Ha! My husband is like that. I wish he was more like Jenn's family He's like "did you gain weight?" LOL.

my sister just brought up a good point. I have 2 pounds to go and unfortunately the surgi center is making me get a doctor sign a bmi form tomorrow or else I have to reschedule BUT if I practice now standing on my tippy toes...but not all the way just enough to add anotehr 1/4 inch, then I'll pass the bmi test!!!! The nurse won't be looking at my feet right?

I was gonna suggest that, but I think it would take a lot of practice to not make it noticeable. You know how if you move even the slightest bit on the scale it bounces all over the place?

I'm going to practice tonight and see if the force of the tippy toe stance is going to change my weight. You all don't know this but back in the day I was a ballet dancer. I danced from age 8 to 17 and used to perform in a dance group. Now I know why. lol

Good luck pulling it off then - you have a much better shot than I would! You can pull a Kate Winslet in Titanic if you really want to get your BMI low!

Bridget--practice stepping up and down without putting your heels down as well-- because youi know how fast they take your weight and you don't want your height to bounce around as she may notice you adjusting your height.

i had some weight control quaker oatmeal for breakfast with blueberries and strawberries! i'm off to a good start today! watching the biggest loser last night inspired me .

brought my Banquet Enchilada meal and some broccoli. I'm tryin hard to get my calories in but since i weighed monday, i'm gonna wait till next monday to weigh again. yayy broccoli

Yay for broccoli and fruit!

Yesterday I did pretty well until the end of the day when i started feeling really hungry and fell apart LOL. I had a bunch of pasta which was not a good thing. I was going under the hunger+passover logic of needing to get rid of it...

I did some abs exercises but for some reason I cannot get into a routine lately. I feel so tired. I know it's because I am waking up when Ammar gets home at 2-4am, but I feel bad because I know I am not even close to as tired as he is working two 40-hour/week jobs.

He is getting thinner though. Gah!!! And all toned up. Once again, on a mostly cookie diet, he is losing weight.

Yeah, I agree men suck. I know if Wadi were doing what I've been doing for the last 2 months, he'd have lost 40 pounds by now. While he does keep telling me how great I'm looking, he doesn't understand why I'm not losing the pounds too. Forget that I now have much better quads than he does...

I'm scared to weigh myself. I feel thinner but I am afraid of scale disappointment. I totally feel for you-- that happened to me once for several weeks and then I finally dropepd like 10lbs in 2 days when not doing anything different... of course now I'd love to be at that plateau weight LOL.

Couldn't stand it anymore so I weighed. gained 0.2lbs Why is it that when I'm dieting...the colored foil covered chocolate easter eggs unwrap themselves, grow legs, and hop into my mouth?? Its so unfair! There were like 20 of them and they ganged up on me. Well, at least they're all gone so they won't be there taunting me anymore.
Back to Banquet and steamed broccoli. woot.

amal

Well at least it's not a whole pound And I think you could drop .2lbs in a day ro two if you stuck with it.

Dh wants me to go meet him at work for his breaks today. He wants to eat with me. Now I have to figure out what I want to eat that won't cause me to go backwards.

I'm curious how much weight/strength training versus cardio is everyone doing?

I'd like to do about an hour or so of cardio a week and build up to 3 hours, and I try for about 3-4 hours of weight/strength training a week.

I've been doing 30 minutes of cardio + 15 minutes of weights, 5 times a week.


I think I should invest in a digital scale of some sort. The scale I've been using in the gym is not very good, I don't think. I weigh myself several times and take the average, but the reading will fluctuate up to 3 pounds depending on where I put the scale.

Yeah, get a better scale When you do cardio, what are you doing if I may ask?

Three times a week I just do intervals on the elliptical. Once a week, I do 20 minutes on the elliptical, followed by a mile sprint on the treadmill. And once a week, I work on increasing my endurance for running - I'm now up to 1.75 miles without stopping - I find it really tough, but can feel myself getting less and less winded every week.

So are you basically doing a circuit? I have a friend with a PT (lucky her) and she says they say you have a bad time with plateu-ing on a circuit.

I would probably die if I tried to run 1.75 miles LOL.

Am I doing a circuit? I didn't know!

I wonder why the plateauing? Hmmm, I'm gonna have to look into this.

I was listening to some guy who wrote a weight loss book on the radio this morning and he was talking about how if you're really doing things right for permanent weight-loss, you will gain initially after you start exercising and see very gradual progress, generally. That made me feel a little better. I don't know what's up with the down 4, stay there for a week, up 2, stay there for a week, rinse and repeat. Must be my circuit?

OK! I looked up what she wrote me, and it was this: most full set up gyms have a circuit set up (mine does, but I don't do circuit, can't stand it, it's not a proper weights work out nor a proper cardio workout though you can loose weight doing it you typically end up in a plateau cause you can't progress as much).

Yeah teh initial weight gain is always associated with the muscle mass increase, then the sudden drop I heard is associated with hitting the limit of sustainability of your body fat-- more muscle just burns more calories on its own and eventually you reach a point where you start burning just by existing at that mass more than you were by existing at your flabbier mass

As for the flux, I have no idea. I am always weirdly steady. It takes a lot for me to go up or down; but once my weight breaks its inertia, it really starts rolling.

I see. I looked up circuit training, and I don't think that's really what I'm doing. I know what you mean though because I've seen groups of people in there that do the stations.

Ok, good. Then hopefully you'll just drop. How did you decide on your calorie count? Did you go off the weight you are or the weight you want to be?

I used this one: http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/calories-goal.php

I'm eating about 1850 a day, now hoping to have these last 10 pounds off before June!

That's why I'm stopping all excercise. I don't want to gain muscle. I"ll start again after the operation.


So....I gained.....................1.25 inches!!! Yay me!! I passed my bmi test!!! Just hope I can be that tall when I go for the surgery or they're gonna think I have wicked osteoparosis!

LOL Bridget! Well when is the operation?

third week in april Someone told me about a neck stretcher. I'm looking into it.

Oh, so not very far away at all. So you could probably lose those extra pounds for real by the time you go, then be all, hmm, I don't know why they said I was that tall!

I just don't understand why I can't seem to lose ANY weight! It's driving me nuts! I'm about to go on to my "working" diet which will cause a drop for sure... because this is driving me nuts.

I'm MAD now. I tried on my "fat jeans" this morning and they're too tight! I'm mad at myself but I'm going to take it out on the gym! I kicked arse today in the spin class and ab class...and spent like 20 minutes in the sauna.

My favorite cardio is by far a spinning class. I used to be able to do a two hour hardcore class... now I can BARELY scrape by an hour class but that's with not working as hard as everyone else.

I also like yoga (I break a sweat!) and the elliptical sometimes.

Same here. Wearing clothes I had saved from being "fat" before for PREGNANCY. I'm wearing my PREGNANT clothes. WTH?! I wish I was pregnant.

What do you do in spinning class? I've always wondered yet been to lazy to look it up.

they have stationary bikes set up that you can adjust how hard you pedal. the teacher usually has loud music and yells out instructions to simulate riding on the street. sprints, hills, intervals, standing, sitting, etc. its REALLY hard work (probably burns the most or close to the most calories for a cardio workout) but you can control yourself how hard you want to work with the knob. i love it! depending on the teacher or gym they have the lights turned off and a blue light on so everything is glowing and they play loud trance music too. those are my favorite kind. but today the lady did rock music and it was fun too!

That soudns fun-- the right music can help you forget about the exercise as much.

exactly why i like it! an hour goes by and BOOM you burned 800 calories

I'm so proud of myself - I just ran 2 miles without stopping! I can't remember the last time I did that...when this thread started I was having trouble with a half mile!

Now to reward myself with some PIE.

Just kidding!

My husband used to be a personal trainer so I have lots of knolege on this stuff.
1) If you are working out, dont even bother with a scale, it is not accurate at all, It does not show what you are actually loosing (you could be loosing water, muscle, or fat) measure your body fat percentage, it is percise.
2) muscle weighs more than fat, (another reason to not use the scale). So you might be trully burning fat, but the scale may say you gained 1 pound. It could be 1 lb of muscle.

Holy Carpe Diem! Really? like 800 calories? i wish I had a spinning class! I'd go like 3-4 times a week and drop pounds like no tomorrow.

Ammar says I look thinner and that is like a miracle for him to say that. He never says that even when I am thinner. Maybe in a week i'll weigh myself.

I'm in my skinny jeans today, yay!

OK, I couldn't take it anymore. in the morning I can see my ribs again and i was so excited (they were TOTALLY camouflaged before and now if I kind of bend to the side (and suck in) I can see all of them!).

I have only lost 3 freaking pounds.

I'm going to take nana's advice, and not weigh myself anymore (this will be hard!). My skinny jeans usually don't fit me when I am the weight that I am currently, so I don't think the scale is doing me justice.

That's good advice. I've been holding off for a few weeks. I actually got in some good exercise yesterday, so i think i'll do it again today. I need to lose at least 30 lbs, so I'm just 10lbs above my goal. i someone wonder if when i hit that 10lbs if I'll be at my goal size because I will have been exercising-- so I'm not too into the last 10lbs.

ETA the goal size is size 2. Right now I'm in my size 8s.

roflmao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


My flippin' goal is a size 12!!!!

my goal is a size 10!!! (i don't even want to admit what size I really am right now) arghhhhhhhhh!

My pants goal is a size 8. I don't hold out much hope for ever changing my top size.

Hey Jen, we're tall, don't forget!

10 would be a reasonable size but i REALLY would prefer to be an 8 too...

I was a 12 before I had kids, though in some stores that was a 10. I think I looked damned good back then!

I'm envious of all of u. I would LOVE to see myself in a size 20 or 22 much less a size 10. I'm slowly moving down but starting to want to rebel from "loss of decent food stuffs" syndrome. I just finished off some pizza we had last night for supper and don't even wanna know how many calories that was. My willpower is slipping away and I'm not liking that too much.

I think if my period would ever end .. I'd feel so much better. I'm combating once-a-week migraines. I really think that it is 1 cycle after another coz I usually get migraines at the beginning of my cycle. Now I'll get a migraine, flow like 5 or 6 days, lightens up for a day or 2, then another migraine, and it continues repeating itself. I have a doc appointment (finally) on Monday to have the plumbing checked out. I really hope he can give me an idea of whats going on down there.

No wonder I don't like much of anything right now lol! I think that would do it for just about anyone.

Ok, back to my gallon of water and 100cal packs.

amal

It really depends on many factors. That wedding photo I showed and the one where we were standing together in excavation? i was size 2 then! But you'd never know from the photo. People were still asking me if I was going to lose some weight. I've got the jennifer Love hewitt thing going on. She's thin-- she's like a size2. but somehting about the way she is shaped makes her look heavier. I got in touch with the idea that I would never be model thin like a lot of girls-- I'll always be an hourglass, I'll always have larger thighs and a jLo butt but that's just who I am! I'm Ok with that now. That took a lot of work.

I've noticed a lot of girls, especially taller ones, who look way better size 8/10 and even 12... it just depends on your shape and your height and a lot of factors. I think being the tallest one in my family at 5'4", I managed to retain the same freaking frame as the rest of the 5-footers, and somehow even inhertied the smallest features which didn't help. My mom is much shorter than I am at 5'1" but her arms are longer than mine, her hands and feet are larger by a lot (my ring size is 4 and hers is 7!) and she is REALLY thin (about 100lbs).

So anyway, never judge yourself by someone else's goals. It's what you are happy with and what is healthy for you. I guarantee many of you will look thinner than me (proportionately) at your goals! And even if not, you will be healthier and happier for being who you are.

Perhaps I should have just said I wanted to drop 6 sizes (or 3 if you count it by 2s)? I was just being honest.

Amal, you're doign well-- keep ti up! Do you and I maybe have similar problems? i know you said you had a portion control problem (me too), but I love carbs like bread, and I love soda and sugars-- and I HATE water. If I can eat things I like and eat a ton of them, I'm OK but as soon as I start to feel deprived I totaly crave everything that is bad and then overeat on it (2 days ago i ate an entire package of lasagna noodles for dinner. Really. I can down 2 large pizzas without feeling full. I can and will go through 4 liters of soda a day if i was left alone.)

Maybe the trick is to figure out what you like that is more or less empty in its caloric value and then try to go from there. I have an advantage that I love veggies adn could eat 6lbs of lettuce every day if I wanted. So i can fill up on a certain ammount of healthy thigns and then occasionally give into a chocolate craving.

I totally have that problem. a 2 liter in my house (if I were alone) would only last about an hour. I hav eto limit it coz I am embarassed by how much I can "put away" and don't want others to know how much I'd rather eat/drink than I actually did. I like just about everything EXCEPT fish and mushrooms. I do feel like I'm missing out as soon as I start "knowingly" eliminating things. I do like water a LOT so that's not an issue. I have always been a big big liquid consumer. So much, in fact, that if I go out to a restaurant in my home town, they know to just bring a pitcher of soda (or whatever) to the table coz otherwise they're filling my glass up every minute or 2.

One of the worst things, for me, is the "if nobody sees me, it didn't happen" feeling. It's like .. mmmm i'll just sneak this piece of choclate and nobody will ever know..... THEN I say to myself that I'll not eat so much at supper due to the chocolate and what happens... I eat more at supper than any other night. I'm completely hopeless. 100% addicted to food and there's not much I can do about it except try to decrease my portions and keep the willpower up to control myself.

*sigh*
amal

me too, amal! i feel ya girl... i really have a problem. being a freaking CHEF doesn't help! i should try to be a physical trainer instead! lol