The Weight Loss Support Group - 2016

[adoringangel72]

Down to one soda a day now, without too much of a migraine but at the request of fiancé & stepson last night I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. If they'd just been chocolate chip without peanut butter I could have resisted completely but I love peanut butter. I didn't have full binge, but I shouldn't have had any. He did fix my elliptical machine though! Just had to tighten something, at first he thought it might be something else? Idk. He made me help him texture the ceiling and walls in the kitchen. I'm a girly girl, I hate doing anything like that. I feel bad for him bc I think he wanted it to be a project we do together and I bitched the entire time. As always I say, "call a professional." Well, I wasn't just sitting around at least. Going on elliptical later too.

 

[jtbo]

Down to one soda a day now, without too much of a migraine but at the request of fiancé & stepson last night I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. If they'd just been chocolate chip without peanut butter I could have resisted completely but I love peanut butter. I didn't have full binge, but I shouldn't have had any. He did fix my elliptical machine though! Just had to tighten something, at first he thought it might be something else? Idk. He made me help him texture the ceiling and walls in the kitchen. I'm a girly girl, I hate doing anything like that. I feel bad for him bc I think he wanted it to be a project we do together and I bitched the entire time. As always I say, "call a professional." Well, I wasn't just sitting around at least. Going on elliptical later too.

Did you tell him that you felt sorry for him after that? He might not get it without telling him straight, sometimes guys are like that, I know

Do you drink water? When you cut down soda, have been replacing cut amount with water? That might help with migraine issue as at least for me drinking too little is one of the triggers for migraine.

Yay for working elliptical!

Sometimes those tasks we hate can become enjoyable if we can find fun way of doing it or some part of the task that is fun, how one looks the task makes big difference.

Any movement more than normal really counts, there is no movement that would not burn some energy.

edit: I thought I post a pic of my diet food, they say you should add veggies to your diet, but somehow I think I'm doing something wrong?

diet_pizza.jpg

• jtbo
• Feb 6, 2016

 

[adoringangel72]

Looks yummy! I do like vegetables. I go in phases where I'll eat lots of vegetables, fresh fruit, smoothies, salads and other healthy fare. Then other times my diet is awful. I definitely need to drink more water. I find I do miss my evening Pepsi. Like right now. [emoji]128522[/emoji]
I'll have to start looking at exercise differently to make it more enjoyable. It will help in the spring when I can walk on the nature trails that are around. Iowa winters are terrible.

 

[louann jude]

I weighed in this morning with a 3.2 pound weight loss for the week. I am in the 250's now.

I know I am losing weight and am down 23 pound since I started but I am so disgusted with myself. I don't feel like I am making any progress with my body at all. And to be honest the last two mornings I have woke up STARVING. It was so bad this morning I got sick to my stomach. I got almost 1300 calories yesterday and even splurged with a few pieces of chicken alfredo pizza.

I guess I am frustrated because of how much more I need to lose. I still have 26 pounds to make my first goal, to have a BMI under 40.

 

[ginny]

I weighed in this morning with a 3.2 pound weight loss for the week. I am in the 250's now.

I know I am losing weight and am down 23 pound since I started but I am so disgusted with myself. I don't feel like I am making any progress with my body at all. And to be honest the last two mornings I have woke up STARVING. It was so bad this morning I got sick to my stomach. I got almost 1300 calories yesterday and even splurged with a few pieces of chicken alfredo pizza.

I guess I am frustrated because of how much more I need to lose. I still have 26 pounds to make my first goal, to have a BMI under 40.

If you are starving, something's wrong. Namely, you aren't getting enough fat.  I was never hungry on high fat/mod protein/lower carb.  NEVER!  In fact, the point of being on that kind of diet is to maximize nutrition WHILE you lose weight.  There were days I couldn't even eat all I needed to eat, so I had to back off on the fat.  One thing's for sure I was never hungry.  Quite the opposite, I spontaneously cut out lunch because 2 meals per day was plenty for me.  AND I was losing weight, and most importantly I felt so much better and slept like a rock.  

I know how it is to feel disgusted when I look in the mirror.  But make your focus health, not so much weight loss.  

 

[ginny]

I am totally the same with sugar. I have a ripper choc chip cookie recipe. Even my kids prefer them to toll house. I've got an awesome brownie recipe too oh and banana bread. I'll share if you like? I had a huge day yesterday and ate pizza for dinner and three toll house cookies. This morning my weight is up of course but the worst thing is my face. My eyes are so puffy it's terrible. That's another thing that wheat does to me. It also has the same effect as sugar. A small serve and I want more and more. I have read that you often crave the foods that you are sensitive too. For me it's certainly true.

Sure I love new recipes!  I have this one for chocolate chip cookies, using the soy/lecithin free chips, which are more like brownies than cookies because of all the coconut oil.  I was going to tweak it and use about 3/4 butter 1/4 coconut oil to firm them up to give them that crunch I like.  After all, butter is allowed on Perfect Health Diet (PHD).  

I think more people are grain sensitive than not.  I never thought I was until I went off it for a time, and then tried to add it back, with disastrous results!  It tore my stomach up!  I ate pasta about 6pm, and ended up nursing the worst heartburn of my life until 4am the next morning!

I think the reason why we crave sugar is because of yeast overgrowth.  And that due to all the antibiotics we've ever been on destroying that nice gut flora which we need so badly for digestion and our immune systems, plus all the pesticides in our food which destroy the gut flora.  I have started taking a very good probiotic again yesterday and have already noticed the difference/improvement in my digestion!  It eliminates heartburn to say the very least!  

 

[ginny]

 
I heard something yesterday on a cartoon I watched with my kids. It was one of those wow things. It's from the little engine that could. 

'If you think you can then you can. If you think you can't you can't. Either way you are right.'

I thought it was cool and thought I would share.

So true.  We could talk for days about this one thought alone.  We sabotage our selves when we won't allow the possibility of doing something like losing weight and getting healthy.  We won't even look for ways in which to make that goal come true.  We won't even try.  That's why if you think you can't, you're right.  But it's because you aren't even trying.  Wow.  Human nature.  We have so many blind spots it's not even funny.  And we hurt ourselves by not being brutally honest with ourselves and admitting "I could be wrong".  

 

[ginny]

And another thing.

What we focus on is what we go toward.  If we focus on our fears, we unconsciously make that fear happen by our actions.  We do!  I've noticed this in myself.  For the longest time, I've focused on fear of losing my job. And I unconsciously began adopting attitudes that led to lack of productivity.  So now I make an effort to correct myself when I realize I'm doing it again.   Just yesterday I realized I was stuck focusing on illness instead of health.  So I made that little correction.  I'm not there yet, but I am trying.  

 

[ginny]

I find it very amusing how Scientific american does not quote any references and states all those opinions, maybe magazine is not very good one either then?

My diet is like this at the moment (from today's log):
45% fat
25% carbs
30% protein

Perhaps not too far from what Paleo has, but then I have an issue, to get 3500 to 4000mg of potassium, there is not many cost effective ways, eating tomatoes etc. I would need to eat close to 1kg (2.2 pounds) of those in a day and it is costly here, one of the cost effective ways is to drink orange juice, but it gives quite bit of sugar and throws those percentages off. Veggies have so little potassium for their weight.

I should try to keep my food budget around 150, but it is already more like 300 and replacing orange juice with more veggies would push it near 400 or more, I can't afford that and I'm already at lowest price possible to get proper food.

However I don't have much of issue with sugar from that, too much wheat on other hand is not good, bloats and makes me easily tired. I'm thinking about getting potassium supplement, to replace at least part of orange juice.

My nutrition spreadsheet just keeps growing, it is now from A to AE column and from first row to row 82, I need bigger screen soon.

One crazy thing about world is that sugar and carbs generally are so cheap per calorie, but also how those can be quite bit of issue if there is too much of them. Officials here push 65% energy from carbs.

I have been off sweets now more than 2 weeks and there has been no cravings either, but I did increase amount of protein intake too. I guess that I can be happy to have 50 to 75% less sugar now than month ago, that has not made big difference to one way or another actually which is bit surprising.

Protein intake has a limit too how much one can eat until it becomes poisonous:
http://www.catalystathletics.com/article/50/The-Protein-Debate-Dr-Loren-Cordain-T-Colin-Campbell/

I found about that as I was curious about Paleo and looked around, can't remember if earlier first link had page that led there.

Loosing weight really is all about eating less than one manages to burn during the day, for me most important bit has been to know how much I really eat and how much I really burn.

Your diet log sounds kinda paleo to me.  I can't adhere to the very strict Loren Cordain version, which most would consider strictly paleo.

I've noticed that when I'm off sugar, my mood lifts immediately.  The very day I start!  But there's a psychological component there in which I'm sabotaging myself.  I know that increasing my protein to the normal amount which should be consumed by most people is what staves off sugar cravings (plus probiotics and prebiotics and good overall nutrition), but there's a point where I just miss sugar.  It's a psychological thing.  A bad habit.   

 

[jtbo]

I weighed in this morning with a 3.2 pound weight loss for the week. I am in the 250's now.

I know I am losing weight and am down 23 pound since I started but I am so disgusted with myself. I don't feel like I am making any progress with my body at all. And to be honest the last two mornings I have woke up STARVING. It was so bad this morning I got sick to my stomach. I got almost 1300 calories yesterday and even splurged with a few pieces of chicken alfredo pizza.

I guess I am frustrated because of how much more I need to lose. I still have 26 pounds to make my first goal, to have a BMI under 40.

With what I have been eating, I have not had hunger, but also I rarely has eaten much less than my BMR is and usually my deficit has been around 20% range, but of course my situation was quite different and when I had most of the weight, I began bit wrong way by only increasing exercise.

As Ginny says, less carbs and more fat/protein can reduce amount of hunger, also more fiber can help, but I would think that avoiding hunger and starving, even if it might lead slower weight loss, might be better, so one does not feel sick and it is easier to keep going. What I eat is not even that high in fat content as I have posted, but total carbs is less than what typically is instructed.

If I felt terrible, I even allowed to eat day or two so that there was no energy deficit, day or two now and then did not make huge difference at the end, but of course one size does not fit all, just some ideas which might or might not help you.


But there is also some points beyond typical range to think about, according to this article in WebMD, carbs can help with brain chemical balance, but then there is no mention how much carbs would be needed to affect balance and so much other data missing, but I think that is possibility worth to consider too:
http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/serotonin?page=2


I don't know what my point is, maybe that don't feel bad of eating more at times if it helps you feel better and keep you at it in long term, it is better to have days here and there without weight loss than giving up because feeling terrible.

 

[ginny]

....less carbs and more fat/protein can reduce amount of hunger, also more fiber can help, but I would think that avoiding hunger and starving, even if it might lead slower weight loss, might be better, so one does not feel sick and it is easier to keep going....

Very well said.  That's why I was able to stick with this diet for so long.  Typically, I start a diet in the morning, and by noon I'm plotting how to go off it, and by late afternoon the deed is done and the diet is history.  That's my typical diet pattern.  The diet has to be livable.  If not, as you said, you won't stick to it.  

 

[jtbo]

If I understand this obesity gene business correctly, those who have genetic defect are more prone to overeating, but also excess fat in diet can end up more easily to waist and can more easily cause fat increase than in those who don't have defect.

There is quite complex study about it.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150729/ncomms8671/full/ncomms8671.html

Also if I understand issue correctly, those who have that defect will find it more difficult to have deficit. Also there was mentioning about fasting, I think they mean time between meals which that would affect.

There is also articles about FTO gene, quite many of those forgot to mention that gene causes eating behavior changes which causes weight to accumulate, but in that study published in Nature, they found that high fat diet caused altered mice to gain more fat than natural mice, which might mean that high fat diet might not be best for everyone.

However it is complex issue, I doubt it will make loosing weight impossible, but urge to eat might be higher in those individuals having that difference in genes. I would love to know what my genes are, so that I could find out what genetic challenges I have, then I could much easier build solution to cope with them.

 

[ginny]

I've heard so much about antibiotics being one of the causes of obesity.  I can't link to one article I found, so please google "Antibiotic linked to childhood obesity - BBC News".  

Also there is the thought that we aren't enslaved by our genes.  We can turn off the bad ones and turn on the good ones through adequate nutrition.  Look up Dr. Terry Wahls.  She's a clinical professor at University of Iowa Medical School.  She had the MS gene.  Her story is quite amazing.  It's no quick cure though.  

 

[louann jude]

I think i know what is wrong. I started exercising 3 days ago. On my fitness pal it says you are supposed to eat extra when you do that. I haven't been. According to their thing I have already burnt close to 300 calories by just cleaning alone. My lunch didn't have that many calories in it, and I haven't done my work out yet. I guess I need to up my calories a few hundred a day 1200 isn't enough. 

 

[paiger8]

 
I think i know what is wrong. I started exercising 3 days ago. On my fitness pal it says you are supposed to eat extra when you do that. I haven't been. According to their thing I have already burnt close to 300 calories by just cleaning alone. My lunch didn't have that many calories in it, and I haven't done my work out yet. I guess I need to up my calories a few hundred a day 1200 isn't enough. 

My Fitness Pal super over estimates calories burned. I can bike for an hour and burn 400 calories (according to heart rate monitor) and MFP will say I burned 650. I always adjust it when I add exercise. 

I use it as a guide, but I always assume it's less calories than it says. So I'd eat back some of your exercise calories, but not all.

 

[adoringangel72]

Just reading everything hoping it will sink in. I'm such a creature of habit. I know I'm grasping at straws, looking for excuses and living in the past but why before could I indulge in sugar all day & all night and it didn't affect my weight, puffiness, energy level, etc? I miss being able to drink countless sodas, eat junk food consistently and not paying attention to portion sizes, and carbs.
I haven't tried any probiotics for years, don't even know what's out there. Yogurt makes me gag, I think it's the texture bc I also don't care for applesauce unless it's chunky and I'm not a fan of pudding either. I used to go to colonics. The only girl that even offered colon hydrotherapy was in Iowa City. She moved on to a different state so there's nowhere around anymore for that. She also had infrared saunas. It was wonderful. I wasn't trying to lose weight then, I just liked the feeling of being completely clean and made my tummy look so sleek and flat. I took probiotics then to replenish the good bacteria. The kind I took were the kind that had to be refrigerated. This was about 10 years ago so I can't even recall if it made any difference in how I felt. I know the colonics made me feel better. Haven't been on elliptical since it's been fixed except to test it out. [emoji]128549[/emoji] I'm going shopping tonight though! That's my exercise for today.

 

[jtbo]

I think i know what is wrong. I started exercising 3 days ago. On my fitness pal it says you are supposed to eat extra when you do that. I haven't been. According to their thing I have already burnt close to 300 calories by just cleaning alone. My lunch didn't have that many calories in it, and I haven't done my work out yet. I guess I need to up my calories a few hundred a day 1200 isn't enough. 

Yeah, anything that includes moving burns more than staying still and must be added.

Some like to go by estimate, like those activity levels, which also works (and is lot easier than doing all the math!) if level is chosen right, sometimes it is bit difficult to tell and different sites might have different amount of calories between different activity levels.


I'm finding veggies kind of bloat me, there is quite clear increase of my waist at evening compared to less veggies, of course there is also change where I eat twice the day instead once a day, but I eat less calories actually.

Body composure scale is showing increase in fat percentage and weight is bit up. Maybe too much water from veggies or my body is not able to use them properly, or my body is so used to 24 hour fasting after eating that it is doing something weird, after all it has been trained to that at least last 30 years.

I don't really know what is going on, but I'm going to observe until next week, maybe there is some changes by then.

Here is small part of my spreadsheet I'm working on, it still has lot of bits missing, but slowly I'm getting there, I hope.
I put all I eat there daily to calculate what I get and where I need to adjust, there is then another spreadsheet where I log amount of total calories for each day, eaten and burned, so I should know exactly how much I get and burn.

nutrition_spreadsheet.gif

• jtbo
• Feb 7, 2016

@Adoringangel72, you really should try real wood heated Sauna, it is whole new level compared to infrared sauna, it has more of everything of that goodness. I have such traditional sauna, it is made at 1950's, gives lot better experience than modern smaller saunas I have been. With good session in there, old skin can be rubbed off and it gives really good feeling afterwards.

One problem with age is that stuff starts to get on waist easier and with more age those recommended weights go up too, so it is just natural, it happens.

 

[jtbo]

I have been looking into starving mode, I think there is quite bit of myth around it.

What I have found out is that reducing amount of calories you eat to very low value of 1200 calories or less, can slow down metabolism so that there is 8% decrease in BMR which is amount of calories one would use when in coma.

Exercise can then increase that back, but still it would be at lowered state.

Smaller calorie deficit and exercise can keep BMR close to original.

Even when body is in kind of starvation mode, that is 8% less than normal, it does not stop weight loss.

Protein amount 0.5g per 1kg of body weight is not enough to prevent muscle and bone loss, 1.2-1.5g per 1kg of body mass seems to be better in range and some who are building muscle might benefit even from 2g per 1kg of body mass, but going very high on protein can be an issue, I'm not going to exceed 200 grams to be sure.

There is quite long journal about that, they mention some problems with studies and how low protein was one of the issues:
http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/2/196.full


Also I found out some article mentioning connection between serotonin, depression and diet, protein rich /meat) diet is lowering serotonin because of amino acids, while carbohydrates increase amount of serotonin.
Lower level of serotonin might cause carbohydrate cravings and eventually lead weight gain because over eating.

I would guess that having higher carb days might be beneficial on low carb diet because of that:
http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/04/05/low-serotonin-levels-symptoms/

I'm trying to keep carbs over 100 grams / 400 calories, but all this changes from individual to another, mostly body composition and size, gender so on affect how much is good amount.

 

[paiger8]

Happy Monday everyone! I'm coming to you live from my bed where I've been hacking up a lung and possibly some other vital organs for the last 2 days. I finally scheduled some of my vacation days for today and tomorrow, hoping to work on a couple house projects. And I magically get sick on my vacation days. Ugh. Possibly the world's worst cold, possibly bronchitis. I'm avoiding the doctor for as long as I can.

Sufficient to say, I haven't been to the gym in 3 days and it's killing me.

Weigh in stats:

Loss this Week: -3.4 lbs
Loss since Jan 1: -15.6 lbs


ETA: Typo

 

[catlover19]

I gained 1.6 pounds from Saturday morning to this morning according to my scale. My weight goes up way too easily. I had a cheat day on Saturday and had some pizza, wings, wine and chips with taco dip. I was 3.6 pounds more on Sunday morning but it has gone down.

It frustrates me because I was just about into the 170's again.