No more excuses

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I finally cut the
excuses and decided I need to loose weight. For real. I hope to find
some support here, especially in the hard times. Until now I was always
blaming my thyroid for being too slow, this is no longer an excuse.

To start with, I've decided to keep a log of what I eat, just to get
back into the habit. I already exercise frequently by biking to work
(gets me 1 hour of biking 4 days per week). I want to add Pilates to
this on those 3 days I don't bike.

My goal is to loose 5kg in the next 2 months. I hope that is realistic.
Any additional advice and tips to get a good start are most welcome. TIA!

E
94.7 - 94.7 - 90.0 (kg)

On 15 avr, 09:13, Eowyn <m...@nospam.com> wrote:
> Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I finally cut the
> excuses and decided I need to loose weight. For real. I hope to find
> some support here, especially in the hard times. Until now I was always
> blaming my thyroid for being too slow, this is no longer an excuse.
>
> To start with, I've decided to keep a log of what I eat, just to get
> back into the habit. I already exercise frequently by biking to work
> (gets me 1 hour of biking 4 days per week). I want to add Pilates to
> this on those 3 days I don't bike.
>
> My goal is to loose 5kg in the next 2 months. I hope that is realistic.
> Any additional advice and tips to get a good start are most welcome. TIA!
>
> E
> 94.7 - 94.7 - 90.0 (kg)

Great! It's hard to tell if your goal is realistic without having much
personal information. How tall are you? Are you a man or woman? Any
pictures of you?

mikesmith9999@hotmail.com wrote:
> Great! It's hard to tell if your goal is realistic without having much
> personal information. How tall are you? Are you a man or woman? Any
> pictures of you?

It's really only a start, in the past I've learned the hard way it is
better to reach a small goal first, rather than failing the big one over
and over. I guess my question really is if it's realistic to loose 5kg
in 2 months, or if that is too fast (or too slow).

I am a woman BTW, and measure 1.80m (~5'10"). A good weight for me,
given my posture, would be between 75 and 80kg. So I have a way to go...

E
94.7 - 94.7 - 90

On 15 avr, 11:43, Ilse van Bemmel <ivbem...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> mikesmith9...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > Great! It's hard to tell if your goal is realistic without having much
> > personal information. How tall are you? Are you a man or woman? Any
> > pictures of you?
>
> It's really only a start, in the past I've learned the hard way it is
> better to reach a small goal first, rather than failing the big one over
> and over. I guess my question really is if it's realistic to loose 5kg
> in 2 months, or if that is too fast (or too slow).
>
> I am a woman BTW, and measure 1.80m (~5'10"). A good weight for me,
> given my posture, would be between 75 and 80kg. So I have a way to go...
>
> E
> 94.7 - 94.7 - 90

I like your saying about the small vs big goal. I will certainly apply
this into my life.

On Apr 15, 8:13 am, Eowyn <m...@nospam.com> wrote:
> Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I finally cut the
> excuses and decided I need to loose weight. For real. I hope to find
> some support here, especially in the hard times. Until now I was always
> blaming my thyroid for being too slow, this is no longer an excuse.

Right! Congratulations, this is the single hardest part about
dieting. You're off and on to better things, and we'll be here to
help you along the way!

>
> To start with, I've decided to keep a log of what I eat, just to get
> back into the habit.

In my opinion, this is the biggest thing about dieting. A lot of the
time, people just "rough" it and try to eat "healthier." You can
still get fat by eating lots of "healthy" foods. Try to keep track
numerically of what your caloric intake each day is, preferably to
within +/- 100 [kilo]calories (418 kJ I believe).

> I already exercise frequently by biking to work
> (gets me 1 hour of biking 4 days per week). I want to add Pilates to
> this on those 3 days I don't bike.
>
> My goal is to loose 5kg in the next 2 months. I hope that is realistic.
> Any additional advice and tips to get a good start are most welcome. TIA!
>
> E
> 94.7 - 94.7 - 90.0 (kg)

There are 3500 [kilo]calories to a pound of fat, which is roughly
37000 kJ per kg of fat.

To lose 5kg (the equivalent of ~11 lbs) in 2 months (~60 days), your
energy deficit per day is:

37000 kJ / kg * 5kg / 60 days ~ 3083kJ/day (or ~700kcal/day)

Which is equivalent to a weight loss of ~0.6kg/week (1.28lbs/wk)


This is a large value, but it's doable! Personally, I've been eating
1000 calories (4184kJ) LESS than my body needs every single day for
over two months now, losing weight at an almost straight-line steady
2lbs/wk.

You're off to a great start! Just take a reasonable guess at your
daily metabolic rate (there are charts online that have population
averages based on weight and height) and subtract what you're cutting
out from that. Then, eat to that number.

Other than that, it's all up to you!

Might I recommend:

Water!!! - Water rules, 'nuff said.

Diet soda - A lot of people seem to think it's got government nanobots
that cause cancer or something, but I put the stuff away at about 2
20oz bottles a day. The sweetness of the aspartame can satisfy a
craving without a heavy calorie load.

Coffee - OK, maybe not the best thing in the world, but this has been
one of my secret weapons lately. I'm not a big coffee drinker, but I
recently started having a cup or two (black with a single aspartame-
based sweetener) in the morning. I like to drink it piping hot, and
along with a wheat bagel and about an ounce of light creme cheese, I'm
full for several hours. I think it's the heat of the drink that makes
me feel so full after drinking it, but who knows?

Greens: Eat lots of veggies; they have a very high volume-to-energy
ratio, so you can fill up without hurting your eating plans.


Don't get discouraged, and let us know how you're doing from time to
time!

James G wrote:
> Right! Congratulations, this is the single hardest part about
> dieting. You're off and on to better things, and we'll be here to
> help you along the way!

You don't say, I didn't even manage to stay away from sweets for a
day... However, I have stopped beating myself up over this. It seems the
only way around cookies is not having them in the house. Which means I
have to control not only me, but also DH...

> This is a large value, but it's doable! Personally, I've been eating
> 1000 calories (4184kJ) LESS than my body needs every single day for
> over two months now, losing weight at an almost straight-line steady
> 2lbs/wk.

I've tried that approach before, and I know that it doesn't work for me
in the long ron. My main problem is that I stop loosing weight after a
few weeks, and the only way around this is to burn more calories through
exercising. Which is why I really want to find time to do the Pilates.

OTOH I know I am eating too much, so cutting out a few hundred calories
shouldn't be a huge issue to start with. In a week or so the diary will
tell me where and when are the best options to cut on food intake.

> Water!!! - Water rules, 'nuff said.

Good point, I should really drink more!

> Diet soda - A lot of people seem to think it's got government nanobots
> that cause cancer or something, but I put the stuff away at about 2
> 20oz bottles a day. The sweetness of the aspartame can satisfy a
> craving without a heavy calorie load.

I'm really glad to hear that! I'm not much of a believer in nanobots ;-)
but I do get these sweet-cravings that can be helped by some diet soda.
I also find that apples do a great job in that.

Thanks for the tips!!

E
94.7 - 94.7 - 90.0 (kg)