Trying hard to lose the pounds!!!!!!!!!

Hello All

it is time for me to join this group. I am currently at 190, was 215 a year ago before surgery, chemo, radiation, etc. Dropped to 175 last summer when I couldn't eat but as you can see I gained the 15 pounds back as soon as food started tasting good to me.

I do pretty well during the day at school but when I get home I seem to lose all control.

I am doing 30 minutes a day on the treadmill but I need to do more.

I really want to lose this weight. I would love to get to 150lbs. That's a 40 pounds goal. I just don't know.

Kathy

PS I hate cottage cheese

Gum! Gum has been my salvation this week. I don't usually chew gum, but my trainer has me on a very restricted cal/carb/protein regimen for a week...and for me, chewing a peppermint or spearmint gum (I like the stuff from Starbucks!) has cleared my taste buds so that I didn't want to snack...or at least not as bad!

Cait

I think dropping the WW fee for awhile might be a strategy. If you keep paying and don't use it then it's a waste.

I think get past your appointments in March, get some hair, stay in the low 170s, join back up and go at it with true commitment. To keep paying and not doing it isn't getting you anything.

How much does it cost?

Are you feeling better?

Take a break. That's not an excuse to go overboard with the Pepsi and snacks.

Mets or not, going back up to 200 will not make your hip happier!

Hurrah on the pound!

I buy the frozen mixed berries and put 1/4 cup in with my plain oatmeal in the morning. With a teaspoon of sugar it makes for a decent breakfast, low in calories, higher in fiber.

I'm not sure if my analysis is right, but I think the frozen mixed berries are a better buy than fresh.

I had a party with lots of goodies, so I'm on the straight and narrow for the time being. I sent the extra cake off with my son, whoooo, that icing was a constant temptation!

I hate to say this, but you've got to get pretty neurotic about what you eat Like down to measuring and records things.

In the February issue of Oprah magazine there is an article "But I don't eat that much!" They quote a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that people pretty consistently underestimate what they eat by about HALF!

One suggestion the author makes is looking carefully at things you drink. Almost everybody was off on the calorie counts there.

I'm going in for a check-up this week, and had this desire to weigh in at what I did last year, so I've been on a strict program. Geeze, it's hard. I pop more things in my mouth than I realized. I don't eat an entire bag of chips, but just 13 of them have 150-200 calories. Each nut is about 10 calories. There was the box of Valentine's Candy, the bad of Valentine kisses, the "half" cookies from Whole Foods, the quart of ice cream I ate over a week, two brownies I bought and ate over several days at work, the chocolate chips I ate while baking chocolate chip cookies (and eating the dough). I'm not even going to go into the party I had and the chips that went with the three kinds of crab dip I bought that my guests didn't eat all up so I had to snack on it... This stuff ads up.

I went kayaking this summer in New Hampshire. Now when I look at your avatar I see that's what you're doing.

I really liked it. I had a little trouble going straight at first, but I found a book and worked on doing the stroke right. Eventually I got all the way across the lake and back (almost where I wanted to go).

It was wonderful for my shoulders and waist. The water is pretty cold so I always wear a life jacket. This summer I'm going to buy a nice jacket that fits right. The place we go has the kayaks some I don't have to have that.

The article in the magazine said they tested the metabolisms of a whole bunch of people complaining about lack of weight loss, and they were all within normal range. About half of them got angry when they found that out! But it argues for measuring and weighing more carefully.

Ginger, I'm going to go look at the article. Sounds interesting. And yes, cottage cheese is getting very very old...I've tried other protein snacks, but the good old standby cottage cheese seems to get me through the night without waking up ready to eat the blanket!

Rose, glad to know you enjoyed kayaking! And I understand about getting a comfy lifejacket. Even though I am in the warm waters here on Galveston Bay, I always wear a life jacket. Didn't used to...until I ended up getting scraped off the kayak by a very low hanging tree limb. When you are hanging from a tree limb upside down like a giant sloth is when you suddenly you realize that the life jacket on the kayak downstream isn't going to do you a bit of good! There are a number of jackets made specifically for women...The Lola and the Betsea are 2 I remember...they are more "curved" out for our chests. But I prefer one made for paddlers...buoyancy material doesn't come all the way to your waist in the back to allow room for you to lean back in the seat and the arm holes are much larger to allow more freedom of movement when you paddle. Don't know if you can get out yet that far north...I was on a 2 hour training run this morning and boy, spring is happening down here in Texas...even saw 4 different sets of baby ducklings! So cute!!!

Cait

I was 39 at 1st dx – and at my optimum weight (only few pounds over my high school pounds). So when I gained almost 20 pounds during my year of BC treatment, I was so frustrated. I was able to shed a few of those pounds over the years, but not much. So when I was dx’d again last year, I put on another 15-20 lbs (had 2nd mast./ooph/reconstruction). So I was at least 35 lbs over weight. I started water aerobics and cutting back on my meal portions plus NO fast-food. Also no fancy Starbucks drinks, minimal alcohol and lots of water. I’ve lost 14lbs within 8 weeks.

The water aerobics is great for my joints since I started Arimedix (my knees and feet ache from it), but I’m still burning calories from resistance. It’s so enjoyable.

I had my WW meeting tonight. Drum roll.....Down a whole pound since the beginning of October.
Okay, starting over tomorrow.
Anywho, one of the gals tonight was talking about Starbucks. She gets the fat-free latte with no cal syrup, and says it fills her up so she eats less at dinner.
I am going to head that way tomorrow!

The weeks I eat at home I do well, the weeks I'm too lazy to cook are disaster! Moving is difficult, but you need to try to get something easy you can eat fast - even if you have to go with lean cuisine frozen stuff - not organic but probably better for you than what's at the diner!!

It'll be fun seeing you around! I'm still slacking BUT have set a "get serious" date where I will start back on the tracking program. Never fear, Rose, I'm behaving in the meantime, mostly.

Sixty pounds! That's fab. You know, even if you have a heart issue the treadmill and moving to a healthy weight are what they'll push you to do; no matter what you're on the right track.

I hope you don't have any heart problems! Does your treadmill have a heart rate monitor? If you've been monitoring your heart rate on the treadmill then you should have a clue if it's not behaving consistently. Sometimes home machines don't have the sensors. At my "Y" they do and it's one of my amusements while I work out to watch my heart.

I believe with a regular stress test they wire you up and then you walk on a treadmill as it gets harder (not sure if it's faster or steeper). They access your max capacity. I don't know what the "nuclear" aspect of it is. Not to worry because you're wired up and they're there to rescue you, if anything goes wrong. If you've been on the treadmill through 60 pounds of dieting it doesn't sound to me like you're going to keel over 'cause you would have already.


Good luck - and don't get anxious and snack!

The tightness in the chest complaint makes your doc not want to take even a slight chance there'd be a problem. My dh does the treadmills in the office and we have rescue equipment, but don't want to use it!!

The nuclear treadmill works your heart, not the rest of you. My dh does those at the hospital with the cardiologist doing the interpreting of the nuclear part.

No one has had a problem with those. You'll do fine. How great you've lost all that weight. That can only be good news for your heart--and the rest of you too.