Really? REALLY?

[JoleneBell]

I'd like to add that I started at 15 to 20 minutes of walking, three days per week. Now I'm up to 50 minutes, mostly five days per week.

[chemgoddess1]

What are you actually eating?  Look into the Clean Eating "diet" and try to stay away from processed foods.  Also increase water intake and try not to eat at least 2 hours before going to bed.  Those are my best suggestions.

Typically in the beginning water weight comes off easily and you see big reductions in short time frames.  This is the weight that will fluctuate the most.  Now starts the hard part of actually getting off body fat.  Are you getting your heart rate up while you walk?

But most of all diet comes into play.

[ORGANIC ANGEL]

Hi Jolene, actually walking is considered an all over body workout because you will actually engage your legs, hips, back and core for support, sometimes your arms will sway and you have to keep your balance. Great for you for going from 15-20 up to 50! That's awesome! My advice would be to not look at the scale. You'll most likely see a change in your clothes in no time. If you stress about the actual weight you may release cortisol instead and your body goes into stress mode-holding onto weight. Try to walk to find your peace and be healthy. If that means a healthy 213 lb. you, than so be it. Once you start accepting and loving yourself for you, the lbs. won't seem to matter and it will melt off in no time. You've got to be consistent and don't give up so that you will see change. Good luck!

 

[Palace]

Hello Jolene! Great job thus far…. As you said focusing on the scale cam be quite discouraging. I too am back on a weight loss and healthy living journey.  I agree with ChemGoddess, try eating lots of vegetables and ffruits.   And don't lay down on your food. I would say within 3 hours.  Also, you could be developing leg muscles. Most importantly, 199 within  4 weeks is a 14  pound loss…..seems overly ambitious.  Yet it is doable but not healthily.  I don't want you to be disappointed.  2 pounds per week would be an 8 pound loss and you would be at 205 reaching 199 only a little over two weeks later.  I wish you the best!

 

[Palace]

Hello Jolene! Great job thus far…. As you said focusing on the scale cam be quite discouraging. I too am back on a weight loss and healthy living journey.  I agree with ChemGoddess, try eating lots of vegetables and ffruits.   And don't lay down on your food. I would say within 3 hours.  Also, you could be developing leg muscles. Most importantly, 199 within  4 weeks is a 14  pound loss…..seems overly ambitious.  Yet it is doable but not healthily.  I don't want you to be disappointed.  2 pounds per week would be an 8 pound loss and you would be at 205 reaching 199 only a little over two weeks later.  I wish you the best!

 

[portableninja]

Agreed that you should not focus as hard on the number on the scale. It is good to track, but don't let it be your only indication of your fitness level and body image. Hydration level has so much to do with your weight on any given date, as does your hormonal cycle. As long as you are seeing a downward trend over the long term, then you are on the right track. 

Personally, I'm 5-10 lbs heavier than my "ideal" weight, but I also have more shoulder and back muscles than I've ever had in my life. I could easily have put 5 lbs on back there over the time I've been poling. If you are new to exercise, you will be building muscles too, and you want to make sure you eat enough protein to support that.

I've gone through periods of counting calories and tracking everything that goes in and out of my body with precision, usually followed by holidays and emotional pig out sessions which make me feel like a hopeless failure. At least for me, the overly scientific approach to diet and fitness is too rigid. I can be a perfectionist and if I don't get something exactly right, it is really disheartening. It works for some personality types though, so I still recommend it to people if they can handle the discipline aspect. 

When I go grocery shopping, I always make sure to fill my cart up with whole foods. Not the store, but the concept. 🙂 I stick to the outer corners (produce, dairy, meat, fish) and avoid the center aisles as much as I can. It's honestly difficult to get too heavy when you're mostly eating vegetables, lean protein, low fat dairy and small portions of whole grains. I sometimes count calories for a few days at a time just to re-acquaint myself with proper portion sizes, but that's it. This also supports the idea of eating healthy as a lifestyle decision as opposed to a short term project for weight loss. I was very pleased to see you made that distinction as well.  I'm happy for you and you should be too! 🙂

[JoleneBell]

  I have always had an extensive knowledge of exercise and nutrition, it's just that putting it into practice has been a yo-yo my entire life. I learned a few months ago that being fit is very much about how we see ourselves, and how we eat reflects what we believe we're -worth-. The worth concept -really- clicked for me. I discovered that I was trying to find joy through eating, and it can't be done. I LOVE carbs and fatty food! It is a happy feeling for a moment, but then you get to wear the effects! Depressing in the long run, and not who I want to be.

  I need to state that I STAY AWAY from processed foods as much as I can now, really most things that come in a wrapper. I love peppers with hummus, for example. I snack as healthfully as I can, but maybe I'm enjoying too much chocolate recently :/ 

  I have indeed noticed increased definition in my legs from all of the walking, plus I have the treadmill set at a 1% incline so I'm sure that helps. I am sort of wowed by my legs now. Even my husband, when he wraps his arms around me, is consistently commenting on how much more "skinny" I'm feeling all the time. 

 It's just my jeans, and that damn scale. My bigger jeans are getting big on me, don't get me wrong. I pretty much walk right out of them these days, and I'm CONSTANTLY pulling them up. But I'm at this in-between place now where I'm still not fitting back into my old jeans. I want them to fit! Now! 

 I guess it is all in my head. I feel like I'm doing enough that I should be losing pounds at a steady rate, with no obstructions. That's not reality I suppose. 

 Rain and Ninja, you make great points when you say to stay away from the scale in this process. It's so hard to stay away from it when I want to see progress! I should ask my husband to tuck it away some where and then bring it out two months from now?

 Chem, I actually do practice not eating within to hours before going to bed, but I probably need to become a Nazi about it because on occasion I will have a snack then.

 Angel, you're right. I need to just keep going and loving myself the way I am. The pounds will melt off in time, no rush, right? I'm not in a race.

 

  

  

[Veena]

Hi Jolenebell, Keep in mind that body weight on the scale can fluctuate anywhere from 2 to 5 pounds. I always tell clients to focus on how they feel (do you have more energy etc) and how their clothes fit, NOT the scale. Keep at the walking! https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_flower.gif 

[portableninja]

Think of it like the stock market. You care about the long term trend line, not the daily fluctuations. 🙂

[abcollins1]

If you are not losing weight, then go back to the diet? What is your calorie level? Are you weighing and tracking all you eat?

You can still gain and maintain weight eating "healthy foods".

Also I find many online programs like Myfitnesspal, to be very inaccurate for tracking calories, lables can be wrong and people can make mistakes.

Walking is very under-rated, Its a great way to exercise so dont let that discorage you, though it generally only burns about 95 cals per mile, so take that into consideration when thinking of how much cals out you have.

At 213, if your calorie level is correct, then you should be losing fine.

[LucilleHighball]

I have been working on loosing weight for the last year. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ has been great for a free website with tons of information and great tools for counting calories and exercise.

Also, I have plateaued for 6 months as far as the scale goes, but I have gotten to smaller pants sizes, which is what I really want. I can understand the frustration, but think of it as learning new habits, and eventually it will come off. I know its not as fast as you want, but it never is.

[abcollins1]

I have many issues with MFP, the first being that it likes to set every single person who wants to lose weight on a 1200 calorie diet. It did this to me and to a friend of mine who at 5'8 and 300 pounds, definitely should not have ben on the same eating plan..

Second, it tells people to "eat back" the calories they burn from exercise, this is very evident on their forums as well.

Third, a lot of the info for the foods is just plain wrong. With people putting their own info in, there is a lot of room for errors. Some people just put what is on the label, some people are measuring incorrectly, some people just put in crazy numbers. It can be a crap shoot of if the numbers are actually correct.

I have found the most accurate way of tracking is to weigh everything using a digital scale and use good ole pen and paper.

If you have plateaued for 6 months, then its time to look at what is not working, cause thats not a plateau, thats a complete stopping point. From their you look at the way you have been tracking foods, and if you are using MFP, your count may be off. Go back weigh and measure everything, dont rely on MFP and see what you get, Chances are its not what you think. I see this ALL the time!

From there, if your cals are higher than you thought, then try dropping 100 – 200 cals and see if that gets the weight dropping, if not then bring cals up for a couple of weeks, take a deload week on training, and then start dropping cals again.

Again, if you are in the right calorie deficit, then you should be losing. If you are not losing, then you are not in a deficit and you first look at your diet.

[yrngrl]

Best advice I ever got (I've lost 90 lbs and kept it off for 2 years so far) is that weight loss happens in the kitchen, not the gym. Not saying that exercise isn't important (it is) but if you aren't being really mindful of your portions (I weighed and measured mine to be sure) you might be eating more than you think. Try to look at exercise and a bonus to boost your efforts and to tone your every-shrinking body… I once read that to lose 2 lbs a week while eating the same amount of food you need to maintain your current weight would take running approx 10 miles per day, 7 days a week!

[yrngrl]

Sorry for all the misspellings…just got home from pole class and I'm wiped out! 🙂

[SpyralBound]

portableninja — "I've gone through periods of counting calories and tracking everything that goes in and out of my body with precision, usually followed by holidays and emotional pig out sessions which make me feel like a hopeless failure. At least for me, the overly scientific approach to diet and fitness is too rigid. I can be a perfectionist and if I don't get something exactly right, it is really disheartening."

I AM THE SAME WAY! I get so fed up with counting and tracking. I got on a site called SparkPeople when I was back in college and stuck with the counting/tracking for a long time, blogging regularly, weighing in regularly… and then it just got boring and tedious. Tracking every bite was such a chore, especially since each item in a meal has to be tracked separately (I can't just write "Turkey Sandwich," it's 2 slices of whole wheat bread, 2 tsp. mayo, 1 slice cheese, 2 oz turkey…). 

I'm a words person, not a numbers person. I'm starting on a new health plan myself right now and what I did last night was simply write down what I ate at each meal in my journal. No measurements, no calorie counts, nothing quantitative,  just qualitative descriptions. And for the past three months I've been tracking my different types of workouts – pole, yoga, and strength/aerobics, each on its own page – by noting the date, how long I exercised, the perceived diffculty (low, moderate, heavy, intense) and notes on what I did or observed during that workout. 

To me, the point of tracking is accountability more than math, and tracking in this qualitative way is definitely easier to fit into my lifestyle and to wrap my head around than simply punching in numbers and budgeting calories. 

My big challenge is meal planning. Whenever I fall off that wagon, things go to hell. It becomes all convenience foods and last-minute, what-do-we-have-in-the-house meals and eating a pile of snacks instead of dinner. Ugh. So that would be my advice to anyone trying to slim down: plan ahead and save yourself from taking the lazy way out.