14 pounds apiece. I’m at 194. Jane and I both, though not at the same weight, starting or now—are losing at the same rate. We also both have an important ‘set point’ or previous stable weight level, coming up. Mine’s 192. I won’t say where hers is, but we’re also coming up on it.
Now, I have another set-point just 7 pounds below that set-point, and that would also get Jane past hers. So if I target that, (and sometimes as you approach an old set-point, your body can get cooperative about weight loss, but won’t budge lower) we can begin to moderate this diet a bit. That would be 21 lbs down for me and Jane, which is pretty good. Then we’d laze along, go to a couple of conventions where eating is not as regulated, then come back home and go back on the induction routine again, which would let us shed anything we did gain (though we can subsist on bunless hamburgers for the trip). Then we just continue on to the next set-point, 10 lbs away, approximately.
This is the game plan. That would take me to 175, at which I can fit into designer clothes…not that I’m playing that game any longer. We’ll see from there.
The main thing this diet is doing is not the calories or the low-carb: it’s those little frozen dinners I don’t cook: it’s breaking the cycle of thinking about food (repeating the same five meals [even good ones] for several months will tend to do that.)
The cycle we got into: I like cooking. I plate everything. I was hurting Jane by serving too much. I know that now. So I needed to get cooking off my schedule, out of my head, and get the thing under control. Funny thing, now that I’m not thinking about meals and groceries, I have time to deal with my marine tank and some other things that need doing.
We couldn’t, right now, possibly eat what we’d been eating: we’d splode. We’ve reduced portion sizes to 2 heaping tablespoons of 2 different veggies, a piece of meat the size of a card deck, and a tablespoon of sauce. Now we’re modifying that to go to 1) breakfast omelet 2) small salad for lunch, 1 oz Ranch 3) the Atkins frozen dinner.
BUT! somebody recommended coconut oil as a better shortening than olive oil: wrong for us. We got some, used it two-three days, and weight loss, which had been regular as clockwork, stopped cold, even reversed. We went back to olive oil, no other change, and off came the weight, regular as clockwork. So we’re back on track.
It didn’t arrive overnight, and it’s going to take some time to get rid of, but the biggest thing that’s happening, we’re breaking the food-compulsion and breaking the ties to it. We’re doing other things.
And feeling good. If we get too carb-short, we take a small wheat tortilla, sprinkle bacon bits and cheddar, a little salt and pepper, a little dry basil and broil 3 min. Pizzalina! Eccola!
Fabulous! That’s a bumpy road, and you guys are swooping right over it!!
Well, hell! I know where all of that weight is going…..I was at the doctor’s yesterday, 220.2lbs. 100 freaking kilos!!!! Argh!
I have a 2 month’s supply of Sensa for Men that I have not touched because I want to ask my doctor about it, as far as any possible interaction with the medications I’m taking. Since I got changed AGAIN yesterday to another medication that’s supposed to help me get to sleep (it did, but I didn’t stay asleep last night), I am leery of adding anything that I haven’t been using before so that we have some kind of baseline to work from.
Donating platelets is a “hobby” of mine, I can donate up to 24 times in a 12-month period, the procedure takes a little over an hour, but the criteria for donating is more stringent than for whole blood donations. My hemacrit needs to be at least 36% in order to donate, today it was 32%, and that is NOT a good sign. I’m tired, run down, my sleep patterns suck, and I’m on a restricted sleep schedule trying to break the old sleep habits and get me to gradually work into new sleep habits that will keep me asleep and give me a restful sleep. It doesn’t help that I have sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome. At least, I’m no longer on the anti-depressants I was on when I was there 3 years ago. They’ve determined that I don’t need them, so why take them. Now, where were the plans for that super-secret death ray I was working on before…..????
I’ve heard variously that restless leg syndrome responds to increasing dietary calcium, vitamin D and iron. Since none of these are medication, might be worth a try. Melatonin might help reinforce your sleep schedule. I empathize on the screwed up sleep schedule. I just naturally am a night WOL and my sleep schedule just naturally wants to slew around to going to sleep around 5 or 6 a.m. and getting up around 9 p.m. I feel good on such a schedule, but this is a day twink world — and “day shift” is the cycle the world forces me to keep.
Insomnia is a writer/creative disease… I battle it, too. What helps me: I don’t do games or editing or watch serious telly within an hour of bed. I watch something stupid, not too engaging, I take Melatonin, sometimes (rarely) two caps of it, and if all else fails, on a bad night, one Benedryl.
For vitamins: magnesium (I’m on thyroid med, and it depletes, but has to be taken at the opposite end of the clock from the med. I also take magnesium, potassium, heavy dose of D, B (the two I watch most are B12 and B6, especially on Atkins), fish oil, folic acid, hyaluronic acid/msm/chondroitin, and Centrum, which has anything I missed and doubles up on some of the others, like zinc.
I find that if I get muscle-twitches, potassium is generally low, but potassium is something not to recklessly overdose…vitamin C and some others, the body can purge, but too much potassium can affect the heart, as I recall.
I’m a big believer in re-training people on portion size (using a side plate instead of dinner plate can be a good idea). Had a conversation with a guy at work about my lunch. He thought it was my starter, but it was my whole lunch (except for an apple for after). He couldn’t believe it when I told him portion sizes have doubled in the last 50 years. He went off and had a look and found a site saying it’s doubled in the last 20. Scary thought.
This article, while it doesn’t say anything groundbreaking, reiterates points we don’t often think about:
http://lifehacker.com/why-we-eat-whatevers-in-front-of-us-473869866
And…I just hit 192. Yay me. The next goal is 185. The jeans should be fitting, now. That gives me some decent wardrobe.
At my very, very worst, before I started figure skating, I hit 220, and realized I could play professional football.
I dieted that off—even tried Nutrisystem, and 300.00 of their food helped me lose 10 lbs. Rah. Atkins got me to 192, at one point, but I was generally 195. Now—we’re headed for what I was back in 1980. 185. After that—I’m going to try for what I was in 1975…175, and a bonafide size 12.
I can’t go too much below a 12, because of my height. The year I got into a 9, I was just back from grad school at Johns Hopkins, which made Dark Magic at Hogwarts look like reasonable and easy, and I’d hit 138. I lived several miles from school, several miles from a store. I walked, I didn’t eat often enough, and I did things like sit in secret co-ed study sessions in the women’s bathroom foyer, because the library rules were strict and you couldn’t talk, or check out some of the critical books…those were the days. I’d eat a dozen donuts when I could get them. I’d eat a frozen Mexican dinner with ice still in the middle of it because we had a crappy oven and I was on a time crunch…and I came back weighing 138, a size nine, and so thin I looked like death warmed over. I couldn’t sit in a hard chair without bone hitting bottom, and that hurt…
So I know what I’d look like as an anorexic, and it ain’t pretty…even if I WAS scarfing down a dozen bismarks at a go…
Nope, my dream weight would be 143. Then I could wear anything, and I’d still be a size 12, just a better-fitting one.
What I didn’t realize about plating when I was growing up is that it is a rationing measure. Mama and Daddy grew up during WWII, with all its shortages. When I was small, there simply wasn’t all that much food, so Mama rationed it. That’s also why we had to eat everything on our plates. There generally was no more. Sometimes, all Mama had for supper was whatever was left in the bottom of the pot when everyone else had all they wanted. She used to say that she had eaten earlier. That was true, she’d eaten lunch. After that, how can I fail to clean my plate? Mama does.
A couple weeks ago OPB/PBS did a show by Michael Mosely about dieting. It suggested we’re adapted to sometimes finding food, sometimes not. The upshot is various recommendations for intermittent fasting, the 2-5 scheme seeming quite reasonable. Two days a week of 400-500cal for women, 500-600 for men.
Maybe ~15 years ago I got nailed at a physical at 275#, down a bit from probably 280, with concomittant effects on my blood sugar. I also turned very lactose intolerant and seemed to develop IBS. For some little time I got the reinforcement that the less I ate the better I felt, consequently shedding about 40#. I track it every morning. It’s gone up and down a bit, never back there, and this AM I was 222# in my skivvys.
I could go further, so after that show I began the 2-5 scheme. I can’t conveniently get to 600, but 700 isn’t a problem. Close enough! I do Mon/Thu, or Tue/Fri.
Strangely enough, I find that the days I don’t feel like eating everything available are the days I’m puttering about the house, especially if I have a project under way. I get busy trying to install the new window, and the next thing I know it’s 3:00 and I need to think about starting dinner and I never really got hungry. I only wish my favorite fruits were cheaper more frequently. If I could pig out on berries, cherries and the nice winter grapes without breaking the bank all the time, I’d eat those in preference to 90% of junk food.
I had thought for a while I was losing a little weight, but I don’t quite think so, and haven’t checked.
I have found if I don’t get enough beef or carbs, I get very hungry and get shaky, have an energy drop, though not too often. (I was borderline hypoglycemic and haven’t been fully tested in years.) I try to watch it. But adding beef, despite the cost, once or twice more often in my week really helped me get enough energy.
I suspect I wasn’t getting *enough* salt, as I’d cut way back, not to rock the boat with my parents’ or my grandmother’s diet needs. But now, that’s not a concern. So I’ve added a little salt, carefully.
I have a weakness for carbs, apparently. This, I will need to find a solution for.
I love veggies, but I have been lazy about doing prepared foods, store-bought, instead of fresh or raw veggies and doing more cooking myself. I have vowed to do better, but I’m not back in the habit yet.
The omelets? I like a good omelet, preferably with veggies too. I was craving something and wound up fixing one for brunch and supper a few days ago. I was full past my regular meal time both times, and I don’t think I bothered my weight any. So this may be a good solution.
I haven’t found the right balance in protein, carbs, and portions yet, to get me losing weight and stay energetic (not having an energy drop or feeling hungry, and not getting down/depressed for no reason, either).
I’m maybe an oddity: Growing up, I was a skinny kid. I could eat as much as I wanted, but typically didn’t eat much. It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized at some point, I had been unconsciously *not* eating because my parents were overweight. I’d been shorting myself and didn’t know it. And my metabolism was fast anyway, and I was behind the growth curve a little, both by heredity and premature birth. My dad was skinny as a kid too.) At high school graduation, I was 5’11”, my adult height, but somewhere between 125 and 135 pounds soaking wet.
When I hit my early to mid 30’s, my metabolism slowed just a little, and I began eating more. Within 5 years, I weighed 145, and now I weigh between 175 and 185. It’s been hovering in there the past 5 or so years. I haven’t gone over that, and won’t, but I don’t think I’ve really started losing and keeping it off, either. — I need to find a place to swim regularly, without a big hit to my budget in travel or membership. That would help a lot. — And…well, I tell myself that I know I weigh a good deal less than either my dad or my mom at my age. But I want to get back down to a 34 waist and around 145 to 155, ideally. That *should* be doable, but I am having real trouble retraining myself and keeping at it.
Funny thing is, that’s not too bad. It’s just not where I want to be. There’s too much equator in my equator, and things don’t fit right and I know it’s affecting me. And it needs to change before it gets worse or I get (even more) set in my ways…dagnabit.
So…I’m trying.
It may not be so much the beef, but the iron in the red meat.
I have a weakness for carbs, apparently. This, I will need to find a solution for.
“Carbs” aren’t bad for you. You only have two alternatives, fats and proteins, each with their own issues. 😉 The thing about carbs is what kind! It’s the dense, “dehydrated”, processed, simple ones (sugars and simple starches) that cause most of the problems associated with carbs. “Hydrated” raw/cooked vegetables and fruits, in moderation as in all things, and in combination with moderate amounts of protein and fat, shouldn’t be so much of a problem. Even whole grains, again in moderation and combination, can be part of a good diet.
WOL — Hmm… I wonder if it *is* the iron. If I start using my old iron skillet again, and do a vitamin supplement (like I ought to anyway) that might be it. … Though I wonder if it could be other things more common in red meat too. Other minerals? Proteins? Amino acids?
Paul — You know, what you’re really describing there is a lot more like I used to eat, a sensible basic diet. We’ll see how it goes. Trying to vary my diet and cook more, use more fresh or raw veggies.
BTW, insomnia and some degree of depression? Yup, those have been there since at least early college. I’ve never yet found anything that cures it or gets my biological clock / day-night rhythm really regular. It’ll go for a while, a few weeks at most, and then give me trouble. I’ve asked doctors. I went to a counselor for a while, and did ask then, but his opinion was (thankfully or not) that I didn’t need meds. Did I really want them? Well…no. I don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, don’t like prescriptions if I can keep from them, and alcohol…bleh. Don’t like the taste. Really, really don’t like the lack of self-control…though I seem to get quiet, mostly. Once or twice, I’ve been more outgoing / demonstrative, but apparently, that’s not usual. It just doesn’t do anything much for me. I’m thankful I was raised where it wasn’t exactly forbidden, but wasn’t a good idea. Heh, I’m enough of a mess sober. I wouldn’t want to see what I was like if I wasn’t, on a regular basis. I had one college roommate who was a recovering alcoholic, had been when he was a teen. He struggled with it. I saw him twice when he did drink anything. Wasn’t pretty, then or after. A good guy, too, though hotheaded at times. The self-reproach after wasn’t nice to see. So, that also was a deterrent for me. Hmm, anyway, what’s in my head, I try to deal with, and I’m sober while doing so. … Do suspect there’s some tendency to ADHD in there, but have never had anyone suggest it should be tested. So… well, that’s me.
444 lbs? That sounds like a job for …..WHEELS!
C.J. Sedentary as you are, have you thought of something like “Body Electric”? ( http://www.bodyelectrictv.com/ ) Margaret Richards’ stuff is all low impact and pretty fun to do. If her DVDs are like her TV shows, they are short, 30 minute sessions that target specific areas, but a different area each time. You can use small hand weights, or not. She doesn’t advocate any equipment at all except a mat if you don’t have carpeting. It’s all about getting strength in the right places (core, shoulder girdle, thighs and hips, etc,) and having strong muscles to buttress joints like knees, ankles, shoulders, etc. She has programs on some PBS stations, but not Spokane’s, alas. Ali McGraw has a beginner’s yoga tape that is to die for visually, filmed in White Sands, NM. http://www.amazon.com/Ali-MacGraw-Yoga-Mind-Body/dp/B0000DI88C — None of the above-mentioned requires a lot of room to do it, like maybe 8-10 sq ft depending on how tall you are.
LOL, 444 lbs? Dunno where I typed that, definitely a typo….
This comment somehow ended up way up here as a reply. See below.
Depression and insomnia are also symptoms of thyroid disorder, more common in women than men, I believe, or perhaps more commonly diagnosed in women—it might be worth checking. Not everything is ‘age’.
CJ, I’ve been doing the Keto diet for about a good while now. I lost 70lbs last year but fell off for a while when my routine got disrupted but am back on it now. Low Carb/Keotsis diets do not work as well for females as they do males, but they do work. I’m pretty strict when it comes to carbs, less that 20g a day. 0 if I can help it. You WANT to be carb short, you’re sabotaging yourself with those tortillas. It takes about a week, and you can feel pretty awful while your body switches over from glycogen to ketones…they call it the Keto Flu, but once over that it’s sooo much easier. You stop being hungry, you have more energy and it does not come in spikes. Doing without carbs is a bit of a hassle, especially at first, but once you get into the habit…well..you have to see for yourself but stick to 20g or less of carbs a day for a week, get some keto strips…while inaccurate they will tell you once you’re in ketosis. I love being in Ketosis. My mind is clearer, I have so much more energy and I’m never hungry… okay..off my soapbox now 🙂
We’re less than 20. And most days that’s enough. But just now and again we over-exert and need a little extra carb. Losing more than a half a pound a day is a bit fast, so we try to rein it back a bit. I know what you mean, though, that it is better than feeling stuffed and logey all the time.
Serious depressive since age 4. What first attracted me to CJ’s work was how the desperate situations were so like real life, except that they had solutions, unlikely as solutions seemed to be. Then I got the Zoloft and realized that not everyone felt like that all of the time. It didn’t stop my fandom, but it did give me hope for my own life and those of my loved ones.
So glad.
Well, loosing more than a half pound a day is a good day IMO! I typically hit 2-3 lbs on a good day…of course I jog 3 miles every other day too so that plays a bit part in that as well. I have no problem with over-exerting..not quite sure what you mean by that? Low energy or fatigue? I do get that by the end of a day where I exercise but kind of to be expected.
We’re far more sedentary, interspersed with the need to move stuff, carry stuff, etc, and build stuff. Depends on the day. I can be at the keyboard 18 hours four days running, carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs and back to the sedentary life again. If we could find time to get some regular heavy exercise, we’d likely be better. We left the ice when Jane got sick, never really have been able to make it back again, though we still say we’ll try to—main thing is just to keep moving and not get into a rut.
I’ve got some problems with the current marine tank—need to work it out. And I found a bargain…all 444 pounds of it. It’s going to involve plumbing. And we’re going to have to get it up the front steps.
Pix to follow. This is the deal I made with myself…that someday, someday somehow I was going to be able to reconstitute the marine tank I had back in Oklahoma City. And this is the year. Only stupid me, while making sure it would fit the space—forgot to ask how much it weighed.
Well, here I am, celebrating No. 67. And sedentary is something I had to deal with for many years do to a mechanical injury. THe meds made me foggy and there was a loss of balance. But this year, having done simple arithmetic and realizing that 31 years was far too long to be on these things, I weaned myself off. So, I’m exercising on the same equipment we had: elliptical trainer, ballet barre and a multi-station weight system. It’s the old use it or lose it thing for us. I’d recommend the elliptical because the low-impact walking is wonderful for knees, etc. And you can read while you are on the machine!
I had wondered about the ice skating and am glad that Jane is better now. As to coconut vs.olive oil: the olive oil is the best by far. We stay to a Mediterranean diet; so the Atkins is far from what we do; but we have lost weight that has stayed away (70 lbs for me; 20 for him). And, although I can handle coconut flakes now and again, it seems to upset my stomach. Olive oil never does, nor do olives, etc. We went from carb/fat/protein counting to plain old calorie counting for our 25 anniversary, lost enough weight for me to be a nice size 14 and we are doing pretty well.
Old saying from the British Empire days: “A pint’s a pound the world around.” Not exactly, but good enough.
444 lbs? That sounds like a job for …..WHEELS!
Sorry, this comment went to the wrong place. Belongs here.
C.J. Sedentary as you are, have you thought of something like “Body Electric”? ( http://www.bodyelectrictv.com/ ) Margaret Richards’ stuff is all low impact and pretty fun to do. If her DVDs are like her TV shows, they are short, 30 minute sessions that target specific areas, but a different area each time. You can use small hand weights, or not. She doesn’t advocate any equipment at all except a mat if you don’t have carpeting. It’s all about getting strength in the right places (core, shoulder girdle, thighs and hips, etc,) and having strong muscles to buttress joints like knees, ankles, shoulders, etc. She has programs on some PBS stations, but not Spokane’s, alas. Ali McGraw has a beginner’s yoga tape that is to die for visually, filmed in White Sands, NM. http://www.amazon.com/Ali-MacGraw-Yoga-Mind-Body/dp/B0000DI88C — None of the above-mentioned requires a lot of room to do it, like maybe 8-10 sq ft depending on how tall you are.
Oops – that is “due” in the first line. Mea culpa!
Lol — and of course, — Remember I stated above that I have a ‘set point’ at 192.
Dependably, my weight stalled today, 192. 192. We may be 192 for a week before it begins to budge again. THe body ‘remembers’ favorite weights it held for a long time. Same way I can get my 12-string calluses back on my fingers in a week, the body remembers being 192 for a long time, and it’s willing to settle there.
So………we just out-stubborn nature, and head it for the next ‘set point,’ 185. Varies, of course, with everybody. Everybody’s got them, I’m pretty sure.
I’m also offically putting both of us on Vitamin b12 supplement, with no bread or grains in the diet right now. I’m feeling like this is a good idea for me, and I know it’s good for Jane, who can’t absorb b12 from food anyway (the nature of what put her in for 2 transfusions.) This is going to be daily routine until further notice: the multivitamin isn’t enough on this one.
B12 governs the body’s ability to produce healthy red blood cells, ergo the ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles—and even to burn fat, since if you aren’t oxygenating your muscles, they aren’t working and you’re not doing anything but lying there.
pernicious anemia
Jane CAN absorb B12 by sublingual tablets, thank goodness, which is how she recovered so nicely. Now I’m taking them, I think mostly because of the lack of grain on this phase of Atkins. You’re s’posed to be taking huge doses of vitamins and minerals and we’d slacked off…
Re: coconut vs olive oils.
Better which way? Olive oils aren’t such good cooking oils–they can’t stand the heat. They’re Omega-9 oils (maybe not quite as good as Omega-3’s but also good for us) and that unsaturated bond breaks down. Coconut/Palm oils are saturated, not so good for us.
Uh, tell that to Italy! I cook with it all the time, Mexican, Italian, whatever. It works wonderfully. Of course, you can’t deep fry things in it, but since we are all about diet here, maybe none of us are doing that sort of cooking.
So do I, for a light, quick saute, “sweating” garlic, that sort of thing. But we shouldn’t get it too hot. It’d be a barbaric thing to do to a good extra virgin olive oil anyway. (I love to harvest the scapes of my hardneck garlic as the bulbils are beginning to swell but while still green and soft, say 1/3-1/2cup, then clip off their tails, cut them in half equitorially, quickly saute just until tender in plenty of olive oil, the pour the whole thing over pasta. Seriously yummy! Puts a smile on my face! 🙂 )
Don’t use the Extra-Virgin Cold Pressed Olive Oil for sautes, those are really designed for salads. Use a second pressing base oil, but don’t let it get too hot. If you have to use a hot oil, I like to use peanut oil, but with the recent poor harvest of peanuts, it’s gotten expensive, just like peanut butter – one of my staples.
What I have comes from Costco, so I kinda doubt it’s “salad grade”. We’re agreed, don’t let it get too hot in any case–it’s not really a cooking oil (because it’s mono-unsaturated).
The main point I wamted to make is the distinction about what the “somebody” might have meant that coconut oil was better. Being saturated, better for cooking perhaps, but not better for the arteries.
Coconut oil: 91% saturated, 6% monounsaturated, 3% poly-unsaturated.
Olive oil: 14% saturated, 72% monounsaturated, 14% poly-unsaturated. (Note: the relatively higher poly’s makes it more susceptible to breakdowns of various natures. Keep it dark and cool, away from radicalizing Oxygen.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_oil
Misto makes several pressurizable pump sprayers that you can fill with your cooking oil of choice. I’ve had my stainless steel one for over a year, and have probably already paid back what I might have spend on Pam and whatnot. It also lets you choose what liquid oil you prefer to use — if olive oil is no good, use peanut, canola, safflower, corn, whatever the needs of the day are, and you aren’t locked into one type of oil either.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=oil%20sprayer%20mister&sprefix=oil+sprayer%2Caps%2C513
Oh thank you, Chondrite! Heh, olive oil and sprayer, here I come!
Got one of those … love it! Wonderful for roasting veggies. Just spritz them with the oil of your choice.