<p>1moremom, I would if I could, but they are on my thighs now. I had two different brands in small packages.</p>
<p>Abasket, I wish you lived in my neighborhood so you could call me on all my laziness. I should exercise before work but I have to break my habit of making coffee, drinking coffee, and leisurely reading the news until shower time. Every day I do that I know I should have at least gone for a 30 minute walk.</p>
<p>Well, the good news is that I didn’t eat two small bars of dark chocolate I received as part of a birthday gift … But the bad news is that my dog did, and yes, he survived.</p>
<p>Even better news … I can watch Netflix while on my treadmill, so did a brisk walk this morning with the 4th season of Breaking Bad. I felt so charged up that I attempted yoga by Jillian Michaels, and boy was that hard! But, I liked it, so I will try again as I feel renewed determination to master some poses.</p>
<p>I am ready to shake off 5 lbs with a new effort … Anyone else want to start on November 1st?</p>
<p>Saturday morning, I hit a new low, by Saturday night I’d gained four pounds! Really?! Did get to the gym today. Last year I gained a lot of weight in November/December with all the holiday eating so I am going to try to do better this year. Maybe lose the five pounds before Thanksgiving?</p>
<p>I would love to lose 5 lbs before Thanksgiving.
Mathmom- I hit a low on Thursday but I don’t even want to get on the scale this morning. I had a huge meal on Friday, Saturday and again yesterday. I felt sick to my stomach. I am ready to go back to simple clean food in healthy amounts. I don’t want to feel this bad again.</p>
<p>I’d be happy to lose two pounds by Thanksgiving. One challenge will be that I have a vegetarian friend coming to stay for four days which means the proteins are going to be coming from foods that are also fairly high in carbs. I did go to the Y this morning for tai chi and a bodyweight workout.</p>
<p>Just reporting into the vast internet that I did my 2nd day of yoga w/ Jillian and actually enjoyed it a lot more. Fingers crossed.</p>
<p>I gained another 5lbs when I started new birth control last month that now will not come off. I saw a new doctor today who seemed thoroughly puzzled, she said my diet is “perfect” and my exercise is “amazing” and there is absolutely no reason I shouldn’t be losing weight. She connected the dots between that and some hormonal problems I have been experiencing and ordered tests for polycystic ovarian syndrome. I am trying not to form an opinion until we have results-- I am torn between feeling encouraged because we might finally know what’s wrong, and worried. As far as I know there isn’t a cure for PCOS and we were planning to start trying for babies soon. </p>
<p>Now that we have that honeymoon booked I am more determined than ever to lose another 5-10lbs before the wedding in May, I do not want to spend so much money on a beach vacation just to feel uncomfortable with myself the whole time. But I wonder if we are reaching the point where I may have to give myself permission to just be overweight. Ill still eat right and exercise, but maybe I shouldn’t expect anything to happen anymore. It’s been six months since anything has changed. </p>
<p>I’m strongly tempted to just go off birth control and see if that helps, especially now that I’ve gained after six months of maintanence after changing pills-- but I am really not keen on that idea. I don’t want to feel like I’m bleeding to death on my honeymoon either. The doctors only idea so far if I don’t have PCOS is to try weight watchers, which seems like a waste of time and money if my diet and exercise are “perfect.” My fianc</p>
<p>
The carb amounts are good according to whom? I really think most of what nutritionists have told us about carbs is wrong. Unless you live like a hunter gather on the move on your feet all day, we need way, way less carbs than they’ve been telling us. I eat half a high fiber English muffin for breakfast, wine and waffles on the weekend, and sushi once a week. Otherwise I eat almost no pasta, no other bread, or few potatoes. Maybe once a week, I’ll have a tiny portion of one of them 1/4 to 1/2 cup maximum. Oh and if it’s in the house I might eat one chocolate truffle as dessert. I eat lots of protein, lots of vegetables, don’t watch my fat intake particularly and snack on hummous, greek yogurt with real fruit (1/4 cup) or maybe a tsp or so of peanut butter.</p>
<p>Ema- on my girls BC can add on lbs.
Also Mathmom is right. Until I eliminated most carbs from my diet I did not lose much weight. I rarely eat pasta and most weeks limit my bread to one slice a weekend. I do eat sweet potatoes but no white potatoes. Quinoa instead of rice. If I stick to this I find the weight comes off pretty easily. Add in white carbs and I stall even at 1200 calories a day.</p>
<p>By the sounds of it, I eat fewer carbs than you do, math mom, and I never eat white carbs anymore. I’ve been tracking and experimenting with carb/fat/protein ratiosfor months, it defies logic but it does not seem to make a difference. My current diet is very high in protein and low in carbs and fats, and if anything I am fatter and more bloated now than before. </p>
<p>I am just pleased this doctor seems willing to help me figure this out. I mentioned the possibility of hormonal issues to my gyn because I have been having all kinds of awful problems the last year I never used to have in addition to the weight, and she told me to walk more-- like I haven’t been running and biking and lifting hours a day for a year. This doctor told me to cut back on my portions, but I told her how many calories I eat in a day, and all the different ranges ive tried. So then she told me to keep a food diary and track EVERYTHING because I must be missing something, like this is the most novel concept and I must never have thought of it, and I told her Ive been doing that every day for a year-- and did she want to see it? Because I brought it with me in addition to my workout log. She was flabbergasted. That’s the first time I’ve been able to get anybody to acknowledge that I don’t just need to
“Move more, eat less.” It’s like there are so many people out there who say they want to lose weight but aren’t really committed to taking care of themselves, that nobody believes it when somebody actually is. I’ve become an athlete and a nutrition aficionado in the last year just to fail and have people smile knowingly at me and say “it’s okay, dear, just keep drinking plenty of water!” Or “but even if you’re still overweight, don’t you just feel GREAT!?” No, I don’t.</p>
<p>Ema, it does sound like you are doing everything you can, so I hope someone can get to the bottom of this for you.</p>
<p>Ema, I am not a medical professional, but I am a science-based person and there is an explanation for why you can’t seem to lose weight despite your serious exercise regime and careful eating, it is just not clear yet because a piece of data is missing,</p>
<p>Without seeing your numbers (weight, fat percentage, height, thyroid, Vitamin D, diabetes markers, etc.) none of us can give you any more guidance than what you are getting from the real professionals, but something is not adding up.</p>
<p>What became of your thyroid tests? Does hypothyroidism run in your family? If it does, treating pre-hypothyroidism is done in some cases.
Birth control causes many females to gain 5-10 lbs, and it won’t fall off until you are off the pill (daughter’s breasts shrunk 2 cup sizes to her relief)
Have you been tested for blood glucose levels to look for diabetes? I don’t know much about this space myself, but it is a piece of data.
How old are you? What is the history of weight over each decade of your life?
What does your heart rate get to when you exercise? I can’t lose weight unless I huff away at 139 beats per minute for 30 minutes a day. This gets me to fat burning mode, whereas if I go faster (walking or running) I leave that zone. Weight lifting and sprinting is not in this zone as those are muscle building exercises which add muscle weight, also a good thing, but not always obvious if you are watching the scale.
Has your ratio of fat to muscle changed in the last year?</p>
<p>This mystery will be solved, don’t give up.</p>
<p>Okay, I may be getting on a mini-roll with exercise. I have been using the treadmill (with iPad flopped over the top so I can write comments like this and watch Breaking Bad on Netflix) and have done yoga 3 times. I am very weak in upper body, so am starting at beginner level. </p>
<p>Made it through Halloween without too much damage, not counting the molar crown that was loosened by a Milk Dud. Now that is expensive. </p>
<p>Let’s have a check-in from everyone?</p>
<p>I’m still here but went up a smidge over the last month or so and am now fortunately holding steady. I graduate from physical therapy tomorrow and hope to start my Wii fit routine again; still a bit shaky on side to side balance but my ankle is probably stronger than before I broke it.</p>
<p>Halloween leftovers are dangerous (it was a dark and rainy night so less than half our usual number of trick-or-treaters), but with DS at home the candy is going quickly. Been paying a lot of attention to the adult children at home thread!</p>
<p>Go you both!!!</p>
<p>Oh dear, up another pound. And MyFitnessPal has forgotten me. (And I’d forgotten my password.) This time change should help me as it’s easier to get up earlier to do my yoga after which I feel like I’ve made a good start to the day.</p>
<p>I’m adding a second weekly workout with the trainer as I am never able to push myself the way she does. (I’m dripping sweat and I get no extra kcals from MFP. What’s up with that?) That will be M/W; I’m thinking of trying the NYT’s “7 minute workout” on Fridays. Has anyone tried it? Running T/R and one weekend day. (Yesterday I had to break out my running mittens. :()</p>
<p>SnowflakeVT, Sorry about that crown. I have never understood why they are so darned expensive.</p>
<p>My thyroid has been tested four times now and is always normal, so is my blood glucose. I am 24. I was underweight as a child, low end of average as a teen, and then when I was 19 I got mono, gained 45lbs, and have been overweight ever since. Hypothyroid does run in my family, and I have an enlarged thyroid all the time, but my levels always seem to be normal so two internists and an endocrinologist agree there is nothing to be done there. I was on the pill with no weight gain for a year or two so I didn’t think it was that, but now I wonder if it is part of the problem. I am torn because without it my periods are so unmanageably heavy I can’t leave the house, or the bathroom for that matter. I would go off it now and forget about it but I am afraid without the ability to schedule them I will be on my period for the wedding and honeymoon and ruin the whole thing, I don’t know how I would get through it. But I don’t want to be fat for my wedding or honeymoon either. It’s no kind of choice, and going off may not even work. It never used to cause problems for me.</p>
<p>The PCOS testing came back normal, so that is ruled out too. I did join weight watchers because my doctor had nothing else to suggest. I did find it odd that I am doing exactly what I should be down to macronutrient level according to sparkpeople, myfitness pal, and three doctors, but my weight watchers points seem high… it is difficult to tell until the end of the first week because I am not sure how the flex points and activity points will shake out in the end. I did start a lower carb diet this week (more like 30% carbs instead of 50%, 30% fat, 20% protein-- i want to swap the fat and protein but am still working on the menu), and I wonder if it doesn’t like all the protein I am eating because it’s not like my points were high because I ate brownies for lunch, I ate lean meats and veggies all day and actually under ate in terms of calories by quite a bit.</p>
<p>I am getting so frustrated I am having a hard time not snapping at well-meaning people, and I really don’t mean to do it. I’m sorry if I did that in my last post. I am so desperate I even looked into lipo suction but the risks are too high and my fiance freaked out, probably rightly. I would do anything to lose even just a little weight before May. I am determined to do it the healthy natural way but nature seems against me. 
It is really taking a toll on me to be working so hard and sacrificing so many hours of my day at the gym and worrying about counting calories just to get nothing out of it for a year. I’d like time to, I don’t know, read a book or something instead if this is all I am going to accomplish.</p>
<p>It’s hard, because I was a healthy weight all my life. I am trying to learn to accept how I am now in case I really can’t lose any weight, but I look in the mirror and I don’t see myself and it makes me so sad. I wasn’t down on myself about it before, it’s only human for weight to fluctuate at times, but after a year my patience with myself is really wearing thin.</p>
<p>ETA: 1moremom, my fiance does the 7 minute workout a couple times a week and he really likes it. He is fit and it kicks his butt like you wouldn’t believe. I would try it!</p>
<p>Marilyn, I am so glad you are up and about again!</p>
<p>I am sorry for the massive negative post, I just have so much to vent and my fiance is tired of hearing about it. I am really glad for you all that are doing well and I am pulling for you. I hope to make a more positive post soon.</p>
<p>In a reporting project on McDonald’s, I did a lot of reading into eating, exercise and weight loss. There is so much verbiage - from genetic susceptibility to character flaws to specific regimens - that it is easy to get lost in the rhetoric.</p>
<p>After nearly a year, I came to a pretty startling conclusion: if you eat too much, you get fat. Exercise helps, but not that much. The principal factor is in-take. Indeed, the rise in obesity in the US correlates precisely with the increase in proportion sizes at fast food restos. (That being said, I do respect McDo and the executives I got to know there - they are aware of this and thinking about it.)</p>
<p>What this means is: 1) plan your meals with calories in mind (e.g. drink water instead of Coke, eat fresh fruit instead of Oreos; 2) don’t snack between meals; 3) exercise.</p>
<p>Alci, true true. All the exercise in the world won’t help lose weight if the calories in is greater than what you burn each day.</p>
<p>Ema, you are only 24, so I would not compare your pre-puperty weight to your weight between ages 19-24. I point that out because you mention that you were lean your whole life until now. You are only 24 so your adult life is now. It is possible that your mono in your late teens hit you at the same time as full female puberty, because with mono most people lose a ton of weight, they don’t gain 45 pounds. Females in general gain weight with puberty, even if they exercise and eat right. Thank goodness we do because how else would we get these awesome curves!</p>
<p>You are on the right track … Count every point, take note of what you do early in the day that uses up your points too soon, and make adjustments. You have plenty of time to lose a few pounds before your wedding. The good part for you is that you already are exercising, so when those pounds do fall off, you will like what is underneath, which is not always the case with older more sedentary people.</p>