Just signed up at 'My Fitness Pal'. Any advice, experience, or desire to join me?

[worriermum]

I read about the website, myfitnesspal.com on MN. Am truly desperate to stop the ever rising weight gain - I have just topped my full term pregnancy weight. I've never really been a dieter, or even believed in diets, but I Have To Do Something. Would love to do it with some other Mumsnetters - anyone interested in joining me?

All the weight loss threads seem so bloated, if you'll pardon the metaphor. I'm intimidated by 537 messages, or 219 messages. Feel I cant be arsed to read through all that and I will never be part of the club if I dont read the history. Advice please?

Forever - yes i think you are right about pump being my comfort zone, but it's also about the social thing too. We have such a laugh in the class and quite often it's nicknamed Karaoke Pump, Porn Pump and goodness knows what else, depending on our mood and what we get up to in the class lol. :o I go to the gym 5 times a week but definitely need to up my cardio. I am only doing Step and Combat for cardio at the moment so need to up my gain a bit on the cardio front. I dont do running coz i wobble around too much lol

Red - the smores sound lush!!! I will deffo have to get that recipe for when i next go camping (the 12th of never i think! ). :o Perhaps i should just do it over a bbq in the back garden instead lol.

Re the not noticing thing - some people just walk around with their eyes shut lol. What's more shocking tho is that i put all that weight back on again (and more) but am at least on my way back down the scales again....

As for the exercising thing, when i first started exercising many years ago, i just used to use DVDs all the time as i was also a single parent so i know how hard it is. I used to long to get to the gym but child care was always an issue too.

My thin SW friend actually lost 2.5lb this week. She needs to eat more pies I reckon!!! ;)

Had a terrible day today foodwise. My work do a free breakfast once a month and it's basically just a carb fest. I was going to be so good by having just ham and a boiled egg but in the end i gave up as i knew i was going to the pub at lunchtime and would be having carby rubbish.

Hoping to have a seriously much better weekend for food!

Well, after my epic ride on Wed plus all the other rides and minimal carbs I really thought I would have lost some weight but when I weighed myself yesterday it was exactly the same. However, I came on last night - it's amazing how quickly 30 days can go by without me noticing! I'm really hoping that the no weight loss is actually weight gain through bloating iykwim and I'll be a down a bit in a few days.

It went a bit wrong last night though. I needed pmt snacks and when mixed with vodka that became unhealthy snacking . Still, With the extra 1400ish extra cals that I didn't eat on Wed I think I'm just about covered (I had a packet of 83 cal crisps and a mini baby bel - hardly the crime of the century!)

Still, I dragged my hungover butt out of bed this morning and did 5km so I'm not all bad.....

Well, fuck this. Minimal to no carbs all week (One 50g serving of rice), 72km of bike riding, 6km of walking and I've put on 0.7kg. I can't be fucking arsed anymore.

gil normal to have water retention due to TOTM. Stick with it and stay away from the scales for a few days. Can make 2-5lbs of difference. Also eating unhealthy carby snacks causes more water retention which also takes a few days to work through - for me 2-3lbs difference as well.

Hello - been off internet, and diet for a week.

Need to get back on it.

My fitness pal name is also cherryburton. Someone come and be friends with me!

Hi Cherry welcome will add you!

gil Stay focussed! Wish I could do all the cycling you are doing, am v . Weight gain almost certainly due to TOTM, need to give the diet another couple of weeks to see if it works. If it doesn't work then you maybe need to reassess, one idea could be be cutting out sugar completely ie in milk (ie no lactose), and fruit (ie no fructose) something like Tim Feriss's slow-carb diet (as set out in his 4 Hour Body book) where you do eat pulses for carbs but they are very slow releasing. There are probably other possibilities too (dukan?). Maybe others have different ideas?

Gil thats awful, poor you could it be muscle gain? Your legs must be v toned with all the cycling, so possibly responsible. I'm the same as you and go by the scales, so I'm really annoyed that I've lost nothing this week. I've probably had one of my best weeks in terms of sticking to diet, and I've started running most days as well as zumba. I bet your clothes are looser tho? Do you feel better and fitter? I'm trying to focus on that instead of booting the bastard scales around the bathroom

We will see a difference next week!!!! Promise

hairy oh dear, so hard to stay motivated when scales don't budge. Weight loss isn't linear though, IME often goes down in steps, so need to focus on that, and of course affected by hormonal factors and water rentention. Plus also weight varies by 2-3lbs over the course of a week.

My scales do body fat measurement and I worked out the "fat poounds" each week (ie body fat % x weight) and I did find often that even when weight didn't move the "fat pounds" did.

I found plateauing extremely frustrating, although for one week just need to stay focussed. If it goes on for 3-4 weeks thats a different matter and at that point probably time to re-evaluate diet and try to tweak it - different things work for different people etc.

Hi everyone :)

Gil - sorry you've not lost this week but with TOTM and all the cycling you've been doing, you've probably gained muscle and retained a bit of water too. Dont worry, you'll soon lose it. :)

Been terrible this weekend so am not going to bother to weigh myself. Went out for a curry last night which was swiftly followed up by about 4 pints of strawberry beer. OMG it was soooo delicious!! Highly recommended but only for when you're on a non-diet weekend!! :o

Back on track tomorrow tho. :o

I have managed to lose another 2lb- but in 2 weeks as I didn't weigh myself last week because I had such a bad weekend!

I have got to say that this week I stuck rigidly to the 1200 calories and then went over by about 400 on fri sat and sun. I didn't do any exercise. The week I spent three afternoons sweating it out on wii fit I lost nothing. The verdict is stuff the exercise!

Right, sorry for flipping out but grrrrrrrr to my stupid body. I've had a really good think and I have to say I think some of it is muscle as my thighs are rock solid now and there is a very big change in my body shape - it's a lot slimmer and 'tighter' iykwim.

I've also realised that weight loss stopped when I gave up smoking which is also when I increased my coffee consumption by about a billion. There was talk a while ago, pre children, of me being lactose intolerant (thanks forever as I'd forgotten about this) and I'm wondering if the extra milk I'm drinking in the coffee is having an adverse effect. I have noticed recently that I've bloated after having a coffee in the mornings (no food) and my stomach has become indiscriminate about which foods will make it bloat. This makes me think that it's more likely to be the milk, butter, etc than the actual food.

So, anyway, sorry for the rambling - I'm thinking this through as I type it - but I think I'm going to go back to what a dietitian said years and years ago. Stay lactose free, eat small to moderate amounts of carbs, eat little and often and work my butt off on my bike.

Thanks for all your support

morning campers!
:)

Gibs - sorry about the lack of loss. but maybe there is something in the lactose thing?

RG - Strawberry beer? sounds lush.

I can confirm i have eaten and drunk my weight in food and booze. Friday i did really well and was well within my 1200 for the day. Sat i reckon i was about 2000 cals and sunday - ah. best not even try and work it out. Yesterday i was back to about 2000 today i dont think im going to even eat. I feel So bloated and an constipated like hell. sorry for the tmi. But i think all this clean eating i was doing before... and then craming myself full of crap food and drink has really shown how much it affects our bodies. Plus im so thirsty - prob the salt in the processed foods??

Am not getting on the scales, else id feel awful and i expect there would be a huge waterweight gain from the excess sodium. Im going to wait until the weekend.

Bloody enjoyed it though and shall be going again in august. And gorging myself silly has kind of got rid of any cravings i had and im actually really looking forward to a few salads and lighter meals :)

Can I join your gang please?

I read some of this thread last night and, inspired by the fact mfp is a no cost option unlike WW etc, I headed over there and have also joined up.

I've got about 3.5 stone to lose and I really want to do it this time.

My username over there is morningsunrise although most of the users seem to be American?

I have also been inspired by this thread and started mfp early May.
Currently doing SW via a work project (well going to the weigh in, the group is a bit depressing!).

Am 163 lbs this morning and would like to get to 140. have lost 7lbs since 5th may.
I need to do more exercise daily which i am sure will help to move things along.

gil - Interesting about the lactose intolerant, might be worth giving up dairy for a couple of weeks to see if that helps. Also sounds though that your shape is changing, as said before, waist measurement is the most important. Also do you add sugar to the coffee because if so that could also contribute to bloating and weight loss issues? Would be good to try and eat protein breakfast. I have found that wheat contributes to me bloating but am ok with dairy. Some of the diet books also think caffiene can stall weight loss.

The dietitician's advice sounds v sensible.

forever I drink decaf and I have a sugar substitute so now I have soya milk instead of dairy the coffee should be ok. I've also bought goat cheese today so I can bulk out cals at lunch without eating loads of carbs. Strangely, wheat doesn't seem to affect me too much. White rice bloats me, potatoes damn near kill me with pain and bloating so I rarely eat either of them. Bread is fine with me but it is thought that French wheat flour doesn't cause the problems that English flour does. It's only if I have butter on bread that I have a problem which is in line with the dairy thing. The dietitian said that if you picture a plate with a child's drawing of the portion they would like of veg on it, then that's how much of the carb I should be eating so I'm going to try that.

Hello Sandstorm and fitflopqueen. What's your MFP name fitflop? I'll add you now Sandstorm.

By the way, do those fit flops make any difference?

Nice to have you back redder. Glad you had a good time and you had a foody blowout!

gil yes, should be ok with soya milk but watch out as some soya milks have lots of sugar added. Hopefully that will make a difference.

BTW Butter rarely causes a problem though for lactose intolerant people as it doesn't contain much lactose.

Was thinking about buying some fitflops but will wait and see if weather ever improves!

I know butter doesn't have much lactose but it's one of the things that affects me. I've spent years cutting out one food for 2 weeks and keeping diaries of which things made a difference and butter was one of those. I thought it was bread but when I had bread with margarine I was fine. I told you, I'm a strange one!

Luckily they don't add anything to soya milk out here unless you get the chocolate one - it's all natural and you can't even get it sweetened with apple juice.

Hello RGPargy! Have added you on there now.

I was supposed to be going for a run at lunchtime but my DS2 came home from nursery sick and now all I want to do is have tea, lie down and watch Corrie.

Might start again properly tomorrow. Can't face weighing myself today, sure it will be too tragic.

Oooh, just read up and saw that TOTM can make you gain weight - is that true, because I'm on at the moment, and I did just have cider and crisps for tea the other night as a result...

Hi everyone! :o

Have added you morning sunshine! :o

Red - glad you had a fab camping weekend! I have a good weekend coming up in September that i'm really looking foward to. It's a fitness weekender in Bognor Regis (LOL!) in the Butlins holiday camp (double LOL!) but going on my previous experiences of fitness weekenders (at Camber sands) it should be a right laugh and completely filled with tons of exercise (about 12 classes over 3 days!!!) and even more booze! I cannot wait!

Had a great day, foodwise. Gone a little over my self-inflicted carb limit but i'm still re-learning low carbing and tbh, i think carbs once a day is not that bad really........

Just off to bed for an early night so will catch up with the rest of you tomorrow afternoon. :)

Night all! :o xx

rg - thats sounds fab :) how are you feeling on the low carb?

Feeling a little bit humbled today. Had some totally blindsiding news late last night, a friend had a baby at 26 weeks, i didnt know she was pregnant, she only found out 4 weeks ago herself.

Spend most of the night thinking about that, and how life is sometimes. This morning i feel this whole weight loss thing, while im still going to do it, its pureply superficial really. It doesnt really matter, im still me to family or friends and being fatter or thinner doesnt change that at all, it only changes how i look on the outside, not whats on the inside.

I was a mit miffed at my camping pictures, that i still look SO FAT - and iwas disapointed with myself, but after last night, i kind of feel it doesnt matter, it wouldnt have made any difference at all to the fun i had. Being thinner does not make me a better person at all.

Also, it reminds me how easy it is to not be thinking about food. How when things like this happen ( and ive had a fair few very very bad years myself) food, and thinking about what you are eating, just is not important, Just getting through the day is about all you can achieve.

I dont know, it just kind of puts everything in perspective.

but i do want to say RG, your eating yesterday, BLOODY EXCELLLENT!

Just looked at your food diary too RG - one day I'll be able to do that!

What snacks should I be looking at? I want low carb because I love pasta so I'm saving my carbs for that, but it needs to be satisfying. Oh, and I don't eat meat but I do like fish (shame the rest of the family doesn't).

Oh, just read your post properly redder. I hope your friend and her baby are okay. It's not much consolation but my dd1 was born at 32 weeks so a little bit further down the line and she's just turned 13 with all the whistles and bells that go with being a teenager.