Can we do a roll call?

Dally,

I have always loved this! Thanks for posting it again :-)

Dally wrote:

All successes, and all because I decided to do it. I've got lots of
tips on how to implement the basic formula, which is:

0. Fix your head (figure out why you chose to be fat to begin with)

1. Eat less (find a way to fuel your body on less calories without being
hungry or lacking energy)

2. Exercise more (solve the problems that are keeping you from doing this)

3. Repeat

4. Forever.

Good luck!

Dally
244/164/155


--
jmk in NC

Hi, my name is Joanne and I'm from Ontario Canada.

I've been lurking now for a couple of weeks.

I've come here because I'm having a very hard time losing weight and I
just don't get it.

I'm 35, married forever and have 2 teenage boys, hence, my life is full
of stress.
In my teens I weighed 125lbs, I met my husband, then married and
pregnant at 19. My weight soared to 170. A year later, I had gallstones
so I dropped my weight to 135lbs, which is my perfect healthy weight
for me. But a year later, pregnant again, I've gained it all back. For
the most part of my twenties and early thirties I maintained 158lbs.
Needless to say I was not happy about this. A couple of years later, my
father in law dies and I went down to 142lbs. At that time, I decided
to make a grand effort, going extremely anal with not eating anything
and I reached 128lbs. That didn't last long and I found my flab again.
Today at 5'3", I'm a plump 150lbs and I so despearately want to lose
20lbs. I'm not in a hurry, I just want it to happen.
I'm in housekeeping for a mining Technology centre so I do 5 to 6 hours
of physical work 5 days a week. I exercise 45 min. (abs and stationary
bike) 4 days a week, I walk 40 min. 7 days a week, I've been doing
these exercises for the last 2 years. I didn't think I ate so much but
I must if I don't lose any weight.

Now, I really liked Dally's formula... but I'm screwed with #0.
You see, I just can't leave my family. lol
#1 I'm good, I'm doing that now for the last 2 weeks.
#2 I'm working on it but it's hard to add more exercise to my already
full day.
I want to do #3 and #4 but I'm not happy with my lack of weight loss.

Jo

Welcome Joanne and I hope to continue to de-lurk!

You certainly seem to have the exercise under control. Have you tried
tracking your calories for a few days to determine just how many you're
consuming each day? I'm sure you know by now that many of us use
www.fitday.com to journal food and exercise. You might discover you're
eating just a few too many to result in weight loss.

It's not necessary to change everything at once. Just take a look at your
current foods and see if there is something you could exchange for a
healthier item....water for soda, fruit for another snack you're consuming,
etc. Remember it's progress and not perfection that will get you to your
goal.

Beverly

"Spitz" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hi, my name is Joanne and I'm from Ontario Canada.

I've been lurking now for a couple of weeks.

I've come here because I'm having a very hard time losing weight and I
just don't get it.

I'm 35, married forever and have 2 teenage boys, hence, my life is full
of stress.
In my teens I weighed 125lbs, I met my husband, then married and
pregnant at 19. My weight soared to 170. A year later, I had gallstones
so I dropped my weight to 135lbs, which is my perfect healthy weight
for me. But a year later, pregnant again, I've gained it all back. For
the most part of my twenties and early thirties I maintained 158lbs.
Needless to say I was not happy about this. A couple of years later, my
father in law dies and I went down to 142lbs. At that time, I decided
to make a grand effort, going extremely anal with not eating anything
and I reached 128lbs. That didn't last long and I found my flab again.
Today at 5'3", I'm a plump 150lbs and I so despearately want to lose
20lbs. I'm not in a hurry, I just want it to happen.
I'm in housekeeping for a mining Technology centre so I do 5 to 6 hours
of physical work 5 days a week. I exercise 45 min. (abs and stationary
bike) 4 days a week, I walk 40 min. 7 days a week, I've been doing
these exercises for the last 2 years. I didn't think I ate so much but
I must if I don't lose any weight.

Now, I really liked Dally's formula... but I'm screwed with #0.
You see, I just can't leave my family. lol
#1 I'm good, I'm doing that now for the last 2 weeks.
#2 I'm working on it but it's hard to add more exercise to my already
full day.
I want to do #3 and #4 but I'm not happy with my lack of weight loss.

Jo

Spitz wrote:

Hi, my name is Joanne and I'm from Ontario Canada.

I've been lurking now for a couple of weeks.

I've come here because I'm having a very hard time losing weight and I
just don't get it.

I'm 35, married forever and have 2 teenage boys, hence, my life is full
of stress.

Can you get the boys to do things with you? Active pursuits with my
kids - hiking, rollerblading, cycling - are great ways to connect with them.

Today at 5'3", I'm a plump 150lbs and I so despearately want to lose
20lbs. I'm not in a hurry, I just want it to happen.

Magically?

You put that awfully passively, "want it to happen". "Do what it takes"
is the key to getting it done.

I'm in housekeeping for a mining Technology centre so I do 5 to 6 hours
of physical work 5 days a week. I exercise 45 min. (abs and stationary
bike) 4 days a week, I walk 40 min. 7 days a week, I've been doing
these exercises for the last 2 years.

Okay, you spend 40 minutes on a stationary bike: can you ditch that and
ride outside? Can you do a spinning class? Can you add speed
intervals? Can you go for a run instead? There are some great "couch
to 5K" programs that will ease you into running slowly.

Ab muscles are important for core strength and injury prevention, but
for weight loss it makes a lot more sense to do big compound
weightlifting moves for resistance training. For earliest beginners I
recommend Jorge Cruise's "8 Minutes in the Morning". For everyone else
I recommend http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html. You can replace 40
minutes of bike riding with 40 minutes of deadlifts, squats, bench
presses and chin-ups and do a whole lot more to improve your body than
you already are!

I didn't think I ate so much but I must if I don't lose any weight.

Logging at www.fitday.com is extremely illuminating. Get a little food
scale so you can weigh portions and really take a close look at it.

Now, I really liked Dally's formula... but I'm screwed with #0.
You see, I just can't leave my family. lol

You got fat because you have teenagers? I've got teenagers and I've
become the most slender I've been since high school. Can you pin that
down a bit? Are you fat because you prioritize driving them places
rather than getting in a run? Because you feel you need to have junky
meals to fuel their appetities? Because you have to work long hours to
support them? I don't get what you mean.

Sometimes people eat for comfort, sometimes they eat for energy,
sometimes they eat for entertainment, sometimes they eat badly because
no one ever told them otherwise. Portion control is a lost art in our
country: you may honestly not know what is a reasonable portion,
particularly when teenaged boys are eating three times what you should eat.

#1 I'm good, I'm doing that now for the last 2 weeks.
#2 I'm working on it but it's hard to add more exercise to my already
full day.

So change around the exercise you already do. Add intensity. Aim to
sweat like a pig.

I want to do #3 and #4 but I'm not happy with my lack of weight loss.

Act like a slender person long enough and you'll become one. It's
self-re-enforcing.

Dally

Hi Beverly, thanks for the welcome.
I'll definitely take a look at that link.
I'm already drinking water instead of soda. My downfall would be my ice
cream deserts. I'll have to totally cut that out.

Spitz wrote:
Hi, my name is Joanne and I'm from Ontario Canada.

I've been lurking now for a couple of weeks.

Welcome! I hope to hear more from you in the future!


I've come here because I'm having a very hard time losing weight and I
just don't get it.

There are a ton of strategies to get you from point A to point B. Just
remember that it's a lifestyle change -- a long term change to your way
of eating and perhaps to your activities.

I'm glad that you like Dally's formula ;-)
--
jmk in NC

Dally wrote:
Spitz wrote:

Hi, my name is Joanne and I'm from Ontario Canada.

I've been lurking now for a couple of weeks.

I've come here because I'm having a very hard time losing weight and I
just don't get it.

I'm 35, married forever and have 2 teenage boys, hence, my life is full
of stress.

Can you get the boys to do things with you? Active pursuits with my
kids - hiking, rollerblading, cycling - are great ways to connect with them.

We play tennis together, swimming, basketball and walking.


Today at 5'3", I'm a plump 150lbs and I so despearately want to lose
20lbs. I'm not in a hurry, I just want it to happen.

Magically?

Yes, magically... wouldn't that be great.

You put that awfully passively, "want it to happen". "Do what it takes"
is the key to getting it done.

What I meant was I was not about to go on any "fad" diets and crash.

I'm in housekeeping for a mining Technology centre so I do 5 to 6 hours
of physical work 5 days a week. I exercise 45 min. (abs and stationary
bike) 4 days a week, I walk 40 min. 7 days a week, I've been doing
these exercises for the last 2 years.

Okay, you spend 40 minutes on a stationary bike: can you ditch that and
ride outside? Can you do a spinning class? Can you add speed
intervals? Can you go for a run instead? There are some great "couch
to 5K" programs that will ease you into running slowly.

Can't run, I have patella femoral disease in both knees.

Ab muscles are important for core strength and injury prevention, but
for weight loss it makes a lot more sense to do big compound
weightlifting moves for resistance training. For earliest beginners I
recommend Jorge Cruise's "8 Minutes in the Morning". For everyone else
I recommend http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html. You can replace 40
minutes of bike riding with 40 minutes of deadlifts, squats, bench
presses and chin-ups and do a whole lot more to improve your body than
you already are!

Again, with my patella femoral disease I'm very limited in what kind of
exercises I can do.
I do 100 to 150 ab crunches a day.

I didn't think I ate so much but I must if I don't lose any weight.

Logging at www.fitday.com is extremely illuminating. Get a little food
scale so you can weigh portions and really take a close look at it.

I may just order that program.


Now, I really liked Dally's formula... but I'm screwed with #0.
You see, I just can't leave my family. lol

You got fat because you have teenagers? I've got teenagers and I've
become the most slender I've been since high school. Can you pin that
down a bit? Are you fat because you prioritize driving them places
rather than getting in a run? Because you feel you need to have junky
meals to fuel their appetities? Because you have to work long hours to
support them? I don't get what you mean.

Without going into personal details, there's a lot of stress in my
home.
We certainly don't have junky meals. We are very active but times are
tough and I'm needing help in gaining a new perspective on weight loss

Sometimes people eat for comfort, sometimes they eat for energy,
sometimes they eat for entertainment, sometimes they eat badly because
no one ever told them otherwise. Portion control is a lost art in our
country: you may honestly not know what is a reasonable portion,
particularly when teenaged boys are eating three times what you should eat.

I definitely need to work on portion control when it comes to dinner
time.

#1 I'm good, I'm doing that now for the last 2 weeks.
#2 I'm working on it but it's hard to add more exercise to my already
full day.

So change around the exercise you aready do. Add intensity. Aim to
sweat like a pig.

I already do... sweat like a pig that is.


I want to do #3 and #4 but I'm not happy with my lack of weight loss.

Act like a slender person long enough and you'll become one. It's
self-re-enforcing.

Dally

That's what I hear... I'll try feeling like a slender person.

This seems as good a way to de-lurk as any!

About me - I am a 30-year-old woman, 5'6". I live in the Boston area
and am in the final throes of finishing up my PhD in the sciences.
This past January, I went clothes shopping and was dismayed to find
that I had inched up to a tight size 14 in my jeans. At about the same
time, my repetitive stress injury (from all the typing I do for my
research) flared up and my physical therapist recommended I work on my
upper-body strength.

It was obviously time for me to work on my body - both so I could
finish writing my dissertation without my arms falling off, and to lose
the weight I'd been gaining gradually over the past 10 years. Having
my own wedding coming up in July didn't hurt my motivation, either. At
the time, I weighed about 175 pounds. I've never been a big binge
eater, and don't really like junk food, but I LOVE to cook. I also
love (and brew) beer - a dangerous combination for weight maintenance.

I started lurking here and immediately got pointed in the right
direction - fitday.com, stumptuous.com, etc. Fixing my body became my
other science project in a way, and I love research. My university has
oodles of gyms, including one a 5-minute walk from my lab. I started
going every workday, alternating weight training with high-intensity
interval training. I also made my lazy ass start walking the mile and
change to work - which was actually much EASIER than driving in January
in Boston (no parking wars!).

I also totally changed the composition of my meals, thanks to the
advice here and elsewhere. I don't eat any meat besides fish, but had
totally bought into the vegetarian line from college that Americans eat
too much protein. Well, once I started using Fitday, I was shocked to
realize that I didn't. At all. I was often eating less than 50 grams
of protein a day, far less than the minimal RDA, and definitely not
enough for a serious strength-training program. So I learned to love
whey protein smoothies, my free-range eggs, and FISH! I now eat fish
probably once a day, though I do try to keep the high-mercury fish to a
minimum, approx. once a month. I also cut WAY down on the processed
carbohydrates - I save them for special occasions only. I still eat
brown rice, whole wheat bread, etc., but I really watch the portions.

I've been losing weight more-or-less steadily since I started getting
informed back in January. I started out at around 1800 cal/day, and
now I'm at around 1500 cal/day. On weekends I eat more, probably
closer to 2500 cal/day. And thanks to the reduction in processed
carbs, I don't feel hungry. To realize that I could lose steadily
while still enjoying my food and cooking was a revelation!!

And for now, I'm hanging tight around 138. I'm wearing size 4-6, which
shocks the hell out of me every time I go shopping. I've noticed that
my weight hasn't changed much lately, but my measurements are still
going down, and that's cool. I'm not particularly fixated on the
number any more, since I can tell I'm still losing fat and
adding/retaining muscle. And I love the fact that when I get ants in
my pants on a beautiful weekend day, I can hop on my bike, go for 30
miles, be back for lunch, and have even MORE energy. Hooray! I can't
wait for ski season!

So THANK YOU to everyone on the group for all your advice over the past
months. I don't post too much because I've got this damned
dissertation hanging over my head, but I have really learned some
lifelong lessons from everyone. My RSI has abated significantly thanks
to the upper-body workouts, letting me type in less pain. And,
incidentally, I was able to look DAMN good in my wedding dress this
July - something I didn't think was possible!

AD

175/138/132?

Spitz wrote:

Dally wrote:

Spitz wrote:

Okay, you spend 40 minutes on a stationary bike: can you ditch that and
ride outside? Can you do a spinning class? Can you add speed
intervals? Can you go for a run instead? There are some great "couch
to 5K" programs that will ease you into running slowly.


Can't run, I have patella femoral disease in both knees.

Yeah, running is out for a lot of people. Too bad. Well, there's still
cycling and swimming and rowing and climbing.

I do 100 to 150 ab crunches a day.

You might get more out of a pilates DVD: strengthen your obliques and
lower back at the same itme. Working the abs to death isn't
particularly useful in terms of weight loss, as I said. And if you're
doing it for core strength you ought to hit it from two or three or four
different directions. More isn't better, it's just more.

Logging at www.fitday.com is extremely illuminating. Get a little food
scale so you can weigh portions and really take a close look at it.

I may just order that program.

You don't have to order it: it's on the web for free. I customize it
all the time and after years of using it I have so many custom foods
entered that I rarely have to do it anymore.

I put my homemade recipes in as a whole day's food, i.e., a package of
lasagna noodles, a jar of pasta sauce, a pound of hamburger... and get
the nutritional breakdown for that day (one where I wasn't logging) and
then enter it as a custom food. I.e., I'll put "Mom's Lasagna", 10
servings, at whatever that day's total profile came in at.

Now, I really liked Dally's formula... but I'm screwed with #0.
You see, I just can't leave my family. lol

You got fat because you have teenagers? I've got teenagers and I've
become the most slender I've been since high school. Can you pin that
down a bit? Are you fat because you prioritize driving them places
rather than getting in a run? Because you feel you need to have junky
meals to fuel their appetities? Because you have to work long hours to
support them? I don't get what you mean.


Without going into personal details, there's a lot of stress in my
home.

I believe you. The part you get to work on is how this translates to
eating badly or not getting in your workouts. Workouts ease stress, and
I think eating clean eases stress, too, although I can certainly make a
case for existing on Nutella alone when I'm under stress!

I definitely need to work on portion control when it comes to dinner
time.

I've got two good tips for this: first, choose a lunch plate for your
meals. Doesn't matter if everyone else has dinner plates, you use the
8" plate.

Another tip is to use your hand for portion control: meat should be the
size of your palm (without fingers) and starch should be no bigger than
your clenched fist and you should have two fists of vegetables or fruits.

Another way to view this is to cut your (lunch) plate into quarters: one
quarter meat, one quarter starch (pasta/rice/potato/bread) and one half
vegetables and fruits.

Gotta go, but those are my words of wisdom for the day!

Dally

wrote:

So THANK YOU to everyone on the group for all your advice over the past
months. I don't post too much because I've got this damned
dissertation hanging over my head, but I have really learned some
lifelong lessons from everyone. My RSI has abated significantly thanks
to the upper-body workouts, letting me type in less pain. And,
incidentally, I was able to look DAMN good in my wedding dress this
July - something I didn't think was possible!

AD

175/138/132?

Wow, that was GREAT! I've been typing my little fingers off preaching
my little sermons and this makes me feel like someone HEARD me. Every
single thing you changed is something I'm preaching.

I think it's especially cool about walking to work. (Cycling is nice,
too.) I also actively try to not get in my gashog minivan whenever
possible, and it is an active life choice - it never happens accidently!

Dally