Want to look GOOD by June 4th - that's just over a month. Please share your weight loss and toning tips

[Cristiane]

Back story is that I have just tried a week of pig to twig (Atkins type diet)

I feel horrific and haven't lost any weight. Kind of feel faint and my head feels very odd and I cannot face it any more. Just ate some boiled potatoes with olive oil and feel a bit stronger. I just don't think that diet is for me. I also slept very badly on it.

But... I want to look better in a month than I do now!

Despite moving house and working full time and having two DDs, I will try to find the time to do the 30 day shred plus I do walk 15 mins each way before getting on bus to the office. I wear MBTs even though they look horrible.

But it's the diet side of things that I get stuck on... If I deny myself something I then fantasise about it. I actually eat very healthily, and cook everything from scratch, don't have diet coke cravings or eat many sweet things. I get low blood sugar moments and have low blood pressure so anything too extreme and I faint or get ill (sounds very dramatic, maybe I'm just a wuss)...

Please share your successful dieting tips. I am 69 kilos and 5'6". I would like to be 59-60 kilos. I was 56 kilos before having DD1. Bloody hell.

Anyone got any tips for the afternoon snack attacks? I'm fine in the morning cos I'm out with the dc but I get home around 12, pop the dc in bed and have my lunch, then when they wake up about half 2 I feed them lunch and while they're eating I just eat and eat and eat and eat til they finish munching. We go for a walk/play in the garden and then I start cooking tea around 5 and snack again so I'm not usually hungry for tea anyway.
It's trying to avoid eating when the children are eating cos I've only just had lunch about an hour before but because they take around an hour to pick I can't get away from food just staring me in the face and there's nothing else to do.

Some snack ideas - I'm doing Weight Watchers at the moment (29pts a day):

Miso soup 0 points (you can buy sachets of 5 in the World food section)
Crumpets and tspn jam 3 points
Banana 0 points
Weightwatchers chocolate biscuits wafers 2 points

avoid cheese and bread - high in points

Could you feed the kids their lunch before their nap - then you could get on with your afternoon and maybe be less likely to snack.

Btw - lost 11lb in 5 weeks so far on Weight Watchers so it must be working!

I've tried feeding them before but DD has about a 30 min window when she'll go to sleep, if I keep her up beyond that she doesn't nap (and I still enjoy the peace and quiet).
I was thinking of trying setting out their lunch when I make mine so there's not food sitting around (boxes of crackers/slices of bread/cheese etc) and I don't have to open the pantry. If it's not staring me in the face I might be able to avoid it, either that or I'll cut up a load of celery and eat that when if I get the munchies while they're faffing around with their lunch.

Well done on the 11lb! That's brilliant

Bridgeandbow what is weight watchers like?

Good - I do it online. I did it about 15 yrs ago too and lost a lot (pre DSs!).

You get 29 points to use each day and an extra 49 points weekly slush fund to use. I am trying to stick to the daily 29 (so I change my eating habits) but am using my weekly for things like wine and BBQs etc.

My typical day is:

Bfast - 2 poached eggs, 1 slice toast (no butter), cup of tea (skimmed milk)
Mid morning - banana & coffee
Lunch - salad (100g new potatoes,lots salad veg, 2 or 3 tbspn pinto beans, olives, pizza express light dressing), weight watcher choc biscuit or mini milk
Mid afternnoon - fruit, may have crumpet & jam if very hungry
Dinner - Quorn Spag bol, 100g pasta, salad or chicken thigh & veg casserole + 100g potatoes
Evening - herbal tea, ryvita and tspn humous

So I am not starving myself at all. Alcohol blows the budget - wine is 4 pts so 2 glasses is like having your dinner twice! Chocolate, cakes etc high too.
Meat is quite high so you need to have small quanities. Chicken and fish are good though. Am eating a lot of Quorn (I actually like the burgers and mince though). So far so good. I remember someone posting on an earlier post saying that losing weight is 80% food, 20% excercise. I did couch to 5k in the summer and lots of running and whilst I certainly toned, I didn't drop much weight so I think that holds for me.

occasionally in ww mgazine or national press you get a ww coupon for reg and first meeting free.keep an eye out,I was going to go to gym today whilst waiting for shred to arrive but i had a gallstone attack last night so felt terrible today. It was chocolate that triggered it off actually so ive been good today.Do definately find being at home with the baby difficult,everytime she sleeps i feel like having a snack to celebrate the peace and quiet.Am going to do fake tan or nails tomorrow when she naps.

Did my first day of the Shred!
I found it ok, but wasn't really going for it as I was concious of my dodgy knees. One knee really didn't like the star jumps and I had to adapt doing the press ups with a blanket under my knees.
Will have to shut big dog out tomorrow though as she found it all a bit exciting and tried to join in

Found the ab work quite hard. I could barely lift my shoulders. As someone who always used to have a toned tum, I found this quite depressing.
Talk about letting yourself go!

Memud - don't be sad. You are doing something positive about though, no? It feels hard at the moment but will get easier as you get stronger.

memud-i havent got the dvd yet but am already concerned re dodgy knees and back and my ability to dp it,i like you will have to adapt some of it,

You can do modified jumping jacks, here is an example www.schooltube.com/video/f835b9a2cfe14ddd8e81/Modified-Jumping-Jacks but actually if you have dodgy knees I would be more worried about the lunges. If someone had dodgy (and I'm not really sure what that means!) I would probably NOT recommend the Shred to them.

waves to notyummy*, all good here but still too broke to return to the wise and avid thread! Hope all well with you.

libras,i did think of that tbh,but ill give it a try,my knees just hurt when i bend them when weight bearing,could be years of ballet or years of nursing-ballet sounds more glam tho. I manage at the gymthey twinge but dont get worse.Somnetimes i feel like sitting on the sofa with a cake and just giving in to lumpiness haha

Ah well you see ledkr I didn't say not recommend exercise I just said not the shred, lumpiness not an option! :)

Oh those modified jumping jacks are brilliant, thank you so much Libra! I can't do them because of serious boobage - I've tried every sports bra going and nothing works and it's just so damned painful to be jumping up and down!! I was going to give up the Shred because of this but now I can keep trying it (I had previously been doing the JJs with one arm doing the JJ and the other trying to hold The Girls down :o)

Are there any modified ways of doing the press-ups? The bit where your arm joisn your shoulder is agony for me (shouldn't it be my biceps that hurt from doing those?)

'joins', that should be.

Press ups work all sorts of places, but shoulders are one of the key areas, so where you getting pain is not surprising. If you can't manage them with your knees on the floor, then there is always 'box press-ups' where you go into an all four position, and then do them from there. Alternatively, on the Shred thread I know people mentioned that if press-ups seemed utterly impossible, then practising them against a wall, then on a sofa, then on the stairs (i.e gradually moving your body lower and making them harder) was a helpful way of building up. They also recommended doing this in addition to the Shred (i.e extra practice so you can REALLY push them out at Shred time!)

Passthetwiglets have you tried using TWO sports bras and a supported top?

I agree and disagree with notyummy about the pressups, I disagree with using the box position, I think what she suggests about starting on the wall and then lowering your position is a better solution. The box position does not mimic the position of the press up. Try the movement against the wall and see how it feels. Are you doing extra stretching after the Shred, the warmdown stretch in the DVD isn't really comprehensive enough.

PS - Twig - Libra is qualified in these things and KNOWS so i would listen to her. I am an enthusiastic amateur with lots of experience but haven't studied so she will have the inside knowledge!

I haven't tried 2 sports bra, no - will that really make a difference? But at around £25 each for the ones in my size, that's a pretty hefty investment!

It's not my sholders that are hurting from the press-ups. Lift your arm out to the side and then grab that sort of webby bit of flesh on the outside of your armpit - the bit that joins onto your boobs. That's the bit that hurts.

Oooh, good point about the stretching, Libra - I remember somebody saying that to me last time I failed at Shredding :)

chulita, re snacks. It is something I have been working on this year too. As I mentioned before I have been following Ian Marber's How not to get Fat, so snacks, and meals are a mix of protein and complex carbs, and avoiding sugar.
I have:
apple and almonds (takes a long time to eat)
2 oatcakes and 25g mature full fat cheddar (fills you up, keeps you feeling full).
oatcakes with tinned mackerel (sometimes on some philadelphia, also full fat)
banana with Onken full fat natural yoghurt.
Hummus also works, also with oatcakes or raw pepper strips.
Hope that helps.

I wear 2 sports bras, one sports bra from Tesco's that was pretty cheap and then a shock absorber (from TK maxx) over the top. I did invest in an Enell bra but can only (just about) afford the one so I alternate.

Thanks for the snacking tips blossoming oatcakes and cheddar don't seem like 'healthy' snacks but it's all the bad press fat gets I reckon!