Anyone want to be my weight loss buddy?

Parent Cafe
1

OK, true confession time.

At age 58, I’m heavier than I’ve ever been in my life. Not “stop the traffic, look at that woman” heavy, but heavier than I’ve ever been. I would say I’m 25-30 pounds above where you could call me “thin.”

I would be so happy to lose, say 20-25 pounds.

Unfortunately, “so happy” is as close as I’ve gotten up to now.

But it’s time to make a change. My sister has lost 40 pounds since Christmas using Weight Watchers. To be honest, my main excuse for not doing WW is that, once school starts in the fall, the last thing I need is yet another meeting to attend. So I’m going to try to drink, clean, and exercise my way to a better weight.

Drink: as much as I wish it were otherwise, I mean water. Since I’m not teaching until September, I can drink unlimited quantities of water. (During the school year, that’s tough: I can go 3 or 4 periods without a bathroom break some years.) But it’s summer, and I’m determined to drink all the water I can.

Clean: Heaven knows, my house can use it. So I’m going to make every little chore a bit more exercise friendly.

Exercise: I bought myself a Fitbit flex yesterday. To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure how to work it. But it’s on, and it’s a physical reminder to me to TAKE MORE STEPS. I’ll try to fit them in every where I can-- like taking 2 steps back from the laundry basket every time I pick something out of it. With a family of 5, that will add some steps I wouldn’t otherwise take, and every little bit helps.

I also want to get into the habit of walking after dinner. The weather is GORGEOUS… I wait all year for summer weather. Time to start utilizing it.

So that’s my story. Even though I typically have no will power, I want to do this, and to do it this summer.

Anyone want to join me??

2

You might want to re-post this in the Weight Loss for Dummies thread where you will get good support. Also-there is a Diet and Exercise thread which has been called “hard core” and regarded as more for serious fitness folks, but many of them are now connecting outside of this forum. Either of those might be very helpful to you. The extra step or two around the laundry basket isn’t going to be very meaningful, unfortunately. Most weight loss will come from food modifications. Exercise is an important component, but purposeful steps will have more of an impact that just accumulating incidental steps.

3

Have you considered using MyFitnessPal? I’m on there - let me know if you want a friend request. You can log your weight, stats, etc., and track your food (which is key imho).

I’ve lost about 6 lbs and going for 30 total.

The Fitbit is a good way to start imho.

4

Hi @bjkmom, I started a diet–for real this time I hope–on June 7. My weight had crept up to ~30 lbs over where I should be. 10 lbs has been there for awhile, 10 lbs of sympathy stress eating for DS17 applying to colleges, and 10 lbs of additional stress snacking that I’ve heard some call the “Trump 10.”

So far I’ve lost 6 lbs (not sure now because I’m out of town for 5 days and away from scales). My strategy is to log everything I eat with an app called MyNetDiary. My son is also logging food, because he’d like to lose some weight and get better at controlling his portion sizes before starting college. It looks like he has made progress.

My phone tracks my steps, but I don’t walk enough. When I have time, my vice other than CC is Pokemon Go, which incentivizes walking. The cleaning I need to do is going through about 20 boxes of things from my parents’ house. I’m not sure how to make that more exercise friendly, let alone not driving my asthma crazy.

5

bjkmom, I will be happy to join you on this endeavor.

About three years ago my thyroid simple went on vacation and I spend a summer
in pain. It took nearly 6 months to get things straightened out, During the time I
ate and drank as a way to get some strength and so now am 15-20 from where I
started. Now I have some bad habits from that time that I really must replace with some
healthy habits.

My strengths are that I am a good cook and understand calories, nutrition and portions.
I typically get 35-60 minutes of elliptical, kettle bell or walking in most days.
My shortcoming is that I am truly hungry every 3 hours and must eat somethings such as
half of a Kind bar.

I like to log my weight and food on the FitBit site. I find it helpful.
The number one wall to reaching my goals is that I spend too much time around food
making dinner for H. H is seriously underweight. Then I am tired and eat more that I want to
eat. Tough as dinner time is not one of my hungry times.
Also being a true night owl I am so hungry at 1 am that I must eat and try to make that a
yogurt.

But I had decided before seeing your post today that I must get going and so I am two hours in
:slight_smile: .
Do you want to meet up here daily and say how things are going?
Once I emailed a friend my exercise times and calorie count daily and it was very helpful.

6

I’ve been at it since Dec 1. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight. First of all weight loss is 80% food, 20% exercise… If I were to give someone instructions on how to do it.

  1. Find your bmr and your daily calorie burn rate. You get your bmr, multiply it by the “harris equation”, which is based on your exercise level. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
  2. Based on how much you want to lose per week you need to cut 500 to 1000 calories a day off of that to lose 1 to 2 lbs per week. I measured everything at first. I didn’t eyeball a 1/2 cup of brown rice, I measured it. I learned what 4 oz of meat really looked like. From time to time I still remeasure just to make sure.
  3. IMO…it is irrelevant what diet you follow, paleo, atkins, south beach, weight watchers, etc it is all about calories. Now how you eat may be healthier, keep you feeling fuller, etc. But a calorie is a calorie. But even if the diet says you don’t need to count calories, for real weight loss you do. I log everything I eat, and that means every lick, bite, taste, etc into my fitbit app.
  4. Plan your meals and snacks, in writing, ahead of time and follow that schedule. When you plan your meals you make a grocery list at the same time.
  5. Throw all “bad” food out. Do not keep oreos or chips or whatever for the kids or husband around.
  6. Stay home for 2 weeks and do not eat out at a restaurant at all, until you have a handle on how to eat. There are so many pitfalls, extra sodium, calories, etc.
  7. I don’t know anyone who is over 30, who looks fit and healthy who isn’t careful about eating and exercise. I started by strapping on my sneakers and walking out the front door. But exercising isn’t enough, you have to be like a shark and be on the move all day. Set that fitbit to remind you if you haven’t taken 250 steps in an hour for the longest time they have, which is 11. Sitting on your butt all day after exercising pretty much negates the benefits of the exercise.
  8. I weigh myself every day. Not everyone is into that, but if I waited a week and was off somewhere, it felt like a lost week. This gives me time to shift course, or face the music if I strayed.
  9. If there is no movement on the scale for 2 weeks, change something, anything. What you eat, when, exercise, etc.
  10. Stop with the excuses and get used to feeling hungry. There will be times you could go for something to eat. Don’t do it. Be ready to occupy your mind with something else.

For me, it took a lot of determination. I don’t know how to tell people to get that. You just have to make up your mind that your health matters and the time is now to take care of it. Six months from now if you do nothing you will be no better off. Imagine, by Christmas you could be done and maintaining for the holidays.

7

OP, here’s an idea: ask your sister for her Weight Watchers stuff – make copies of it, and basically do the WW program without the meetings.

8

I think different health strategies work for different people. I’ve found I do better working on the food aspect and worrying about exercise second.



I lost 25/30 pounds in the last 11ish months. The most significant thing I did was to severely cut back on sugar. For most of the time, I just worried about the obvious sugars ( desserts, sugary ceareals). The last few weeks I’ve done a slightly modified whole 30. Modified in that I won’t give up diet soda, eating what I want about once a week when we eat out, and I am vegetarian anyway. It’s been really great and much easier than I thought it would be to give up breads and pastas and such. And I line this way of eating infinitely better than in the past whenive weighed and measured foods and counted calories.

9

I have lost 50 lbs. in the past 2.5 years–30 to go! I started when my daughter left for college and I could control exactly what I brought into the house. And then I started walking–a lot. As the resident of an urban neighborhood, I can walk to many different food markets within half an hour. I carry the stuff home in a backpack.

One thing I think helped me a lot was restricting my food intake to 9 (or so) hours–so if I ate my first morsel of solid food at 11 a.m., I ate the last bite by 8 p.m. I started with 12 hours, then 10, then 9. This article seems to support the theory:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/intermittent-fasting-diets-are-gaining-acceptance/

It became easier and easier to tell myself, nope, the kitchen is closed, when I was tempted to snack later in the evening.

10

Interesting how different approaches work for different people. A friend of mine lost about 30 pounds by cutting out all snacks and desserts, and having a glass of wine only 1-2 per week, but eating 3 solid meals a day. She works too much to exercise (her evenings/weekends are devoted to her 2 small kids) so the weight loss was due to a diet change only. It took her about a year to lose the weight - and she’s kept it off.

11

bjkmom, If you are still looking for a “buddy” I am willing. I need to lose a lot more than you, probably 80lbs, but need to start somewhere. Last time I lost any weight I was using a fitbit and MyFitnessPal to count steps and calories. I weigh myself every day.

12

You can do WW online without meetings.

13

I’m in too. I’m 57 and would like to lose about 25 lbs. Like you I’m not really heavy but I’ve been slim my entire life and the last few years the weight has just crept on and I don’t like it. I also just got a Fitbit. It was my 57 th birthday present to myself. My problem isn’t so much lack of steps though. I’m still pretty active. I just ran three miles this afternoon and my resting heartbeat seems to be averaging in the high 50’s. On my running days I am way over the 10,000 steps they target, but I can’t always do that because of my schedule.

My big problem is a complete lack of will power when it comes to eating. My metabolism has changed but my eating habits haven’t. If I try to cut back, I’m hungry all the time. I just haven’t figured out this dieting thing yet.

14

Please no disrespect at all, but some of the advice on this thread is awful. Like 10-20-30-year old thought on nutrition and exercise. I just can’t spend an enormous of time here trying to promote modern thought.

  1. It's not about the calories or fat content, it's about the type of food you eat. Simple carbs are bad like most breads, rice, pastas, etc. Complex carbs are good. Sugar bad. Stop the hamburger and hotdogs. More whole food, more vegetables, some fruit, chicken, fish, nuts, seeds, etc. Limit beef and pork intake. If you must have, then prime cuts. Fast food, soda, alcohol, donuts, pizza, bagels, etc. should be history.
  2. Long hours of low intensity exercise will not help burn fat. Short bursts of high intensity exercise will burn fat. Start squatting, deadlifts, lunges, progressions (incline) towards push-ups.

Exercise and a proper diet is life-long decision. Not 6 weeks or 6 months. It’s forever. Do more research.

15

Anyone who wants in, let’s do it.

As to diet, my husband is diabetic. If I were to follow the female version of his diet, it would be very similar to 2].

My weaknesses are bread…bread is my FAVORITE food in he world…and ice cream over the summer. The flip side is that I can have salad for lunch over the summer… once the weather get cold salad simply has no appeal.

I’ll do my official weigh in tomorrow. (Not that I’ll post it. Heaven jpknows how many of my students may frequent this site!!) and I started eating better today, and drinking all the water I could. It’s a start.

16

Looks like there are 3 of us.

I will post a count down from the 15 lbs. I want to have gone for my D’s wedding in
Sept.
Also will post how much exercise and intensity.
Also calorie count.
I will post tomorrow although the exercise will be low as I am working on my CUE’s for the year today.
But all in all it has not been a bad day.

Folks who have other ways that work for them should keep doing what they do.
This is a tried and true method for me. So back at it.

17

I want to try and be in on this though I don’t know how well it will go.

I went from being fit to being massively overweight in a few short months while I was on prednisone. I’ve put on 100 lb in the last year because of this drug from hell (and my own physical limitations). I’m at ~275 right now and when I got sick last February, I was around 180 (I’m 6’0" and used to be an athlete so for me this was a pretty spot-on weight).

I still get a big dose of steroids every time I get infusions so that doesn’t help :frowning:

I eat pretty well though. My problem is the exercising. I can’t do many things anymore but I’ve been slacking on the things I can do.

18

I’m in.

19

Oops I didn’t mean to post that yet. Thought I left it as a draft.

I have a motivation now though. We’re in the very preliminary steps of what will (hopefully) eventually be a pregnancy. It’s already a high risk one so I don’t need to add in the complications of obesity.

20

How to get extra exercise while saving time:

a. Walk up the stairs instead of using the (slow) elevator or (crowded) escalator.
b. Park further away where no one else is instead of waiting in the traffic jam for the parking space closer to the store. Even with the extra walking, you are likely to be in the store faster than if you tried to get the closer parking space.