Trying to lose weight using Slimming World online - wild horses couldn't drag me to a real life meeting.
I wish they didn't seem to hate bakery products as much as I like them. Their idea of a portion is smaller than one slice of the bread I make.
Mrs Rogue works with several people who always make a point of eating their snack products but they will eat five at a time.
I wouldn't touch their branded stuff with a bargepole.
Does Mrs Rogue also find these are the people who've been on it for years and lost bugger all?
There are a couple of unspoken provisos in SW's marketing:
1. "You can eat the foods you love" - but in some cases not much of it and only if you eat carrot sticks for the rest of the day
2. "Potatoes, pasta and rice are "free" - eat as much of them as you like" - as part of a meal and only one third of the plate.
If you're familiar with tabletop RPGs at all there's a concept there of Rules as Written vs. Rules as Intended. You very much have to discern RaI with SW - there are all sorts of unintended loopholes you can exploit to technically be on plan but lose not an ounce.
My dad used to say that he would run for fitness if he ever saw a single runner look like thy were enjoying themselves. It didn't help that at the time it could have benefitted my dad the most, running guru Jim Fixx, who wrote The Complete Book of Running, died of a heart attack.
Tried 'jogging' today. In ... wait for it ... sunshine! Not too encouraging I'm afraid. Mrs RR was able to walk, or stroll, comfortably beside me. She remarked, 'It was a start'. Oh dear!
I've put on a couple of pounds too, but I'm sure that will disappear over the next week now most of the Christmas food has been eaten. It's the other stone I've put on over the last year or so I need to shift.
I did manage Pilates this week and I'm booked in for next week so that's a start.
I've just resigned from my fitness classes as I'm getting unsteady on my legs and nervous about falling if I don't have my sticks. I intend to keep on doing plenty of walking (with sticks) but will try to find other exercise online. When I have the exercise sorted I'll turn my attention to eating.
There has just been a report on the BBC Wales news saying that Tai Chi is good for older people as it helps their balance and reduces the risk of falling. Hmm ... if my wife had stayed at home instead of going to her Tai Chi class last spring she wouldn't have tripped on the pavement and broken her ankle!!!
Started riding the road bike again on New Year's Day. Hadn't ridden since mid-November. Rode yesterday, too, but taking today off because of the pain of my sit bones. They are... not happy. Will ride again tomorrow (Saturday).
I used to go to Tai Chi a while ago. The teacher often got us to stand on one leg to improve our balance, but I felt standing on one leg was the fastest way to lose balance and fall over - so after a second or so I put my other leg down and felt a lot safer, and more balanced.
Started riding the road bike again on New Year's Day. Hadn't ridden since mid-November. Rode yesterday, too, but taking today off because of the pain of my sit bones. They are... not happy. Will ride again tomorrow (Saturday).
Unfortunately I did my back in the Sunday before Christmas and while I can ride the upright bikes the road bike is probably off limits for a bit.
I have had the tests prior to my annual diabetic review. Results are showing online. The numbers look about the same as last year, which seems ok to me, but I shall get the usual pep talk about losing some weight and doing more exercise next week. Correct, of course, but static to me is better than I dared expect.
That's good news @Puzzler, I hope you get some encouragement for keeping things on an even keel. I've gone for a quick brisk walk this week. just around the block, but I think everything count! I also dragged a couple of branches out to the footpath this morning and cut them up for the green bin people. My aim is just to keep moving and to do a bit each day. Even if I just kneel to do some weeding, it's all stretching and keeping my balance, which is hopefully beneficial. I do long for some roller skates, but am worried about breaking bones! I did use to love skating back in the 80's!
I walked for the second time this week, which for me coming back from doing nothing, was an achievement. Hoping that I can do it more. I was remembering back when I was thinner and I walked a lot because I lived close to work and didn't have to drive everywhere. I've been thinking about trying to incorporate that amount of walking which was incidental, but trying to do it as a planned thing, once my tolerance builds up a bit.
@Cheery Gardener When I last changed workplaces, I lost a lot of incidental walking (to and from train stations, with a much larger campus to get around) and when I started walking more intentionally a couple of years into the new job, it was that kind of amount which worked best for me to build on.
In my current job role, I've lost almost all the incidental walking I did around campus, which could add up to 7,000 - 10,000 steps a day, and whilst I continue to walk to work every day, I'm working on trying to walk more of the way home again to get that level back again. Luckily, both my main colleague and I understand the importance of the incidental walking and we are very good at accepting I might need a speedy five minutes walk to go and hunt for a missing student rather than the efficient option of phoning their usual rooms to see where they are, and my colleague might need a walk to the main building to consult with the various admin departments!!
I managed to get out with our Ramblers group on Wednesday plus various trips into and out of town (its only ten minutes walk away but it all counts) means I've walked far more this week than I've done since Christmas. My cousin is coming for a couple of days on Monday and is a keen walker so I'm hoping next week will be good too.
Here I am, only three months late with the "lose weight and get fit" New Year's Resolution.
I weigh 17 stone 7lbs (111.2 kg) and would like to knock off 7lbs by the end of the month. My BMI is 40.8, which puts me in the "severe obesity" category, but if I lose 7lbs I'll be down to merely being obese.
I don't "feel" obese. Obviously I know that I am! I'm a Marks & Spencer size 20 (not in everything, but in everything I want to wear) and 20 seems to me to be the top size in most shops "normal" range. Sometimes I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror, and don't recognise the fat woman I see. If I'm looking in a mirror deliberately, shoulders back, breathing in, I'm actually happy enough with what I see. I don't know why, some sort of reverse to an anorexic "seeing" themselves as fat.
You might want to look at some of Dr Stacy Sims content on YouTube or her website, she talks about specific needs in exercise for women, and particularly women over fifty - as much standard exercise was developed for men and is not necessarily a good fit as you get older. She’s an exercise scientist who has published research on this topic.
I have dropped three stone, from 16 in August. Finding it harder to get below that 13 though. Physio not having cleared me to cycle yet doesn’t help. Have a static exercise bike but it's not the same.
Good luck going forward, NEQ. About a decade ago I went from ‘class 1 obese’ to ‘overweight’ by stick myself on a carb free diet (Michael Mosley’s blood sugar diet) for 8 weeks, after a health scare - I lost 10% of my body weight. I felt so much better for losing the weight. I still have a low carb diet to maintain my weight, with inevitable lapses, and to help ward off the diabetes which romps through my family.
One habit I have kept from that diet period is a 2 km walk every morning. Work gets in the way of doing one in the evening as well these days but I’m hoping to reduce my hours for the next academic year for mental health reasons. So once this year finishes (June) I went to increase my walking again and improve my mental health by getting out and about more.
I couldn't do low carb. Slimming World is bad enough with its very limited bread allowance (60g - it's not even a slice of a decent loaf). Carbs are the only things that stop me feeling hungry all the time. Protein doesn't work for me.
After two weeks away as we were visiting a son in Adelaide, I restarted the old folks interval training. That's twice round a circuit with a minute on each piece of apparatus.
I could feel a loss of stamina.
I didn't go swimming on Thursday due to dense fog. I went yesterday but only did half my usual lengths. Went today and did the full set.
I think this needs some elaboration... Dense fog in the swimming pool? Foghorn not working?
Or brain fog? No, only in the atmosphere, so I decided that it would be foolish to drive to the pool. Had a good swim this morning although I was dazzled by low sun as I drove home.
Three stone off is quite an achievement, @KarlLB ! My immediate goal is 7lbs off in April and another 7lbs off in May. I'm not setting a goal of 3 stone off, because I find it hard to envisage.
One curiosity is my cholesterol. I first had it tested in my late twenties. I'd have been somewhere between 10 and 11 stone then, and my diet wasn't great - too many late nights in the office, and picking up a pizza on the way home. I can't remember exactly what my cholesterol was, but it was on the high side, around 6. Then I stopped work when I had the kids and started eating a lot more veg etc. My weight went up with each pregnancy, from 10 stone to 13. And my cholesterol stayed on the high side, just over 6. Since then, every time I get my cholesterol tested I get told to lose weight and my cholesterol will come down, even though it hasn't gone up as I gain weight in the first place. Last time it was 6.3, which isn't significantly higher than it was when I weighed 7 stone less. And yet again, I was told I needed to lose weight to lower it.
One one occasion I was at 6.2 and got the "lose weight" message, so I asked the doctor what would happen if I lost a stone. He said my cholesterol would come down. So I asked him to look at my record and see what it had been when I was a stone lighter. 6.3. I asked him if there was any chance, if I lost a stone, that I would go back up to what I had been when I actually did weigh a stone less. No, apparently.
It would be interesting to see what happened if I had the combination of the low weight of my 20s and the healthier diet of my 60s - perhaps I'd finally get below 6.
I'm not that concerned - several close family members have familial hypercholesterolaemia, and Mum and her younger brother were both over 9 when they went onto statins. Mum's now 91 and her brother is 87. (The familial hypercholesterolaemia is the reason mine has been checked since my 20s.)
Struggling to get back into the longstanding regular group ride schedule -- Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. There's ample daylight, now, but the mojo isn't there. #cycling
@North East Quine I'm currently on a similar argument with medical professionals over cholesterol. It's always fluctuated between 4.9 and 6.3 regardless of my weight. I lost a lot of weight dramatically as a result of mis-diagnosis of type of diabetes, about 8 years ago, and whilst I have indeed put some of that back on, (partly less activity during lockdowns, partly my body was able to process food properly again once I was on insulin), which is vexing the medical professionals.
My cholesterol was actually at its highest when my weight was at its lowest in 2018. Today it's at its lowest since that point and I weigh 4 stone more.
One week into the new regime. I've not altered my meals at all, but have been cutting out most of the chocolate and biscuits. I've increased my exercise, mostly by gardening. My focus has been on rethinking a long term sustainable way of losing weight and getting fitter.
The scales say I've lost 3lbs. This seems a bit too good to be true, as I was hoping for 2lbs. But I'll take it! The garden is looking a bit better too so win/win.
20km walk on Saturday helped and I'm finally not officially overweight, by half a pound.
Then I faceplanted outside Church yesterday and have a 'probably not fractured but might be hard to tell from the X-ray we'll put it in a splint and a consultant will review the X-ray' wrist to contend with.
Ouch @KarLB, I hope it isn't too painful and heals quickly.
I find I lose weight successfully by doing the sort of things you're doing @North East Quine. It takes a while, but it seems to work. I do small thing such as weigh my breakfast cereal.
What a rotten thing to happen @KarlLB! I hope the consultant decides it's not fractured and the splint can come off.
Well done on ceasing to be overweight! I can't even imagine not being overweight. If I lost 4 stone I'd still be obese, so even being "overweight" would be astounding for me.
Sorry to hear of the fall, KarlLB. 20km is quite a walk. I did one around that in January and got 2 giant blisters for my trouble. Hope you are feeling better soon.
Over a year ago I was told have liver cirrhosis, non alcoholic type. The result of many years of being obese. I had to lose weight quickly to minimize the damage, so I got on Mounjoro, 5mg once a week. I lost nearly 50 pounds this past year, I go see a gastroenterologist every six months. Seems like the weight loss has prevented any more damage to the liver, I no longer drink alcohol, which was pretty easy for me to do.
I present this back story because last night, I turned on the Simpsons. Season 36: Episode 16: The Last Man Expanding.(See Synopsis) . It is a spoof on the GLP-1 medication Ozempic. Mounjoro is a similar medication. If you are on one of these medications, you might like to see how The Simpsons spoof it.
Not to worry about me. The liver issues are stable. I plan on keeping it that way for a long while.
Another week of moving more and snacking between meals less and... I've put a pound back on.
I'm aiming for long term improvement rather than a quick fix, so I'm not too dismayed. The garden has benefitted, and we had a fun short but scrambly walk in the countryside yesterday.
On the plus side, I definitely held my own in the slow lane at swimming this morning! No-one overtook me, and I was waved on by people stopping for a breather at either end. 22 lengths at a sedate, but steady, pace.
22 lengths suggests your core fitness isn't too bad, I'd need a very short pool to be able to do that!
The pound is a bit of a drag but I wonder if you are building muscle faster than losing fat at the mo, it's a lot denser so you don't need to add much to gain weight from it.
The other thing I'd remember is that your weight probably varies by several pounds across the day (and I'm not necessarily talking about the obvious semi-solid ins and out's here). I can have noticeable variations in amount spare round my waist across the course of a day, being of a shape where it shows, and I think when it was annoying me I worked out the range was about 3lb.
Comments
Unfortunately they wouldn't help much - lower carb but calories in fat - if I stick them into the SW system they come out the same.
Mrs Rogue works with several people who always make a point of eating their snack products but they will eat five at a time.
I wouldn't touch their branded stuff with a bargepole.
Does Mrs Rogue also find these are the people who've been on it for years and lost bugger all?
There are a couple of unspoken provisos in SW's marketing:
1. "You can eat the foods you love" - but in some cases not much of it and only if you eat carrot sticks for the rest of the day
2. "Potatoes, pasta and rice are "free" - eat as much of them as you like" - as part of a meal and only one third of the plate.
If you're familiar with tabletop RPGs at all there's a concept there of Rules as Written vs. Rules as Intended. You very much have to discern RaI with SW - there are all sorts of unintended loopholes you can exploit to technically be on plan but lose not an ounce.
How long, oh Lord, how long?
Oh how I shall enjoy losing that - NOT
And, due to Family Incursion (leaving this morning), I'm behind in my swimming.
I did manage Pilates this week and I'm booked in for next week so that's a start.
There has just been a report on the BBC Wales news saying that Tai Chi is good for older people as it helps their balance and reduces the risk of falling. Hmm ... if my wife had stayed at home instead of going to her Tai Chi class last spring she wouldn't have tripped on the pavement and broken her ankle!!!
If you'd prefer that we did though, it can easily enough be done.
Unfortunately I did my back in the Sunday before Christmas and while I can ride the upright bikes the road bike is probably off limits for a bit.
In my current job role, I've lost almost all the incidental walking I did around campus, which could add up to 7,000 - 10,000 steps a day, and whilst I continue to walk to work every day, I'm working on trying to walk more of the way home again to get that level back again. Luckily, both my main colleague and I understand the importance of the incidental walking and we are very good at accepting I might need a speedy five minutes walk to go and hunt for a missing student rather than the efficient option of phoning their usual rooms to see where they are, and my colleague might need a walk to the main building to consult with the various admin departments!!
I weigh 17 stone 7lbs (111.2 kg) and would like to knock off 7lbs by the end of the month. My BMI is 40.8, which puts me in the "severe obesity" category, but if I lose 7lbs I'll be down to merely being obese.
I don't "feel" obese. Obviously I know that I am! I'm a Marks & Spencer size 20 (not in everything, but in everything I want to wear) and 20 seems to me to be the top size in most shops "normal" range. Sometimes I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror, and don't recognise the fat woman I see. If I'm looking in a mirror deliberately, shoulders back, breathing in, I'm actually happy enough with what I see. I don't know why, some sort of reverse to an anorexic "seeing" themselves as fat.
Off for a swim this morning.
Good luck going forward, NEQ. About a decade ago I went from ‘class 1 obese’ to ‘overweight’ by stick myself on a carb free diet (Michael Mosley’s blood sugar diet) for 8 weeks, after a health scare - I lost 10% of my body weight. I felt so much better for losing the weight. I still have a low carb diet to maintain my weight, with inevitable lapses, and to help ward off the diabetes which romps through my family.
One habit I have kept from that diet period is a 2 km walk every morning. Work gets in the way of doing one in the evening as well these days but I’m hoping to reduce my hours for the next academic year for mental health reasons. So once this year finishes (June) I went to increase my walking again and improve my mental health by getting out and about more.
I think this needs some elaboration... Dense fog in the swimming pool? Foghorn not working?
I could feel a loss of stamina.
Or brain fog? No, only in the atmosphere, so I decided that it would be foolish to drive to the pool. Had a good swim this morning although I was dazzled by low sun as I drove home.
Three stone off is quite an achievement, @KarlLB ! My immediate goal is 7lbs off in April and another 7lbs off in May. I'm not setting a goal of 3 stone off, because I find it hard to envisage.
One curiosity is my cholesterol. I first had it tested in my late twenties. I'd have been somewhere between 10 and 11 stone then, and my diet wasn't great - too many late nights in the office, and picking up a pizza on the way home. I can't remember exactly what my cholesterol was, but it was on the high side, around 6. Then I stopped work when I had the kids and started eating a lot more veg etc. My weight went up with each pregnancy, from 10 stone to 13. And my cholesterol stayed on the high side, just over 6. Since then, every time I get my cholesterol tested I get told to lose weight and my cholesterol will come down, even though it hasn't gone up as I gain weight in the first place. Last time it was 6.3, which isn't significantly higher than it was when I weighed 7 stone less. And yet again, I was told I needed to lose weight to lower it.
One one occasion I was at 6.2 and got the "lose weight" message, so I asked the doctor what would happen if I lost a stone. He said my cholesterol would come down. So I asked him to look at my record and see what it had been when I was a stone lighter. 6.3. I asked him if there was any chance, if I lost a stone, that I would go back up to what I had been when I actually did weigh a stone less. No, apparently.
It would be interesting to see what happened if I had the combination of the low weight of my 20s and the healthier diet of my 60s - perhaps I'd finally get below 6.
I'm not that concerned - several close family members have familial hypercholesterolaemia, and Mum and her younger brother were both over 9 when they went onto statins. Mum's now 91 and her brother is 87. (The familial hypercholesterolaemia is the reason mine has been checked since my 20s.)
Today I will get back to the treadmill. Promise.
My cholesterol was actually at its highest when my weight was at its lowest in 2018. Today it's at its lowest since that point and I weigh 4 stone more.
Sighs, I never was straightforwards.
The scales say I've lost 3lbs. This seems a bit too good to be true, as I was hoping for 2lbs. But I'll take it! The garden is looking a bit better too so win/win.
Then I faceplanted outside Church yesterday and have a 'probably not fractured but might be hard to tell from the X-ray we'll put it in a splint and a consultant will review the X-ray' wrist to contend with.
I find I lose weight successfully by doing the sort of things you're doing @North East Quine. It takes a while, but it seems to work. I do small thing such as weigh my breakfast cereal.
Well done on ceasing to be overweight! I can't even imagine not being overweight. If I lost 4 stone I'd still be obese, so even being "overweight" would be astounding for me.
I present this back story because last night, I turned on the Simpsons. Season 36: Episode 16: The Last Man Expanding. (See Synopsis) . It is a spoof on the GLP-1 medication Ozempic. Mounjoro is a similar medication. If you are on one of these medications, you might like to see how The Simpsons spoof it.
Not to worry about me. The liver issues are stable. I plan on keeping it that way for a long while.
I'm aiming for long term improvement rather than a quick fix, so I'm not too dismayed. The garden has benefitted, and we had a fun short but scrambly walk in the countryside yesterday.
On the plus side, I definitely held my own in the slow lane at swimming this morning! No-one overtook me, and I was waved on by people stopping for a breather at either end. 22 lengths at a sedate, but steady, pace.
The pound is a bit of a drag but I wonder if you are building muscle faster than losing fat at the mo, it's a lot denser so you don't need to add much to gain weight from it.
The other thing I'd remember is that your weight probably varies by several pounds across the day (and I'm not necessarily talking about the obvious semi-solid ins and out's here). I can have noticeable variations in amount spare round my waist across the course of a day, being of a shape where it shows, and I think when it was annoying me I worked out the range was about 3lb.