size 16 to size 10 and anything to get there: whether you have eaten lettuce and ryvita all weekend or worked your way through a munchy box and a dairy milk get over here for MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

[StealthPolarBear]

Rules of Motivational Monday:
The weekend is the past. You start from now. If not, you'll end up here in a couple of weeks and a few pounds heavier so do it NOW
MM involves healthy eating and some exercise. Your excuses will not be tolerated here.
MM is when we all get back into control and back into the swing of things.
Welcome all and best of luck. :)

Today I have had:

1/2 slice toast, smoked salmon and scrambled egg (warm tbs of milk and then stir in egg rathe than use butter) 6 points

Boots shapers salad - 5 points (and tiny fruit bag)

On the way home I was starving but decided it was good and it wasn't hunger but fat melting away in the heat.

Big salad of leaves, cu, toms, beets, pepper with a small slice of salmon steak on top.

.......and two gin and tonics.

Under points but could have killed a wine or three.

well done, that all sounds readlly nice as well!

Good morning everyone
I ate half my takeaway and DH ate the rest of it after he'd finished his.
I had 2 small (125ml) glasses of wine.
Somehow I still came in under calories (I'm amazed).
I allowed myself another weigh in this morning and I'm down to 86kg, it's coming off slowly but steadily.
I'm actually glad my scales aren't very easy to read, as I would probably obsess over small fluctuations. Working at an accuracy of 1lb or 1/2kg irons most of those out.

Morning all,

Just checking in. Yesterday was quite hard but I stayed strong until the evening when I did succumb to some Ben & Jerry's although I did share it with DH and DS.

Today I am planning to take the dcs for a long walk in the woods which should tire us out and burn some calories.

I like Think Thin Thursday though.

Are you only eating 800 cal a day Stealth?
I think that would destroy me. I did the "one day on one day off" diet and managed okay with one day only eating 500cal with the promise that the next day you could eat whatever you wanted. It actually worked ok because anything I wanted to eat I told myself tomorrow and when tomorrow came I often didn't want it by then and ate normally ish.

Gosh this thread moves fast as I wasn't able to check in yesterday having both girls home all day is rather full on. Well did okish yest I thought and made myself do 25mins on bike trainer at 8pm once all in bed but then sat down and did MFP and I was 200c over again :( I'm struggling not to get in my power walking that I was doing on the school run now its holidays. then I was still hungry so had a banana Ho hum I'm never going to get to BMI of 25 at this rate. I need to get to 10 stone to be 25 so another 14lbs to go but I honestly don't think my head believes I can do it so I'm working vvvvery slowly to 10 half stone so I creep up on it :o

I couldn't function on 800 cals a day, I burn minimum 600 exercising (sometimes 1200) as I don't drive. I can easily net 800 though.

If I put on weight in next couple of days I have the perfect excuse as I have now stopped breast feeding as of yesterday at 6am was my last so I'm 24hrs on with some milk in boobs. I've cut down over the last 9wks so hoping I don't get engorged as I got mastitous lots with first baby.

Right thin Thursday it is. The car is going in the garage today so if its not too hot will make DD1 walk, scooter into town with me, that's a 45min walk then we can bus back otherwise she would moan the whole way as its uphill coming back (she only 5). Will try squeeze a Shred in too if baby naps.

IMST well done on your willpower with the takeaway - how do you know how many calories in a takeaway btw? I always struggle to fnd this sort of thing out.
whyme, no, not deliberately, but I don't make an effort to eat up to the limit, so sometimes (very rarely!) this happens. When I'm in work (2 days a week) I have all my meals and snacks planned so it tends to work out that I have those 2 days on 8/900 cals, which I think does work well. My evening meal is a supermarket salad (Morrisons do a lovely chilli noodle & edamame bean one which I'm currently craving) or sushi so I feel like I'm getting a treat without overeating.
ssmile "I honestly don't think my head believes I can do it" - I know exactly what you mean but it's so hard to get past this. You're going through the motions but there's a little voice right at the back of your head saying "well you can try but you're not actually going to do this".

Well it's Think Thin Thursday. We have all seen some results I think. There is no magic solution, we just need to keep doing what we have been doing and all the 1 and 2lb will eventually add up to stones. You are not going to wake up tomorrow a stone lighter (and if you did it would not be a good thing!). Time and consistency is the only solution. Assuming we all do want to lose weight, if you have a night/weekend/week off, fine, just get back to it. Yes, you might have put weight on. But assuming you go on to lose weight in the future, you'll either be starting from that, slightly heavier, starting point, or much heavier if you ditch the diet.

Just to record why I am doing this - please add your own f you feel it would help:

• At my heaviest, I started to really worry about my health. I had a diabetes scare, and joint pain. It also occured to me that, when young, my risks of many things weren't much more than if I were a healthy weight, but as I get older I do need to start worrying about things like heart attack or stroke. If I was diagnosed with diabetes or had a heart attack, I know I'd get willpower from nowhere and have no problem losing weight (I cut out all crap when pg with DS, and they suspected GD - it was enough of a scare). So I do have willpower, I am just not feeling the urgency.
• I feel I have wasted my 20s being heavy. The clothes I want to wear don't fit and so I am really limited in my choices. In fact some shops didn't even stock my size! I broke a garden chair at mum and dad's (that's the first time I've admitted to that). Silly things like a "normal" sized adult can fit between the car seats in the back of my dad's car.
• I don't want DS teased about his fat mum, and in fact I don't want them seeing me fat if I can help it. I also don't want them to see me calorie counting :( So the quicker I can get this done the better
• I personally feel better in myself when I am in control of my eating. I feel a certain amount of self-loathing when I binge or when I don't do any exercise. Not for my body as such but for not being a "normal" person, who can control their diet and exercise and be the person they want to be. It worries me that my willpower in general is so low.

sorry that all sounded very preachy, it was more me talking to myself :o

Oh stealth.

I'm just a middle aged, menopausal, gimmer past my best trying to slim down before it gets out of hand. Have put on two stone in the last five years and feel ashamed and fat and unable to wear what I want to wear any more. But it is possible, I have been making excuses about age, and hormones, and thyroid, etc., but I was eating too much too often and it had nothing to do with any of that. On a diet, with tracking it is coming off (9lb in 5 weeks) slowly but surely. I wish I didn't have to do this but I will.

I have been sooo good this week though but I'm on a plateau at the moment and haven't lost a lb, or an oz since Monday.

Think Thin Thursday!

Hello everyone. Well done to the non-wibblers and those who wibbled just a bit. I wibbled with bells on. :) My aunt had ordered a gorgeous set meal for her birthday lunch.... huge plates of charcuterie, and foccacia followed by salmon baked in harrisa and lemon and new potatoes and pavlova. Plus 2 bottles of cava between 6, followed rapidly by 5 bottles of white between 6. I did not say no. I was tipsy, and full, and it all seemed like a good idea... yesterday!

Just did a sneaky weigh in, and amazingly i have not put ON any weight from last week, but have not lost any either. I consider that to be a massive victory considering the week I have had!

Today- back to my beloved ryvitas, and soup. DH is on a late shift, so I will not have an excuse to open a bottle of wine so it may even be alcohol free. Cannot go to Zumba though, sadly, but will get out with the DCs as much as possible.

Hope you all have a good day, and that this sun lasts where you are!

:( married. Sounds like you are doing it slowly but surely.
chips, they're the best reasons for slipping from the diet, when you have an occasion and lots of lovely food, rather than a bar or 2 of cooking chocolate in the fridge . Straight back on it - you sound very motivated!

It wasn't actually willpower that put the brakes on my takeaway, I started feeling full, and chose to recognise that feeling and stop eating. Previously I would have pushed through the full feeling and stuffed myself.
MFP gives calories for loads of things, I searched "chicken cashew nut" and picked the one that best fit what I had (it came in about 400 cals, which seems about right, it was quite veg-heavy) and fried rice was about 200.

As for why I am doing it. Well, I am also worried about the health aspects to being overweight. We have diabetes in the family and I carry my weight all round my middle. But, basically, I feel like I have spent all my life hating myself, and the person I am due to my yo-yoing weight. I feel like my weight relates to if I am lovable or not. I think this came from my DMother who has significant issues of her own, but despite all of my achievements (and despite that I am a nice person- I think -) the value she places on me seems to wax and wane according to my weight. She 'approves' if I am slim, and is scornful when I am not. My sense of self worth seems to be related to my weight. So, i want to deal with the extra stone I am carrying, but also i want to deal with my head space. I want to work through that very unhealthy way of thinking of come to a sense of restfulness about the person I am. So, a fair bit of what I am doing now is also telling myself that I am strong- I do not have to react to every set back in life by bingeing. I am a strong, calm, real life woman, and I have value in myself. I am so lucky, in that I have a DH who really loves me. I always doubt that and think 'how could he possibly really...?' so I want to feel good in myself about how I look, and work on my inner self so that I overcome the crippling self-doubt.

To me that's willpower!! I would carry on eating even when full. Well done.

If any of that made sense..

Plus.... DH is very good looking. And he has women flock a bit, especially one ex of his who is a genuine, slim, flame-haired beauty. (She is very nice too, and I have no worries there, but you know how it is... !)

My diet motivation has been creeping up for some time. I started seeing myself in photos and noticing I look like a fat person.
Then I did the "global fat scale" thread and came out as Tongan, that was the kick start to changing my food habits. I spoke to my friend, to find out my bad habits from an outside viewpoint.
I don't drink that much, I exercise a fair bit (mostly walking or cycling, hence my über thighs), I eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg and little processed food.
My weaknesses are a need to finish what's on my plate, a dislike of food going to waste, and a love of cake.
To counter these:
I eat until I feel full, then give someone else the rest of my food, or dish up less and have a little more if still hungry.
I no longer snack at work, I remind myself that it's not a problem if the food goes in the bin, it's not my food budget, and I am not a bin.
I try to not have cake (tricky as it's end of term) but if I must, I have one, just one, and I enjoy every single bit of it slowly, then exercise more to work it off, or if I know a cake occasion is coming up, I can exercise first.
Thinking of a slice of cake as an hour's brisk walk is usually enough to stop me having a second.

x post chips, yes it does make sense :)
IMST lol at "I am not a bin" but makes so much sense. From my pov I need to see it as wasting money now (pasta or whatever) which is money I'd happily spend in 5 years time when I have diabetes or whatever if it would fix the problem. Luckily this also coincides with an economy drive so I am not stuffing the fridge full of food "just in case", I am meal planning anyway and buying exactly what we need, looking at how we can use up leftovers rather than just buying more food. It fits together with dieting quite nicely. It does mean that sometimes DH gets homw from work starving and opens the fridge to fnd nothing but some limp celery and a sprouting potato :o

My big motivation this year was having my last baby and not wanting to be fat and forty next year. My big goal was lose 40lbs by my 40th birthday and I can go snowboarding :) I'm 33lbs down but the last 7lbsk is proving very stubborn to shift plus I had a health scare (i need my gallbladder removed) but the biggest change for me has been in my head this weight loss get healthy drive is for ME not my mum, my partner, my kids biut ultimately me. I'm not seeking approval or "well done don't u look nice" which have been my motivations in the past and my reasons for failure when I've not heard the compliments "oh no one has noticed what's the point, I may as well have that extra.chocolate bar" my DH has helped me realise that my mum was a big silent critic of my eating but at the same time feeding me cake all the flipping time! So I guess I've just grown up really and realised this is IT life, enjoy it healthy or not but its my responsibility to be healthy.

Morning everyone! I had an unplanned night out with a couple of school mums last night - at a house rather than out, but it did mean I couldn't be as good as I wanted. I did have 3 large glasses of white wine and a bowl of risotto but it felt nice, and I certainly didn't feel as though I'd come off the wagon. I counted up on MFP this morning and I still don't think I went over my calories for the day, or if I did it was only by about 40.

My motivation for doing this is varied - I've never been slim, not even as a child (although I wasn't fat) - and as an adult I don't remember ever buying clothes in a size smaller than 14. I've been a 16 for years and years but I've got big boobs and a big bum (hereditary!) so was kidding myself that there wasn't much I could do. I've had 2 kids in the last 5 years and continued to work full-time, and it's just been too much effort to think about my weight until now. I didn't even know how much I weighed - I thought it was about 13 stone. DH is best man at a wedding in September, and in April next year we're going on holiday with my extended family to Tenerife for the third year in a row. I turned 35 at the beginning of the month and thought that now was the time to start making changes - I'd love to look at next year's holiday photos next to my (size 10, flat-stomached) sister and not feel like a complete elephant in comparison, which is what has happened the last 2 years. My boys are also getting big enough to understand about being healthy and I don't want any "fat mummy" comments from them.

so that's it! I'd love to reach my target before my holiday in April, but it would be absolutely amazing to get there by Christmas. I've still got 3 ½ stone to go though so that's probably a bit optimistic.

Loving reading all your reasons, they are very motivating! I have the standard one of getting married next year, but have also realised that I am going to be 30 at the end of the year, and I have spent all my late teens and twenties being, not huge, but always a bit overweight and generally the biggest girl out of all my friends. Bit of a lightbulb moment last night when I was taking some old photos out of a frame and in one of me aged about 17 I had definite belly rolls and chubby face - so I can't convince myself any more that this is just a recent thing! DP is on a health kick and looking utterly gorgeous, so I need to match him!
Went for a swim in the sea last night after work - extra exercise and glorious with it.

of swimming in the sea.
It seems most of us are just wanting to not be fat any more and I can agree with that. I have felt fat my entire life and am sick of constantly feeling restricted by my weight

oh and I was 12st2 this monring, so heading in the right direction and hopefully on course to be 12st dead on or below by the end of the month....excpet I'm going away with friends this weekend. I will not be calorie counting ut need to motivate myself to show some willpower. Or I wonder if I can calorie count but stop at 2000, say?

which would be better do you think? We're going to la Tasca so I could even decide what I'm having in advance and try to log it. And wine :o

I've trimmed my hair and I have a lot of hair, hopefully that's a good few ounces gone - that counts, right?