A Skinny Fat Girl's Journal
 

Hi, I'm starting this thread to keep track of my year-long goal. My login is twentythirteen because this is going to be a very long process: I won't be "finished" until 2013!

I'm 45, healthy weight, healthy lifestyle. I eat fairly well most of the time (lots of vegetables, few processed foods). I quit smoking a moth ago and it's going great because I have some meds to help—Wellbutrin.

So why am I doing this? Why would a healthy person of normal weight choose to begin a year-long program? Well, skinny people can be fat too. I'm five feet tall and 115 pounds but I. Am. Made. Out. Of. Marshmallows. I'm flabby, jiggly, and lumpy. I have an "apple" shape with a big potbelly. I'm also tired a lot, and frequently depressed.

I know that past routines haven't worked—I set outrageous goals and don't live up to them, feel bad about myself, and quit. I do juice fasts and cleanses—which are great but they're unsustainable and they don't change underlying behavior. I get discouraged.

But I know it can be different.

So I'm setting myself this goal to work slowly and patiently for a year. Not to give up because I know I won't see immediate results, it's going to take time.

My goals are simple: eat regular, healthy, low-fat meals each day, and keep track of them by posting. I know that I will eff it up sometimes,but I just need to forgive myself and go right back to my healthy routine. Oh yeah, vitamins and water too.

And exercise. The important part. The hard part. The part I never succeed at. To begin, I'll never go more than one day without a workout of some kind, any kind. I'll have to start small with a routine I can stick to.

The hardest part, I think, will be patience and fortitude. I'll have to stop looking for results—because I know I won't see any for a long time. I'll have to stop looking at myself in a mirror and feeling disgusted. I'll have to keep telling myself—this is going to take year.

Wish me luck.

Good luck with your goals! If you keep working at it slowly, you will get there in time. Plus, remember not to judge it on the mirror, judge your success on how much better you feel, because that will probably come a lot before visible results. With the exercise, the easiest way I've found to stick with it it to find something that's enjoyable for you and keep it that way. If you hate running, don't run, swim or cycle - there's so much you can do. If you find yourself not liking it and finding sticking with the routine hard, switch to something else to find the fun factor again.

You can do it! Plus the forums here will be supporting you all the way. :)

2013, Your post sounds like where I was ten months ago, except I had 15-20 more lbs that I wanted to lose. And I'm a bit older. I didn't see any real change for months when I started. Now I feel great, lost the weight, and several inches from my waist. I wasn't so happy at first, but once the endorphins regularly started kicking in, I was much happier.

On the days I'd overeat, I'd just consider that part of my 'interval training' diet. I work out ~ 5 times a week doing Pilates (at home), also TRX and dumbbells. I focus on my core, and triceps. As a result, my 'old' pants no longer fit, my overall disposition has greatly improved, and I've been getting a ton of compliments. I hope to turn this into a lifelong habit.

P.S. Don't think of exercise as a "Routine." Mix it up. Start with what you can do and work up to the harder stuff. Keep it interesting, and at some point you'll feel deprived if you don't get a chance to exercise.

Yay! Good on you! Thanks so much for the excellent advice : )

So great to have support. Thank you.

I know, I'm a guy lurking in the womens section. But welcome!! I have a few suggestions that the older members have all probably heard before.

1) Make sure you are getting enough protein. .5 to 1.0 grams per pound of lean body weight toward the higher side if you are working out. (If you are 115# with 30% body fat you are looking at 40 to 80 grams of protein daily.)

2) Do strength/weight/resistance training. You need to build lean muscle mass. (This is the furnace of your metabolism.) The more muscle you have the more calories you burn even at rest. Check out the 'Womens Transformation' articles on Bodybuilding.com to see women that struggled with being skinny fat until they discovered how they could change their bodies with weight/strength training.

Good luck on your journey!!

Thanks Ron! I did squats yesterday for like the first time in years. I'm starting really light so I don't get discouraged. I know you're supposed to feel the burn and work to like 90% effort each set, but I'll have to work up to that. Good luck to you!

Stupid question
 

Friends, a question about using this forum: do I use "reply" to add new posts within this thread? Because I haven't seen a "new post" icon. Are further posts really just replies to my own, first thread?

Thanks!

2013, I've always been a bit confused about the posting sequence myself. I think you can also use the QR (Quick Reply) button under an entry to add to that thread, but I sometimes lose posts doing that, so it's not my preferred method of posting.

Ron, welcome to the women section! I also took a look at the women's section of bodybuilding.com, but it seemed to have too much of an emphasis on supplements for my tastes. Then I tend more toward being a homebody than a gym rat. From my point of view a good place to start, for someone who hasn't done Pilates before, is the Pilates section of about.com: Pilates Exercises for Beginners

Starting light is a great idea. Better to learn where you are lifting conservatively than to have an injury because you went to heavy too soon. I am doing the same with Deadlifts I know I can do more but am slowly increasing each week to avoid injury.

They make their money from the supplement business so you do have to just get past that. I only use protein powder for a supplement. And while I have nothing against Pilate I don't believe it has been shown to strengthen bone and counter the effects of osteoporosis like weight/strength training has. Just saying their is a place for both in a exercise plan. Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.

Welcome!

New Rules of Lifting for Women is a great book. It should be in your library and available for purchase at all the usual sites or stores.

You are doing yourself a huge favor by doing this now. I'm about the same age as you, and given everything I've heard and read about what the next stage of life will bring, prevention is golden!

Baby steps, baby steps
 

I took a "before" picture of myself today, and took body measurements. I was so grossed out by how I look. And it's not just a distorted body image, trust me. Trying very hard not to be discouraged—it's easy to feel, at this early stage, that I have so far to go, and I worry that I'm not doing enough or doing it right.

Did five sets of squats and four sets of deadlifts at the gym. It was hard work, I was huffing when I finished. I am so, so so sore today. I'm glad! Almost every day I walk to the very top of the hill where I live (San Francisco, very hilly) which is quite vigorous and which energizes me and sets the tone for my day.

My food choices are quite good for the most part, eating less than 1500 calories a day, except for last night, when four (four!) glasses of wine took me past 1700. I'm not always sure that Fitday calorie counts are right; a lot of my foods don't appear here (whey protein smoothie, nutritional yeast, nut milk, etc) but I'm definitely being conservative. So I may be eating less than I think.

So far, I'm doing well, and feel good.

Age: 45
Weight: 115
Waist: a bloated 34"!
Thigh: 21"
Goal: 28" waist

Congrats on that sore feeling! It is a blessing and a curse, I know!

In the interest of accuracy, you could make some custom foods here on FD with the labels of the foods you eat. Even if it's a food that's listed in our database, the calorie count might be more accurate if you take it straight off the package, if it's a significant variation from what is on FD.

You're off to a great start...keep up the good work!

Hey twentythirteen. I'm glad you took the body measurements. The measurements with definitely be a boost at a time where you may feel like you're plateauing with the weight loss. Even though you may not be losing weight, you're probably gaining muscle, losing fat. The proof will probably be in the measurements. That's some advice that I've picked up from just luring around these boards on FitDay.

As for the calorie tracker, I know it can be difficult to sit down to figure it out and plug everything in, but if you can't find your food in the general foods list, create your own food. I just look for a nutritional calculator. Then plug in something like, Roma Tomato, and it will tell you how many calories, how much sugar, etc. Then just plug all of that information into the FitDay food thingy (I'm sorry, I seem to be running out of words :o ) and then you can add it into your calorie total for the day.

Anyways, I hope things are going well for you and I'm looking forward to seeing more from you. Keep up the good work! :D

It's gonna be a rough day!
 

Today is my man's birthday and we're having a party. This means I'll be cooking delicious food all day (deviled eggs, peach tarts) and night (homemade pizzas) and it will be really hard to keep track of my foods.

I recently made my journal public so there's no hiding! And I made the commitment to myself to be honest even if it's only five corn chips or something like that. But I just wanted everyone to know—today will probably be an overeating and underreporting day. I know there are just going to be days like that and it's one of the things that will keep me sane. The truth is, I wouldn't be able to survive the thought of never indulging. I love food too much. Today I'll try really hard to keep it within reason.

Frustrated with FitDay!
 

Overall I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing great with exercise, a last count it's been four days in a row. Sometimes I even do two workouts in one day, one a little lighter (I walk up the hill from my house, eleven minutes of very vigorous climbing and 20-30 of easy flat or downhill) and one a little heavier or longer (90 minutes of low intensity fat-burning or an ass-kicking yoga class or weights).

I'm doing ok with food. Exercise makes me SO much hungrier and I overeat a little bit, maybe 200 calories more per day than I want (I'd like to stay below 1200 a day which seems like a very low amount I know, but I'm very small, just five feet, so I don't burn very many calories!). I also psych myself out (in a bad way) and start getting that desperate, deprived feeling that makes me want to hide in the closet with a whole pizza.

The worst part, though, is FitDay! I'm no tech geek but I know my apps and have high standards for interface, features, and performance. FitDay crashes a LOT, especially in mobile. A lot of the features (like "remember me" at login) don't work. I've had to uninstall and reinstall the mobile app. There's also no tablet app. I have to log in to mobile each time I use it, which shouldn't be the case for a mobile app with no personal info. I end up logging in about ten times a day—whenever I eat, whenever I do any exercise, whenever I journal, etc. Worst of all, what makes me most frustrated, is that I know a lot of the food and exercise calorie counts are way off. Calorie tracking is really inconsistent. For instance, "pasta with vegetables, no sauce or fat added" is like 350 calories a cup, yet when I add the ingredients (plain pasta, various vegetables) separately the calorie count is much lower. Tons of really common foods aren't listed. Most of the foods seem centered on name brand fast food and yet very common foods are missing. There's also no natural language processing—for instance, it should know that "spagetti" is "spaghetti" or that "chocolates" refers to "chocolate." I know I can input custom foods but I don't want to waste hours inputting extremely common foods that are in many other sites' databases. Also, the exercise calorie counts are just pathetic. There are very few types of exercise available. It's as if this is a site built by people who don't work out at all.

The end result is that I don't know how many calories I've consumed or what I've burnt off in exercise. I don't want to start all over with a new app or site. I'm totally willing to pay for an upgrade but I seriously doubt the calorie counts are more reliable, that there are more exercises listed, or that there is a better food database. Anyone want to weigh in on that?

Anyway, sorry to complain. Thanks for listening.

Post script: I couldn't even post this reply. Thanks, FitDay!

twentythirteen, I'm going to copy your post into the FitDay 2.0 feedback section so hopefully someone will see this sooner than they would here. Thanks for the information!


I know that they are working on improving the exercise aspect. I'm sorry I don't have a timetable for that, but I do know that one of the things being considered was an option to customize an activity, much like the custom foods. I personally would also like to see this! Thanks for hanging in there as they work on resolving these issues, and glad you're doing well so far!

If you have a particular page that's a problem, please try to post a screen shot for the tech people; it helps them figure out what the deal is.

Frustrated with MYSELF
 

I weighed in yesterday at 115.5 pounds which is a two pound gain from last week. I'm exercising a lot but I guess I'm not burning off as much as I'm eating. That's no surprise, I guess: there are a couple of things working against me.

One is that exercise makes me really, really, hungry. It's SO hard to watch calories when you exercise vigorously.

Another is that if I DON't really pay attention I get better results than if I do: when I count calories I get all hyperconscious and just automatically start feeling deprived, but when I just eat what I feel like usually eat just a little more but don't think about food all day. It's like a some kind of ugly feedback loop. Thinking about my weight makes me anxious so I don't really lose any.

It's possible that slight gain is because of TOTM. Don't anyone tell me it's muscle gain because no way did I gain two pounds of muscle in a week.

But I really did overeat this week: my man was off and at home and we ate out a lot and drank a lot and were relaxed about everything...so maybe just a little more effort this week will make a difference.

I keep trying to remind myself that it's a process. It's going to take time. It's more important that I'm gradually changing my habits to include daily exercise and healthier food than that I'm losing weight. The one is a permanent lifestyle change, the other is a fast result that may not make any difference in the long run. Patience and fortitude, right?

You are correct; it's a process. Also correct that you don't build 2 pounds of muscle in a week (a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a gain or lack of loss is muscle, when in reality, it does not build that fast or that much for most of us). However, I feel strongly that the culprit is the TOM. I reliably gain 3-5 pounds every time, and judging from the boards over the past two years, it happens to most if not all of us to a degree. So be patient, do what you know how to do, and put the scale away for a week if you have to!

I agree that the TOTM will definitely have that effect on your weight. I can gain 2 lbs overnight during that special time! :eek:

As for the feeling really hungry and eating more when you exercise, I was there for a while too. I did a couple things to pull me out of that cycle and benefit more from the exercise.
1.) I would suggest planning out a few snacks for after your workout that are super high in protein and filling (this will help with both muscle recovery and gaining lean muscle mass, which it is my understanding that you are after). When I go to the gym, I have a piece of fruit and a protein bar waiting for me in the car. The sweetness and juiciness of the fruit works for me right after I finish and about 30 minutes later, the protein bar fills me up. I would experiment with a few good recovery type foods and plan on eating them instead of trying to not eat and then eating the wrong things or too much of something.
2.) I mentally prepare for a tough exercise by getting excited about the extra calories I am going to burn. This is a tough one that I learned over time, but works well for me. Basically, I convince myself that I can "eat more later" and never really get to "later." I'm not sure I am explaining myself well....but every time I do a tough workout and want a Big Mac afterwards, I just keep thinking about how much the scale is going to drop because it was an exercise day and keep telling myself not to "waste" all that effort on exercise. I tell myself that I worked hard today and I am not going to ruin it, but I can eat more tomorrow. By the time tomorrow comes around, I no longer feel the need to pig out and (since I weigh myself daily) am usually excited by that morning's weigh in.
3.) Water. Lots and lots of water. When you exercise, you are not always hungry as much as thirsty but your brain doesn't know the difference. I eat my piece of fruit and then "can't" eat again until I drain my water bottle. When I sweat a lot, sometimes I need a PowerAde Zero or zero calorie sports drink as well.

Anyway, it's a process and these are just things that work for me. I hope this helps you find what works for you!

(oh, and I had coffee this morning so I am in FULL rambling mode, sorry) :D

You know, I've had a couple of setbacks myself. Mainly it was a result of me not being active and just really not caring. I've just been trying to avoid heat and everything else the past few weeks, and I saw the result a couple of weeks ago where I gained BACK all the weight I had lost from the previous week. And then some.

But you're right, it is a process. We don't just reach our goal weight overnight, though we'd all love (and I think secretly desire) the scale to move like that.

More importantly though, if you are planning on maintaining your weight, as we all intend to do once we reach our own goal weight, it will still require you to watch yourself and make sure you're reaching some type of balance and moderation. Of course, you admitted that you've been rather relaxed about eating and drinking. And that's fine! We're not perfect and there is no way that we can expect ourselves to eat perfectly 100% of the time. We'd like to believe that, and we beat ourselves up when we don't and we see the results on the scale, but it happens! You're not on The Biggest Loser and you're not going to be kicked out of a gym for "taking it easy" for a week. ;)

My point is, find what works for you. If you want a cheat day or maybe a cheat once PER day, that's up to you. You will have to live with it, and be HAPPY with it.

As for being hungry after exercising, have you tried experimenting with snacks after the gym? The 24 Hour that I go to actually recommends that after you work out, have a snack. Some fresh fruit or veggies or even some cheese is good to have after the gym.

Also, I'm not sure if it would work for you, but I tend to not put anything into FitDay until the end of the day. I don't really have the time during the day, so if I do it after eating dinner, I can spend the time to make sure things are logged correctly. It doesn't help me to keep track during the day, but I'm now able to kind of able to estimate my calories I've eaten so far and judge whether or not I should eat something or if I should choose something else. If I'm not sure if I'll remember everything, I'll write down what I ate soon after eating, that way I have a reminder for when it's time to record.

LiberatedMist: thanks for really, really good tips. They sound great. I'm newly motivated and feel more prepared.

andieligion, thanks for the response. You echoed the good advice liberatedmist offered and you are both right.

My Last Post
 

FitDay and Fitdat community,

Thanks so much for positive reinforcement and great advice. It's been a real pleasure. I am so sorry to tell you that I am moving on to a different diet and exercise tracker. FitDay just crashed one too many times, and there are so many common foods that are not in the database. Also, there are very few exercises in the database, and they can't be customized. So I chose to purchase a more extensive app. I feel kind of sad! I will be at XXXXX from now on, if anyone wants to be friends there. Sorry Fitday! You were great! Just need to work on a few things!