LOSE IT! January 2021

[TheRealHousewife]

HELLO, WELCOME & HAPPY NEW YEAR! Actually that doesn’t read right with all the C19 malarkey. Strange & unprecedented times. Nonetheless, 2021 marks a fresh start and and an opportunity for renewal. This thread is for those of us who enjoy healthy eating, exercising and feeling motivated to reach (or maintain) a healthy weight/bmi. The founding members of these threads are inspirational and supportive in equal measure. I’m sure @SunshineCake & @FatGirlShrinking won’t mind me holding them up as our Poster Girls. They both did absolutely fantastic in 2020! ⭐️👏🥇

They have both demonstrated that if we eat right, get outside, move more your mental health will heap the rewards. Better mental health = better choices. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Me personally? In the main it’s been a way of life for 3 years and I’ve lost over 40lbs. I had a bit of blip at the start of C19. After all my hard work I just started eating with impunity. Before I knew it I was10lbs up in a few short weeks! I needed to get back on it and COVID proof myself 😬 I calorie count, log via MFP app, Intermittent fast, eat-low carb Mediterranean style aka Fast800 Plan and try to stay well hydrated. In December I maintained; I’m hoping to see a loss this January which would see me firmly in the healthy BMI bracket.

There are so many enjoyable lifestyle options out there without the need to resort to extreme measures. Whatever way you choose, it needs to be enjoyable & sustainable for the long term. This is a long term commitment rather than a quick fix. I rarely drink alcohol and keep sugar to a minimum. I exercise by doing walking vids & strength sessions with lite weighs.

As no one size fits all members need to follow their own way of eating. Nonetheless this thread aims to offer guidance, support and a bit of hand holding.

There is no shaming, competition or harsh words to be found on these threads. We are in this together.

Useful Links

Getting Back On Track

How To Lose Weight

The Fast Diet

Mediterranean Diet

MFP

Intermittent Fasting

Meal Planning

Mental Health

Jump right in! If you’re not too shy, post a bit about yourself 😊. How do you plan to do it? What do you want to achieve? What excites you about your future self? Together, we can create a whole new you!

You’ll be glad you got on board this time next month 😊

Try the TDEE calculator @TheRealHousewife posted above and see what your TDEE is as a starting point. I know how you feel though.

Still no difference on the scale for me, I ate a bit more yesterday so I’m glad it’s not gone up at least. Going to go for around 1600 cals today and see how I go. Frustrating when you do all the right things, low cals, exercise, drink water, 10k steps and nothing.

@joynoelle it looks like 1100 calories is about right if you are generally sedentary, if you are active then you'll need to increase that. The theory is that you're body retains water/fat to allow it to recover from the exercise and keep basic functions going if you are not putting enough energy in through food.

I've run the numbers for sedentary, light and moderate exercise and attached, you should be aiming for around 500 under maintenance to lose 1lb a week.

I am still at 180lb, feeling that impatience to see the numbers wobble into the next bracket but I know that it is just my impatience as really shouldn't expect the number to drop every day, although that would be lovely

Wouldn't it be amazing if you could just say 'in the next 3 months I will lose XX' and guarantee that each day the numbers would drop in a nice even way until you get to goal, nice and neat and guaranteed.

Thankyou so much that's really helpful. I'm doing an hour a day on my exercise bike and lifting 3 kg weights(not very heavy I know) would you say that's light exercise or moderate? I would be extremely happy with a pound a week!

Good Morning Everyone 😊

@SunshineCake you’ve got a new job? Great! What is it?

@HalfShrunkMoreToGo that’s a great explanation for achy muscles 💪👍⭐️

I don’t know if MN is having a hissy fit but I’ve written out a reply twice for joynoelle and it automatically changes to ivyjoynoelle and my message disappears into thin air just leaving the tag.

Anyways hope everyone is enjoying their Friday. On a positive note the nights are drawing out and the sun has reappeared. Hope everyone who is affected by the recent heavy rain are ok.

That's really interesting you mention low calories with sleeping problems @SkeletonSkins
I have never joined the dots but I will often have periods of struggling to get to sleep and I wonder if its on my lower calorie days 🤔 I'm going to start writing it down.

I don't know if I'm doing the TDEE thing right, but I'm 5 5, light exercise and aim for 1450 calories a day which is what MFP said for 1lb loss a week!

No problem real housewife-I change my name slightly quite often as I've been posting on relationships quite a bit.

I was a bit fed up, okay a lot, when I was the same weight today as yesterday after a good run. I did wonder if I am not eating enough and as I can't calorie count I decided to just go with whatever until my next run on Monday and then try and not weigh until three runs.

It was meant to be a new hob @TheRealHousewife . It has just arrived and dh will for it later.

Feeling positive @Puffalicious? .

I wouldn't know where to start with TDEE and cooking everything from scratch.

Shout out plea to every chef / cook writing a new cook book. Please add calorie count to each separate ingredient.

Feeling very positive Sunshinecake just ate a portion of nachos and I'm not whipping myself with a stick- yet! Home-made with amazing home-made guacamole (my speciality) but I went easy on the cheese and sour cream (as the rest of them smeared it around their faces i just looked away!). I've been good all yesterday and rest of today, so weekend treat sometimes needed, esp as I don't drink.

Could people please possibly post recipes which are calorie counted? This where I struggle.

@CescaNicole I’d be really interested in what you notice! You’ll have to let us know if you notice a pattern. I have a Fitbit and it’s telling me I’m getting less than 20m deep sleep per night, whereas when I started I was getting over an hour, so it does seem to have got worse the longer I’ve been on the diet.

I’ve had the most delicious, comforting tea. Low carb sausages, ready made cheesy mash from asda (only 132cals and 13g carbs, couldn’t believe it, would normally make my own but ran out of time today for various reasons), and peas with gravy. Soooo good. Still only made it to 1440 cals today, and that’s if I force down a yoghurt. Eating low carb and higher fat/protein really fills me up.

@GoLightlyontheEarth what sort of food do you like? Just thinking what sort of recipes you might like. I find the recipe function on my fitness pal really easy, you can add a recipe from the web and it’ll work out the cals per portion. You just have the change the odd ingredient sometimes if it doesn’t quite get it right.

Well done @Puffalicious! I've decided I'm not eating enough so I've just had some rum and raisin chocolates and I can't deny I might eat again. Taking the weekend off then back to running on Monday.

I like lots of veg , fish and meat in limited amounts. I’m trying to make everything from scratch and don’t like ham/pork/turkey or ‘fake’ meat . I can’t eat pasta or cheese as it makes me feel ill/bloated, but Parmesan and feta are fine. Also goats cheese. Otherwise I like most things. Carbs are literally the death of me so trying to cut them out as much as possible.

[quote SkeletonSkins]@GoLightlyontheEarth what sort of food do you like? Just thinking what sort of recipes you might like. I find the recipe function on my fitness pal really easy, you can add a recipe from the web and it’ll work out the cals per portion. You just have the change the odd ingredient sometimes if it doesn’t quite get it right.[/quote]
I must persevere with importing recipes in MFP. I found it a bit of a faff when I tried it a while back. Thanks for reminding me.

@SkeletonSkins
I will let you know if there's any patterns picked up! 20 min of deep sleep 😭 that sounds bad. I have just checked my fitness tracker sleep section and I average about 2 hours a night so not as bad, but my sleep is very broken with 2 little ones. Sometimes it jus takes me hours to fall asleep even if the 2 littles are sparko!!

I'm thinking of giving IF a try, but I can't work out if it's safe for breastfeeding. I think it will help me stick to my Calorie allowance because atm I eat breakfast quite late and then I have to get through the morning avoiding snacks 😅 so might give it a whirl.

Well today is definitely an indoor day, we got a breadmaker the other day so that's running it's maiden voyage to see how it works, fingers crossed!

We have pizza dough for making our own pizzas for dinner and Dd is watching shit on YouTube in between playing board games.

I saw 179 on the scales this morning so need to make sure I don't eat my way out of the 170s this weekend.

Might have a living room dance party with DD later to burn off a few calories.

Happy 170s @HalfShrunkMoreToGo! Bet it was so nice to see that 7! Home made pizzas sound delicious.

I’ve upped my calories the past couple of days to 1500-1600 and this morning I’m a pound down - could be totally unrelated and I’d have lost it anyway but good to see the scales move again. It also takes me back into the 12stone category (even if it is 12st13 haha) so that’s good to know.

Food shop this morning, think we’ll have homemade burgers tonight with hidden veg. No bun for me.

Hello everyone

I'm going to try really hard not to weigh until next Friday and I want you all to remind me constantly.

I've just had a long walk with the dog, about 80 minutes, with hills and lots of up and down bits in the woods and it is disheartening to think I burnt more calories than in yesterday's run even thought distance wise was not much different. I'm wondering whether I should just walk more but in the four years I have had my dog I didn't lose any weight, even when walking twice a day. I don't know if it is the cutting out the food I am intolerant to, the intermittent fasting or the running that has kick started my weight loss .

Making a picnic for lunch and home made soup for dinner while the kids have beef burgers and chips for tea.

Amazing number @HalfShrunkMoreToGo and such an active start to the day @SunshineCake.
Day 20
SW:151
CW:141.75
GW:132
No change (for 3 days!!!)
9.25lbs in 20 days
Having an Indian takeaway tonight so soup for lunch and I'll go easy on the rice/nan and popadams later.
Might have cauliflower rice actually - typing/thinking out loud!
Onwards and still in the same place but hoping for inwards

Breadmaker bread was good, think the mix could be refined to get a better flavour but it was a nice loaf of bread and required basically no effort on my part at all so SUCCESS!

Homemade pizzas were wonderful, DD did all the work, I just gave her the dough and let her roll, shape and top them, she even did a sweet pizza for pudding with Nutella, marshmallows and M&Ms. Luckily I'd prepared for the calories and just had vegetables for lunch so it all evened out over the course of the day.

Just saw myself without clothes and I'm not sure a day off running and eating treats is worth it when my stomach looks like that .

Dh isn't looking at treadmills for me and I'm thinking about running tomorrow.

Also four months late with my period and starting to stress about that too.

Normal service hopefully resuming tomorrow.

Hope everyone else is good.

Takeaway was really yum and worth every calorie.
@SunshineCake four months is a long gap between periods unless you are either menopausal or pregnant (or anorexic I suppose also).
Could it be menopause? If not, it might be worth taking a test for reassurance that it is not pregnancy. Don't want to scare you with the latter and maybe this is common for you to skip a few months.
Apologies if I have missed something up thread. Having a pal that found out at nearly six months aged 42 made us all a little more aware of these things.

Hello again! I've been away for a week, and back to weigh in with a sad gain 😭. I was doing alright then hit a bit of a wall mid week and sort of fell face first into a pile of biscuits, and have had a bit of an ibs flare up which has meant I've been rather - ahem - backed up. And today I got my period (over a week late!). So am hoping that I'll experience a whoosh of water retention weight to go in the next few days. Otherwise I will be back on the calorie counting tomorrow.
SW 165lbs
CW 162lbs
GW 133lbs.

On a side note - anyone ever considered coolsculpting? Rather fancy just freezing my fat and then watching it melt away!

@LarryUnderwood Sounds like you had a few things working against you this week! Also, I've definitely considered cool-sculpting but I always talk myself out of it.

I haven't been active the past week or so but I have been reading and enjoying everyone's updates. A bit like LarryUnderwood I had a mid-week fail where I snacked constantly for two days. Left me feeling super bloated and gross which was supported by a 1kg gain on the scale. Stopped weighing myself for a few days while I tried to distract myself during the day so I wouldn't snack. I'm going to do a weigh in on Monday morning and post the results.

I did finally join a gym though. The Anytime Fitness' here seem to have decent hygiene measures so I've just gone for it; it feel really nice to to some weights.

Thank you @132orbust. I am peri menopausal at least. When I was ill in March I then had three months without, three months of being in and now four months of nothing. I do feel sick in the mornings, been about three, and I'm struggling to wake up and get up when last year I'd be up at 5.30 or 6.30. Today I woke at seven for a wee then slept until half eight. I really can't be pregnant but I'm worried. I thought I was due my smear next month so would use that as a kick up bum and test but I got the dates wrong. I'm nearly 49.

@LarryUnderwood. Don't be downhearted. You are trying! Never heard of cool sculpting . What's that?

I was going to run but I'm aching and feel sick so we'll take doggy on a long walk. Still thinking a treadmill would be useful.