A new year
 

2011 was not my best year ever. As hard as it was to look at my weight change graph for the last 12 months, I'm glad I had logged my weight at least sporadically because it was a pretty powerful wake up call.

Back in 2009, I was able to lose around 65 lbs, and I kept it off quite well for about a year. After that, it started creeping up. I joined this site last February because I'd passed my self-imposed maximum weight of 135. There was a flurry of weights recorded, but not a strong downward trend. I gave up apparently. There was another flurry of activity in May when I realized I had gone up over 140. This time my efforts were a bit more serious and I got back down to the upper mid 30's. It didn't last. There was another dip around Sept or Oct when I hit 150 and again got serious enough to lose 5-7 lbs. Despite the dips, I never reversed the upward trend, and I started this year at 157.

I still feel frustrated an angry with myself, but negative emotions aren't going to accomplish much at this point. I had a bunch of things going on last year that derailed my efforts. For one thing, I started taking on-line classes, and those tied up a lot of time and led to less cooking and less exercising. Also, my husband was coming and going a lot. He did 4 weeks of active duty in the spring, a 6 week deployment over the summer, and then he started a year long deployment to North Carolina the first of October. With all that going on, I wasn't making myself a priority, and now I am paying for it. With the extra weight, I've started having severe, persistent pain in my leg from an old fracture. Of course, the leg pain makes it harder to jump back on the exercise wagon.

I still have about 10 more weeks of being a student, but then I will have completed all my coursework and earned my degree. In the meantime, I will just have to try to balance all the demands. There are always demands on my time, and if it weren't school, it would be something else, so best just to suck it up and deal with it. I am just going to re-group and get back to the basics. I know how to lose the weight, and I've done it before. It seems like I'm better at losing it than I am at sustaining it, but hopefully this experience has taught me a couple things about keeping it off too.

I've lost 3lbs so far this year, so I'm currently at 154 and my goal is to get back below 135 by my birthday in mid-May.

good for you! we all get angry with ourselves! i mean look at my weight for example i feel such an idiot for alowing me to get to this size! but i will WE WILL do this. Its hard, sometimes boring, sometimes a drag and annoying but when you step on the scales every week it makes it all worth while!! never give up, i have to keep telling myself this. never ever give up! x

Thanks Newjen, and you are absolutely right. Persistence is the key. Hope yours is paying off for you!

Hi Kay,
Nice to see you back! Yeah sometime it take a couple of rounds before the lessons finally stick - been there done that!:eek:

Don't let the frustration and anger overwhelm you - it can undermine all you are trying to accomplish. (you know the feeling... aww the hell with it, I'll just eat what I want). Set you goal and l keep looking forward, not back. You have already admonished yourself enough.

Eyes on the prize, girl ;)

It sounds like you need to be really consistent in logging your foods every day. I know a lot of people are like me and can't really judge portion sizes by eye. You should get a food scale and measuring cups/measuring spoons and log everything on here so that you know how many calories you're eating. It's very easy to underestimate them.

Hey Pam, great to "see" you again. Today I went to the mall and shopped some clearance sales. I bought a couple new pairs of pants because I have so few work clothes that fit. I hadn't wanted to buy anything and thought not having anything fit would motivate me, but instead it just depressed me. So I have pants that fit now, and I reorganized my closet so that the clothes that fit are front and center, but the clothes that will hopefully fit soon are still ready and waiting. I'll get there.

Rubystar, I have a food scale and an army of measuring cups. Seriously, somehow I have accumulated no fewer than 4 sets of measuring cups so I have no excuse at all. LOL! I've been using them faithfully since the first of the year.

HI, Not sure what to do but I thought I was doing everything right and when I weighed myself today it seems I have either stayed the same or gone up a bit. I sort of have a fear of weighing myself and when I do it makes me feel terrible if it is not what I want to see.
If i am logging all my food and activities and it says I am burning more than I am eating does it matter what types of food I am eating or would that alone make me gain or stay the same?
I am eating about the same in fat and carbs and less in protein but every day I am burning more than I am eating calorie wise. Should I just be patient and keep up my same habit or should I make a drastic change and see what happens.? (Like cut calories even more ?)
I am eating what ever I want but cutting down on the portions.
Any advice. Only done it for two weeks. Does it take longer to see results?
Thanks for any advice/tips.

Bigonit....are you logging sleep as an activity?

No I am not,
I remember you said it was helpful on the other thread.
The only thing is that when I did log it in that one time it made my calories burned part go up even more. If I am not losing weight without logging sleep in how would it help to log it in for the calorie burn?
I will go now and put it in to my existing days logged and see what happens.
Thanks,

Usually logging sleep burns less calories than letting your lifestyle setting take up those hours. So while I have mostly seated with some movement as my setting I think, sleeping would use much less calories during those hours.

It is probably just me, but having clothes that fit, even if they aren't the size I would like them to be, just seems to help with my self image and self confindence. Both of those seem to be very important in following through with goals and promises made to myself. So I am glad you picked up a few things to tide you over, and I am sure that you will be back to the clothes-in-waiting very soon ;)

logging sleep
 

Hi Wilderbeanz,
I am finding that logging in the sleep is making my calories burned more accurate,i.e. less than I thought originally. Now I have to find the right balance for myself to lose the weight. I changed my Profile to sitting with some movement as well so that makes me have a lower calorie burned to start with too. I will keep on trying until something works!
Thanks again for the advice.

KAY! I am so proud of your new found motivation! You are motivating me now. I went through my closet about 3 months ago, but I need to do it again. I HAVE to get rid of the clothes that I can "grow" back into. I HAVE to alter the ones that I want to hang on to... :) (I can't afford to buy ALL new shirts so I will take them in on the sewing machine THIS WEEKEND!) What you did was PROFOUND! Congratulations!

Hello Mario Games. It looks like you are new here, so welcome. There is a post with an excellent collection of tips in the weight loss tips discussion board. I will try to link to it for you.

Good luck to you.

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/forums...ight-loss.html

+1 For Kay_in_PA!

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/8918/groupwavem.gif

I second and applaud Kay's use of Best of...although the Mario poster was a spammer and got whacked by Mike.

Actually, more accurately, that was a troll. And they are getting more desperate because we are on to their games.