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<p>lol. understatement, much? ;)</p>
<p>Of course many of you have had experience in going down in sizes far more than my measly, yet hard-won, losses. I was wondering about the reluctance to get rid of the bigger clothes.</p>
<p>The things I have singled out to toss, aren’t comfortable. The jeans are too big, the tops aren’t the kind of thing you would slob around in, so I really can’t put them to use.</p>
<p>did you notice that your slacks are longer? i noticed that. as they get bigger they slip down and are so much longer.</p>
<p>years ago i used to hold onto items for years. i don’t believe it doing that anymore. it’s about un-cluttering my closet and de-stressing.</p>
<p>BCEagle, you can freeze beans if you can figure out ahead of time how many you aren’t going to eat. I think right now I am wearing clothes that range from 6 to 10. (Maybe I should shop at Ann Taylor?)</p>
<p>Bromfield, I often don’t soak overnight for beans, I just do the one hour boil routine. But you do still have to plan ahead more than I do for most cooking. I made a white bean turkey chili this week. The aim was to reduce the quantities of turkey stock (probably from last Thanksgiving), dried beans, frozen crushed tomaoes, and jalapeno peppers in my pantry. Didn’t really follow a recipe.</p>
<p>BCEagle 20-30 miles a week!? :eek: I’ve never managed more than ten. (I think I am not a runner.)</p>
<p>My problem on freezing beans is that I have a limited number of containers and limited freezer space.</p>
<p>I take large clothes and put them on and under a chair. If I haven’t worn anything in six months, then it gets tossed or donated. If you have a lean, mean body, it’s nice to show it off with clothes that fit well. I’ve had the disheveled look for too long. I can get away with it as an engineer in the office but I do like clothes that fit too.</p>
<p>A good friend who is originally from India is encouraging me to acquire a couple of pressure cookers. She uses little ones for smaller meals, bigger ones for quantities of beans that she divides into ziplock bags and freezes. </p>
<p>I’m so sick of hauling heavy cans of beans home from the grocery!</p>
<p>I have heard that if you rinse canned beans you drastically lower the salt content. Does anyone know if that is valid? I have been eating some type of dish with beans for at least one meal a day so I like the convenience of canned beans.</p>
I had chili for late lunch yesterday and my wife made black beans for dinner which everyone ate. I don’t know if there are any left but a few cups would be nice for next week. I have one bag of New England Country Soups Black Bean Caribbean soup left that I could take to the office too but I usually mix a cup of chili and a cup of beans and that’s a nice filling lunch.
I have been tempted to go with cans but I think that cans are on the order of being about six or seven times as expensive but yes, more convenient unless you can cook and store a week of beans. If others in your family eat beans, then the issue of spoilage goes away.
<p>CJane- great post. I hear you about Chico’s and Ann Taylor. What brilliant strategy by Chico’s to develop that sizing system so everyone can feel good about themselves! I have some Chico’s pieces, too, but I always feel a little out of place in the stores. What the heck is a size .5 anyway? And Ann Taylor/Loft- they cornered the market on vanity sizing.<br>
I woukd keep one size up but ditch stuff you really feel you will never wear again because you will never allow yourself to fit in them!</p>
<p>Keep nice sweaters and jackets – they work fine on the loose end of the spectrum.</p>
What I’ve done on the journey down is gather up everything in a size (say 36 inch pants or LARGE Izod polos) on hangers, throw a black plastic garbage bag over the group of hangers) and label the outside with masking tape and magic marker (“36 PANTS”). I then throw it on the long storage clothes rods that I mounted on a wall in the basement. They are out of the way, organized, and all neatly bundled to take to Goodwill at the appropropriate time. For example, when the LARGE T-shirt bundle went to the cellar, the X-LARGE bundle went to charity.
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Yes, I have noticed pants fitting differently. Actually, it’s a feature/benefit that allows me to wear 32s and 33s. The 33s just sit a little lower on my hips.
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Shoes have not changed much. I went up on size over the last five years and haven’t really come down much as I’ve lost weight, although shoes fit a bit loser.
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Belts have been a constant battle and a real pain in the butt to buy because the sizing is so non-standard. I have a closet full of old belts, but everything leftover in my current size is unwearable from a fashion standpoint – skinny belts from the late 70s, early 80s. I do have one very nice plain leather brown belt 1 inch wide from that era that, but I’ve had to buy some belts. Nice ones are pretty pricey, so I held off on those until I had reached my terminal size. If a guy is still going down in size, Marshalls and TJMAXX have serviceable Chinese made designer label belts (Perry Ellis, etc.) in the $9.99 to $14.99 range. They are all the bonded leather stuff that won’t last for years, but they were just the ticket when I was only wearing a size for a few months.
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I hear ya on the baggy clothes, BC. Wore 'em for so long because I had to, now I love wearing stuff that is fitted and trim.
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<p>BCE, for me, 3 miles is long distance, lol. I looked up ketosis, and from what I read, I don’t see why it is a bad thing. Your body burns stored fat instead of glycogen, isn’t that what everybody wants to do, burn stored fat? I can see how a distance runner or athlete would not want that, but what about your every day person just trying to lose some fat? </p>
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That’s my typical percentage of carbs per day.</p>
An everyday person trying to lose some fat (or maintain weight) definitely wants to tilt the equation so that the body burns more stored fat and less carbohydrate. That’s really the whole idea behind a low to moderate carb diet. Eating less carbs means less insulin secretion; insulin is the hormone that tells the body to store fat instead of burning it. You want to reduce the amount of time with elevated insulin levels in order to make the body start burning more stored fat and reducing carb intake is easiest way to reduce insulin levels. Of course, once you jolt the body into burning fat, then you will be less hungry because you need less fuel each day because you are burning stored fuel.
There are two big exceptions to this. If you are trying to gain weight, then you need to increase carbohydrate consumption. Eating more carbs is the how you gain weight.
Endurance athletes (distance runners, cyclists, etc.) burn so many calories at one time that they deplete all of the body’s stored carbs (glycogen) and cannot burn fat calories fast enough to keep up with the demands. Thus, athletes need to increase their carb (and protein) consumption before, during, and after their workouts. If losing weight is still a goal at that point, they can still limit their overall carbs, only increasing carb intake timed around specific workouts or runs.
<p>If what BC is describing is the runner’s bonk, that is indeed no fun. I had it happen to me a few times while I was training for the marathon. You would think with the couple of extra pounds I had on me, that would have been the fuel source that was tapped. Instead if I did not adequately fuel my run with carbs, bad things happened.</p>
<p>It can be tricky because some times you need far more less than you did for the same distance run on another day. Also, not everything sits well in the stomach — peanut butter was a terrible disaster for me, as was my elite running coach’s favorite race brew, flat coke. Believe it or not, the best pre-race (half marathon distance) breakfast for me was – PopTarts, which I never ate at any other time. Talk about refined carbs!
I hated the gus and gels, but Cliff ShotBloks were lifesavers.</p>
<p>I have thought about picking up the running again, but one of the things that makes me hold off is trying to strategize the carb intake. When I get closer to where I need to be, I may reconsider. At this point, I think if I were training for a race again and still low carbing it, I would continue to restrict carbs during the day, but fuel my runs with Gleukos or other sportsdrink and ShotBloks, prior and during.</p>
<p>Oh, BC I hear you on throwing out the beans. But since you are doing dried beans in lieu of canned and presumably buying them in bulk, have you calculated just how much those beans cost that you are tossing? I would imagine that the savings from the dried vs. the canned would more than warrant tossing the bit of extra that goes to waste. Probably talking pennies here.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for weighing in on the clothing situation. I have decided to purge the closet for good of the biggest stuff and will donate that today.
Moving some of it out has me rediscovering items I had totally forgotten about, and my closet is pretty small and I am by no means a clothes horse – I actually hate shopping.
In fact, that is a perk of the weight loss, it means I get to shop my own closet!</p>
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<p>Amen. One of the treasure’s I’ve been able to wear is a gorgeous teal green long-sleeve corduroy Izod shirt. I outgrew it 20 years ago when it was still pretty new, but can again wear it. Glad I didn’t send it off to Goodwill.</p>
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<p>Hilly 5K walk/jog for me this afternoon, finishing up at dusk on a gorgeous sunny 53 degree day. Little breezy, so I wore the now baggy Brooks long running pants and a long sleeve shirt. Broke out the neon yellow reflective [Road</a> ID Firefly ankle bands](<a href=“ROAD iD - World Leaders in Runner ID, Cycling ID & Medical ID”>ROAD iD - World Leaders in Runner ID, Cycling ID & Medical ID) and [waist</a> belt](<a href=“ROAD iD - World Leaders in Runner ID, Cycling ID & Medical ID”>ROAD iD - World Leaders in Runner ID, Cycling ID & Medical ID) to be visible on the way home.</p>
<p>Nice relaxing workout. Nothing too crazy on the heart rate. I think I max’d out at 96% as I wasn’t pushing hard. Slow as molasses on the jogging intervals, but I did seven 2-minute intervals including the steeply uphill interval back to the house. Got a nice leg burn going at the top of the hill on that one. Even though it’s slow, I find that running uphill is actually not too bad.</p>
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<p>It was for me two years ago and I was struggling with twelve minute
miles and some pain with running but you get better with time.</p>
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<p>I must be using the wrong word.</p>
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<p>I think that your typical runner eats more carbs by necessity.</p>
<p>Played 1.5 hours of doubles this morning and we split sets. The
intensity wasn’t that high but I slept for several hours this
afternoon and was quite hungry when I woke up. There’s not much
around other than beans and chili (no big surprise). The kids
ate a lot of my quick and healthy snacks so I need a stop at
Trader Joes or the local supermarket.</p>
<p>I received an invitation for tennis tomorrow too.</p>
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<p>I think that I can do both - it just depends on my planned kind of
workout for the day. The low carb approach works fine on everything
except for running for me.</p>
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<p>Not runner’s bonk; more of a bloody mess.</p>
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<p>On Friday, I had the oatmeal and three packages of Cheez-Its for
carbs. I looked for the snack with the highest carbs and lowest
sugar. Fritos didn’t cut it. My plan for next week is oatmeal and
whole wheat bread. Whole-grain pancakes may be an option too. I’m
aiming for about six hundred calories from carbs for three to four
mile runs.</p>
<p>I like Luna bars and Clif Builder Bars to. It helps that I have a ton
of half-price off Luna coupons and $1 off on 2 Clif Builder Bars. My
favorite in the Luna bars are the Coconut bars.</p>
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<p>A bag of dried beans is about $1. Canned is $0.90. A bag of dried
beans makes about 6 cans worth. You can weigh the energy of cooking
the beans against the energy needed to transport them home. BTW, that’s
the price of dried beans at the local grocery store. If we get them at
the Chinese grocery store, then they’re in the $0.80 area. I think that
canned or dried beans are dirt-cheap food but I like to optimize some
things in life and food expenses are one of those.</p>
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<p>Another perk is that you get a bigger closet in the sense that you can
store more clothes.</p>
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<p>Definitely good to be seen. There were a few ninja pedestrians out there tonight that haven’t made the adjustment for Daylight Savings Time.</p>
<p>I worked out in the basement this afternoon – 20 minutes on the Hoist and 40 minutes on the Dreadmill (ran for four of the songs). My dog watched me and squatted in the corner and pooped while staring straight at me. She never does that! What could this mean?</p>
<p>Probably means that you should have taken the dog for a walk outdoors instead of on the treadmill! :)</p>
<p>Good one, iDad. I guess she had to poop! Running makes a lot of us have to poop!</p>
<p>sewhappy, lol! Thanks for making me smile. Does your dog go running/walking with you outside? She might associate you running with being free to do her outddorsy doggy duties.</p>
<p>I am sooooo bummed!!! I hit my knee really badly… 
Which meand no running for me for the nearest future. I’m hobbling around, eating Advil, icing the darn thing, and hoping for the best. Arrgghhh!! I’m so mad at myself. I will be doing upper body exercises for the nearest future. The only consolation is that the weather was so gross (barely 40 degrees and rain), that I would not have enjoyed the trail run anyway. :(</p>