The HTF Weight Loss Support Group (1 Viewer)

[Chris Lock]

> The fruit salad last night was a homemade assortment of chopped fruits using cantaloupe, apple, red grapes, orange, and pineapple.
In that case, we'll allow it. I was concerned you had the canned type, some of which has heavy (high-sugar) syrup.

 

[Bill Catherall]

June 8th meals:
Breakfast: 3 eggs, 1 peach, 1 glass 1% milk
Lunch: 1.5 cups spaghetti w/ ground beef & spaghetti sauce (from a jar), 1 peach
Dinner: 1.5 chicken breasts (fried), 1 cup peas
Snack: 1 banana, 2 apricots
Today I did a lot of outside work...digging about 2 tons of dirt (moved it once into the truck and once out of the truck) to get ready to lay a cement patio and walk-way. I really needed the energy boost from the spaghetti I had for lunch, so I don't feel bad about eating it. I also needed to keep up a good pace while working...so snacks just didn't happen. Besides, I was drinking so much more water today that I didn't ever really feel hungry.
Totals:
Calories: 1540 kcal
Calories from Fat: 379 kcal
Carbohydrate: 195 g
Fat (total lipid): 42.3 g
Fiber, total dietary: 28.8 g
Protein: 96.1 g

 

[Tony_Faville]

Monday morning weigh-in.... 318lbs.... that's another 4 pound loss for the week. Since I started at 365 I am down a total of 47 pounds so far.
My wife lost another 4 pounds herself bringing her total loss down to 46 pounds so far.
Life is good.

 

[Bill Catherall]

Way to go Tony! Keep up the good work.
I really need to figure out a good weekend meal plan. Sunday's are the hardest because I'm usually out of the house quite a bit and for some reason there's never any leftovers to have for lunch. So Sunday lunch is going to have to be prepared and saved earlier to make it easy for me.
June 9th meals:
Breakfast: 1 bowl of Wheaties w/ 1% milk
Lunch: 1 serving of raspberry yogurt w/ blackberries added to it, 1 slice of cheese, 1 apple (see what I mean...weak)
Dinner: 1 grilled chicken breast, 2 bowls of tomato soup
Treat: (Yes, I got a treat ) 1 Klondike Bar (York Peppermint

)
Snack: 1 handful green grapes
I didn't do the totals for yesterday.
The next few days my eating schedule is probably going to be thrown off quite a bit. My wife and I are going into the hospital tonight at 5:00 to have the baby. She's still not due for 1 week, but the baby is already about 8.5# and historically she's had big babies (our other 2 were 9# each). So to make things easier for her the doctor wants to induce tonight. I still plan on avoiding fast food...I'll probably be living off my shakes and Balance bars.

 

[Tony_Faville]

Good luck with the baby Bill.

Weekends are of course our most difficult time. What we tend to do is eat a little bit larger meal earlier in the day than we do on weeknights.

For example, last night I made a chicken pesto sausage lasagna with homemade mushroom marinara and real mozarella cheese.

We ate that about 3:45 and then did our thing for the rest of the night. A couple garlic stuffed olives for a snack around 8:15 and I was fine.

Funny, before the diet, I could sit down and eat half a jar of those olives. Now I eat a couple and I am fine.

 

[Bill Catherall]

So much for avoiding fast food. I figured...a couple days won't hurt. And I did avoid the terribly bad stuff...like McD's, BK, and the oh so tempting Krispy Kremes. But I went to KFC (had their Twister), a local restaraunt for breakfast (breakfast burrito, hashbrowns), and Subway. I'll still probably be a little off today, but we'll see.
But the baby's out...more news to come!

 

[Bill Catherall]

OK. I'm trying to get back to "normal" today. Yesterday's breakfast was a very small bowl of Wheaties and 2 handfuls of grapes. Lunch was a "celebration" lunch provided by the hospital. I couldn't resist not eating it. 1 nice big juicy steak with onions and mushrooms, 1 baked potato, 1 roll, a small salad, and chocolate mousse pie. Mmmmmm.... Dinner was a home-made grilled lime chicken Caesar salad.
Today's meals will be back to the regular diet. I also got back into the gym today with only 2 days off. It felt awful waking up at 5:00am, but it always does. It did feel good to workout though. The past couple of days have messed me up a bit. I just don't feel good...not sick, but just "blah." My digestion is all off balance. It will be nice to get back into my previous routine and continue the weight loss. The one thing I learned from going off my diet for a bit was...I'm really not missing much. I'm ready to keep going.
So I suggest to anybody that's having a hard time trying to stick to it...take a 1 day "vacation" and eat what you want. You'll probably realize the same thing as me. It feels good to eat right, and the other stuff just isn't worth the troubled health that they bring. But it's still nice to have those things there for the occasional indulgence.

 

[Bill Catherall]

Hello?...*taps microphone*...Is anybody there? Is everyone still with me here? Just 'cause I take a couple days off doesn't mean you all can slack!
June 13th meals:
Breakfast: 1 shake
Snack: 1 pear
Lunch: Grilled lime chicken caesar salad, 1 nectarine
Snack: 1 Balance bar
Dinner: 1 pork chop, 1 ear of corn on the cob (no butter), 1.5 cups fruit salad (home made with low fat yogurt)
Snack: 1 banana, 1 mozarrella stick
Totals: (without fruit salad...too much work to total that one up)
Calories: 1280 kcal
Calories from Fat: 263 kcal
Carbohydrate: 134 g
Fat (total lipid): 28.5 g
Fiber, total dietary: 12.3 g
Protein: 124 g
(I figure the worst the fruit salad could be is 200 calories.)
Weighed in today at 230#...down 2 lbs from last week. Total loss now is 10#.

 

[Tony_Faville]

I had lunch today for the first time in 2 months because a friend stopped by my work. I have to tell you, even though I ate light (shredded chicken burrito....no tortilla, guac, sour cream or chips) I still feel sick.

Hard breaking a routine like that.

On the good side, my wife and I just bought a Ronco rotisserie which will help us eat even healthier. Plus, I've been wanting one of those for far too long.

Addendum: Congrats on keeping it in the loss column Bill. Ever downward!

 

[Tony_Faville]

Monday morning weigh-in, another 4 pounds for a total loss of 51 so far.

My wife lost another 2 for a total of 48 pounds.

She gets frustrated when I lose more than she does but I try getting her to understand I am simply metabolizing better than she will. She is still happy to lose the pounds but she has a hard time understanding why I can lose twice what she does when we eat the same things.

 

[Shawn C]

Not much to report lately. I haven't been on the body fat analysis machine at the gym since the last time. I have moved the indicator on my home scale a few more "ticks", but I still can't tell what the actual weight is since I'm beyond the 300# max indicator.

I fell off the wagon last week and didn't eat very well at all. I also screwed up my blood pressure medication by missing a couple doses so that kept me from the gym for a week. I am back into the swing of things now and am back to the gym everyday (except Saturday and Sunday).

I am still hitting the weights pretty hard so I suppose my overall weight is still declining slowly while my body fat is probably declining a little faster. I am now able to jog on the treadmill intermittently while walking. I could jog for the entire workout but jogging when you weigh 320 plus is a little hard on my knees/legs/shins. Right now, I need to alternate between jogging and fast walking.

I have also started to use the "Odyssey" stairmaster. That's the one that has the revolving stairs, not the stepper type. I used one of these back in 1992 when I had to lose a bunch of weight to get into the Marine Corps. That machine is an ass-kicker.

 

[Samuel Des]

Hey Guys - Wanted to let you know I'm still with you. I've been putting in crazy hours at work. So I haven't had a chance to keep track of my weight and my menu. This is the first time I've had a chance to look up! I did weigh in last night, and appear to be steady. ~179#s.

 

[Bill Catherall]

Well...it's good to know you all are still with us. It felt like a ghost town for a while here.
I've still been eating right, dispite not posting my menus. Posting my menus has helped to get my diet straightened out and get some feedback. I'm sticking to the same routine and diet as before. So I'll probably not continue to post the menus.
I'll still post my weigh-ins so I can chart the progress (I've been doing weigh-ins on Fridays).
Shawn - Have you tried the eliptical trainers? It's like running without the impact.
I'm going to give swimming a shot soon. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.
I've really been noticing a huge difference in the way my pants are fitting. They're getting to be a little too baggy and uncomfortable. I may have to go get that new pair of jeans I've been talking about. But so far nobody has really made any comments about my weight loss. We'll see if my parents can notice a difference when they come to town this weekend. (I'm not doing this to be noticed...but comments do help to gauge progress.)

 

[Shawn C]

Shawn - Have you tried the eliptical trainers? It's like running without the impact.

Yeah, I love that machine but you should see what I look like on it! Hah. A 6'4", 320# + guy spinning that thing at around 60+ RPM must be a sight to behold....

I use the one that includes your arms in the workout.

I usually include that as part of my 10/10/10 fat burn routine. Treadmill/Elliptical/Stairmaster 10 minutes each, not always in the same order.

 

[Samuel Des]

Jun 18
#179
Breakfast - None
Lunch - Salad. ~ 0.50#
Dinner - 0.50# Hamburger with 0.5 portion of Simply Grillin vegetables
Snack - ~4 oz. Gummy Bears
I am soooo tired....

 

[Tony_Faville]

Snack - ~4 oz. Gummy Bears ..... I am soooo tired....

It's no wonder you are so tired Sam....no jerky.

 

[Bill Catherall]

Weighed in today and lost another 3 lbs bringing the total loss to 13# and weighing 227. I never thought I'd get back down into the 220's! I'm really looking forward to the 210's and 200's.
It's really nice to see results. To be honest I never thought this would work. I was worried that I would try and try and see nothing...then I'd feel like a failure and give up hope. But seeing results has really encouraged me and makes me want to keep going. It makes it easier to continue. What once seemed like an impossible task, an unreachable goal, now seems possible. It's going to take time of course, but I now know that it's working and I can be patient with the results.
I'm feeling great, I'm liking the improvements, even my wife said that she can now see a difference. She says my stomach doesn't stick out as much. And the other night I played some basketball and volleyball...yes I did get tired and it was exhausting, but I didn't get as exhausted as early as I would have before I started on the workouts. And even after exhaustion I was able to gain a second wind and keep going. It felt great!

 

[Brian Harnish]

I made a major workout accomplishment last night. For the first time, I made it through a FULL 45 minute weight loss cardio workout without stopping!!! I almost can't believe that I finally DID IT!!!! Tee-hee!!
Since I've been working out for the past three weeks (now entering my fourth week), I've noticed tremendous benefits. Better sleep, a lot more energy, not getting tired as much after work, and some minor weight loss. No weight loss significant enough to tip the scales (or change my appearance significantly), but I have lost a notch in my belt and my clothes seem to fit better.
My menu for yesterday:
Breakfast -- Pancakes, Eggs, sausage
Snack -- None
Lunch -- Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. + fries (hey, I'm a good guy -- I've almost completely eliminated hamburgers from my diet so I think I deserve this one )
Snack -- None
Dinner -- Sourdough Grilled Chicken sandwich (skinless and grilled; not fried) from Jack In The Box
I strayed a bit yesterday, I know. But I think a free reward day here and there helps keep the cravings down. Granted, I gotta keep the reward days fewer than twice a week.

 

[Chris Lock]

> But so far nobody has really made any comments about my weight loss.

It seems to take about a 15-20 lb loss for others to notice, especially if they see you often. You'll definitely feel it yourself in how your clothes fit before other people notice.

For this reason I tell as few people as possible about the diet. Otherwise, you get people trying to "help" you with false compliments, like telling you how thin you look when you've lost 3 lbs so far.

It's a great sign of progress when people who don't know you're on a weight-loss program start asking if you've lost weight; then you know they're sincere.

 

[Jereme D]

Is my logic flawed?

I normally consume massive amounts of junk foods. Softdrinks, candy and fast food especially.

I've finally decided to be serious about losing some weight, so I polished off the rest of my snacks and started a 'diet' Monday. I've been eating two meals each day and drinking diet drinks and water. I stopped salting my foods post-cooking. At my meals, I eat what I normally do, just reasonable portions.

I work on my feet in a fast paced environment full time. Does this constitute exercise?

Should I lose weight doing this? I've noticed that I have a lot more energy now.