Diet for Christmas Challenge 2024

[bigdecisionstomake]

This is a continuation of the previous Diet for Christmas and Diet for Summer Challenges started by me, @OhFatty and @Dashel

It is open to everyone, whether you have a lot to lose, just a small amount to go or you're at target but facing the enormous challenge of maintaining your loss ongoing.

After working towards our summer holidays we're now turning our thoughts to fitting into Christmas party outfits or in my case putting right the damage done on my recent holiday and just making sure I've dropped a few pounds so I can over-indulge with a clear conscience over the festive season.

There are no rules other than being supportive and cheering each other on. Occasional kicks up the bum are available as and when requested.

Hopefully previous members of these threads will join us again and new members are always welcome.

I will update shortly with my start point for this challenge.

I am doing very badly but it is all my fault! But in better news, my long covid is starting to improve. I haven't been able to do any exercise or any walk longer than 20 mins for more than a year. I'm definitely not ready for more than that yet but I'm going through a period where I can feel I am very very gradually improving so although I'm now the heaviest I've been in ages, I actually feel quite positive. I stopped taking the desogestrel and I think that has helped as I think it was lowering my mood too.

I am back on the soup today and should have a good run of it till Xmas. Hope everyone is doing well and your hip is feeling better @bigdecisionstomake

Great news that you're feeling a bit better re long covid @FlyMeToPluto and coming off the desogestrel has helped your mood. I've only just started taking it and so far so good I think- I'm very stressed but I'm sure that's because of work/home so I'll give it a fair chance.
Physically I feel "softer"- flabby to be honest- but I think that's the poor diet and too much alcohol rather than the pill. My weight hasn't changed much but my shape definitely has from lack of exercise. I'm making the best choices I can, when I can but I'm out of the house and awful lot and options are poor. I did rediscover Subway though, delicious!
Hope the hip is on the mend @bigdecisionstomake I always swell and retain water after a sports massage too- my therapist always tells me to drink a tonne of water and if I forget it's way worse. I'm due for one actually but had been putting it off because of the tenderness after!

Morning all

@FlyMeToPluto Fabulous news that you are starting to feel some improvement in your physical and mental wellbeing. I hate anything that restricts my ability to be active so can't imagine how awful it must be living with long covid. So glad you're feeling more positive and still 3 weeks until Christmas to try to get things moving in the right direction again. You've got this!

@NahThen It's hard when you're out of the house and having to grab food on the go so I sympathise. Will things calm down at all before Christmas? Glad it's not just me that swells up after a physio appointment! I have to admit it's not really a pleasant experience and I don't look forward to the appointments but in the past they have really helped with my hip. Not so much this time but I think I had already managed to reduce the joint discomfort myself just by getting back to exercising regularly.

My food was good yesterday (I think I've gone a bit hardcore) and the scales have shown another drop to 10st 2.5lbs this morning but I'm taking that entirely with a pinch of salt and am expecting a bounce back up tomorrow. DS was out last night so I had a really light evening meal which I suspect has caused an artificial drop.

Have good days all.

Morning all

Very happy to see Friday. Another good day food wise for me yesterday and amazingly the scales haven't bounced back this morning, in fact a tiny drop to 10st 2.4lbs. This was most unexpected.

To be fair I did end up having a really active day and ended up on 12K+steps which is unusual for me so maybe that helped.

I am considering abstaining from alcohol this weekend just to keep up the good work for a little while longer but my resolve may yet weaken as the day goes on. I'll report back tomorrow.

Have good days all.

Morning all

Another good food day yesterday and I kept strong and abstained from alcohol last night too - this is massive achievement for me on a Friday night but it helped that DP isn't drinking at the moment so we were abstemious together 😂

The scales have had a tiny shift again to 10st 2.2lbs so I'm very happy with that. I do find it harder to be good with food on a weekend though so not sure if I'll be able to hang onto that weight. I'm going to give it my best shot though. The upside is that I'm usually more active at a weekend and have managed a 60 minute workout this morning which is longer than I can fit in during the working week.

Happy weekend everyone!

Great job on the exercise and general willpower over the weekend so far @bigdecisionstomake! I didn't know abstemious was a word, I like it though I am certainly not it...🥂
Unfortunately things will only get busier at work for me until Christmas, but I have a nice solid chunk of time off to look forward to which is keeping me going. Despite being busy next week I am at least at home, so food is relatively within my control.
It's a weekend of good food here too so far- I say good, I mean all home cooked and no takeaways. Not necessarily healthy 😅 but very tasty nonetheless. No you're not alone in the post treatment swelling, after talking about it on here I've been trying to get an appointment as I think it'll help loosen me up and get back into exercise, at least after the initial soreness wears off, but I haven't heard back from my masseuse yet.
Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend and staying out of the dreadful weather!

Morning all

@NahThen ha ha, yes, I'm very rarely abstemious but have managed it this weekend. Sorry to hear you're so busy at work, just at the time of year when you need a bit of spare time too. Good that you'll have a nice chunk of time off at Christmas though. I take two weeks just doing the bare minimum as work quietens down for me at this time of year and it's good to get some time to re-charge after the festivities are over.

Despite having another good food day yesterday I've had a little bump up on the scales this morning, back to 10st 2.5lb. Not going to worry too much about that as I'm happy with where my weight is at at the moment. Would be nice to get into the 1s in the next week or so though so I'm going to keep on keeping on as best I can for the next two weeks and then all bets are off until January I think.

Hope everyone else is doing ok.

Happy Sunday 🙂

Morning all

Not such a good day food wise yesterday....we were trying out a potential new Boxing Day lunch dish plus we baked a cake, both of which had to be sampled obviously! Also, there was some snacking on chocolate while finishing off my Christmas shopping...

The scales have reflected this with another bounce up to 10st 2.7lbs. I'm going to try to refocus again today as it would be nice to be in the 1s before Christmas.

Have good days all.

I also baked a cake this weekend (a plum cake) though I did see an article in the Times today that said that pastries may not be as bad for you as people thought :)
www.thetimes.com/article/fcf303c1-d6d8-4dc5-a615-2a01690699b3

Morning all

Sorry for the absence, I fell off the wagon spectacularly on Monday and it carried on into Tuesday. Drawing a line under that and back on track from today.

@FlyMeToPluto plum cake sounds delicious, hope you enjoyed it! Ours was banana and white choc chip - really tasty, especially when paired with some fresh strawberries, but not exactly diet friendly.

I haven't weighed this morning as I know it will be bad and I don't need to be demotivated. I have got back on the exercise though and am going to try to keep food on track. I will weigh either tomorrow or Friday if I can keep on the straight and narrow.

Have good days all.

Morning all

I bit the bullet and weighed this morning despite not being entirely back on track yesterday. I'm 10st 3.3lbs so have lost some more ground unfortunately.

I was awake early this morning so have done a 60 minute workout and am hoping that will spur me on not to waste the additional calories with too much chocolate or wine tonight.

As we get closer to Christmas and there are increasingly more treats in the house this is proving quite difficult....

Have good days all.

@bigdecisionstomake I daren't weigh myself! I think I'm probably a few lbs up from last week.

I ordered a really cute habit tracker from Amazon, it has a page per month and you set your habits then there's 31 tick boxes to tick off if you do then every day. I was going to start it in Jan but I thought actually no I'll start it now, so I've added key things like 10k steps, workout, vitamins, 7hrs sleep, etc to help motivate me. I'm not ready to start full on Christmas yet. We have no Christmas food in. My plan is to keep going until Friday next week when we break up before really letting go!

Morning all

@thenewaveragebear1983 your habit tracker sounds like a good idea, tracking things visually is really motivating, I hope you find it helps. I too am not ready for full on Christmas yet but I have been stocking up with bits and pieces for a few weeks now to try to spread the cost a bit. I finish work a week today though so after that I will be taking it easy food wise. My dress for Christmas day doesn't have too much spare room in it though so I can't go too mad in the few days before.

Yesterday was pretty good food wise although there was a bit more chocolate than was sensible. The scales have dropped to 10st 2.5lbs this morning though so I'm happy with that.

After not drinking all weekend I sucuumbed to the wine on Monday and Tuesday so I'm considering not drinking tonight again to make up for it a bit. I'll see how the day pans out though.

Workout done for this morning and now one more day at work before the weekend. I have so much to do this weekend it isn't really going to be a break but hopefully I'll have a few days after new year before I go back to work to chill a bit.

Have good days all.

@bigdecisionstomake I drank wine last night 🤦‍♀️ and I was so determined I wasn't going to drink til I break up clearly not that determined
Anyway. I am just going to keep trying every day and hopefully that will prevent any massive gains on the run up. I am going to run at lunchtime and I am at bootcamp tonight, it's Deload week so shouldn't be too strenuous!

Hi everyone, really missing this thread and having some accountability! I'm still in full Christmas mode and have the gain to prove it. Hope you're all being more restrained than me- and if there's a new thread going that I've missed, please can someone share a link?!

Hi there @NahThen great to hear from you.

I didn't have the motivation in the new year to start a new thread so I've just joined one that someone else is running. It's a 6 week challenge and we're just a week in at the moment - link here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/weight_loss_chat/5251156-6-week-weight-loss-club-13th-jan-24th-feb?page=7&reply=141587763

You'd be more than welcome to join us on there, @Dashel is on it too.

I may be inclined to start a new Diet for Summer challenge when that one is over but will see how it goes.

Hopefully see you over there 🙂

Thanks so much @bigdecisionstomake I'll head over there! Started back calorie counting today and need all the help I can get 😬

I’m happy to do whatever but I do find that this posting and having that support really helps