Frump to Fab 2018 - Fabulous Dahhhhlings

humptydumptybits

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Spuds are not too bad if you keep an eye on the portion size and don't have them too often in the form of chipped, roasted or fried . I like my spuds too.

I like them every way, my favourite food and the one I could not give up. I am easily pleased, who needs haute cuisine if you can have new potatoes dripping with butter?

humptydumptybits

sugarbaby125 wrote: »

Hello Ladies,

7DW you had done brilliantly on your weight loss. All of your hard work has paid off

LL 2.6lbs in one week is great as well

Welcome back Tony's Friend

I went to a free event in Brixton Library that featured The Pegasus Opera Choir which is a Black classical choir. There were other adult choirs and a children's choir and The Lambeth Youth Classical Choir. They were all excellent voiced and so musically talented. :j:D As was the conductor, who was quite a character but a fit, good looking man with dark hair and Mediterranean skin.

It was the 1st time I had attended an event in Brixton Library, but it will not be my last.

Life is giving me a few knocks at the moment which are beyond my control, but I am making the best of free and inexpensive events that bring me real joy and open up my mind and my life to new and exciting experiences.:D I am re-filling my cup so that it is always at least half full

Sounds like a lovely experience. I love my library but it isn't as exciting as yours. I'm hoping to visit the library I used to go to when I was a child when I visit my birth city soon. It is a listed Victorian building and although I have driven past it I haven't actually been in it for over 40 years. It was such an important place to me when I was a child and it was threatened with closure but saved which has triggered me wanting to visit it again.

seven-day-weekend

humptydumptybits wrote: »

I like them every way, my favourite food and the one I could not give up. I am easily pleased, who needs haute cuisine if you can have new potatoes dripping with butter?

I like them that way too, but it is a pleasure I have to forgo if I don't want to pile the weight back on.

lessonlearned

SDW. Wow. That is brilliant. Being able to come off the meds is fantastic. Well done.

Polly...I am aiming to try 5:2. Ideally I should do the blood sugar diet but realistically I know I couldn't cope with that.

I have lost 12 lbs since May. Getting there slowly.

seven-day-weekend

lessonlearned wrote: »

SDW. Wow. That is brilliant. Being able to come off the meds is fantastic. Well done.

Polly...I am aiming to try 5:2. Ideally I should do the blood sugar diet but realistically I know I couldn't cope with that.

I have lost 12 lbs since May. Getting there slowly.

Well done you!!

lessonlearned

Thanks SDW. I just need to up my game now. :rotfl: hence my Christmas target - 10 lbs.

Had a lovely evening, visiting family. I noticed they had a copy of the blood sugar diet lying around. DILs sister is now staying with my son and DIL for a few months, whilst she studies 'medical English", a course designed to help doctors from overseas get up to speed with the required technical language and medical terminology. She Is watching her blood sugar levels too.

Like you I also need to watch my cholesterol levels. They were starting to creep but I think even just losing 12lbs will have helped. I need to get them checked. I haven't needed meds for either. I was (just) within an acceptable range for cholesterol so declined statins. I am pre-diabetic rather than having developed full blown diabetes but even so I am determined to get back down to a normal range. I saw what uncontrolled diabetes did to my mum, I am NOT going down that route.

I understand that even losing just 10% of your body weight can make a significant improvement to cholesterol, blood sugars and blood pressure so I'm quite pleased with my progress even if it is a bit slow.

Mustn't rest on my laurels or get complacent though.:rotfl:

Onwards and downwards......

moneyistooshorttomention

That's something I hadn't really clicked to - re body weight affecting cholesterol.....

Another thing to tell myself to help "encourage" me to lose the rest of the weight I need to lose. Basically - cholesterol tests have normally come back for me at British average level (around 5). But a more recent one came back at around 9 (ie sky high). There are LOADS of heart attacks in my family (both sides).

Having said that - my slim little mother had a heart attack too - but she is permanently "wound up" with stress. I don't think I've ever known her any different - she just doesn't do "being relaxed":(

Anyway - must keep up the weight loss. Not easy in a society where being overweight is the norm these days - so no-one/but no-one agrees with me that I am overweight.

As I'm going by my clothes (rather than scales) I think I'm losing about 0.5 inches per week as far as I can see. So - that would mean losing 2" every 4 weeks (ie a dress size).

By now I think someone (logically the mother) should give a woman a couple of good-quality classic belts when she is in her early 20's (assuming she's got a decent figure then of course) and suggest to her she keeps those belts for the rest of her life - and makes sure she wears them or tries them on weekly for the rest of her life (apart from any pregnancies and about a couple of months after childbirth) as an easily available check as to how her figure is doing. Also writing down what notches she can do the belt up on comfortably and "at a pinch".

Not being sexist - it would be a good idea for men to do the same:cool:

No confusion about clothes being re-sized or wondering if they've shrunk or expanded - just try on those belts every week and instantly gauge the position.

Fortunately - I've got a belt I know I bought in my early 20's - so that is getting tried on weekly to check progress. I can see from the markings on it that I've worn it in several different positions over the years (and should have kept an eye on things sooner:o). At the moment - it's gone from "Hold it around my waist and it was several inches away from the ends meeting:eek:" to "The two ends now meet in the middle with a slight bit of breathing in - but I can't do it up yet even on the loosest hole". It'll be real progress when I can do up the loosest hole comfortably and actually wear that belt again.

seven-day-weekend

lessonlearned wrote: »

Thanks SDW. I just need to up my game now. :rotfl: hence my Christmas target - 10 lbs.

Had a lovely evening, visiting family. I noticed they had a copy of the blood sugar diet lying around. DILs sister is now staying with my son and DIL for a few months, whilst she studies 'medical English", a course designed to help doctors from overseas get up to speed with the required technical language and medical terminology. She Is watching her blood sugar levels too.

Like you I also need to watch my cholesterol levels. They were starting to creep but I think even just losing 12lbs will have helped. I need to get them checked. I haven't needed meds for either. I was (just) within an acceptable range for cholesterol so declined statins. I am pre-diabetic rather than having developed full blown diabetes but even so I am determined to get back down to a normal range. I saw what uncontrolled diabetes did to my mum, I am NOT going down that route.

I understand that even losing just 10% of your body weight can make a significant improvement to cholesterol, blood sugars and blood pressure so I'm quite pleased with my progress even if it is a bit slow.

Mustn't rest on my laurels or get complacent though.:rotfl:

Onwards and downwards......

If you lose just 1/2 lb a week, you will have lost almost 2 stone in a year It doesn't matter how slow the weight loss is. Much better than being too fast.

moneyistooshorttomention

Best not to read the article in today's online Daily Mail of "Why gaining weight is the secret to a lean physique" - with attendant photos of the nutritionist saying that at 4 different weights. I think she looks best at 72 kg myself and translated that into "How on earth does she look that good when she weighs over 11 stone?"

One answer being - she's 6' tall - so that 11stone plus is spread over more inches of height. But I knocked off 4 lb per extra inch of height to myself and I'd look like a right dumpling at an equivalent weight. I guess it must be true that muscle weighs a lot more than fat then. Her figure is absolutely perfect at any weight. #sighs

I sympathise with LL though - as one does like to lose at least 2lbs (or half an inch off the waist in my case) each week - so you know you are making noticeable progress. Certainly I know some of my clothes are still so worn that they need replacing badly - but I can't do so until down to my proper weight (so as not to waste my money). When you're bargaining on a dress, for instance, being £50-£80 you are not going to "waste money" by buying one that only fits for a few more weeks...

lessonlearned

Good morning lovely ladies

There's a paradox at work though. Weight is not always the culprit, thin people have heart attacks, strokes and get diabetes too. The reason being that thin people can have a lot of visceral fat. The stuff you can't see without a body scan but which wraps itself round the internal organs.

It's a bit of a myth that stress causes heart attacks. Stress won't damage a healthy heart. The human body needs a certain amount of stress - ustress (good stress). The body was designed to cope with acute short term stress, ie the fight or flight mechanism that allowed our cave dwelling ancestors to outrun their predators and catch their food.

It is when stress becomes chronic and when the body is malnourished that stress becomes a problem. Fat people can be malnourished and thin people can have damaged hearts. It's all very complicated and scientists are learning all the time.

Thin people might seem to "get away"with eating junk but give them an MRI and you would probably see a very different picture. literally.

The science of nutrition has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years and we are now learning so much. The old accepted notion that fats are bad and carbs are good has been turned on it's head.

When my mother was first diagnosed with diabetes some 40 years ago she was told to follow a low fat high carb diet, to eat lots of pasta, potatoes, bread. Now we know better.

Fat is not the demon but sugar is. Sugary carbs are lethal. If it's white it's deadly. Rice, pasta and white potatoes, white bread are sugary carbs.

The only way to control blood sugar levels is to ditch the sugary carbs. The quicker the better. Of course the problem is they are highly addictive, even more so than cigarettes or heroin. Going cold turkey with carbs can be too much for some people (carb flu) so some people find it easier to take it slowly.

I think it helps to remember that cakes, biscuits, crisps etc have no nutritional value whatsoever, they are just empty calories. I also think that if you struggle then it's best not to have them in the house. I have found that has helped me. I still alllow myself the odd slice of cake or biscuit. If I go to someone's house and they offer me a biscuit then I will eat one but I won't buy them and I no longer bake.

If they are not in The house then I can't eat them.:rotfl:

Controlling cholesterol is a little more complicated because there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Clear as mud :rotfl: but in simple terms olive oil is good, you should eat some every day. Even butter and our old friend lard (:rotfl:) are not demons. The real bad guy is trans fats.....the stuff you find in commercially baked goods and convenience foods. Banned it from your diet as much as you can.

A cake you make with butter will be far less damaging than the cake you pick up from the supermarket. At least the fat is healthy and you can often sweeten with fruit or honey, even carrots and beetroot can add sweetness.

High blood pressure is also a bit more complicated but we know that eating too much salt is bad, so switching to lo sodium salt will help, as will reducing sugar and banning tans fats from your diet.

I think it's all about moderation - nothing wrong with the occasional "treat" but they have to be just that.....occasional treats and not the daily norm.

Feeling good this morning, had a full 8 hours sleep.

Sun is streaming through the window, blue skies all the way.

Another great day.