Diet For Summer Challenge

[Dashel]

This is a continuation of the diet for Christmas challenge that was undertaken in 2022. Thank you to @OhFatty for starting that.

It is a group of us wanting a supportive environment to loose weight in the long term. Hopefully the posters from the Christmas challenge will sign up again and new members are welcome.

We each have our own way of doing this and there are no rules other than being encouraging to everyone and cheering on successes.

Morning all!
I lost 2lbs (& a quarter) this week! I wasn't expecting that - I'm not sure why I wasn't as I've stuck to my plan and was way under calories for Weds & Thurs but you know when you just feel a bit bloated/puffy.
I'm 9st 6lbs now which I've not been since April so I'm very happy. I'm not thin/skinny at this weight by the way, I'm only 5ft 1ish so I have a few pounds to go. Also the thing I find hard is maintaining, I tend to hit my goal & then eat everything and put it all back.
I need to stick around here even if I hit goal as I really want this to be a lifestyle change.
I really want to look good for Summer.
Anyway, happy Friday all 😊

Morning all

So pleased for Friday - hooray!

Fantastic loss @Gemzee - congratulations, you've done a great job and I'm really pleased for you!

I find maintaining hard too. Apart from last year - which was a bit of a blip and I did just eat and eat - for me I think it is the slow creep. Once I stop logging calories I think I end up eating a hundred or two over each day and eventually that translates to a pound here and a pound there and then there's a holiday or a celebration and suddenly I've got half a stone to lose again. I think weighing in regularly helps though - again, something I was bad at last year!

Talking of weighing, a frustrating weigh in for me this morning. I'm back up to 10st 12.6lb a gain of 0.8lb. I did have to do a bit of guestimating yesterday due to the fitbit blip and the meal we had last night but I'm as sure as I can be that I was just within calories and have been all this week. I went to bed feeling bloated though so wondered if there might be a gain today. I'm not a big salt eater in general but had fresh tomatoes on both my breakfast and evening meal yesterday and do like a good grind of salt on tomatoes plus I did snack on a few leftover Christmas nuts that needed eating up and although I counted the calories they were also quite salty as they were at the bottom of the tub. I'm crossing my fingers therefore this is just a bit of water weight that should go again if I keep my salt intake at normal levels today.

It is surprising how easy it is to let the frustration de-rail you as when I weighed this morning my first thought was - sod it, I'll have a glass of wine tonight and start again with the diet on Monday. I talked myself round however and have exercised even though I really couldn't be bothered. I've done a 30 minute power walk with Jessica Smith followed by Day 9 of CGs Christmas Series which was tucked glutes - it was really hard but I feel a real sense of achievement that I stuck it out and did it all so it has turned my mindset around to a more positive one again now - the power of exercise!

I've got a rubbish day at work coming up today so hopefully the positive mindset can prevail and get me through.

Have good days all.

I have never managed to stick to a losing weight plan to see me from Jan to the summer. I then get to summer and I'm not where I want to be and then feel so fed up and angry with myself. This year is going to be different. I'm slowly but steadily losing, I'm in the right frame of mind food and exercise wise.

I'm tracking on nutracheck

If I can't quantify it then I'm not eating it i.e. a handful of nuts, bite of chocolate etc
Loads of gym work and a few classes where/when I can fit them in
Lots of protein & salad & low fat/cal soups
Minimal to zero carbs
no alcohol
don't drink fizzy drinks
minimal to zero sugary treats
weighing food

I do have the occasional low fat treat. I have brought myself some dark chocolate as a treat, I will weigh what I eat to quantify for nutracheck

Hmm I tried to post earlier but it seems to have disappeared. Oh well...

Congratulations @Gemzee, fab news!

Sorry you're felling frustrated @bigdecisionstomake. I've got the dreaded pms bloat so I know the scales will show a few more pounds for me and its off putting even though I know its not a real gain.

You sound extremely disciplined @encoreunfoisnumber2! I wish I had your willpower.

Hi everyone

TFI Friday! It’s been a long week!

@Gemzee congratulations on your loss! I have never gotten to my target so maintenance will be a new thing if I get that far. I agree this has to be a lifestyle change and daily weighing will continue as at least that way I can monitor things rather than leaving it and hoping I’m not gaining it all back.

@bigdecisionstomake I share your frustration and upset at the gains, I like to weigh every day and see a loss. We know that it doesn’t work like that and logic tells us that we are wrong to want constant losses but it’s still frustrating! I am having oven chips tonight and like them salty so I will be shocked if I don’t gain tomorrow, but yet I will still be upset🤦‍♀️

I hope work wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be and we’ll done that’s a good selection of exercise.

@encoreunfoisnumber2 I am sure you will keep your head in the right place especially as you now have us all for support. It sounds like you are being methodical. I don’t think I could cope with my Coke Zero at weekends though.

If we can get through January and do ok then the rest of the year will be easier!

@WutheringShites86 I hope you aren’t feeling too rough. PMS is horrible but it will be gone soon and the scales will jump down.

I had a small gain this morning going from 10st 2.1 yesterday to 10st 2.3 today but I managed 17k steps and 1450 calories so I’m blaming salt on my runner beans 😇

@summer2023 3kg in a month is epic congratulations 🥳 Hopefully things will get easier for us all as the days get longer and the weather starts to slowly improve

I was so hungry and tired last night that I gave in to a nice dinner for being on a diet and a bowl of cereal before bed. I finished on 2000 calories which isn’t the end of the world occasionally as I had done a Joe Wicks leg day, 30 mins GFWR and 16k steps. I had a vegan chicken Kyiv, oven chips and edamame beans so salt was needed and the scales sad 10st 2.9lb 🫣 I will do better today.

More decorating today but I will make sure I get steps in. I will see how tired I am and see if I can squeeze in another weights session.

I hope everyone has great weekends!

Morning all and happy Saturday!

I'm loving your determination @encoreunfoisnumber2 you sound like you are in a great place for good progress to a slimmed down summer. I too love dark chocolate and it is usually my go to 'treat' when I'm calorie counting as I can just have one square without wanting anymore. At the moment however I'm eating up the leftover Christmas chocolates. At one a day I'm likely to still be eating them in June I think 😂

Sorry you've got the bloat too @WutheringShites86 At 54 I no longer get PMS bloat but do still get hormonal fluctuations sometimes which just arrive out of the blue. DP takes cover when one of those is incoming....

@Dashel I sometimes wonder if I would be better just weighing weekly but I do love the ups and downs of daily weighing and the majority of the time it keeps me motivated. Don't tell anyone as I know it makes me sound like a nerd but I actually keep a daily spreadsheet too and it's interesting to be able to compare my progress this year with the same time last year. In both 2021 and 2022 I had given up by the end of week 3 and had periods where I hadn't bothered weighing so I credit this group for keeping me on track and making the difference this year - so thank you for starting this thread😀

You should definitely blame the salt for the small gain today and drink lots of water. Your commitment to exercise is inspiring - my legs hurt just thinking about Joe Wicks' leg day!

That's an amazing loss for your first month @summer2023 congratulations! Keep up the good work and your target for February will soon be toast.

I kept off the dreaded salt yesterday and thankfully seem to have lost the extra water weight overnight so I'm now down to 10st 11.4lb. Happy with that and crossing everything that I can hang onto that figure for tomorrow to give me a small loss at the weekly weigh-in.

My much more positive mindset translated into exercise this morning (and having extra time as it's the weekend) so I've done a 30 minute March across America with Jenny Ford followed by a 20 minute weighted arm workout with growingannanas and then a 10 minute walk up and down in front of the TV to take me up to an hour.

The weather here is beautiful today too - sunny but without being frosty so I may try and get in the garden later for a bit of a tidy up which should burn a few more calories.

Have good days all.

Good morning,

@bigdecisionstomake I love and hate daily weighing depending on how get on, but if I weighed weekly and it was a bad weight then for me that would be worse. So I weigh daily and because I have a Fitbit and Fitbit scales it gives me an average weight for the week and keeps it logged and I have the occasional weigh in results I entered on MFP over the years. I like all the data too.

I am really glad you are keeping to it. I find daily entries on here keep me focused. Hopefully you will get a good result today!

So my scale result was a little disappointing this morning at 10st3.2 another small gain. On the plus side, my weekly average weight is also 10st 3.2lb down nearly a pound from last week 10st 4.1lb so that’s good. My body fat percentage is also continuing to decrease and is now 34.3% (which still doesn’t sound great that roughly a third of me is fat 😫)

On my last weekly weigh for January a quick recap:

2nd January 10st 9lb 36.1% body fat and still really suffering from Covid and back issues so no weights and had to take regular breaks walking

29th January 10st 3.2lb 34.3% body fat, lungs are still recovering from Covid but can do lots more and now able to do light weights and walk without stopping although no chatting going up hills.

Every day I hit my 15k steps

Whilst a few pounds from my initial weigh in was Christmas bloating, I am still pretty pleased with my progress especially how much more I can do physically.

February aims:

-Weight starts in the 9s
-Hit 15k steps every day
-Track daily on MFP
-My gym is getting moved to a bigger spare bedroom which still needs a lot of work so crack on with that
-Weights three times a week
-Ease my way back into spinning slowly
-Take vitamins every day

I also want to start looking at how I can take better care of myself. I am going to a lot off effort to loose this weight so I want to feel good about myself and make more of an effort consistently with my appearance. The starting point for this is that I’m very hygienic and wash and brush hair/teeth as I should. But apart from that I feel like I have made an effort if I use moisturiser twice a week on my face. I would love some stylish clothes and a bit of a makeover tbh. I don’t know if anyone would like to join me in this?

I’m not taking surgery or Botox or anything drastic. For me getting my nails done would count as major. My first step is going to be finding some vegan omega 3 tablets and supplements for my hair to add to my existing vitamins.

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend

@Dashel I'm on board with the makeover idea. Mine involves replacing old make up (I only wear it once a month so its all years old) and learning how to contour (now my face is less round).

I had my planned drinking night last night and had lots of wine - I enjoyed it but happy to get back to my plan today.

February Aims
-More steps, I'm only doing 8k on a good day and by the end of Feb I'd like to say I'd done 10k some days
-I'd like to see another 2lbs off ideally
-Start some exercise - ideally weighs or toning to go alongside my walking

Have a good Sunday all!

Morning all

Glad you enjoyed the wine last night @Gemzee I have my first night out of the year with friends next Friday and will be having some wine that night. Not sure whether I will then drink on Saturday and Sunday too or whether I will try to stay off it at home a bit longer. If I'm honest I do really miss a lovely glass of red with my meal on a weekend night but on the other hand it has definitely helped with weight loss staying off it and I know if I start again it will be with good intentions which will slowly slide. Not sure at the moment - going to have to think about it!

Well done on another weekly average loss @Dashel you are making good consistent progress.

I have always been into skincare (not so much make up) since I was a teenager and was taught 'cleanse, tone, moisturise' twice a day from an early age. Over the years my routine has got more involved as I've got older and now has four or five steps, morning and night. Happy to help if I can answer any questions and would recommend Caroline Hirons as a good place to start if you wanted to get some product recommendations/general information.

Like @Gemzee I could do with freshening up/updating my make up collection. I do wear a little when I go into the office or out with friends but only the basics. I would love to be able to contour but find it all a bit confusing!

My scores on the doors for this week are as follows:

Week 4
Initial start weight 11st 5lb
Final target weight 9st 11lb
Last week's weight 10st 11.8lb
This week's weight 10st 11.4lb
Loss this week 0.4lb
Total loss so far 7.6lb

I'm happy with 0.4lb this week - I think my weigh in last Sunday was a bit of an anomaly and lower than it should rightly have been so I was expecting to not have a good loss this week. Basically I'm happy it wasn't a gain!

Lovely idea to have some pledges for February, mine are:

• Lose 3lbs
• Carry on doing 3 weights workouts a week
• Do a minimum of 8K steps a day
• Carry on logging calories every day
• Keep posting on this thread daily

Fingers crossed the bottom four will help me to get the first one!

Have good Sundays all.

Sorry for being a bit useless and going AWOL lately. Truth is with a lot going on at home with family, two jobs and exams almost every other week right now, I’m really struggling to prioritise my health and weight loss goals at the moment.

So yeah feel like a bit of a failure admittedly, but life has been really getting in the way. I’m especially disappointed after having such good results last year. It’s been a rough month, but don’t want that to become an excuse for Feb and want to focus on the positives instead of letting the negative spiral.

So to actually focus on the positives, I passed my latest exam yesterday. I also weighed in this morning and miraculously have lost the weight I regained over Xmas, so going to take that as a win (pure dumb luck, but I’m taking it).

Maybe some aims or pledges that are concrete measurable smart goals would help actually. Will have a think and post some later. What sort of things hell you with goal setting?

Well done to all of you making great progress too! Even though I haven’t been posting as much as I should lately, I do love checking in and seeing all
your posts. It really is a motivation.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend 🙂

Love the goals idea. I set three in January that will mostly roll over into February.

They were:

Hit 6000 steps per day in January
Lose 10lbs by the end of March
Do one YouTube workout per week in February

So my steps one will stay for February but I’ll increase the step goal.

@Gemzee sounds like are doing an advanced challenge! I am not comfortable doing basic make up and I may have some some where but it’s probably years old and needs throwing out. Make up is something I will need to work my way up to. Does anyone know of any idiots guides to do basic make up please?

I am happy you had a good time and can do that and carry on. I find that I really enjoy doing my weight workouts, they are my favourite workout.

@bigdecisionstomake consistent progress is good but I wish it was bigger numbers! Patience is definitely a must for dieting! I will have a look at your suggestion. I don’t even know where to start tbh other than lots of water and hyaluronic acid should be in good skin care for anti ageing (I saw that on tv) but thank you for your very kind offer, I will probably have lots of questions when I start researching. Your 7.6lb loss is awesome! It sounds like a good plan to get to your target but we all know how the scales can go!

@TheBatwoman congratulations on passing your exam! When do they finish? You have so much going on and I would give yourself some slack. Don’t feel a failure I am sure you will be back on it as soon as you can. Hopefully having stepped on the scales to a loss will ease your mind a little.

For my goal setting, I thought about where I want to be and what’s going to help me get there. So for this, shallow as it sounds, I want to look good and feel comfortable in a bikini on holiday and age well and have a healthy and active retirement (all four of my grandparents lived till their mid 90s and had mobility issues due to weight and were quite inactive.) It sounds like you have a lot of pressure on you, so even things like taking vitamins or doing something to help you relax each day even for 5 or 10 minutes before bed might help?

I bought some additional vitamins, I already take a multi vitamin, vitamin D and oesteocare (I read about vegans breaking bones more easily due to a lack of calcium] so this has stuff for bone health.

I am hoping that these will help but I don’t think they can do any damage and I’m taking them as instructed. I just need to remember to take them! So first challenge kind of done. Next is going to be buying and using perfume. Mine is about 5 years old and probably needs binning.

Back from a hen do this weekend. So much food but v little drink as I'm not drinking/I'm severely cutting down. Now need to have a super strict Feb, have set myself a goal of at least half stone down by end of Feb. Need to be on this 100%, next weigh in will be Feb 28th

Hi everyone, I'm a bit late to the weigh in party today as its been a busy weekend.

Weighed 15st 7lbs earlier which is a gain but I'm certain it's pms bloating, standard for me put about 4-5lbs on at this time of the month.

My motivation has been pretty low with being ill, stressful week at work and now period pains 😕. I had a medicinal glass of wine and some chocolate last night - first alcohol since new years eve.

I will try to get my mojo back tomorrow and think on my Feb goals. One definitely needs to be about consistency!

Congratulations on the exam passes @TheBatwoman and to all of you with losses.

@encoreunfoisnumber2 i hope you enjoyed the weekend! Did you go way for the hen do? Super strict February sounds hard. I find planning in advance my food and exercise helps. It’s easier to decide on what boring dinner you are having a week in advance.

@WutheringShites86 PMS sucks and throws the scales out so badly it can be depressing even if you know why. Keep going it will be gone soon. I hope this week is calmer!

Another gain on the scale 🤦‍♀️Must be all these vitamins. I weighed in at 10st 3.5lb. I do tend to have a few more carbs at the weekend and had 2050 calories but considering I did 19k steps, 25 minutes weights and 15 minutes of yoga, I don’t think that would be more than maintenance. Fitbit says I burnt 2456 calories so hopefully it is water weight.

The plan today is to get all my steps in. Not eat till 12 and hopefully do something else exercise when I get home tonight.

Just keep swimming everyone and have a great week!

My Monday win is that 2 inches have gone off my belly in January! I am starting to feel more like myself 😀
Have a good day all 😊

Oh also I have set myself a 30 day squat challange, I really want to focus on toning up. Day 1 done✔️ (easing myself in with 25 squats today).

Well done everyone, there have been some great efforts and progress made in January. 💪🏻
I am still bobbing around, no loss but maybe more importantly no gain. I’m taking this as my positive and using it as a springboard into February when I hope I can finally get back into the right mindset. I think cold turkey first day for me is the challenge so as a starting point I am going to try to eat as much of the healthier/lower calorie foods I have in without clocking calories.
My February goal would be a loss of 4lbs. Have a great day 👍

Morning all

Lovely to hear about everyone's progress and goal setting - it's really motivating.

Congratulations on the loss of inches @Gemzee and great to hear that you're starting to feel more like yourself again.

@Dashel I take a multi-vitamin with iron daily (when I remember at least!) as I tend to verge on anaemic if I don't but nothing other than that. I have wondered about some Omega ones though. Will be interested to hear if you see any benefits from the Biotin one as my hair has started to thin a bit after menopause so it might help me - let me know what you think of it. In terms of anti-ageing skincare, hyaluronic acid is good but the two big hitters to look for are Retinol and SPF.

Just keep swimming @WutheringShites86 sometimes life throws a lot of things at us all at the same time and when it does you need to be kind to yourself. The PMS bloat will wash itself away in a few days - drink lots of water.

@encoreunfoisnumber2 Hope you enjoyed the hen-do - I'm really looking forward to letting my hair down with friends on Friday. Good luck for the very strict February.

@2023caloriecounter those look like good goals for Feb. It looks like you do around the same number of steps as me - I averaged around 7K per day in January (the joys of a mostly desk based job). I've set my goal to 8k per day for February and I'm hoping as the days get longer this will become more manageable.

@TheBatwoman congratulations on passing your exam and on losing the Christmas gain - even it was accidental - you've got to take the wins where you get them!

My weight is up again this morning, back to 10st 12.2lb - if I plotted my daily weights on a graph the line would really zig zag up and down! I had a fairly carb heavy day yesterday so hoping it's just that. Will be glad to not see the 10st 12s any longer though - hopefully soon.

I've done a 2000 step GFWR speed workout this morning followed by Day 10 of CGs Christmas series which was a full body workout. I managed the whole thing, even the squats, although I didn't go as deep as she did and used (much) lighter weights but counting it as a win. Weights days will be my problem step days though. I'm only on 2924 so far so will have to try to squeeze a walk in somewhere later today to make up numbers if I'm going to reach my Feb target of 8K a day which I'm starting from today.

Roll on the lighter evenings and longer days!

Have good days all.

Great goal for February @Stepcount and well done on maintaining. Sticking to healthy choices without counting sounds like a great way to start.

Happy Monday all! I weighed in on Saturday but forgot to post. Made it to 12st 9. Is there an award somewhere for slowest weight loss ever? I mean it’s going but jeez it’s taking it’s time… people seem to suddenly have started to notice too, I had to get some new clothes just to keep me going until I get to my target and I think they’ve drawn attention to it a bit. It’s nice but makes me feel so self conscious- is that odd?

hope you all had a great weekend!

@Gemzee two inches is fantastic so hopefully trousers are a little looser? The squat challenge sounds like a fantastic idea. I may think of joining you but I have done 30 today with weights. Which one are you doing?

@Stepcount glad that you are still with us and 4lb would be a great target.

@bigdecisionstomake I don’t know if it’s the vitamins but my hair feels better and thicker now that it has in a while and that’s only on the multi vitamin and the oesteo ones. Could be coincidence though? I hope you managed to get the rest of your steps in and your day was good, Mondays are so tiring! It won’t be long before the 12s are ancient history!

@Isyesterdaytomorrowtoday As long as you are going down it’s good and better than going up 😊 New clothes and compliments sound like a huge win! I get what you mean but keep telling yourself it’s a good thing.

@Dashel I made my own as I didn't like the look of any of the ones online.
I accidently put 2 rest days in week 2 but thats not a huge issue.