Re: Lose Weight 4

Savvy_Sue

because we could agree that I'm not obese on them ...

Caterina, don't feel such a failure, it's only a couple of days, and what a super outcome! Put it behind you and move on.

Austin, welcome, agree with what's already been said, don't know about the Lighter for Life thingy, but rather than focussing on your weight think about your health. Aim to eat healthier food and move more - walking, swimming, whatever you can manage to do! And have you talked to your GP? If you're still on medication for the PCOS, can that be changed in any way to help you? Does the surgery offer 'excercise on prescription' or other help?

And is there a PCOS support group which can give advice - I know one of the pieces of advice given is that it's a good idea to lose weight, but since I believe that's also one of the key symptoms - well!

All the best!

Sue

VelvetGlove

Hi Austin, I don't have any helpful info on the PCOS thing but I have heard of LighterLife & went to one of the intro meetings to find out a bit more about it as the claims of 1 stone weight loss per month sounded amazing!

They have a website which doesn't have much information on it at all.

The meeting I went to was a gathering of around 6 people & we sat and watched a video about how wonderful the diet was, how quickly it worked and how great it made them all feel, (the usual 'I've done it so can you' sales pitch). Then after a private weigh in and filling out a registration form the consultant went on to talk about the diet. It is a NO FOOD diet, you only have shakes, soups or a meal replacement bar (total of 3 per day), which are sold to you at £45 for one weeks supply. You can't let anything else go past your lips other than lots and lots of water (I can't remember exactly how much but I know she said more than 2 litres a day minimum). My friend tried the diet out (she lives up North) and her weekly cost was £49 so I think the consultant can charge within a certain range perhaps? The idea sounds a lot like the Cambridge Diet.

After I think it was 10 weeks on the food replacement packs, you then do 1 of 2 things: if you are happy with your weight loss you start to slowly introduce solid foods back into your diet on a planned basis. If you want to go on to lose more weight then you start again with a new group of people for weeks 1-10 again.

You have to have blood pressure checked and given to the consultant every 4 weeks as well as a full medical and doctor approval letter before you can start in the first place (was told the cost of that could be around £55 depending on your doctor). Each week when you go to get weighed in, there is a counselling session where the group discuss their relationship towards food and try to work out a better attitude to food.

I decided it wasn't for me but I did do a lot of reading up and found a helpful forum on the Discovery Health Site which made for some interesting reading. Look for the thread 'LighterLife Member - The New Main Thread' and that should give you some more information. Hope that all helps!

Caterina - don't beat yourself up over a few things like that. What you need to do is remember that even when you are dieting, life still goes on. Perhaps you could use that experience to think what you could do next time something like that happens? If you are on a green day then perhaps you could have a can of Sainsbury's vegetable ravioli (which is free on a green day) tucked into your handbag, as long as you have access to a microwave to warm it up On a red or a green day you could have had an omelette from the canteen or maybe if you counted the bread as B box how about a tasty chicken salad sandwich (red day) or egg salad sandwich (either day)? Don't think of it as a failure, think of it as a way to discover how to cope with the hurdles life is going to suddenly lob into your path That way you benefit from your 'mistakes' in the future. Don't feel like a failure, as that is the best way for your subconscious to win and get you to stop your healthier eating lifestyle. Take it a day at a time and just make choices. Mullerlite yoghurts and fruit are free on red or green days too and can be enough to tide you over until you can fall on something a bit more substantial and within plan It sounds like you have a really rewarding job that you love so maybe with a bit of preparation and planning you can avoid the skipping of lunch (I think I'd faint from hunger if I even tried to skip a meal!) and resorting to unfriendly foods.

Sue - it sounds as if the check up went well. I'm curious.... did you manage to strip off before getting weighed?

As for me, I had a lovely roast pork and Branston pickle sandwich for lunch today with 2 apples and a banana and every mouthful was so scrummy! So much better when you have time to make your own lunch, cheaper too!

Savvy_Sue

VelvetGlove wrote:

Sue - it sounds as if the check up went well. I'm curious.... did you manage to strip off before getting weighed?

No, but I whipped my shoes off pdq, and my cardigan which had my phone in the pocket. If she'd left it a few minutes I'd have kept my T-shirt off too, had to take that off so she could check my heart was beating, which it was, very nicely thank you! Mind you I'm sure the excitement of being the weight I wanted to be put my blood pressure up! :rotfl:

I admit I was cheating a bit, because I was a teensy bit over the half-stone mark, but I did have some clothes on and when I got off the scales you could see they were slightly over-reading from zero to start with. Anyway the nurse was quite happy to put down what I said!

I'll see what the bad news is on my own scales tomorrow ...

Caterina

Thanks for the support and kind words! I am still a bit off-balance, went out with my husband tonight and we had a chinese meal (all vegetarian and the rice was boiled - not too greasy) but I don't feel too bad as this is THE meal we have been promising each other to have while the kids are away on holiday. Also, I was very careful to have only a bun with minimal peanut butter for breakfast, a banana and small piece of camembert for lunch and a sesame bar and an apple as snacks - so I think that I kept the calories fairly low during the day. And I have walked MILES with a heavy baby strapped to my chest during my work hours!

I have bought a nice punnet of organic strawberries in Waitrose (reduced of course!) and that's what I am going to have for breakfast tomorrow, together with fat-free organic strawberry yoghurt.

Tomorrow afternoon and evening I am going to the Vitality Show (free ticket, courtesy of a friend's friend who could not use hers!) and will get lots of inspiration - and hopefully loads of freebies - I am going there with an empty rucksack and couple of bags to fill with low fat yoghurts and fancy samples.

Thanks again, this support is invaluable!

Caterina

littleangel

Savvy_sue - Congratulations on getting "approved" by the hospital! (and without having to get naked either, which is always an added bonus!!!)

Savvy_Sue wrote:

I've never managed to get into that whole body fat % thing but maybe I should measure my waist again

Definitely worth doing! Sounds like you're losing inches along with the pounds, which is just the way it should be. I'd suggest that maybe it's time for a wee shopping trip, but that's not really money saving, is it???

jamieo wrote:

As for the shot putter thingy, you would likely have to put on another 30lbs of muscle, and drop 18% bodyfat before you looked like that.

How do you do your bf calculations?

Thanks, I think I was just being a bit melodramatic. I've re-weighed and I'm not sure what was going on that day, but I'm back to the same weight I was 6 weeks ago with 3lb fat off and 3lb muscle on. Which is success in my book! I have a set of scales that does bf calculations - I get quite annoyed with the medical profession who haven't quite caught on to the fact that weight alone isn't the best indicator.

Caterina wrote:

Now I feel like I am a failure - will I ever be back on course? It is so easy to slip!

No! You're not a failure!!! Losing weight is about overall eating and exercise patterns, not about what happened on one or two occasions. As long as the 'slips' are the exception rather than the rule, you'll continue to lose weight, while still having a normal life. And a normal life is one where sometimes you will 'slip' whether it's shortbread with a new mum, chocolate cake for a friend's birthday, or the occasional takeaway. Your body actually works harder on a variable calorie intake than a sustained lower one - it gets used to a low intake and will adjust accordingly to use less calories. Whereas if most of the time it's low but sometimes it's higher, it never gets settled at the lower level. (This is scientifically established, it's not something I'm just making up as an excuse for the odd blowout)

Austin, welcome! Both my sisters have recently been diagnosed with PCOS (maybe I do as well but I've been on the pill for years which masks / reduces the symptoms so who can tell) - both are slightly overweight as a result - I'll ask them if there's anything that they've found out that might help and will come back to you.

To everyone else, keep up the good work, enjoy the longer nights and start thinking about yummy salads and the opportunity to exercise in the evening without tripping over tree roots in the dark or getting lost (or is that just me?)

Linda12_2

Hi everyone. The password for the SW website this wek is RECIPE.

What a meeting we had yesterday. There were quite a few in the queue so my friends and I waited until it went down a bit. There were lots of gleeful shouts coming from the ladies who had got weighed. Some people were losing 5 and 6 pounds so after a while we decided to bite the bullet and step on the scales and it showed that I had put on half a pound. Not bad considering I had had a very sweet tooth all week and failed to resist on a few occasions. Then the scales were going up and down for some of the ladies behind me. After a bit of a chat we decided that the scales were throwing a wobbly.
I was volunteered to try them out again and this time it should I had lost 3 pounds. :j I re-weighed myself 4 times and each time they rested on 3 pounds weight loss even to the half pound.
These are the correct SW scales which are serviced frequently so We dont know what was going on.
There were an awful lot of happy ladies yesterday with good weightlosses but I am going to take a box of tissues with me next week because I think there will be an awful lot of unhappy ladies whn they find out that the scales may be wrong.
One week nearer to my sons wedding on May 7th and I have finally bought a suit so I can relax a bit now.
Have a good week lots of love and a special hug to velvetglove for all the support she gives to everyone xxxx

elona

I get weighed tonight so wish the scales there would be as obliging as "I have lost the plot" - Well done everybody - at least we are trying (in my case I am very trying!)

jaimeo

which bf scales do you use angel?

some are notoriously crap. you are most likely losing more fat than it says.

great thing is- at worst its giving you a conservative estimate of weightloss.

how much fat do you have to lose?

i ask because i started with over 60lbs to lose so though i weight train i dont do bf testing at the moment as i know scale should go down each week regardless after all you have to use quite a bit of energy to build muscle!

i'm rambling now but i always feel a bit nervous for people on the tanita scales, when a glass of water'll change your reading.

or for women weighing in in general- as someone said above, you have to look at these things long-term for trends. This is sound motivational advice for men. Its essential for women. My gf's weight varies by about 4-5lbs across the month. BUT she is losing.

good luck everyone

lazylins

hi,

as i havent posted on here for sometime now, i though i would pop in and say hi!!

hope all of you are ok, and still losing :j

i started my diet on the 4th of jan this year, and so far have gone from 15st 9lb down to 13st 6lb. iam aiming for my third stone now, (i bet with my brother i would reach it before him, its really given me the want to do it)

what sort of weights are we all aiming for? i was origionally aiming for 9 and a half, but have now realised thats probably not a very realistic goal, so i have set it to 11st for now. but iam just trying for a stone at a time, and its doing well for me to do that.

hope evryones does well in the coming weeks :T :beer:

Caterina

elona wrote:

I get weighed tonight so wish the scales there would be as obliging as "I have lost the plot" - Well done everybody - at least we are trying (in my case I am very trying!)

Elona I am sure you haven't lost the plot, just had a bit of a setback. There will be times when your 'diet button' is on the 'off' setting and it is difficult to go back on course but if you persevere I am sure you will be back on course before you know it!

I have had a bit of a funny couple of days but seem to be back on course *touch wood* too!

Love and best wishes to all dieters here

Caterina