weight watcher question

[Avocet]

Thanks guys, I've been on the WW page but haven't really found any threads with people that do more long distance workouts but I'm glad to hear about the Challenge board I'll check it out. you guys are great! Always inspiring to read the boards here!

[BikerDar]

Hi there,
Thought I'd jump into this thread. I've been a Lifetime WW'r for about a year and a half. I lost 50 pounds. I've always been very active and ate fairly well but my problem was in my portions. And I would not eat much while riding thinking I had plenty of stores and didn't need to. WRONG!!

I ate all my activity points and all my flex points too. I found that if I didn't, my weight loss stalled. I go to the gym five days a week, weight train every day, alternating muscle groups, spin twice, run or eliptical the other three days, and then I ride at least 45 miles on Sat. I gained about ten pounds after an injury and in the last two months have been hard at it to lose them again. I realized a few weeks ago that I wasn't having any success dropping the pounds and thought perhaps I wasn't eating enough. So I increased my preworkout snack and fuel myself more regularly when I ride and the pounds started coming back off.

Lesson learned, if you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and hangs onto every last oz. I know everybody is different, and some WW'rs do better not eating all their AP's, but athletes need fuel. I can't speak enough about fueling yourself regularly, like 3-400 calories an hour. I really like Luna Bars and Gels, but also dried fruit and nuts work great for me. Also if you are trying to avoid sugar, there is a product called Fruit Leather. Think Fruit Roll-ups like the kids eat, but with only fruit no corn syrup or other sugar. They're very tasty, weigh NOTHING, and are easy to digest, at least for me.

[snapdragen]

I ate all my activity points and all my flex points too. I found that if I didn't, my weight loss stalled.

That's exactly what is happening to a woman in my group - she won't eat any of her activity points! Yet she works out every day. I think our leader pulled her aside at the last meeting and had a talk. Maybe she gets it now.

[Brandi]

You know I am 5'3 weigh 144-140 and nothing I do helps me lose any weight. I am very active too. I bike about 75 miles a week if not more and just started adding more hills. I eat normally. But at night I really seem to be more hungry. Why is that? Am I not eating enough during the day maybe.
Breakfast is usually- egg on english muffin or 1 piece of toast with natural peanut butter and jam or oatmeal
lunch-soup or sandwich or all natural mac and cheese
snack maybe a cookie or two and tea
dinner -what ever but balanced protien-carbs-veggie's
dessert too usually slow chrun 1/2 fat ice cream one and a half scoops. sometimes i will have a piece of fruit later in the evening too.
I have been the same weight forever am I jsut where I need to be?

[jobob]

I lost a lot of weight last year when I had braces on my bottom teeth and, now that I have them off and have gained some of the weight back (grrrrr ) I'm trying to figure out what it is that made me lose all that weight in the first place.

I'm convinced that what did it was the fact that, especially early on, it was difficult for me to get used to chewing with the braces in place so I would chew my food verrrry slowly and carefully. The offshoot was that eating was downright tedious, and I would literally get bored of eating after a while. Although the portion sizes I ate were fairly small, I was never hungry, because eating so slowly I would gradually fill up, and the effort and the boredom from eating outweighed any hunger I may have perceived.

Even once I had the chewing thing more or less worked out, it was such a hassle to clean my braces afterwards that I would avoid snacking between meals.

I've had my braces off since late Dec and I wear a removable retainer now, and I like to joke to people to keep their hands away from the moving mouth parts. I really have to start being careful again, I've gained nearly 12 pounds over my absolute lowest weight (which was late summer/early fall). That's not such a bad thing since I've been told by many people that I had probably lost too much back then - my face was getting very gaunt, and I've lost count of the number of people who asked me if I had been ill Even my doctor told me I should put a bit of weight back on, LOL !

But that said, I think I've gained more than enough I have to be careful again, argh.

So I'm writing this all down as sort of a reminder to myself to eat slowly, watch the portion sizes, and to cut out the snacks !!

[SadieKate]

But that said, I think I've gained more than enough I have to be careful again, argh.

I think you look simply mahvlous, darling.

I do, I really do. Just freeze frame it there. Yah, easier said than done, I know.

[jobob]

I think you look simply mahvlous, darling ... Just freeze frame it there

SK, so kind of you to say {hug}. But there's the rub! I think the pendulum is swinging in the wrong direction at the moment. I'm starting to have to dig out the next size up mompants that I had stored away. grrrr.

The good thing is, I know what I need to do to keep it off - avoid the snacks, and even more so, watch the portion sizes - which means lay off the second and (*ahem*) third helpings at dinner which is really hard when Lee makes his wonderful meat loafs and stews, yummm. Bad Lee.

(edited to add - by "avoid the snacks" I mean the donuts and muffins that sing their siren song to me at work mid-morning and mid-afternoon. I'm re-training myself to have a low fat yogurt or a cup of soy milk instead, like I did in my metal-mouth days. I certainly don't avoid eating before & during my rides - I'd keel over after about a dozen miles if I didn't eat enough)

And I made such a freakin' pig of myself in Denmark - all those fabulous breads and rolls and pastries - thankfully I was there for less than a week !

May need to do some hills this weekend.

- jo "I don't ordinarily obsess about my weight, really " bob