I weighed myself this morning and I have managed to lose another pound down to 195.8! Iceland, I'll think I'm going to have my doc. do a body fat calculation at the office with those, "pinchy looking thinks" No clue what they are called. My pants are finally starting to feel a little different mostly in the waist but I am liking the change. I carry a lot of fat in my love handles and that seems to be where it is disappearing from first. I have developed shin splints within the last two days so I am going to forgo my run today and maybe just do lots of sit-ups and push-ups. Well, wish me luck. Thanks again Iceland.

Hey there everyone! Started my real diet and exercise routine this week (joined Curves...it rocks! )

I am 5'1.5'' and weigh 156.2 lbs. My 'starter' goal is to be no longer 'overweight' (132 lbs) by the end of the year. Any more weight lost than that is just icing on the cake

Good luck everyone

Roxyewp2010,

The pinchy-test (cute!) is referred to as the skinfold bf test, and the instrument is the caliper. I always found the skinfold test to be uncomfortable. I mean, seriously... who likes having someone measure all their fat parts!!! Hahha. But, then again, it's better to have a more accurate reading for cheap, as compared to spending $100 for the bodypod test, or however much the hydrostatic test (water tank) is.

Btw, you are soo lucky though, losing your love handles first?? I'm crazy jealous.

Oh... also, baby your shin-splints, give them some tlc, and massage them. There are different ways to help them, for example, you can get a smooth bar and run it down your knee to your ankle and up again. Also, hand massage the shin muscle and gently pull it away from the bone, and massage all the way down the tibia. Running on those when they are not healed can cause stress fractures. Go swimming if you have access to a pool. Best times to go if you're swimsuit conscious are around 9:30am - 11:00 am, or after 8pm.

I am having lots of problems, I eat too many carbs. How can I eat less carbs?

Hi all,

Mind if I join this wonderful group? I am amazed and awed at the progress that you all made. It is truly inspiring. Let's see I am new to this site and find it very informative and interesting. I have never truly tracked my weight progress and eating and daily caloric activities. But this sit makes it really easy, which is great! I started with the South Beach diet this week and so far so good on the two week cleanse. I'm on day 4 and feeling pretty good. It's actually been kind of eye opening for me to really get to see all of the foods that you can eat that have no to little sugar or carbs. My ultimate goal with using this program is when I can reintroduce carbs to reintroduce carbs that have no wheat or wheat gluten in them. I have RA and several people have suggested taking wheat and gluten out of my diet might help. So I figure what the heck, might as well try as it won't hurt. But ultimately if I lose weight which of course is the plan, then it's good all around.

Anyway, I'm 36 years old, live in northern California and I weigh approximately 215 (I say approximately because I don't have a scale at the moment and I can pretty much gauge based on how my clothing fits.), and my goal is 175, but baby steps first. Anyway, Thanks for reading, and good luck to all of us.

Well, I am a carb-o-holic, so eating less carbs is a tough one for me too. I personally took a different route to starting my weight loss process. I started excersizing first and then attempted to alter my diet. After about a wekk of running/ speed walking 1 mile everyother day, I WANTED to eat better. I felt by making bad food choices I was only ruining the process and destroying any progress made. At night I get a bedtime snack of fresh cumcumbers and carrot sticks and dip them in fat free ranch or italian. In the mornings (i hate breakfast foods) I eat pineapple and other fruits, or a smootie. Also, most people do fine if they do have carbs in the morning. A piece of toast with jam, or biscuit, just don't go nuts and eat a huge stack of pancakes. I have begun looking at this whole process as a game. I can eat what I want that way, I just compensate for some of my unhealthy choices by excersizing more. what I am doing is working because I have shed almost 8 pounds in three weeks. I am not hungry, and my portion sizes are shrinking. I am still eating out, just making better choices.

Well, I'm pretty new here and it is always nice to have new people. Welcome to fitday, and I hope you have great luck with your weight loss goals. I have found the weight loss goal graph under the weight tab to be espeacially helpful to keep myslef encouraged. GODD LUCK!

I just measured my bust, hips, and waist. Kind of disappointed. I have lost 8 lbs, but only .5 in in my hips and .5 in inmy waist. I was hoping to see the measurements go down more with 8 lbs gone. My clothes are feeling very different which makes the measurements just make me feel like I am imagining the change.

Roxyewp2010,

That's still good though!! I measure EVERYTHING (neck, bust, chest, biceps, forearm, waist-at-skinniest, pouch, hips, thighs, and calves). I'm sure if you became OCD about measuring, you would see more inches lost. And, you probably don't have that much to go.

Your starting stats:
Chest- 38 (what do you want it to be at, 36? only 2inches)
waist- 35 (again, what's your goal? 28?29?)
Hips- 46 (also, goal terms... 38? 40?)

When you look at it like that, you already knocked off 1/2 inch on your bust and on your waist. It takes a longer time to see these types of results, but it also feels better (in my opinion) to see these areas get knocked down.

BTW, since I mentioned swimming earlier as an alternative to running, I went to a water aerobics class tonight. Wicked fun.

Welcome Laribeanberry! The more the merrier.

I'm on Atkin's and I have a similar reason in mind. I wanted to reset my carb level and incrementally add various types of carbs to see my threshold/sensitivities. I'm only on day 9, and I feel wonderful. I'm like a little kid shooting about after having too much Kool Aide.