This is the 2012 thread with some links:
The BMI calculator and % calculator: http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm
Link back to the original "To Declutter Fat Challenge" in case you want to go back to some of the links posted there:
http://unclutterer.com/discuss/topic/to-declutter-fat-challenge/page/68
May the 2012 challenge begin! :D
Bon chance les hommes!!!
Erm, it's mostly les femmes, unless some stray men join in!
I just joined a 700 miles in 2012 group on a running forum, accountability :)
NTCH: Thanks for starting us off in the new year!
Lottielot: I bet you make 700 miles by June. 700 is less than 2 miles a day, and the way you've been training -- easy peasy.
Looking over the last year, I exceeded my expectations. I thought 1 pound a week was pushing it, but I've averaged 1.34 lbs a week, for a total as of last Monday of 69.6 lbs. I'm really hoping that when I step on the scale tomorrow -- the official end of week 52 -- it will be at least 70 lbs. gone. I've gone from a BMI of 34.1 (obese, and fatter than 82% of women of my age and height) to a BMI of 23.8 (well within the normal range, and thinner than 76% of my peers.)
Sizes are a bit random, but I've gone down at least five sizes. My closet has been purged of everything that doesn't fit; I've read up on what clothing flatters my tall, athletic body type and the replacement clothing I've bought emphasizes my good points and downplays that which should be hidden from view. I have 1/2 the number of clothes, 10x as much to wear.
I've gone from being a slug to going to pilates twice a week, swimming for a half hour every day in the summer, and walking more. I've joined the President's Fitness Challenge, earned my active lifestyle award and am within 6,000 of the 40,000 points needed getting my "bronze" award. That's 110+ hours of exercise since June.
This year I'm going to continue all the good things I have been doing, including Weight Watchers online. I have another 6 pounds to lose to reach my goal weight -- I might decide to go down a bit more -- maybe as much as 10 lbs. -- from there. Or maybe not. The challenge will be to maintain the loss after I don't have the reinforcement of a lower number on the scale; I'm not fooling myself that that will be easy.
I want to find another form of exercise -- or two-- to replace the summer swimming, which had been good aerobic activity and also toned my arms. DH and I have committed to walk more and have put several 5-10-15K volksmarches on our calendars over the next few months -- the first is next weekend. We found a nice local park to walk in -- wooded trails -- and have mapped out some measured routes in the neighborhood. I'm thinking about the 100 push-up program to work on upper body strength. I got a heart rate monitor for Christmas :)
I'm going to try to avoid new clothes purchases until I reach my goal weight, although I might need a new (smaller) pair of jeans.
Buena suerte, amigas!
This week's menu (we're off to the store):
Today, Sunday: pork sirloin kabobs on the grill, green beans, baked sweet potatoes, big salad
Monday: ratatouille (with the last eggplant from the garden -- it's made and mellowing in the fridge), over whole wheat gnocchi and a big tossed salad. Think I might also make a big pot of lentil/kale soup for lunch since DH will be home.
Tuesday: Turkey chili and cornbread mini muffins
Wednesday: Chicken Tikka Masala, spinach, brown rice, cucumber salad
Thursday: Chili dogs, cole slaw, oven roasted root vegetables
Friday: vegetable stir fry, refried brown rice. Or maybe fish. We need to eat more fish.
What have I been thinking all these months?
I can just pick and choose from SIT menus.No need to make my own menus.
A big thank you ,SIT!!!
( seriously, I really should! those menus look like they come from a restaurant!)
Goals, by 31.12.2012:
- Weight: x kg less
- Nutrition: healthy diet
- Exercise: stronger heart and better muscle strength
- Sleep: regular rhythm and 8h per night
- Stress: less stress, better tools for tackling it
- Migraine: fewer attacks
- Wellness (haircuts, massage, etc.): infrequently, a normal part of the lifestyle (no guilt trips)
Goals, January:
- Weight: 2-3 kg down
- Nutrition: Stage 2 of the SparkDiet
- Exercise: short walk at the beach every day after lunch, swimming in the house pool a few times a week, buy gym pass and start the strength training
- Sleep: try to get DH onboard the regular sleep rhythm
- Stress: read Happiness by Dalai lama and Cutler
- Wellness: massage on Wednesday
I'm going to try for the pound a week. That would put me back about to pre-babies weight by this time next year. No-one believes I used to be 50 lbs lighter - my frame hides the pounds well, and I know exactly what to wear to mask the belly! - but I know the weight is there and my knee hurts when I weigh this much... also, I know I'm in the risk group for glucose intolerance and losing the weight before I hit the big 40 will really help reduce the chances of ending up diabetic in my 50s.
... I don't own a scale. Have to go buy one. Guh.
I actually lost nearly 10 lbs this year without even trying, just from cutting out soda pop and fast food. Now it's all about portion control and adding exercise to the mix.
DM, I don't use measuring cups nearly as often as the scale. Mine is sitting permanently on the countertop also for the sake of kitty; his food has to be weighed too.
i plan to lose 12 kg this year. this is a lot but i feel i can make it. i plan to restart WW, just counting points and reporting them precisely. plus an idea that is quiete new: once i have lost 10kgs with the magic soup diet but i think WW is healthier over all. the idea is to combine WW and the magic soup diet: have a soupday a week, a soupweek per month and soupmonth per year. this is doable. i do it with vegetarian meals and its a lovable solution.
LOL ninakk - I meant a scale to weigh myself, not the food!
I was a DSC for 2 years and know exactly what and how much to eat to control blood sugar, lose weight and maintain - I just like food too much and get almost no exercise ... been sloppy the past few years.
Simply serving myself less and then stopping and asking myself "Are you REALLY still hungry" before dipping back in for more is the key for me - I just like to EAT. When I stop after the first helping I lose weight fairly easily.
Well last year was a down (and up unfortunately) journey with my weight. So my goal this year is to finally reach my goal-weight of 65kg and become fitter and stronger. Last year with the help of calorie counting and exercise I managed to lose 10kg for the first time ever but then I hit a plateau and back pain kept me from exercising and now after 3-4 months of not exercising or calorie counting I have put back on about 3kgs. So right now I have around 27kg to lose.
To kick off the new year I am going to do the p90x exercise and diet program for the next 90 days starting tomorrow. It's more an exercise program then a diet but of course if you watch your calories and follow the diet and exercise 1-1.5h 6x a week you will lose weight. It's pretty intense (you'll find a lot of videos if you google it) but I found out last year that I actually enjoy pushing myself physically and more then just losing the weight I want to be healthy and strong and this will provide both. I'm hoping to lose at least 7-8kg in the 90days (10 would be amazing) but as I know I'll also be building muscle any loss will be welcome. As you exercise a lot you do need to eat to fuel your body but I will be counting calories as well.
Looking forward to another year of lots of uncluttered fat with all of you.
I can see it might be a bit tricky to use the food scale for weighing the body.
Meal plan - with notes on what is missing right now:
Monday: chicken soup
Tuesday: feta salad and half a portion of spaghetti
Wednesday: risgrynsgröt (rice porridge; need to use up milk and didn't make it on Christmas eve)
Thursday: chicken breast with rice and spinach - 1 breast needed
Friday: to mom and dad's
Saturday: lunch/onion soup by Le Cordon Bleu, dinner/macaroni casserole - 1 litre of fattiest milk needed
Sunday: something tortillaish with greene sauce and beans from the freezer - tortillas and something needed
It is pretty impressive how easy it is to just keep a full yet stagnant pantry if one does no meal planning!
8 mile run, I intended 10 but dh scuppered that plan, but once I got back it instantly starting pouring with rain so 8 miles is just fine :) Followed by a party with a few glasses of champagne, hic. Dh is on the wagon so I won't drink much in January, he's the one who opens the wine in our house, I can take it or leave it usually. This year I don't care what the scale says, I probably weigh 5 kilos more than my lowest ever, but I'm much more muscle-y than I was then. I'm going by how my clothes feel , if a size 12 feels tight then I need to step up the exercise and not eat too much crap.
Susan: you are an inspiration! What an amazing journey: we are all so proud of your achievements. And your menus are certainly great too :) Now I just need to indoctrinate you into running or aerobics classes :) Walking is fine, but you don't get the whole endorphin thing going! And I find classes are so motivating if you have a good teacher, nice people and good music. My favourite strength training session is Body Pump: I even love biceps if I get to sing along to Bon Jovi really loudly to take my mind off it! Body Combat is sooo much fun, imagine all the stresses of the week in front of you and you're punching and kicking them into submission, very therapeutic :) And there are women in their 70s who do the classes, they are truly for everyone. I'm trying a new class (Bokwa) in a few weeks, it looks quite dance-y and funky so I will have to put my inhibitions to one side and just make an arse of myself along with everyone else. Or you could do a couch to 5k program, they start off slow and ease you from walking into running. Sounds perfect in winter, then swimming in summer :) But I'm sure you will find your favourite exercise somehow without me nagging!
Last year I was 29.3 BMI and classified as overweight (tho I hid it well and didn't even realize the classification) and at the 46th percentile. I went down to 22.4 BMI and classified as normal range and at the 7th percentile. Hooray for little miracles and Dr. Simeon & HCG and my avant-garde doctor. Oh yes, and the "To Declutter Fat Challenge."
Re clothing: I had a black sweater and stretchy form fitting tops in the garage to eventually give away because when I looked at them I though, "Did I really get into those before? There is no way I'm ever going to fit that ever again! God they're so small. Wow, I really wore those before?" Well, I took those Justin Case tops and sweater out of the garage, washed them, and am wearing them comfortably now. :) Still don't quite believe it. Must be one of those 5-HTP dreams.
Day 308/R3-d99-phase3d65=phase4d45: +4.4, up .2 from yesterday extra extra stress yesterday and extra extra stress today - I'll take it since I had a big new years dinner last night w/ lots of starch (new base wt = wt on last day of taking the drops) ... Emergencies continue today ... stress (and my response to it) may affect my wt and keep it up one way or another. Then had a deadline on Friday and then at the last minute a request for something that day so had to scramble - more stress - got it done. When I have lots of stress I remember the saying, "This too shall pass." Also started rereading the Gabriel Method book and started a program with a holistic practitioner. When it rains it typhoons.
This week will be an out of the ordinary stressful week, not necessarily bad, just stress that comes with changes, but stressful nonetheless. Arghhhhhhh.
Day 50 of 5-HTP - started supplements from a holistic practitioner yesterday so won't do the 5-HTP for a bit.
Day 1 of supplements from HP. Gosh, I hope they don't make me gain weight ...
Have steaks marinating that I'll cook tonight for dinner and will freeze some in one meal packets as well as have left overs for the rest of the week. It was this or freezing them to cook later and steaks are better fresh. BTW, that piccalilli relish is terrific with steak!
MY BMI is 26.2 ("overweight"). My goal BMI is 20 (low end of "normal").
For eating changes, I plan to slightly increase the amount of lean meats/poultry/fish and of vegetables, while slightly decreasing the amount of grains. Nothing radical, just a slight tipping of the scales toward more protein and more non-grain plant foods.
I've been eating a lot of grains - good organic whole grains and brown rice - but now I'm thinking: What do they use to fatten livestock? Grains, of course. Grain-fed beef. Grains are very efficiently converted to body fat. So even though they're packed with nutrients, it won't hurt me to decrease the grains a bit if I also increase lean protein and veggies.
I'm above 30 somewhere, 31 or 32. You obviously see that I'm overweight, but that much no way. My body just spreads it evenly and that is actually a reason for it having been rather difficult to admit that I do look large. I rarely watch myself in the mirror and then it is usually from the front only, so when I get a glance at my profile it is shocking. I might as well reveal my goal weight loss, 30 kg or 66 lbs.
BMI is a funny creature. Asians are not healthy at 25 which is the border between normal and overweight in for instance Caucasians like myself, but for them the border is somewhere between 23 and 24 as far as I know. And if one is very trained with almost no body fat to talk about, but the visible parts are mainly muscle tissue, the value gets distorted too. It's good to take BMI with a grain of salt.
Ella, the bread industry here recommends six slices of bread daily... Worth remembering where information comes from and who has monetary interests in what. Six slices!!! Even if it is the dark kind which is so abundant here it is pure madness.
Ninakk: I'm tall, too (5'9") and my weight has always been evenly distributed -- there are some people now who realize I look different, but don't think immediately of weight loss because they never thought of me as overweight. Little did they know . . . I agree that BMI is just a statistical indicator -- originally designed for public health professional to talk about trends. I got DH a body fat monitor for Christmas,which can allegedly tell the difference between muscle and fat :)
Lottielot: I hate running. Sorry. I had to do it daily when I was in the Army -- for the first five or six years wearing combat boots, which almost destroyed my feet and ankles (the army has since wised up.) Right now my goal is to find something I actually look forward to doing so that I will keep at it, rather than have to force myself. Brisk walking -- and pushing myself a bit by wearing the heart rate monitor -- might be the best I can do right now. I hold open the possibility, though :)
Bmi is a load of crap, I think. Useful if you're very overweight but otherwise a bit of a waste of time as it completely ignores body shape, muscle etc. If I was anywhere near the bottom of the healthy range I would probably be a skeleton!
Susan: I was just throwing out ideas for you, obviously it's not sustainable to do an exercise you don't enjoy. But you seem like the sort of person who would enjoy the discipline of running, given your approach to weight loss. Besides, I hated running too till I made myself enjoy it! I did the same with Rebound, I did that class for 2 years before I got fit enough to enjoy it. I love walking, but that alone wouldn't keep me anywhere near fit enough, plus it would take too much time. Why don't you set yourself the goal of trying a new type of exercise each month? You could do dancing for a month, or tennis, or a new type of class like Zumba, or whatever is available near you which fits into your life. I know the sort of thing I like (individual effort but sociable, varied, non-competitive), but everyone's different. I would hate team sports, but other people love them. It's always good to try new things though, I was thinking I will try roller skating some time. Ds1 is obsessed with it and I see lots of adults there looking like they're having a great time, and it's excellent exercise, I'm going to give it a go soon :)
Disappointed, but no surrender -- up 2/10 of a lb today, for a total loss for the year of 69.4 lbs. Really hoped to lose that 4/10 of a lb and make it an even 70. Not sure what I did to make the scale rise -- but the last few months have been up and down with less than 5 lbs lost. Mimi suggested soup, and I am thinking one day a week limiting myself to soup and salad for dinner to see if that helps me break through.
Lottie -- I agree, I need something else :) This month we are adding the volksmarching. Have two scheduled for January, on the 7th and the 28th. They are longer than we usually walk and we have the added incentive of getting our little books stamped. I'm also going to start the 100 pushup program tomorrow. I don't want to do a gym trial this month -- from what I've read, a lot of them see their membership almost DOUBLE in January and are madhouses. By the beginning of March most of the resolution people have left.
One of the local Curves places lets you pop in on Tuesday mornings for $4 to try zumba. That's on next month's list. I am not a dancer at all, and am pretty sure this is not the right thing for me, but would like to try. I might try Curves -- sounds less overwhelming that a full scale gym, and if I don't have to sign a contract it would be worth a shot.
I haven't totally written off running. Depending on how the pushup thing goes, I might try couch to 5K. I can do that on my treadmill to start.
Oh well -- onward and downward.
Lottielot, thanks for the bmi comment! I can't agree more. I'm 5 foot 6, and admittedly do weigh about 50 lbs more than suggested, but I'm not anywhere near obese which the BMI tries to tell me I am. I have extremely broad shoulders and long arms (shirt shopping is a nightmare), a short waist, and long legs. My mother was 5 foot 10, my grandfather on that side well over 6 foot and I inherited the bones without the height.
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