This is sooooo true. :)
I think it's great that we can each find what works for us, share tips and be encouraging....love it!

I really enjoy plain Greek yogurt with small bits of diced apple mixed in; I use a red Delicious apple because of the sweetness. I'll add a little more than half of a small apple in a serving of yogurt, and it seems to be just enough to balance out that bitterness you're talking about.

I won't give up my half-n-half either. :) I've been using the fat free variety for years now.....not sure if you've tried that or not??

Two things...

Your "strategy" and your post about it made me laugh. Hey....whatever works, huh?

Also, the plan Jo's friend uses reminds me of when I followed the USDA's food pyramid (I think it's a "plate" now though) about 5 years ago. I lost 20 lbs. so easily just by following what the pyramid said I should have each day.......and yeah.........I felt like I was eating throughout the day. What I really liked is that I never felt full and I never felt hungry; I was always just content. :)

I like the points thing too; it really works for my type A self. :) Like you, it has......without me really thinking about it.....gotten me to look at what I'm eating and when and how I can get the most bang for my buck. In the end, I'm making better choices and re-discovering foods I've always liked that are so good for me (like tuna salad).

I ate too much tonight.

I'm not really feeling ashamed or anything but mostly regretful. We went to Golden Corral and I generally have a huge salad before my meal and then go eat a little of this and that. I did that tonight just like always but I ate more of the hot food than I actually needed.

I discovered that I do NOT like the feeling of hunger. Tonight when we entered the restaurant, my stomach was growling and I was feeling MEAN! The autopilot in me was just wanted to cram something in my stomach to shut her up.

If I had to do it differently, I wouldn't have eaten that yeast roll or that green bean casserole because I was full before I had those. I'm not beating myself up at all, just realizing that I knew I was full and at a stopping point and made a decision to ignore it.

Still, not feeling bad about it really (which is a brand new thing for me), and definitely feeling more in touch with my hunger system. I'm kinda thankful for that! (even when it kinda sucks!)

Tonight I went to my gym at 10pm and burned 300 calories on the elliptical!

Super proud of myself :)

When I first started in April, I couldn't stay on that thing more than 2 minutes lol now I look forward to beating my time ;)

Trying again...
 

Hi everyone.

I've been lurking in and around this thread for a bit now. Thanks for sharing your ups and downs, tips and strategies. I am trying again to be healthy. I have a lot of weight to lose for health reasons. I gained all the weight I lost and then some. And I am feeling the consequences.

Any way, thanks for being a support without even knowing it.

Oh and I walked 1 mile Wednesday and 2.5 miles today (in too much pain Thursday). It's a start. I'd like to get up to 5 miles/day and do a few other things. I may or may not be an overachiever. And I am tackling the eating department. I'm not big on counting and measuring and group meetings. But I know I can reach my goal. I gain this weight over night. So I know it will take time to lose it, retrain my brain, break old habits and learn new ones.

Ok enough rambling. Thanks again.

Congrats on your progress fellow tiger! I'm happy for you. Keep up the excellent work!

Duuuuuuuuuude, I would totally meet up with you to walk at the bay or Lake Murray or wherever. I also would love to hit the gym sometime with you! Hit me up.

Glad you are here! We can battle the love of donuts together :)

Tonight I was watching tv and wishing I had gone to the gym today even tho my back has been on one of its fits,I even went to the chiro to take out the kinks wich he did for the most part but we go back monday for another treatment.Anyhoo I just got up then went out to the patio then brought in my exersise bike, my stair stepper as well as a couple of hand weights..then did as much a workout as I could muster with them.I did 4mi on the bike,100 steps on the stepper,then went on the paito for a round of bench presses(40) then a fue things on the bowflex,the the temp was only 95 so I didnt stay out to long.I have no idea how many calories I burned but it shure felt good to do somethinbg of a work out.Im not shure the chiro ment for me to do this but I did any way...just had to.

Good morning all
 

Lost those two pounds that had magically reappeared the other day. So glad I did not let it get into my head: Negative thoughts+discouragement=giving up & getting off my healthy food plan. I know that equation all too well.

The whole 10 pounds= one dress/pants size is right on the money! That is kind of how I did it mentally when I lost 50 pounds. I had forgotten how well it worked for me before my derail!

I tried very hard to never allow myself to think about the total amount I needed to lose. I would focus on 10 pounds only. Once I lost 10, I would say to self, OK, you lost 10, you can do it again. To think about the total amount is just too discouraging. I now work on stopping negative thoughts about the 15- wait, now 13! I had regained.

My mantra now: you did it before, you have control, you will do it again.

I simply must find exercise I can do with my not-so-good knees. Tried stairs yesterday, which I used to love to do-did 6-flights and knee gave out. Just can't do them anymore. Must move on.

Weekends hard for me, my remaining dog is sick & may need to be put down but I can't, won't give up.

PS: thanks Thinker re the fat-free half-in-half. I believe the fat-free has corn syrup or something of that nature. It's weird but a Splenda does not trigger me for sweets but anything with corn syrup or things like that are triggers for me to eat sugar. I allow myself the "real" (lol) half-in-half and take total joy in it and still keep daily cals around 1500.

I do always welcome tips & ideas because they do help me and they give me new ways of looking at this journey that we are on together.

Thanks all, super great thread.

Hi everyone and welcome Gentle Tiger! :)
I love how this group is growing! So...I'm still contemplating the new style of eating but leaning more and more towards yes I will. Partly because I'm sure it will help me lose weight, but more so because it's so darn healthy....and my eyes have been bothering me more lately. That's super scary to me because I have diabetic retinopathy...so keeping my vision depends on keeping my blood sugar under control.

I showed the plan to Scoote yesterday but she's not inclined to join me in it. She's not a veggie eater and loves the carbs and sweets...so it's just too big of a stretch for her to enjoy it and be able to live with it. She's made great strides ...drinking less soda, more water, more 100% fruit juice and V8....and much less junk food and chocolate than she used to.

We really do all have to do our own journey...even if we live in the same house. So, a big part of my contemplation has to do with how I'll manage this in a housefull of people not eating the same way. Dinners are do-able...more roasting and grilling instead of frying, and tossing in a potato to bake for me instead of the mashed one or noodles or whatever....dramatically increasing the veggies so I can have a bigger serving and more variety.

Daytime is easy since I work from home....so getting the healthy snacks and probably just make a giant salad every day instead of the sandwich thing.

I got this! Now I just need to get to the farmers market and load up on fruit and veggies for the week. :)

I'm finally caught up on this thread. Woohoo!

I thought I'd do a general check-in :)

Today I'm 192, the exact weight I was this time last year. And while I'd like to lose, I'm terrifically excited about maintaining! Maintaining is so very much work in and of itself!

In June 2007 when my mom had her heart attack, I started keeping my daily journal (by hand), and every morning I would write at the top of it, "I have lost X pounds since my mom's heart attack." As of today, I've lost 51 pounds since my moms heart attack. It feels really good to see that, even if most of the weight followed shortly after the shock of seeing her all hooked up to machines, having quadruple bypass surgery.

While my weight hasn't changed this year, I did drop a size, from a 22 to a 20. I'm an endorphin junkie, and yesterday exercise-biked two hours while simultaneously lifting weights throughout. I am very "ADD," and I love doing multiple things at once. I always stretch for half an hour after to calm down and avoid any soreness.

The bingeing continues to come up an average of slightly less than 7 days total per month. When I binge, it's like out of a movie, just a complete loss of control and so very unhealthy. I have had job stress that has been a big contributor. Tracking my binges and noting triggers helps me. Sometimes it feels like nearly everything is a trigger, the bad and the good! My dear friend Sylvie and I email privately from time to time, sharing our innermost feelings on this (big help!), and I also look at some online forums.

My goal is to solidly get into the 180's. I have been finding that when I am in the low 190's, I relax and allow myself to slack off. When I near 200, I go into high gear of being very controlled, and back and forth.

My reasons for weight loss: on blood pressure meds, pre-diabetes, and knee problems.

My methods for a healthier lifestyle: journal food, emotions, and exercise, and keep various statistics on my habits. I try to eat about 3 400 calorie meals ("breakfast, lunch, dinner" and 3 200 calorie snacks), with a very loose estimation of calories (rarely measuring). I try to eat every 3-4 hours. I exercise a minimum of 4 hours per week. The foods/drinks I am completely abstinent from always are meat/chicken/fish (for factory farming ethics reasons since being a teenager) and all caffeine, including chocolate. I weigh myself every morning.

I have a few triggers coming up, in addition to ongoing job issues. Next Sunday for a week we have our yearly vacation to the beach. Need I say more? Then, the weekend after, we have a wedding out of town. Need I say more? The latter involves having had to drop out of being a bridesmaid because I didn't fit in the brand name, tight, form-fitting, red dress (All the other bridesmaids, including the one whom I was quickly replaced with, are in the size 6 range.). The wedding is an old college friend of mine who was lesbian identified for many years but is now marrying a man. It's going to be quite a weekend.

Thanks, as always, to everyone for the feeling of group support that warms me in this thread.

True confessions
 

I read Nina's post about the good place she is in regarding the ability to take one bite of pie or buy it and give it away. That is truly wonderful!

I have been known to buy a pie (prior to this journey I started 2 &1/2 years ago) and would never be able to stop at one bite. I would tell myself I would eat one slice-all the while knowing I never would stop at one. I would have one slice with crust and them would delude myself that if I only ate the filling out of the rest of the entire pie that it was "just fruit". I could finish that sucker in less than a day.

That is why I know one bite, for me, is no different than an alcoholic telling herself that "one drink won't hurt me, I can stop at one".

I can't afford to even test myself with one bite of pie or cake. I am done for if I do.

I have never even admitted that anywhere- to friends or in cyberspace. Scary but good to say it.

Hugs,

I'm up there in red. :)

Thinker asked about whether I notice fluctuations much in weighing myself every morning. Usually my weight stays within 2 lbs of whatever I weighed the day before. Sometimes I will get a big drop from exercising or a big gain from bingeing.

What I find helpful about it is that if I notice that I've, say, gained 3 lbs when the day before I've exercised and ate decent portions of healthy food, I then go back over my journal and try to look at what might be going on. Sometimes I find that I had a high sodium food, and so I then try to reduce that (good for my high blood pressure). I've been paying much closer attention to the sodium in everything. "Healthy" meals at restaurant chains can have thousands of mgs of sodium! Calories are not just the problem. Stepping off soap box.

On the flip side, if I binge, a lot of the weight is simply from sodium, so the nice part is that a lot of it comes off quickly once I start back to cooking healthy meals.

Once per month (and I think we all know when) I tend to retain water more as well as eat more, so I have to just sit with that! It's never fun to see the scale go up when trying to lose weight, even if we know why.

I was helped by advice from Shadow's Papa on the "Getting in Shape for the Reunion" thread. The advice was to not think much about five pounds up or down. Do I follow that rule perfectly? Certainly not, but it helps me with perspective, since a few pounds up or down is normal.

Some people find weighing themselves every day to be too much. For me it helps keep myself on track. I like the concrete aspect of starting out the day knowing where I am.