your next steps.

[LongTom]

Did my biking all week. I really need to pick up the weight workout again. It seems like I only lose the weight when doing both all week. 3 weeks was a long time to slack off. My ribs and back seem to be basically all better, finally, so I have no excuse. (Grrrr. A pox on drivers who don't use their turn signals.)

[blackjohn]

Walked about a mile with a ~35lb kid on my shoulders... that hurt.

[Asukaru]

(hmmmm...rock hard calves and outer thighs, you say...can't help wondering if we are eventually going to get treated to "after" pictures....?)

Pictures may be awhile yet. My legs may look good but I still have a stomach that needs toning. Not to mention I'm whiter than white. So much so that my Boyfriend teases me about it *Note to self: throw pillow at boy next time that happens*

[Caraccioli]

Tell him you have "porcelain skin." That always sounds good in the novels.

[LongTom]

That and all the old ballads. "Lily white skin" is the phrase that comes to mind for all the heroines.

I've been stuck at 185 for nearly a month now. I think I must have slowed down my metabolism. Drat. I'm eating the same as I did previously, but the weight is staying put. (Okay, so I did slack off the weight workouts, but I can't believe those were using that many more calories. I guess I should stop whining and start lifting.)

[Hester]

I went for my walk today, despite the fact that it was raining.

Not sure it will make up for the rum & "reduced fat" potato chips this evening, though.