20lbs lighter by Christmas Day, anyone?

[notagiraffe]

Hi
Got weighed at weekend in one of those places where you can't shift your toes around on the scale to lose half a stone. Bit of a shock. Does anyone want to join me to be 20lb lighter by Christmas?

That's only 2lb a week. We can do it.

Height: 5'4"
Start weight on 21st October: 159lb
Goal Weight on Christmas Day: 139lb

Food Plan: no sugar or processed foods, lots of water, lots of veg and lean protein. Alcohol free on weekdays

Exercise Plan: Daily Shred plus what I already do (fitness class and walks)

Anyone want to join in and add plans, tips, motivators, anything at all to get us there by Christmas Day?

OK 13.6. Blimey
12st by Christmas Day would be the BEST Christmas present to myself.

I think i'm going to Dukan. Have bought chicken and zero fat yog for lunch and didnt take the tube to work. (Dripping mess but hey)

McKayz I honestly used to hate water too, but I just made myself drink it! I can recommend a Bobble bottle, that has a wee filter in the spout so it tastes a little nicer!

Have you tried sparkling water? So cheap to buy own brand stuff too?

Sparkling water is grim, tastes worse than normal water. Might have to force myself to drink water.

I'm in, I'm 13.5 at the moment and would love to lose 20lbs and be 11st something by Christmas, but even 1 stone would be fab.

My main problem is snacking so my plan is to cut out all snacks during the week and make sure I have enough protein at breakfast, lunch and tea so I don't spend all afternoon and evening snacking. I am going allow myself 1small chocolate bar on sat and sun.

I also have a bit of diet coke habit but can't cut out snacking and coke at the same time so am going to try and reduce my intake by half insteade.

sugar free Ribena, McKayz? Not ideal but for the short term, to help stop hunger pangs, it can't be too bad.

Or put lots of ice and slices of orange in the water to take the taste away.

Do you like herb or fruit teas at all?

This is why I'm quitting my Pepsi Max...

andevidencelibrary.com/worksheet.cfm?worksheet_id=255377&auth=1

drhyman.com/blog/2013/02/15/how-diet-soda-makes-you-fat-and-other-food-and-diet-industry-secrets/#close

Oh, apparently that's nonsense www.shape.com/weight-loss/food-weight-loss/ask-diet-doctor-can-diet-soda-make-you-fat

I've just rejoined myfitnesspal , but can't work out how to add friends from their nicknames .
I'm emmacw if anyone who's cleverer than me cares to add me .

Soup simmering on the stove .... Smells good

I'm going back to MFP too. I lost 2 stone using that and the Shred last year and I was doing really well. Then I unexpectedly got pregnant and it all went pfft.

Baby is now 3 months so time to get back on the bandwagon. I'm BFing so aiming for 1700 calories a day. Didn't do well yesterday but, in my defence, the hot chocolate & biscuits were eaten before I joined this thread

I've been good so far today, didn't sweeten my porridge at breakfast and resisted my morning cappuccino. I'm going to have some homemade tomato soup for lunch WITHOUT the bread. Going out for dinner though so will have to scour the menu carefully.

Can I join please? This is really good timing for me as started BIWIs low carb bootcamp yesterday (just lurking on bootcamp thread as seems to be well underway).

I weigh 14 stone . That's 200lbs! However I thought I weighed 300lbs (got mixed up somewhere along the way) so could I perhaps count that as 100lb loss?? No? Ok.

So I am 200lbs and 5 foot 8. I would LOVE to lose 20lbs by Christmas day.

I keep joining these things and have good intentions and it gets to day two and I cave. Last year I lost three stone, knew my new clothes were getting tighter and weighted my self Sunday and am so ashamed to see I have out a stone and a half back in again..
I have booked a photo session with my children for mid November. If I could lose half a stone by then I would be pleased. It's just so hard.
I started back on mfp yesterday, have intentions of starting back on shred ASAP (have a cold at the moment so can't right now). I had stated the couch to 5 k and got to week 6 then went on holiday and never got back on it when we came back..
Maybe this time I will do it...
If I disappear and don't come back will someone PM me to make me!!!

I was 75kg last Xmas I'm now 87kg !!!! So gutted I let myself put it back on!

wossname at having lost 100lbs somewhere. Nah. That is so not allowed!

My bathroom scales weigh me 5lbs lighter than the medical ones, so I have get down to 9st 8 by Christmas, which would be the best present ever.

Worley don't fret about putting it on. You're here to get back to the weight you want to be. That photo session sounds a perfect goal.

Just done an hour's running and sprint training to support DS who needs to build speed for sport. Didn't work half as hard as him but really actually enjoyed running up hills, unbelievably. After the first half hour when fat legs feel like lead, they sort of warm up and feel a bit springier.

I've just joined my fitness pal and I think it's a tool that will definitely help me out, I'm off to walk the dog in the rain (deep joy ) !!

Go on then. I'd like to reach Christmas Day and not resemble Father Christmas.

I've been using BF non-sleeping baby for too long as an excuse. I'm in!

Ok, I just went to check. I'm 5 foot 3 and weigh 10 stone 9 lbs. I can't keep saying "but I've just had a baby!" Since the "baby" is 15 months old! Would love to lose 20 lbs by Xmas. My SIL considers herself very stylish and I keep catching her giving me pitying looks. I know from experience that a chubby Christmas is not a very glamorous one. I'm going to start with a bit of low carb - maybe the "caveman diet". Will chuck all snacks and have only one alcohol evening. Will weigh in on Mondays. Good luck, everyone!

Ill maybe join!

I'm 5 ft 4 and 9 stone 13, size 10. I'd like to be 9 stone 6 so not 20lbs but need motivation all the same. I'm half way through Insanity but have injured my shoulder so having to take some time out. Grrr.

I know I'm not overweight but I'd like to feel better in my clothes and more toned. A few lbs really makes all the difference to me. i follow a strict diet during the week and at weekends I eat what I fancy and this works at keeping me the weight I am. Ill need to have a think as to what to do to drop these lbs

Welcome everyone.

mydadsdaughter I love MFP but think they sometimes underestimate the calories. You seem to get a lot for your allowance. I looked up two versions of 2 plain scrambled eggs (no butter). One came in at 148 cals and the other at 220. Bit of a difference.

Cressida that last half stone is the hardest. I find fat free helps. A friend of mine swears by paleo and she is very slim. She eats out a lot socially so she just does paleo on days when she can, to maintain her weight.

Hi all, would it be ok to join you? I started this myself a few weeks ago but would be great to have some company on the journey. I've been a yo yo dieter all my adult life so instead of going on some crazy fad diet to get the weight off quickly I've decided to do it slowly and steadily at 1Ib a week (which is the only way it's ever worked long term for me!). I'm aiming for 10Ibs off by Christmas but the BIG THING is that I want to KEEP IT OFF over Christmas so I don't have to go on a diet in the new year! That is going to be my biggest challenge! I know I will be terrible food wise so I'm going to have to exercise my butt off during December to compensate.

I'm usually pretty good during the week - my weekends however are terrible! I'm doing a mixture of 5:2 (sometimes 4:3) and on my "normal days" I'm trying to low carb and stay under 1200 cals.

Exercise wise I'm currently doing 30 day shred plus exercise I usually do which is netball and Pilates and I'm also adding in the Jillian Michaels 6 pack in 6 weeks DVD at the moment.

Stats from me are:-
Height 5ft 5
Current weight 150Ibs (68Kg)
target weight 140Ibs (63 / 64Kg)

Did you know your intestines are now being described as your second brain? It functions somewhat similarly to the actual brain. No cerebral thinking but there are lots of neural pathways up to our main brain, signalling when we are hungry, and when we are happy with the food we have eaten.

A group of scientists carried out an experiment where people were tube fed. They broke the group in two, one group was fed saline water sometimes, while the 2nd group was fed high fat foods. Neither group tasted or smelled the food, it was just pumped into their systems. But the high fat feeders showed greater contentment levels in their brains when they were scanned after being fed, even though the subjects did not actively know what they had been fed.

My understadning of it is; our intestinal tract can be trained into wanting/expecting high fat and sugary foods and sending happy feelings up to our main brain once those expectations are met. So the addiction to high fat food, is not just something that is in our heads, it is also in our second (primitive) brain, our intestines.

Therefore I believe I need to go cold turkey on sugary, high fat food. I need to break the cycle. My primitive brain can unlearn those habits, my intestines can unlearn to expect/need comfort foods.

I'm using my cerebral brain to train my primitive brain!!!!!!

(As you can see I am very busy in work and have not spent half the day reading on-line about our second brains!)

intriguing Molly!

Sweetheart - that sounds like a rapid weight loss diet - 4 days of 1200 and 3 of 600 cals plus masses of exercise. How come that's a slow loss programme? I'd expect to lose 3-4lbs a week on that regime.

Well really it's more like 3 days of 600 cals - 2 days of 1200 cals and then 2 days of who the hell knows because it's the weekend! I really really struggle to loose weight, I've done a VLCD of 400 a day before and still hardly lost anything after the 1st week.

I need to learn to drink tea without sugar or sweetener.

Can anyone recommend a nice fruit tea that doesn't taste of wee please?

No diet coke yet!