75 new of 77 responses total.
John, you are very welcome to bike over to watch us work on the house, or even help nail a few boards, or dig in our garden, and then join us for a whole grain vegetarian meal. We have been losing weight without wanting to, so our cooking cannot hurt you and we would enjoy the visit. If you don't have a bike, we can provide one for you cheap, that you can use as transportation, which would automatically get you more exercise. If you incorporate exercise as part of your normal life rather than as something that you add to it, you are much more likely to continue exercising. Hope to see you soon, but call first (see my plan or the phone book).
Thanks for the offers, but I think I'll stick to my planned regimen for a while and see how it goes.
Progress report: So far I've lost about 9 pounds. That puts me 6 pounds from my goal. Beginning of the school year is about 6 weeks away, so this should be feasible. Perhaps I should state that I'm in my mid-fifties, and find that taking off pounds is harder than it was when I was younger -- noticeably harder than even four years ago. But I went into this assuming it would be slow going. I've kept up the "Firm Basics" workouts and the walking, and doubt the weight loss would have happened without them. Lately I've been following the style of diet described in the "Zone" books by Barry Sears. He recommends a strict balance between macronutrients, with 40% of calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein, and 30% from fat at each and every meal and snack. I wouldn't say that I follow this absolutely religiously, but I try to stick close to it at most meals. I'll say that since starting all this I've felt better both physically and mentally than I have in a long time. Since I started this, whatever association or government agency it is that makes pronouncements on these things lowered the line for being considered "overweight", to bring U.S. standards into conformance with the rest of the world. That means that in order not to be considered overweight I need to lose 25 pounds from what I was at the beginning of the spring. I'll stick with my 15 pound goal for now, then take stock in September. I will say that losing 25 would bring me down into the weight range that I was for all of my younger adult life. But for a lot of people, when you hit your 40's and 50's, weight starts to creep up. I'm no exception.
Those standards are a bit funny, though. Since they only measure height and weight, a very muscled person with little fat calculates out to being "obese".
This is true. There is a somewhat simplistic "one size fits all" at work on the standard makers' part, I think. On the other hand, I suspect that the percentage of people who don't fit the model is rather small. In particular, since I'm of more or less average build and have a more or less average (although a bit on the too-side) percentage of body fat, I think the standard fits me. Another measure of progress: I now fasten my belt two notches in from where I did in early May. Since the notches are about an inch apart, I figure that's a couple of inches off my waistline.
re #6, Jim came out overweight on the tables when he was about 10 pounds heavier. He would like to gain back the weightand is putting olive oil on everything now. (I should cook lunch....).
It's been two and a half months since I started this item. Here's the latest progress report: o I've lost 13 or 14 pounds (15 is my goal for Sept 1) o Body mass index (BMI) is 26, down from 28. According to the charts at http://www.shapeup.org, this puts me in the low/moderate health risk category, a one-notch improvement from the moderate/high category I started in. (The next category is minimal/low, the best on the chart. I need a BMI of 24 to achieve this, which translates to a loss of 10 more pounds from where I am now.) o My waist measurement is down 2 inches. I had to go out and buy new trousers -- the old ones were too big. o My lean body mass is down only 1 pound. This means that my weight loss is almost entirely fat loss. This is a Good Thing. (Lean body mass was calculated from a formula in Sears' "Entering the Zone" book, and involves plugging in waist and wrist measurements and total weight.) According to this, 24% of my weight is fat, which isn't great but is an improvement over my initial 28%.) The keys to all this are just what the experts seem to say: (1) eat sensibly, (2) exercise regularly. My "eating sensibly" is actually pretty structured and involves following the Zone diet, as I mentioned earlier. Exercise consists of brisk 45-minute walks and the Firm Basics "Fat Burning" video, which is a mixture of low-impact aerobics and anaerobic (weight lifting) exercise. Are there any other "Zone" fans out there?
Not Zone, but I've read and tried a week or two of all three of the "low-carb" plans. They seem to work for me. It's the exercise part I can't get going. The basic bio-chem premise of all of these makes a lot of sense for how my body responds to starches and sugars.
Well, I've met my goal -- 15 lbs weight loss by early September -- a few days in advance.
You must be very pleased with yourself. And so you should be.
Thanks for sharing the encouraging news. Maybe other people will try the same approach. Do you have additional goals?
I'd like to lose about 10 more pounds. That would get me into the "not overweight" category according to the current U.S. guidelines.
In addition to the weight loss, do you feel better overall?
Absolutely! More energy, generally "sunnier" mood overall.
Hmm... interesting. I checked out the body mass calculator page John posted in another item. I come out around 18%. Seems like I've been stable for about a year at this weight.
I've lost about 5 more pounds since the beginning of September, making my total weight loss since I began this regimen about 20 pounds. Body fat has gone from 28% in May down to 21%. Body mass index (BMI) is 25, down from 28. Lean body mass has remained unchanged. No significant weight loss for the last two or three weeks. I expected this leveling off - less time for exercise with the semester underway, colder weather, the distractions of work. Eventually I'd like to lose another 10 to 15 pounds, but I'm in no hurry. That can wait until next spring. My immediate goal is not to gain anything back.
<kick-starts the item> It's been nearly three months since your last progress report. How's it going, remmers?
Some further progress. Lost 5 more pounds since my last report, but for the last few weeks I've been holding steady in the 150-155 lb range. I'm somewhat surprised that I lost anything, since my exer- cise level is way down due to the time demands of the school year. Losing another 5 pounds or so would be nice, but I suspect that will have to wait until spring/summer when I'll have more time to work out. I feel pretty good at my current weight, actually. Waistline is down 3-4 inches since I started all this. It's nice to be able to fit into clothes that I haven't been able to wear for 8 or 9 years. The bulk (no pun intended) of my success -- and especially the fact that I've continued to lose weight during the school year -- is due, I'm convinced, more to my radical change in eating habits that any- thing else. Restricted calorie intake (around 1500 cal/day), with an effort to balance carbohydrate, protein, and fat calories in a 40/30/30 percentage ratio at every meal or snack (the so-called "Zone Diet"). In particular, carbohydrate intake is way down -- no more binging on bagels and pretzels, which I used to do a lot. And I've been able to do all this without feeling like I'm starving myself.
Maybe you have reached the correct weight for your genetic makeup. You looked quite healthy to me at the UPS potluck.
Thanks. I'm skeptical that there is such a thing as "correct weight for one's genetic makeup" though. Certainly genetics has something to do with it, but weight depends a lot on lifestyle choices too. My example is a case in point. Although I generally feel a lot better since I've lost weight, I was interested in getting an objective reading on any actual improvements, so I asked my doctor to prescribe a blood test to measure cholesterol and such. Compared with six months ago, the last time I had this done, indicators such as the total cholesterol to HDL ratio, and the triglycerides to HDL ratio, have improved significantly. My doctor wrote "excellent" on the lab report.
Three cheers and a pinch. Good job!
grad school has contributed to my weight loss, since I plain do not have time to eat during the day! I know that's not good, but it was so hard to integrate something healthy to eat. There's places on campus to eat but it's all greasy, fried or sugary crap. I can't eat that every day. So, I carry around a can of Balance, a natural alternative to Slim Fast. I get it at the natural foods store. It's got vitamins and all and is tasty, does not have that "aluminum" taste because it doesn't have all the icky chemicals. Only $2 a can, which is cheaper than anything I could eat at school. It really does fill my tummy, I don't drink it and go, "Aaagh solid food!!!" I am also working out 2 to 4 times per week. 30 minutes on the bike or cross country ski machine. I break a sweat but am not spent when it's done. If it wore me out, I'd get burned out way quick and not stick to it. I exercise to get energy, not to kill myself. I also do weight training. The weight is slooowly coming off but it's coming off.
Nice going, bees. If it's coming off slowly, and you're working out, it's much more likely to stay off, I think.
Agreed. And keep up the good work, bees!
yeah, but i was bad today, i ate one of those brie-en-croute things. (Brie inside bread). WEll I hate half, it's so rich and goopy there's no way you can eat a whole one. Still, it's like pure fat. After I ate it I was like, "ugh". It does stick though, that was several hours ago and I am still not hungry.
It's OK to occasionally eat something huge and heavy. Just keep up the normal good habits and it won't make muchof a bulge.
Right. I depart from my usual regimen now and then (like yesterday, when I pigged out on Chinese food). I find it doesn't hurt.
True... I was being a bit hard on myself. Usually I compensate, balancing a big lunch with a smaller dinner, etc. I'm getting to where I like exercising (probably because I no longer go with the intention of wearing myself out), so when I eat something not-so-healthy I know I can go to the gym that night to burn it off. I'm not sure how many calories I eat per day; I just can't sit down and add up all that. Yawn. I know I can eat 2200 a day and maintain, but since I want to lose I try to keep it around 1700 or so. So if I want the little debbie swiss cake rolls, and it turns out I'm nowhere near my limit for the day, I just eat it. I know they're empty calories, but if I didn't exceed the limit then would it do harm? When I took karate as a PE credit in undergrad, I was working out 1 1/2 hrs twice a week. Ate my typical fattening diet, which included lots of pizza and beer back in those days. I still lost. But I was 21 or so then, and five years has changed me somewhat. It's a little bit harder.
The current wisdom on exercise (as reported in the Feb '99 issue of Consumer Reports) is that you don't have to exercise intensively to get the health benefits of exercise. Half an hour a day (or on most days) of moderate exercise - like brisk walking - is enough. It can even be spread out in smaller chunks over the course of a day.
Yep. Some days I'm in the mood to break a sweat. Other times I just want to get my blood moving is all. I can't do aerobics classes and such. They bore me to death, and those instructors are just too damn perky. :)
i am now in another range. my current weight is where i was when i was a freshman in college, before it caught up me. i am down a total of 21 pounds from my highest weight. but i am almost 15 pounds lighter than i was last semester. my jeans are loose, but not really falling off. the thighs and hips are the last things to budge, argh. i feel lighter on my feet. my face does look thinner, my cheekbones are more pronounced. no one's really commenting on my weight loss, but it may be hard for people to tell because i'm still wearing my loose clothes. and they don't study my body as much as i do (i hope). yesterday and today though i am like FOOD! I just want to eat all day! I've been snarfing Pretzel Flipz all day. I may have been a little too strict calorie-wise the past few days and my body was like "you better feed me more or else".
Apples are filling.
Yes, I just used some for filling in an apple pie.
Re resp:33 - I have days like that too, and usually give in to the urge (but try to keep to the 40/30/30 ratio of macronutrients when I do). So far it hasn't resulted in my gaining any weight back.
Ehhh. It caught up with me. I am up about a pound and a half. But some of that's probably water. I didn't eat well all weekend, definitely too much fattening things. It's showing in my skin too. Why did I deliberately do this to myself?
ref #37: Good question. Have you come up with an answer?
Interesting item. I just discovered it. I'm guessing the pound or two bees was talking about having gained probably wasn't anything significant. When I've had regular access to a scale, I've found myself fluctuationg by that sort of amount very regularly. Anyhow... I dont' own a scale, in part because I've never gotten around to buying one, and in part because I've never been convinced that weight alone was a terribly good indicator of health. However, I was discovering last winter that in addition to looking fatter than I had ever looked before and having a lot of my older clothes fitting quite tightly, long walks or climbing stairs were rather difficult. This became especially noticable when visiting my parents in their London townhouse, with every room on a different floor, such that I was constantly going up and down stairs. I found the first couple of days to be rather exhausing, before I started getting used to it and having an easier time of it. In the couple of years before that I had gone from bike racing, and training for that a couple of hours a day, to being mostly sedentary, and eating whatever horribly fatty food was available when I remembered to eat, which wasn't on any sort of regular schedule. I weighed myself at that point, and discovered that I weighed around 190 pounds (up from 120 when I stopped getting taller, and 140 the last time I had been living a "healthy" lifestyle). I set out to get myself back into shape. That trip to London helped a lot in getting started. The constant running up and down stairs forced me to get into some semblance of shape very quickly, as did walking everywhere. Visiting people who were eating reasonably healthy food on a fairly regular schedule helped as well, since after a few weeks my body started expecting that. By the time I left there, I was already feeling much better physically than I had when I got there. When I got home I started eating on a much more regular schedule than I had been before, eating breakfast (which I hadn't done on a regular basis in years), lunch somewhere close to lunch time, rather than forgetting about it all day, and dinner at something resembling a usual dinner time, when I previously would have finally been getting around to eating lunch. Without even thinking about it, I cut out almost all of the vending machine junk food I had been eating before, since eating on a more regular schedule meant that I wasn't getting hungry for snacks in between. I think I'm now eating more food than I was when I was gaining lots of weight, which seems counter-intuitive, but I've read that the body starts storing lots of energy as fat when it doesn't know whether it's going to get fed again anytime soon, so eating on a regular schedule probably helped with that a lot. I think I'm eating a lot less really greasy food than I was before, mostly because when I'm exercising regularly greasy food stops tasting very good, but I haven't been ebing very picky about what I eat for my meals, as long as I'm eating something. The other piece of what I started doing was regular exercise. The biggest thing has been lots of walking (at least an hour, sometimes a lot more, almost every day). The time I've been spending walking is time I previously would have spent at work or watching TV. I seem to have downgraded the importance of my job in my time priorities. Being less of a workaholic is probably a good thing in general. I also started biking again, which I hadn't done much in the last few years. I haven't managed to work biking into my week day schedule much, but lately I've been doing an hour or two of road riding on one weekend day, and a few hours of mountain biking on the other weekend day. It's now been eight months. The most important change from my perspective is that I now feel a lot better than I did before. I'm also finding that I have a lot more energy. I haven't weighed myself recently, but I'm assuming I've probably also lost a considerable amount of weight. I think I look a lot thinner, and clothes that were quite tight a few months ago are now rather loose. I'm assuming that if I were to go back to my previous sluggishness and poor eating habits I would probably once again start feeling like a slug, and would once again start gaining weight quickly, but I have no plans to do that.
Congrats on your progress, Steve. I've found that healthy, regular eating, plus a reasonable amount of exercise, works wonders. And feeling so much better is motivation for staying on track.
I've been off track lately. I had more free time and was more sedentary during the summer, and it's taken its toll. Now school has started back and I have less free time and am forced to do a lot of walking. The first week was hard... my classes and work are on the fourth floor and the elevator's too slow to bother with. Now I need to incorporate the gym again, I haven't been in over a month. I am thinking of trying a yoga class too.
I lived on the thirteenth floor one year in Macedonia (the first floor was one flight up) and decided not to use the elevator. This was a handy skill as it was often broken and I was one of the few people who stopped caring. The first few days were somewhat tiring, of course. (There was also one person who managed to walk into the elevator shaft when the elevator was not there, which may have converted a few other people to walking. The dorms were not always maintained properly.)
Well, I've been working again at losing weight...eating a bit better, trying to get more walking done on a regular basis....And managed to drop 8 lbs. in 3 weeks so far. Just need to drop two more by next Sat. for the 10 I wanted to drop by my brothers wedding. And once those ten are gone, I'll go for another ten....:)
Slow and steady, the same way it went on... At last count (which I haven't really been keeping) I'm down 57 pounds since the last week of January. Wlaking is good, and helps bunches. But in order to feel my best, I need to push my body to (and past!) its limits. My brain needs that last burning, screaming rep or the forehead-to-the-floor stretch to feel like I've done something. And needs it on a fairly regular basis. So I walk four times a week for about an hour and Firm the other three. Seems to be working so far; I look much smaller than I should for what I weigh.
Wow. Well, that *is* the way to go.
WOO-WOO OTTER!!!!! :) Well, I put all the weight back on. But I'm starting to work at taking it back off again. For a few weeks there I could do nothing but stuff my face with food. But I'm working on cutting back again, and so far I'm starting to get a little better. But I've had several people tell me that I'm looking thinner...and even though I've put the actual weight back on, I've not put the bulk on....this makes me a *happy* Meg. :)
er...that should have been "47". Musta lost some brain cells, too. <gulp> Anyway, I'm on steriods right now for breathing purposes, and they do two very nasty things. 1) they make me incredibly hungry. 2) they make me all puffy and fluffy; my face looks like a chipmunk's. For the appetite, I've been having half a piece of fruit every time I just know I'll die without food. Also drinking a glass of water before I eat anything seems to help. For the Puffies, there's nothing I can think of but to grin and wear fat pants.
Drinking water may also help the puffiness. I also starved on steroids. It drove me nuts. I just could not eat enough when I took them. Though I didn't notice any weight gain. I thought they would give me energy, but they wore me out.
Not having lost any more weight in a long time, I've not been posting new responses to my "weight loss diary". At least I'm not gaining any back, which is a good thing. Although I'm now at a weight that is considered "not overweight" by current standards, I would like to lose another 5 or 6 pounds. Sigh, I think that means I'll have to start working out a lot more intensively than I have been.
Why do you want to lose 5 pounds when you are at a stable weight and feel (and look) healthy? A little extra weight is an advantage in cold weather. I usually gain weight in the fall and lose it in hot weather. The body is set up to put on a bit more weight as the days grow shorter and colder. This protects against chills.
Vanity, sheer vanity.
You looked great last I saw you. The skinniest friend I had in college was always trying to lose weight. She looked fat to herself. There are ways to measure whether your weight is appropriate for your body build. Want to borrow my book? You need a pair of calipers which you can also borrow. You measure your wrist and the flesh below your upper arm.
Thanks, but the outcome of that wouldn't make any difference in my attitude, since it's just a vanity thing. I've measured a different way, using a tape measure, and I'm within the acceptable range.
Okay, I've decided to go for it and lose another nine pounds. My plan for doing so: (1) Watch what I eat more closely. (2) Exercise more. I'll keep y'all posted.
I suggest incorporating more exercise into your ordinary life, rather than doing an exercise program. For instance, scrape and paint your own garage. (Thanks for the leftover paint, we have been using it as primer). Grind your own flour. Make your own bread without a machine. If you have a lawn do not own a power mower, or snow blower, or leaf blower. Bike places that are too far to walk.
Most of the things you mention are of a sporadic or seasonal nature, which ain't good enough. Nor am I going to give up the power mower or snow blower. That said, in addition to an exercise program I *do* look for ways to incorporate more exercise into my daily life, for example walking downtown instead of driving. But exercise programs have worked for me in the past, so I'm not going to abandon that approach. I'll let y'all know it's coming along. (That reminds me, I have yet to do my power walk around the neighborhood today...)
I believe in paying people to do the work we don't want to do. That leaves us free to enjoy our time off doing exercise and other activities we enjoy and allows others to make money. Anything involving electricity or being two stories off the ground on a ladder gets contracted out to someone with good health insurance. ;-)
That too. Actually, Sindi's advice has merit, but it's essentially the same advice she gave when I first posted this item a year and a half ago. I didn't follow the advice then and lost over 25 pounds. So I think that not following Sindi's advice has proved to be a winning strategy for me. :)
Another couple years at -16 lbs./year and you'll start taking her advice more seriously!
Jim says there are also people who pay other people to walk in circles for them (pledge per mile) and suggests you pay someone to lose weight for you. :) He would offer himself but being a vegan he cannot afford to lose any. (He will refrain from nominating any other grex members for the job but suggests people offer to lose weight for other people through the grex auction, at $5/pound).
Hm, an intriguing idea. Sorta like men in bygone wars who paid someone to be conscripted in their place. I have a feeling there's a flaw in Jim's suggestion; maybe I'll figure out what it is if I really put my mind to it...
Well, it's nice that Jim and Sindi get all their exercise in the course of normal activities (although not without occasional overuse injuries, it appears). But not all people are the same. I used to depend on martial arts for most of my exercise, but it turned out some muscles didn't get their fair share and resulted in problems I could only fix by specific exercises.
My injuries were not from normal activities. I injured my arm one time cutting an awful lot of cement-board siding with a knife, and the other time falling off my bike because I had been up late too many nights at Kiwanis. I have never hurt myself shoveling snow or digging the garden or washing laundry by hand or baking bread. I do seem to have reinjured my broken arm slightly lifting 34 pound boxes of chestnuts the same day that I moved a lot of building materials. This is not everyday exercise, it does not pay to overdo it as you say. I think I should not try to lift anything weighing more than a quarter of me. Biking 3-5 miles a day is normal exercise. So is shoveling snow at three locations all winter.
Ah, but perhaps your injuries might have been less or even prevented by having more muscle in place!
T'is the Halloween candy season, so my weight loss program is on hold until tomorrow.
You're just looking forward to the bundt cake I'm making for the Linquist meeting. Be honest. ;-)
All I know is, I've OD'ed on Sweet Tarts and I feel like I'm hallucinating...
Re resp:66 - That too. I'm experiencing a double sugar whammy at this point in time.
Does more muscle prevent tendon injuries? I think I sawed through the tendon by overuse. It hurt but the job had to be finished. I don't think that tendons get stronger if you use them more, just muscles. Maybe doing pushups would make my arm bones bigger and stronger?
Bones do benefit from weight lifting. Somehow having muscle does support the tendons better, if I recall from the wrist tendonitis therapy I had.
help a help
Sure, I'll help if I can. Are you overweight?
Well, it's been a long time since this started...how well did the writing everything (or a bunch, at least) help you?
It looks like I posted something here three years ago about my attempts to get into better shape. I made some progress then, but backslid considerably. A year ago, I was up around 220 pounds (up from 120 when I stopped getting taller, I think). I stopped drinking pop very often, and then expanded that to other foods with large quantities of refined sugar, because they weren't making me feel good. I once again started making an effort to run or bike for a while every other day or so, and have kept that up for the last year. With those lifestyle changes, I've now dropped down to about 170 pounds, so I guess this means I'm really making progress this time. I'm feeling great, and did a 108 mile bike ride with more than 8,000 feet of elevation gain a couple weeks ago, and have been doing 50-70 mile rides with a local club most other recent weekends. The web based ideal weight calculators I've found say that I'm still 15 pounds overweight. I know I've been considerably lighter than this, so maybe they're right. On the other hand, the biking is probably building considerably more leg muscle than normal, and that must weigh something. After falling really fast for a while, I seem to be losing weight far more slowly now, so I'm guessing I'm now approaching where I'm likely to be as long as I can keep up my current lifestyle (which I'm enjoying a lot, so hopefully I'll stick with it).
The current weight guidelines are a bit off for athletes.
Jim is overweight according to the weight tables. People keep telling him he is too skinny. Yes, muscle is heavier than fat and the average American does not have much to base the weight tables on. That is marvellous progress, Steve - you are a lot better off being in such great physical shape even if you don't fit the weight tables. Bones are also heavy and they get heavier when you exercise. A more accurate way to measure overweight is by pinching the fold of fat under your upper arm. I have instructions in a book. It helps to have a caliper (something to measure the thickness of the fold).
I mostly figure that my body will adjust itself to the lifestyle I'm living, so if I make an attempt to do reasonably healthy things, however my body responds is probably ok. Given what I can now do that I couldn't do a few months ago, and how I'm feeling, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm still dropping weight, although not as fast as I once was. If I start gaining significant weight again I may worry, but for the moment I think I'm in pretty good shape.
You have several choices: