Weight Loss PVP: 10 or 12 lbs in 10 or 12 Weeks! [Jan 2 - Mar 19]

[Mistr]

1 hour ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Did my weigh-in this morning and I am up a pound. 

 

That is so frustrating when your weight goes up in spite of your best efforts. Sometimes I think it is just a fluke based on the state of one's GI tract. 

 

Hang in there and  hope all the change shows up next week.

[Elastigirl]

2 hours ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Did my weigh-in this morning and I am up a pound. This is dispiriting because I have been much better with my nutrition since the new year. I've cut down on sweets, soda and fried foods and tried to eat more vegetables and drink more water. I've also been good about tracking my calories but I must be underestimating how much I have been eating. I'm honestly a bit shocked but it is what it is. I just have to keep adjusting things and stay positive. I hope everyone else had a good week! 

Is that just one weigh in? Our weight doesn't just stay the same thing. If you drank more water the day before that could bring you weight up, or if you lifted heavy. It's easier to keep track if you do look at how your weight is trending,rather than one data point. Also, other ways of measuring. Using a measuring tape, taking pictures, and noticing how clothes fit you, help give you more data to see if you are getting closer to your goal. 

If you still feel like you are going wrong way, try bumping your calories down  between 50- 100 calories and see if that helps. And my  problem, is that weekends actually count too, so don't off the rails then. 

['BoutThatActionBoss]

On 1/14/2022 at 3:32 PM, Mistr said:

 

That is so frustrating when your weight goes up in spite of your best efforts. Sometimes I think it is just a fluke based on the state of one's GI tract. 

 

Hang in there and  hope all the change shows up next week.

Yeah I hope you're right! And thank you for your kind words. I had dinner late (full disclosure: a large burrito) so maybe that was part of it? I do hope that I see some results next week though. I didn't have a good day today but am ready to get back on track tomorrow. 

 

 

On 1/14/2022 at 4:36 PM, Elastigirl said:

Is that just one weigh in? Our weight doesn't just stay the same thing. If you drank more water the day before that could bring you weight up, or if you lifted heavy. It's easier to keep track if you do look at how your weight is trending,rather than one data point. Also, other ways of measuring. Using a measuring tape, taking pictures, and noticing how clothes fit you, help give you more data to see if you are getting closer to your goal. 

If you still feel like you are going wrong way, try bumping your calories down  between 50- 100 calories and see if that helps. And my  problem, is that weekends actually count too, so don't off the rails then. 

All of what you said is 100 percent true. I have only weighed myself since the beginning of the month and it's been down one pound and up one pound. I just felt like I had a pretty good week but the scale says otherwise. But I can get back on track this week. I am definitely going to take pics every 10 pounds I lose just so I can see a difference. I also bought one shirt that I will call my 'aspirational' shirt in that it doesn't fit me now, but I hope will fit in 20 pounds or so. 

 

Thanks for the advice! I will try to be mindful of my tracking and if there is no success next week, I will recalibrate how much I am eating. 

 

 

[Shello]

Starting 248.4

Week 1: 245.6 (down 2.8)

Week 2: 245.0 (down 0.6)

 

I was excited for this weigh in because just Sunday morning I was under 244.  But I ended up at Denny's for lunch with my son and had a Grand Slamwich, which was surprisingly amazing or I was just really hungry, and all the seasoned fries.  Weigh in this morning was back up but I'm sure it's more a reflection of that heavy meal and I expect to to recover quickly.  Either way, I'm still on track for a pound a week.  

[Elastigirl]

Forgot to update the spreadsheet last week. Did it today. Down about a pound and a half.  I'm just at a small deficit, so this is good progress.

I am going to try and up my deficit a bit this week. I always eat more on the weekend, so if I can up my deficit by 100-200 calories a day during the week, that will help. Not so much that by the weekend I've lost all my willpower, just enough to give me some wriggle room.

 

 

[Aquarii]

On 1/16/2022 at 1:04 AM, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

On 1/14/2022 at 3:32 PM, Mistr said:

 

Yeah I hope you're right! And thank you for your kind words. I had dinner late (full disclosure: a large burrito) so maybe that was part of it? I do hope that I see some results next week though. I didn't have a good day today but am ready to get back on track tomorrow. 

Another thing to note, outside the effects of a heavy meal, is that high sodium can cause temporary fluid retention. I know Mexican tends to have pretty high sodium levels, and I pretty much always see an uptick in the scale after eating it (or any high sodium meal). It usually drops off in a day or too when the body releases the excess fluid.

['BoutThatActionBoss]

21 hours ago, Aquarii said:

Another thing to note, outside the effects of a heavy meal, is that high sodium can cause temporary fluid retention. I know Mexican tends to have pretty high sodium levels, and I pretty much always see an uptick in the scale after eating it (or any high sodium meal). It usually drops off in a day or too when the body releases the excess fluid.

 

OK that is good to know! I wonder if that was a factor? I tend to get burritos on Thursday nights at work and then weigh myself on Friday mornings so maybe I should pick something with lower sodium? But usually I don't eat that late (almost 11 pm!) so that probably didn't help. Thanks for the insight! 

['BoutThatActionBoss]

Question for people: I have a really bad sweet tooth and have great difficulty moderating sugary treats when I start eating them. Anyone else with a bad sweet tooth been able to find ways to moderate treats? I always seem to do better when I don't have any sweets, but don't necessarily want to say goodbye to ice cream/chocolate/etc forever. Anyone ever find a good middle ground? 

[Terra]

Updated with yesterday's measurement.  Happy to see a little loss.  Lots of salt intake in the time since I took my weight but I won't get on the scale again till next Monday, so its OK. 

 

I had a thought about stress eating...  I am going to try to re-calibrate my reaction to stress.  Instead of eating too much comfort food, I am going to try to do some (ANY) form of exercise.  This retraining has two parts: First I must recognize that I am stress eating (or am wanting to eat) and second, I must walk away from the food and do some movement.  Exercise can be as simple as a few stretches, talking a walk, riding the stationary bike at home, physical therapy exercises or anything I feel like doing that is physical, except eating something.   Writing it here makes my intentions clear to the universe and now  I just need to ...

[Mistr]

51 minutes ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Question for people: I have a really bad sweet tooth and have great difficulty moderating sugary treats when I start eating them. Anyone else with a bad sweet tooth been able to find ways to moderate treats? I always seem to do better when I don't have any sweets, but don't necessarily want to say goodbye to ice cream/chocolate/etc forever. Anyone ever find a good middle ground? 

 

I struggle with the same issue. Eating more veggies helps, because they give my body a natural source of sugar. That does nothing for my chocolate cravings, though.

 

My weight is right back where it was at the beginning of this challenge. 😠

 

This week I am going to prioritize getting enough sleep. That will be in addition to no snacking and staying in a limited eating time window.

 

I actually was good about staying on plan last week. I think we just have too many treats in the house still.

[Shello]

1 hour ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Question for people: I have a really bad sweet tooth and have great difficulty moderating sugary treats when I start eating them. Anyone else with a bad sweet tooth been able to find ways to moderate treats? I always seem to do better when I don't have any sweets, but don't necessarily want to say goodbye to ice cream/chocolate/etc forever. Anyone ever find a good middle ground? 

I have a couple of solutions but I will admit I have been having a difficult time since Halloween.  My Halloween candy stash turned into my Christmas candy staff and now its just a candy stash that has no end.   

 

Solution 1 - buy bite sized candy or healthier options.  I keep a bar of dark chocolate at work.  I break off a couple squares at a time and are only about 30 calories a square.  I otherwise only buy the mini versions of candy to keep around.  It's much easier to try to have 2 or 3  for less than 100 calories. 

 

Solution 2 - I copied this from @deftona and use a snackbox daily.  If you know your meals ahead of time and know how many calories you expect them to be, then fill a snackbox with treats and snacks to get up to your calorie target.  Then you can eat from the box guilt free and stay under your calorie target.  I just do this virtually by logging all the snacks I have room for in a day and eat whatever I want.  Then I'll remove whatever  I didn't eat from my log at the end of the day (or swap it for something of equal calories).  

 

 

16 minutes ago, Terra said:

Updated with yesterday's measurement.  Happy to see a little loss.  Lots of salt intake in the time since I took my weight but I won't get on the scale again till next Monday, so its OK. 

 

I had a thought about stress eating...  I am going to try to re-calibrate my reaction to stress.  Instead of eating too much comfort food, I am going to try to do some (ANY) form of exercise.  This retraining has two parts: First I must recognize that I am stress eating (or am wanting to eat) and second, I must walk away from the food and do some movement.  Exercise can be as simple as a few stretches, talking a walk, riding the stationary bike at home, physical therapy exercises or anything I feel like doing that is physical, except eating something.   Writing it here makes my intentions clear to the universe and now  I just need to ...

This is a great idea!  I can't tell you how many times I've eaten food to make myself feel better only to feel worse after I've mindlessly eaten too much.  

[Terra]

10 minutes ago, Shello said:

I keep a bar of dark chocolate at work.  I break off a couple squares at a time and are only about 30 calories a square. 

I will second this!!!  The darker the chocolate the better.  😏

[Shello]

1 hour ago, Terra said:

I will second this!!!  The darker the chocolate the better.  😏

Yes!  My favorite is 2 pieces of really dark chocolate followed by a slightly sweet piece!  So good!

[Yasha92]

Weight went up and I got mad so didn’t track it… I did write it down though so committing to filling in the spreadsheet this afternoon. What is the point of data if it’s not logged?

[Rurik Harrgath]

Apologies for my absence!  Between the weather and my time working on  the road, I just haven't had the bandwidth... but that's about to change!  I've been dialing in my habits (tracking nutrition and subtracting the ale) alongside more regular workouts, so I'm starting to feel myself again.

 

Sadly I cannot say my minimal efforts have helped the scale.  It hasn't budged but I haven't really buckled down yet.  I said this week would be the true start to my challenge so I'm excited to see what happens!

['BoutThatActionBoss]

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

I struggle with the same issue. Eating more veggies helps, because they give my body a natural source of sugar. That does nothing for my chocolate cravings, though.

 

My weight is right back where it was at the beginning of this challenge. 😠

 

This week I am going to prioritize getting enough sleep. That will be in addition to no snacking and staying in a limited eating time window.

 

I actually was good about staying on plan last week. I think we just have too many treats in the house still.

I am not a big veggie person unfortunately, but I am trying to eat more of late. One thing I saw that Steve Kamb wrote about and that I heard in a podcast, was nutrition should be more about 'addition' of foods than 'subtraction' as it is easier to add things than take them away. So I am trying to add more vegetables, although I hate them. One thing that does help with my cravings is Greek yogurt. I know they are often high in sugar but I won't overeat a Greek yogurt and they make me feel more sated than a Kit Kat or something along those lines. 

 

I hear you on the sleep! I was up late doing dumb things last night and got 5.5 hours of sleep instead of 7.5 and it is all my own fault. 

 

 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Shello said:

I have a couple of solutions but I will admit I have been having a difficult time since Halloween.  My Halloween candy stash turned into my Christmas candy staff and now its just a candy stash that has no end.   

 

Solution 1 - buy bite sized candy or healthier options.  I keep a bar of dark chocolate at work.  I break off a couple squares at a time and are only about 30 calories a square.  I otherwise only buy the mini versions of candy to keep around.  It's much easier to try to have 2 or 3  for less than 100 calories. 

 

Solution 2 - I copied this from @deftona and use a snackbox daily.  If you know your meals ahead of time and know how many calories you expect them to be, then fill a snackbox with treats and snacks to get up to your calorie target.  Then you can eat from the box guilt free and stay under your calorie target.  I just do this virtually by logging all the snacks I have room for in a day and eat whatever I want.  Then I'll remove whatever  I didn't eat from my log at the end of the day (or swap it for something of equal calories).  

 

 

This is a great idea!  I can't tell you how many times I've eaten food to make myself feel better only to feel worse after I've mindlessly eaten too much.  

 

Thank you for these ideas! I like them both and may mess around with each to see if one works. I think maybe at the heart of both is to be mindful about how to incorporate treats. What I mean is that instead of just saying, "today I am going to have a cheat day and allow Oreos" to instead make a plan and be like "today I will allow myself three Oreos". I think where I struggle is when I leave it too open ended and then the wheels come off. There's good stuff to think about here, thank you very much!

[Sylvaa]

32 minutes ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Thank you for these ideas! I like them both and may mess around with each to see if one works. I think maybe at the heart of both is to be mindful about how to incorporate treats. What I mean is that instead of just saying, "today I am going to have a cheat day and allow Oreos" to instead make a plan and be like "today I will allow myself three Oreos". I think where I struggle is when I leave it too open ended and then the wheels come off. There's good stuff to think about here, thank you very much!

 

Not participating in the PVP, but still answering:

 

Is the issue that you eat too many or that you eat them too regularly? One thing I used to do (I don't anymore because we don't buy a lot of sweets) was to pre-package all of the larger boxes into serving sizes. It cut down on the amount people ate (because in our house, no one actually grabbed a serving) AND the frequency (because for us, eating a serving usually took care of the craving). 

 

I have a really bad sweet tooth. So I purposefully incorporate a sweet treat into my daily calorie allotment when I track. It's easier to just account for a cup of hot chocolate or a piece of candy every day rather than binge or feel guilty or go over on calories. I know not everyone can do moderation, but if you can, I definitely recommend it.

[RES]

2 hours ago, Sylvaa said:

I know not everyone can do moderation, but if you can, I definitely recommend it.

I have this problem, if I buy the big bag of M&M's (my weakness) I will eat the big bag of M&M's once I open it...the best thing for me to do is only get it when I want it and only purchase what I'm going to eat.

This leads to me only getting it about once a week, because I don't want to put on pants more often than that 😐 

 

I gained this week, enough that I don't want to log it on the spreadsheet  

['BoutThatActionBoss]

On 1/19/2022 at 10:33 AM, Sylvaa said:

 

Not participating in the PVP, but still answering:

 

Is the issue that you eat too many or that you eat them too regularly? One thing I used to do (I don't anymore because we don't buy a lot of sweets) was to pre-package all of the larger boxes into serving sizes. It cut down on the amount people ate (because in our house, no one actually grabbed a serving) AND the frequency (because for us, eating a serving usually took care of the craving). 

 

I have a really bad sweet tooth. So I purposefully incorporate a sweet treat into my daily calorie allotment when I track. It's easier to just account for a cup of hot chocolate or a piece of candy every day rather than binge or feel guilty or go over on calories. I know not everyone can do moderation, but if you can, I definitely recommend it.

It's honestly both! When I get a little taste, I tend to overeat in that moment, and I can go spiraling for a few days (or months) afterward. I keep making excuses to have treats, etc. 

 

I'm trying your method of incorporating a sweet treat into my life every day or every other day. I don't want to do full abstention if I don't have to, but it will depend on if I can manage just having a small amount every day or every couple of days or not. And some of the ideas people have thrown my way have been helpful for sure. 

 

So I think the idea you have about pre-packaging has merit. I'm thinking I can allow a daily allotment and plan that allotment ahead of time. So I will say, today I will allow one brownie instead of just saying, today I will have brownies. If I leave it too open ended I will overeat. Moderation is new to me so I am just trying to figure it out! 

 

['BoutThatActionBoss]

On 1/19/2022 at 1:26 PM, RES said:

I have this problem, if I buy the big bag of M&M's (my weakness) I will eat the big bag of M&M's once I open it...the best thing for me to do is only get it when I want it and only purchase what I'm going to eat.

This leads to me only getting it about once a week, because I don't want to put on pants more often than that 😐 

 

I gained this week, enough that I don't want to log it on the spreadsheet  

I feel you...I can't have too many sweet treats in the house or I will gobble them up so it's better to have a piecemeal approach to it and keep little to no treats in the house. Luckily my partner is fine with this arrangement. 

 

Sorry about the gain! Stay positive though, it happens to all of us. Tomorrow is my weigh-in!

['BoutThatActionBoss]

Today was weigh-in day and I am down 1.8! So good to see finally see progress three weeks into the year! 

 

How's the week ending for all of you?

[Shello]

13 minutes ago, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Today was weigh-in day and I am down 1.8! So good to see finally see progress three weeks into the year! 

 

How's the week ending for all of you?

Awesome!  I'm glad to see it caught up with you!  

 

This has been a tough week.  My official weigh in is Monday but I weigh every day.  Today I am exactly where I was last Friday.  Less working out and more food this week.  Lots of excuses, none really valid.  I'm going to buckle down next week though. 

[Mistr]

On 1/21/2022 at 5:42 PM, 'BoutThatActionBoss said:

Today was weigh-in day and I am down 1.8! So good to see finally see progress three weeks into the year! 

 

How's the week ending for all of you?

 

Yay for seeing progress!

 

I have done better on not eating sweets to make myself feel better. Not perfect, but much better than a couple months ago. I have been doing a little wool carding when I want to take a break. It gives me something to do with my hands that is different than working at the computer and my brain gets the satisfaction of putting things in order and making progress on a project. Sleep has been better too.

 

I only weigh myself once a week. Keeping my fingers crossed that these efforts are starting to pay off.

[Shello]

Starting 248.4

Week 1: 245.6 (down 2.8)

Week 2: 245.0 (down 0.6)

Week 3: 244.4 (down 0.6)

 

It was a tough week but I kicked things into gear over the weekend and managed some loss for the week.  Workouts will be tough to get in this week but I'm planning to keep nutrition dialed in.  Stir fry on the meal plan for the week so plenty of veggies!  

[Mistr]

My weight has not budged. I was hoping to see some progress this week because there is no more birthday cake or cheesecake in the house. I was good about doing the things I said I'd do, at least 80% of the time.

 

The obvious next things to change (such as weighing my food or eliminating white flour and white sugar) don't sound like a good idea to me. If I feel deprived, I know I will eat too many treats. I need to dial down my normal eating.

 

One thing I can do is go for walks outside more often. I know I'm not getting enough steps while I'm working from home. It would be good for me to get out of the house. My target is to get out at least 4 times during the week. Either at lunchtime or after work.