NPR Fitness Group

[Mrs.Darcs]

I get horrendous caffeine withdrawal headaches, so I'm going really slow I've cut down from a medium, then a large non-fat latte and 2-3 cans of (diet) caffeinated soda with sometimes a later afternoon Dunkin break, to 2 medium non-fat lattes (one espresso, 1 chai...except Fridays when I will allow myself a PSL), and 2 sodas. Only herbal tea in the evening (although I splurged on a hot cider last night to get me through the debate). I have Raynaud's disease so cutting down on caffeine will help reduce those symptoms, I hope.

I also HATE drinking water, but I bought the little flavor drops and I'm forcing it down. I prefer room temperature sparkling water, that I can drink straight...I should pick some up.

I've stopped eating after 8 pm. This has helped me in the past, I'm hoping it will now

I've been making sure to eat a meal bar in the morning to boost my metabolism. I have to wait a half hour after my thyroid pill, so it's not right away, but still it should help.

Cutting out ALL fast food.

Good old fashion calorie counting. Entering the food in the app is helping keep me accountable.

Only one glass of wine/port/sherry a week. I know French Women don't get fat says I can have one a day, but I need to reduce calories more than that for now (I only generally have 2 glasses a week as it is, so this isn't a big deal at all. It's harder in the winter when I want the warmth loveliness of a glass of port in the evenings)

My baby steps plan is:
~ to reduce my sugar next, as I've taken up hard candies to keep me from snacking on higher calorie options, like my favorite 600 calorie (!) muffin, ice cream or salt during the day. I want to switch to sugar free gum maybe?

~Start my stupid vitamin D that I keep forgetting the doctors want me to take.

~Start real workouts again

~Replace morning coffee with herbal tea, cut out the caffeinated soda...again, to manage my addiction to caffeine, this will be slow.

~Get back up to 80 oz of yucky water per day

~Re-read French Woman and start following Mireille's rules again. Once I get my metabolism back up

[Mrs.Darcs]

Crap! Lab cake today....I'm gonna try to refuse it guys, wish me luck!

[Mike]

Good luck!

Besides, it's really dry. It wouldn't be worth it.

[Mike]

And I'm with you on the caffeine addiction. The withdrawal headaches are horrible. Maybe there's a patch for this.

[Mrs.Darcs]

Resisted cake, now to resist cookies in the meeting in an hour and a half. I will probably not manage to not have a cookie, Upstate cookies are so good.

[Mike]

I wouldn't touch the cookies. I heard Nathan licked them.

[Kyle]

I always take my thyroid medicine first thing when I wake up with a glass of water. Then I make coffee, let it cool, drink it while I watch the news, and check my phone in the morning for an hour. Then I eat breakfast, shower and leave.

[Mrs.Darcs]

I am jealous of your leisurely morning

[Elle]

[Ronster]

Well, this is me...

I get up at 3:30 or at least my alarm goes off then.
I take my vitamins with a half cup of skim milk and have a slice or two of pepperidge farm pumpkin swirl bread on my drive to work with either a glass of tea
Ge to work at 5:05 and 5 minutes later I am on a machine in the gym until 5:30-ish..The amount of workout I get is related to how quickly I get out of bed...some days are better than others
At my desk by 6:00 where my guilty pleasure greets me...6 oreos and a coke zero
I can function now.

we have an 8:30 break where I can have some instant grits (I am from Georgia and we do that here) and a boiled egg or 2(If I did weight lifting I have the eggs within an hour of finishing the workout)...

That pretty much is a standard morning for me

Do I need the oreos? No, but they are the one thing I let myself have aside from Coke Z(which is 0 calories)

Hard candies are a good substitute especially in the cooler months.

What do I:
Eliminate completely?
fries. I am not very good at quitting things I like.
Cook differently?
Baking and grilling more
Drink differently:
decreasing Coke Z and increasing water...up to 11 cups yesterday (I agree, yuck!)
Exercise differently:
Decreasing my weight lifting in order to increase cardio time. Even small changes add up.

[Kyle]

Phew. Had to leave work an hour early yesterday because of "plumbing" problems, and still have them this morning. Haven't eaten since yesterday's lunch.

[Mike]

Do you know a good plumber? Have you tried Angie's List?

[Elle]

Question: is the metamucil actually helping? Have y'all experimented with other options (E.g. Flaxseed? Chia?) or maybe had to rule some out due to gluten? I only ask because when I was younger I tried metamucil but it caused more problems than it solved. Eating lots of fiber in other ways plus water was way more helpful.

[Mike]

Metamucil = awesome.

It's just simple. I have a glass every morning while I'm waiting for the dogs to finish eating. I don't forget. And it works very well for me.

A better option would be eating healthy, but that's not in the cards at this time.

[Kyle]

[Elle]

I've lost zero weight, this is a really, really bad week coming up in terms of required dinners out and work luncheons and no sleep and overwhelming stress (followed by Halloween, which is going to be horrible with a house full of candy), and I need to redouble the mental focus on this. Very easy to get casual about an extra 100-calorie snack, or taking a few bites of something random on the assumption that it won't count, and I'm not losing weight anyway...

But of course you're not losing weight after one week. The real problem is that I've been trying in a more casual way to exercise more and diet ever since last spring, and nothing has happened despite a significant increase in exercise. Am I really eating that much more to compensate, or is it just that I normally eat so many calories that it's going to take a while for the body to adjust to a new norm? Whatever, it's one week and you can't tell anything from one week. I just wish I would see, like, one pound difference on a scale after ten days of rigid food monitoring.

[Kyle]

The only reason I'm losing weight is: (1) how tremendously overweight I am to start the process; and (2) I'm only dieting and not exercising (which isn't good). If I was exercising and actually developing muscle mass, my weight loss would be much less. But that's not what it's about anyways.

Just keep at it. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

[Elle]

Slightly over two weeks of careful calorie monitoring. Zero pounds lost. I seriously do not know. Is my body rebelling, or trying to store up as much as possible for the winter hibernation? This is very irritating. I used to read things like "dieters get discouraged when they don't see progress; give up" and I'd be like ha ha ha, tralala, I would never do that! Well, it is difficult to force yourself not to eat things you really want to eat when you have been doing it for a little while and nothing good comes of it. However, I have long practice in this general skill set that should serve me well.

[Ronster]

Yeah, just stick it out. I am not seeing any real changes in my weight at all, but I have been under my calorie goal about 90% of the time.

I have learned to like a lot of newer foods which keeps me from being limited to calorie heavy items. Some fats are good and there is a minimum calorie intake you need or else you do get the starvation/calorie hoarding effect. MFP will give you warnings about that. Unfortunately my mind goes into "devourer" mode when things like that are said, thought or implied.

Stick with it. you will be glad you did. If I haven't quit the program then you can't!

[Kyle]

Confession- Not a strong weekend for me. I traveled last week and left the left-over dinners I planned to take in the work fridge. Ended up eating out of gas stations (lots of chips, beef jerkey, slim jims and candy bars), and then when I got home on the weekend had a "Well, I fucked it up!" attitude and didn't stick to my prescribed meals (had seconds, etc.). It was bad enough that I didn't weigh myself this morning. Weak.

Anyways- today is a new day! Let's remember-- when we fuck up we just start moving again in the right direction!