42 new of 77 responses total.
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: