32 new of 77 responses total.
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: