Fall/winter weight management thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pax

Shootingstar - I think she must, she's 55, post menopausal, 5'1 ......., and not eating dinner. She's really happy with her energy levels and stable body weight... .

---

Um...this is tongue-in-check, of course Pax. :o I DO eat supper. Please, folks. I stress that I have just found it's better I have dinner earlier, not late into the evening. I'm not rigid about it but generally it's helped me a lot in terms of timing my dinner better.

I actually eat a slightly bigger breakfast now for past few years even though I cycle only 40% less the distance one way to work compared to 20 years ago when I biked to work a much longer distance ride route when living in a different city.

Nor am I rigid in the way how I cook. Just tryin' to outline this:

a) light stir-fries ---compatible veggie combinations, occasionally with meat
b) consommé soups or veggie pureed soups. Cream soups are at restaurants, hence rare.
c) don't like pop. Never have even as a kid.
d) deep fried foods --only a couple times per year. I'm happy to try someone's home deep fried chicken but I don't deep fry myself. Neither does dearie. (My mother seldom deep fried food.... she was really afraid of deep oil frying danger with 6 children running around the house. She invented her own Chinese baked crusted chicken pieces with oatmeal-flour topping and who knows what. It tasted good. Dearie's mom seldom deep fried...except for beignets...a French-German jelly yeast donut.)
e) Coffee, tea -- last 30 years without sugar. But often with milk.
f) Butter at home ..is only 2-3 times per year when dearie makes crepes. Chinese cooking traditionally does not use butter. So I'm used to being butter-free.

The point is to find our own personal healthy food and activity hooks and build on it. We probably each have something to build from naturally, if it works, use it and not overthink it. A number is...just a number.

Catrin, I agree, the rest is just as important as we age. I take one, sometimes two full rest days. Often, one of them is a short walk, but I have to be careful not to walk too fast up the hill! Other times, I try to do yoga, at home on the 2nd rest day. And the influence of hormones, lack of thereof, and other medical stuff can't be denied. I've made peace with my butt and thighs. They will never be firm. The only time it was, I weighed 92 and the rest of me looked like I had just escaped from Auschwitz. That is genetic. It's a whole lot better than it was before I started cycling, so I'm good with it. I'm the kind of person that looks extremely thin in clothes and not so thin in a bathing suit! I just happened to be looking at some pictures from around 1999, about a year before I started riding. I was pretty much barely putting in an effort at the gym and my eating, while not bad as in typical American junk food, was nowhere as good as it is now. I looked like a chunky mom of teenagers and at my height, I can now see why I was kind of scared into getting on the bike. The pictures on the beach looked terrifying to me, and I probably weighed about 12-15 pounds more than I do now. Not a lot, but the weight loss and body reshaping initially from riding and then from all of the other stuff I do made a huge difference.

Crankin - it sounds like you can get away with less rest than I can. I DO try to do mobility work on rest days, and am trying to get into the habit of going for a walk on the second half of my lunch break. I don't consider it as exercise, but it gets me out from behind the desk and gives my hip flexors a chance to stretch. Unsure if I would still have this problem if I had been able to continue to ride as I liked, but that is water under a bridge that can't return.

Count me in too.

I'm 38, and this year have discovered that age has caught up with me. My body just won't let go of the fat anymore. I'm running intermittently, but my diet's not great. I LOVE carbs and dessert, and unfortunately, my body doesn't. If I could low-carb my way through life, I'm sure I'd lose a good 30 lbs. My thyroid is broken, and no matter how much my synthroid gets increased, it never helps. I'm on the mid-high end of the chart now for dosing. And I work nightshift, which I think is the major culprit. My body doesn't know when to eat and I'm sure it goes into storing mode much of the time.

I'm determined to fit more running, cycling, and yoga into my life, but don't know that it'll make much of an impact. I'm 25 lbs down from my heaviest ever weight, but the scale just won't budge anymore. I'd like to lose 40 lbs for good and know that I'd feel much better.

Count me in...though at this point, I'm struggling with my goals. I still have weight to lose but I've been sitting at my same weight for a little less than a year now with no real focused effort to go lower. Internally, I'm torn. I would like to be smaller and there is still plenty of visible fat to lose, but in a lot of ways, I'm happy where I am. This weight is easy to maintain with my current activity level (which is actually a bit low for me) and eating the way I most enjoy eating. All of my clothes fit. I think I look pretty good.

I could look better. I could buy smaller clothing (or look better in a couple of things I already own). I could be lighter for biking and running (a big plus). I could lose this weight because I've said I would and I owe it to myself to hit those goals for once in my life.

But is all that enough? Oh the things running around in my head!! Anyway, at the very least, I know for certain that I plan to not gain any weight during this holiday season so I'm all about the accountability. :)

I am currently doing a Whole30 with my husband, so that should keep me on track until the end of November. Then the real challenge kicks in as I have quite a bit of travel during the month of December. Getting in my activity and not making excuses to count every meal out as 'special' will be important to my success.

I've managed to get my "day time" clothed weight down to 129 :-) THAT means my early morning weight is roughly 126. No idea how I dropped those two pounds, but I will take it. It is probably an unrealistic goal to get my "day time" weight below 118 by Jan 31, so I won't be killing myself in the attempt. I've not been that weight in at least 42 years!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GLC1968

Then the real challenge kicks in as I have quite a bit of travel during the month of December. Getting in my activity and not making excuses to count every meal out as 'special' will be important to my success.

---

Yes, travel is a challenge. I managed to get through the past weekend without gaining anything -- it was weekend trip for a family wedding, with long periods between meals wherein I ended up so hungry that I pretty much inhaled whatever I could get my hands on when we finally were able to eat. Then on Tuesday there was ladies' night at the bike shop, with cheese and crackers and cookies.

Thanksgiving will be the next big challenge, with a relative's anniversary party two days after the Giant Meal With Way Too Much Dessert.

So far, I've kept my early morning AM weight in the 107's... in some ways that's a good sign, as I am pretty sure it's my set point. But, I was 104-106 all summer, without a lot of trying, so I hope I can get back to 106.5 at least. I had brunch on Sunday, and on Tuesday and Wed. went to friend's house for dinner, for my birthday, since DH is away. Usually, I lose when he travels, but right now not gaining is my goal. Today is my rest day and I needed it, even though I only rode 13.5 miles Tuesday at 5 AM, and 11 miles yesterday. I had the time to do more, but mentally, I was not into it. Looking forward to boot camp tomorrow. I had a very stressful week at work, but things are calming down. New clients, old ones getting booted for not coming, sobriety issues, and lots of phone calls/emails from the counselors at the high school I go to one day a week. On monday, I am doing a workshop for the school nurses in my old district. Preparing for it now, but they will be a tough audience. But, it's at my old school, so I am happy for the chance to see my friends.
Going to make a chicken/quinoa salad for dinner!

I thought I had spoken too quickly. I woke up yesterday and my weight was very close to 109. How does one gain almost 2 pounds overnight? I know it's technically not a big deal, but once I get there at this time of year, it's very hard for me to get down 5 lbs. or so. However, I'm back to 107.2 today. In retrospect, I went to a friend's on Wed. night and had chicken with some kind of soy marinade, which is poison for me. I've also been stressed and not getting as much sleep as I should. Time to get back to the self care I usually practice.
Yesterday, I went to boot camp in the AM and when I got home at around 2:45, I went for a 2.5 mile walk. It was 44 and so windy out, I was freezing. I was dressed OK, except maybe I should have had on warmer pants. Anyway, I convinced myself to do the whole loop, as I had set out to do just the one mile actual hill loop. I did feel much better afterward. Need to do 2 longer rides this weekend. I will commute on Tuesday and maybe ride Wednesday, but then it's going to get bitterly cold for the end of the week.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crankin

I thought I had spoken too quickly. I woke up yesterday and my weight was very close to 109. How does one gain almost 2 pounds overnight? I know it's technically not a big deal, but once I get there at this time of year, it's very hard for me to get down 5 lbs. or so. However, I'm back to 107.2 today. In retrospect, I went to a friend's on Wed. night and had chicken with some kind of soy marinade, which is poison for me. I've also been stressed and not getting as much sleep as I should. Time to get back to the self care I usually practice.
Yesterday, I went to boot camp in the AM and when I got home at around 2:45, I went for a 2.5 mile walk. It was 44 and so windy out, I was freezing. I was dressed OK, except maybe I should have had on warmer pants. Anyway, I convinced myself to do the whole loop, as I had set out to do just the one mile actual hill loop. I did feel much better afterward. Need to do 2 longer rides this weekend. I will commute on Tuesday and maybe ride Wednesday, but then it's going to get bitterly cold for the end of the week.

---

Seriously. I was at 144.5 for several days mid-week, then 144.0 yesterday. Progress!! (My goal is 140-141). Yesterday I was hungry all day long and planned a bike ride after work. I have learned the hard way that I must eat enough before a bike ride in order to avoid bonking, even if it's a short ride. I had a turkey sandwich for lunch, which is not a high-calorie meal even with mayo on it. So I had a couple of whole grain fig bars for a snack. After the ride it was dinner time, I had a slightly larger than normal dinner, then a cup of greek yogurt a couple of hours later (because I was hungry). This morning I was up to 145.5. So I'm really not making progress, just seeing fluctuations in water weight and still stuck.

And as I write this, I am hungry again even though I had a normal breakfast and it's more than an hour before my usual lunchtime. This stupid end of daylight saving time has had me wanting food an hour too soon, so I ending up eating too much in order to get through the day.

I did an experiment this morning. I had quinoa flakes hot cereal for breakfast, with some almond milk and walnuts, and half a banana thrown in for good measure. Also had 1/4 of an avocado. My experiment just proved that I cannot eat cereal, even quinoa cereal, without being hungry about an hour later. If I ate regular quinoa and an egg, it would be different. I went out to do errands at around 9:15 and I was so hungry in the grocery store, around 10:30, I was searching for the cheese samples, but there weren't any.
I made myself a portobella mushroom sandwich on a spelt roll for lunch. I had to have some grains.
Going out for a ride now....

New rule. Every time someone pisses me off at work, I will get up and go for a walk.

This should significantly increase the amount of walking I do on weekdays.

I just walked down the stairs to the first floor and then back up to the fourth floor where my office is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ny biker

New rule. Every time someone pisses me off at work, I will get up and go for a walk.

This should significantly increase the amount of walking I do on weekdays.

I just walked down the stairs to the first floor and then back up to the fourth floor where my office is.

---

Made me LOL. If I tried that I'd be away from my desk more than I'm here. :p

I am trying to walk during my luck as weather permits. It does help, especially since my job ties me to 2 computers. I think as the weather changes I will return to climbing stairs. It is a good way to loosen up, and it really helps my kettlebell lifting to break the day up and allow my hips to move.

My weight is currently fluctuating, but I just signed up for a rowing challenge at my gym that will help with that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pax

Made me LOL. If I tried that I'd be away from my desk more than I'm here. :p

---

Yeah me too...