New to this
 

Hello! I am new to this, hope I do it right! :) I just turned 32 years old and decided enough was enough, it is time to take care of myself. I started my new "healthy life" 2 weeks ago today. So far, I have lost 11 pounds. I love how I feel (other than the growling tummy, haha). I am having a VERY hard time working up the energy to go and exercise. I am also having a hard time getting my husband to support me. :( Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

My other problem, probably my biggest problem at this point, is my evening eating. I have huge difficulty NOT eating at night! 8-10 pm is my worst time. I want salty, crunchy food. Any suggestions on how to overcome this? Or any healthy snack ideas to eat at that time?

I appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks!!

Hi amylee! I'm an evening snacker, too. (And I love my salty snacks the best!) Two things that get me over the hump from 8-10 are 100 calorie bags of micro popcorn or hummus with fat-free pretzels. Lots of good, healthy hummus recipes online. If you're not into hummus, pretzels dipped in honey mustard is awesome, too.

Hope this helps and welcome! You'll find lots of helpful info here.
quinn

Welcome, Amylee
 

It sounds like you are describing me with the nighttime snacking and salty snacks. I think Quinn's suggestions are good. I would also like to add rice cakes and baked tortilla chips and salsa, and also Goldfish, if you aren't going the low carb route. I never would have thought of the Goldfish, but I read the label one day and you can get about 60 of those suckers in an ounce for 130 calories. I started "saving" about 200 calories for evening, and would usually do a piece of fruit and then a salty snack a little later on.

If I want to snack more at night, I usually make a cup of herbal tea.

I'm not sure how much you want to go into detail, but I can't tell what you mean by your husband not being supportive. Do you mean he tells you you don't need to lose weight, does he bring home tempting foods, does he not understand how hard it is because he is thin? I guess not knowing all I can say is that you are doing this for you (but you know that) and you can find a support system elsewhere...like here. There are subgroups here in the Women's Corner that are parsed out by how much we are trying to lose, and all of them seem to get to know each other pretty well and provide great support.

Glad you are here!

Thanks for the ideas guys! I actually made my own tortilla chips tonight out of low-carb tortilla shells and ate them with salsa. It was so good! Satisfied my need to munch but didn't totally sabotage my days work. I walked/jogged for the first time in years tonight. Thought I was going to die jogging, but I survived and feel pretty proud of myself.

As for my husband...he just doesn't seem to care about my goal. He isn't super thin, but he isn't extremely overweight either. When I first started, he said he would support me, but he didn't stick with that promise. The other night he brought home a brownie and sat and told me how good it was. I am seriously the biggest chocolate addict ever, lol. I love it! I know I am doing this for me, hopefully I can just keep concentrating on that. I feel good about what I am doing and feel better than I have in a long time. Maybe he will eventually see that I am in this for life and how much this means to me.

Thanks for the advice and ideas! I really appreciate it. :)

It sounds like you are off to a good start, Amylee! Congrats!

I wonder if maybe your husband is insecure about your plan to lose weight and that's why he isn't being as supportive as he could be. Some people feel threatened when someone else makes improvements, and some people just don't like change. I think you hit the nail on the head...he may think that this is just a passing phase but once he sees that you are serious, he may be more likely to get on board. You sound like you have a good, healthy attitude; keep it up, girl!

Hi Amylee (this your name or a fan-username for the singer Amy Lee from Evanescence? JW). I commend you on sticking with this for even 2 weeks. I would usually last that long and go back to whatever I was before, but here you are doing great.
My family makes tempting food all the time...yesterday, my younger sister made brownies! And tonight my dad and his wife ate chili dogs! And yesterday, my sister went to the beach and ate pizza! How I resist the urge to eat those foods with my family (and it's mostly for the comfy feeling of being with my family, not even really for the foods), I just...do. I know that's bad advice :( I don't really have an tricks or tips...I just go play the piano or listen to music. In other words, I go do something that I like to do. But that's about it. I'm sorry your husband doesn't support you, it's quite frustrating when you change your lifestyle but the people around you don't change theirs. But they aren't obliged too really either, it'd be nice of course... I can't ask my dad and sister and wife to stop eating the foods that they do But if I had a husband, I would assume he would want to help me. Maybe your husband doesn't realize how much it's hurting you..so ask him to be more sensitive maybe, if you can do that (which you should)
In any case, if you are out of energy to do excercise and you have a growling tummy are you sure you are eating enough? How many calories are you consuming and what foods are they? I am 99.9% positive you've heard/read the essay about "eat 6 meals a day" and blah blah..well what I can say, fill up on fruits and vegetables, and do eat them through out the day. I am starting to incorporate more fruits (usually I didn't) and you can eat quite a bit without so many calories. And when you're hungry eat a rice cake. I just bought some, mine is the cheddar cheese kind. Since you're a chocolate lover, you can buy the chocolate ones and have only 60 calories. Albeit, it's not going to make you feel full but when you're craving something eat that.
Or eat some string cheese for only 60 calories. Or buy the 100 calorie popcorn bags by Orville.
I plan my diet out in the day so I have about 150 calories left after dinner for the night because I KNOW I will snack on something in the night. You should try this also. And try tea if you like it.

Good luck :cool:

Hi Amylee! Congratulations on your progress-11 pounds in 2 weeks? Wow! I think night time snacking is almost a universal problem (me, too-usually on weekend nights). I'm one of those blah, blah people Deatharrow mentioned, in that eating 6 mini meals a day works great for me. It keeps my blood sugar stable and keeps me from getting so hungry that I don't go overboard and gobble up everything in sight before I realize I overdid it. But this forum is pretty respectful of each person's right to choose what works best for them. Eating starchy carbs before bedtime just doesn't help me reach my goals, so I try to eat them earlier in the day when I need quick energy. To each his own.

As to support, this is a great place to get it! Once your husband realizes you're serious, he'll probably stop the sabotage. Either way, keeping the focus on your own behavior is the road to success. I liked Deatharrow's suggestion to distract ourselves with activities that we enjoy. Wish I could play the piano:)

I'd also suggest eating frequent meals, at least 5 times a day. If you can incorporate protein and/or complex carbohydrates (fruits & veggies) into each meal, or as often as you can, that will help you to feel fuller for longer too. :)

I'm also struggling with some trouble with my support system as well, but at the end of the day, I'm doing this for me. I would love it if I had more support, but it's not going to stop me. And it's not like either of us is completely without some support, we have this forum. :)

Congrats on your progress so far though, it sounds like you're doing wonderfully!

Hang in there, girls! I've been at this since last October, though with the holidays I didn't really get serious about it until January. I have 23 lbs down, 25 to go. Now that I'm fitting into pants I haven't worn in years, its finally (!!!) starting to rub off on the hubs. I can't get him to do a food log yet, but he's actually been to the gym and instead of eating cheese and crackers before he goes to bed in the morning (midnight shifter) he has an apple. He's willingly ate a few veggies too, and not putting as much on his plate at dinner. I will continue to gently encourage this behavior, but I am not the nagging type, whether or not he gets skinny too is up to him. I'm in this for me :D

Thanks for all the words of advice and encouragement. :) Today had struggles. My coworker ate a very yummy looking bar and told me how delicious it was. I spent the next 2 hours battling the urge to go get one, haha. I won, which feels great. I am thinking that the feeling of success is more important than the chocolate fix. I exercised again tonight and honestly, I feel SOOO frustrated with myself. 14 years ago I could run a mile. Granted it took me awhile, but I did it. I have always had problems with weight, I was a chubby kiddo too. But when I was 18 I was pretty fit and able to do so much more. Now I jog for about 2 minutes and seriously feel like my legs are going to fall off. It's not even a fast jog! I jog for a few minutes, walk for a lot of minutes, and repeat. Hopefully the exercise is all that counts and I am burning calories and getting fit again. The fear of failing is constantly in my mind. I worry a lot about it. I also worry about my weight loss. I think I have become obsessed with the scale. I tell myself everyday that I will not weigh myself for at least 3 days, but each morning I still step on it. I had my husband hide it, but I just HAD to know what my weight was, so I snooped around until I found it. I find that if I haven't lost anything or if it is "only" a half pound that I become discouraged and angry at myself. I know deep down that ANY weight loss is good. I just have to keep telling myself that.

I do have a question...is there a specific amount of calories I should eat? Is there a minimum? I have been very faithful logging everything and noticed that I am sticking right around the 1000 calorie mark, sometimes less. Is that too little? Too much? I don't feel super hungry most of the time. At night I want to munch, but I wouldn't say I am starving. I eat a lot of protein, try to limit carbs, so I think that is what is helping with my fullness. Is there something I should be doing different?

I noticed something today that thrilled me! My 'chins' are diminishing! Instead of having about 6, I only have about 3. Wooohooo!!

Thanks again for the support. I truly appreciate it!

Hi Amylee!
 

Sounds like you made it through today okay. I had to laugh at your looking for the scale. I have gotten a little too scale focused myself these days and decided to have my husband take it to work with him for 2 weeks starting tomorrow. Great minds think alike!!

Here's a link to a calculator that has been very helpful to me in figuring out how many calories to eat, and also how to cycle them to hopefully avoid the body figuring out how many are coming and slowing down the metabolism:

Calorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needs

You may want to do a little research on 1000 calories a day. Conventional wisdom is that your metabolism slows down on less than about 1200, making it even harder to lose weight, even though it seems like you should lose faster with fewer calories.

At any rate, great job on your logging, great job on your exercising, and good for you for coming and posting the worries. Somehow it's easier to let them go that way ;). Hope tomorrow is a successful day as well!

P.S.: Lizzie, your perseverance is awesome! You are really committed and I know you will reach your goals!

CJ: Thanks :) I'm battling a plateau right now, but it's OK. A little frustrating because I'm bouncing from between 158.5 and 161, and 158.0 is my halfway mark :mad:. I think I need to hide the scale for a while too lol.

number of calories???
 

Hi Amylee and everyone else,
CJ is right that our bodies are pretty miraculous things and will try to protect us from starvation when consumption gets below a certain level. Typically, the number seems to be about 1000 calories, BUT it really depends on the person. My doctor told me that the 1200 calorie limit for "healthy" weight loss was established by the American Medical Society (actually a subcommittee of that organization) as the limit a person can do without medical assistance. The theory being that at less than 1200 calories a person will not be able to get enough of the required vitamins, minerals and other nutrients to sustain a health body, so monitoring by an MD is important. In his experience 1000 calories is fine for a relatively short period of time (like 3 or 4 weeks), particularly if the person is doing a good job of monitoring essential nutrients. Luckily for us, that is exactly what FitDay enables us to do.

So use all the tools available to check nutrient status, protein-carb-fat ratios etc.

My standard calorie load has been 1200, but as I approach my goals I tend to shoot for 1000 or so. Unfortunetly the difference between 1000 and 1200 is a regular Starbucks latte, or an extra helping or rice (brown, white or green), so it can be a little challenging. :o

If you find yourself not losing any more weight after a sustained diet of 1000 calories, up it to 1200 or so. One of the best tools in Fid Day is the "weight goal" tab. Once you establish your beginning and ending weight and set a time period for accomplishing it, the program will calculate how much of a calorie deficit you need to maintain. You can approach the calorie deficit by either reducing what you eat or increasing your exercise. The program will then track how successfully you have followed that regime.

It's a pretty cool tool.

And, in my experience - throw that scale out! LOL (at least for a while until you drop a dress size) For me it causes more heart ache when I don't reach my goal than feelings of accomplishment when I do ;) Now that I am on the landing path to my goal, I will weigh myself - but once a week MAX

BTW all of your stories continue to inspire me! Thanks so much for your honesty and openness.

Pam

LOL; I agree about that scale! Someone on another thread had a really good idea (I'm sorry I don't remember who) to put it on the kilometers mode if it is digital. That way you know if you are losing but you aren't so emotionally vested in the number. Also, it could go all wonky during that time of the month, and you don't need that negative feedback.

Pam--what's green rice? Never heard of it and it sounds really intriguing! I know what you mean about little things making a big difference...some days I will sit and add things in and take things out of the FitDay food log just to see the impact and make a better decision.

Hang in there with that plateau. I had one for three weeks and eventually it worked itself out. You'll get there!

Green rice
 

I was just being facetious. Some of my friends seem to have this awe of brown rice as if it was some sort of magic food. I know that it is better than white rice, but it is still just another carbohydrate!

Although... did you know that there are like 50 different varieties of rice grown in India? Each with a very different flavor. I've been exploring a few, but with the current diet my explorations are mostly on hold.

Love the idea of setting the scale to kilograms - your right, you'd know which direction to the weight was going, but not have an investment in the number. ;)

Unfortunately for me, I can swap kg's and pounds in my head thanks to years of calulating drug dosages. Drug companies like to write all their dosages in milligrams per kilogram. I'm definitely pms right now and need to stay off the scale this week ;)

I checked out the calculator, but it told me I should eat about 3100 calories a day. I must have done something wrong, haha. It seems extreme to me to eat that much when that's what got me to this, ahem, 'pleasantly plump' stage. :D So, I did some further research and found the same things mentioned: around 1200 calories, don't do 1000 calories too long. I also found an article on zig-zagging your calories to boost weight loss. Might try that. I had a root canal yesterday, which was a BLAST (insert sarcasm here), so eating was not an issue for me yesterday. :) Still sore today, so haven't wanted to eat much either. Hovering around the 1000 range still. Hopefully my mouth feels a little less beat-up tomorrow and I can try to get around the 1200 range. I stepped on the scale today (AGAIN, sigh) and was thrilled to see I am officially down FIFTEEN POUNDS today! I was so dang excited!! I jogged again tonight and almost made it a half mile without stopping!! I think the whole 15 pound thing really boosted my self-confidence. :rolleyes: I worry about the holiday this weekend. My family is having a huge grill-out instead of the traditional Easter dinner. I am hoping to stay in a somewhat decent range. I'm still embarassed to make a big deal about watching what I eat. I'm afraid of what people will say to me...I don't foresee a lot of support. At least my sister will be there, and she is by far my biggest support system!

I love reading these posts. I really feel so much better to know that I am not the only one with these struggles. Thanks for making me feel better!

Maybe your teeth will still be hurting on Sunday........:D
(I hope not really but who could argue with that? lol)

Haha! Maybe that should be my secret weapon. Oops, sorry, can't eat that 4 layer chocolate cake, my tooth hurts! Oh, bummer, I would LOVE some mayo..I mean HAM...salad, but my tooth hurts! Actually, I thought about eating before I went, so I wouldn't be hungry and less likely to go overboard?? Maybe it'll work!

Congrats on your pounds gone!!!

I zig-zag and find it very effective. I go low on the days I know I will be busy and not be bored and feel like snacking and make the high calorie days ones when I know I will be going out for dinner or celebrating or something like that.

I like the feeling of "tricking' my body...it has disappointed me for so long that it's nice to feel like I'm finally the one in charge, I guess.

With the calories, if you are on the heavy side to begin with, that calculator does bump them up...but the good news is that you are losing and seem like you have developed a really healthy plan! Keep it up and good luck!

Amy, congrats on the 15# milestone!!! I agree, my confidence soars when I receive positive feedback on my efforts and become so much more inspired. That's the neat thing about this forum--if we're in between milestones, reading about others' inspires each of us to keep strong in our efforts to eat right and exercise. You go, girl!

Thanks for the encouragement! I keep thinking each day will get easier, but it truly is a battle everyday to make the right choices. I work in a mall across from a bakery and today I could smell their cinnamon rolls baking. Yummmm... I almost tied myself to the chair so I wouldn't walk across the hall to get one, haha. :D

Does anyone know how many fat grams I should be eating daily? Is there a limit? I see that in an average diet you shouldn't eat more than 60 grams daily. But I'm not sure how many I should consume on my "unaverage" diet.

Amy, I would think it would depend on two things...your total calories and the type of fat you eat. Healthy fats (nuts, avocados, olive oil, fish, etc.) are much better than the partially hydrogenated stuff that is in fatty foods. Maybe you can determine what percentage of your calories you want to come from fat and then figure out how many grams of fat from there. I've seen people shoot from anywhere from 15-35% of calories from fat, so do some research and some experimenting and get a sense of what's best for you.

A kind of wacko idea
 

Hi Amy,
I admire your determination. Geez, I think I would find the smells coming from a bakery overwhelming, and I don't even have much of a sweet tooth (lucky me!). One technique that has helped sometimes with irresistable temptation is hypnosis. There is a great book on self-hyponisis by Forbes Robbins Blair that has helped me a lot for over coming fairly simple problems in self control.

If nothing else you might find it entertaining enough to take your mind off of that annoying bakery!

Good luck and keep up the good work.

Pam

I feel ya. My husband is an airman and is very fit. He always says that he supports me but really... nothing. I have the same problem of eating salty food at night. I tried putting up little notes all over the place (like the fridge and cabinet, etc) it does help a little.