Ouch.  You have my sympathy.  I developed that a few years back and it
was incredibly painful.

If you can ignore the sniggers, shaking of numerous heads, giggling,
mumbled fat jokes and comments, and general shock etc., then yes, it's
fun.  I try to avoid going to the pool.  I hope that won't be my only
choice to exercise and remain uninjured. :-/

That's what I want to do too, eat several small meals over the course of
a day.  I hope it works to keep my blood sugar leveled out and reduces
the feeling of hunger and the urge to binge.

Continued success to you and thanks for your story.

It's not unusual to get to a point and then have to change up strategy
some. Portion control is good... you may also need to change what you
eat . I've never been much of a protein eater before, but I've found
it has helped me in the weight loss wars to eat plenty of protein,
healthy fats, lots of veggies, some fruit and some whole
grains/legumes.

Exercise, even mild forms like walking, can help some with the stress.
Relaxation techniques are also good. I'm starting to look into doing a
little yoga myself, have a DVD or two to try out.

It's an ongoing process, so don't beat yourself up that these changes
happen slowly.

Yep, that's about it. It's a lifestyle change. Keep telling yourself
what you want, keep telling yourself that you are the kind of person
who exercises and enjoys it, tell yourself you are the kind of person
who eats healthy foods and doesn't buy junk, etc... It's a sort of
reprogramming.

Well, you are making the choice to change... and that's a good thing.
Small changes can make great improvements to health. I'm lucky, in
that my weight has only really impacted me on joints and energy
levels, but not particularly otherwise. My hubby though, he's
diabetic, has cholesterol and high blood pressure issues.

He's seen that through walking most days, his cholesterol and high
blood pressure are doing much better. He is on meds for both, but
improvement really came with better diet and exercise after we got
married.

If there is one thing I can say... keep an eye on ALL progress and not
just the scale. You may want to take a set of girth measurements and
watch to see if you are losing inches. Watch how clothes fit changes,
or jewelry or watch fit. Sometimes it is the smallest signs of
progress that will help keep you motivated. The scale can be quite
fickle and the body doesn't always lose fat in a straight line
process, so keeping track of things like how you feel after walking,
energy levels, inches lost, strength gained, blood pressure, blood
work readings, is all important.

I would like to modify my previous suggestion about calories then.

1) Look up your target weight in insurance tables.  Add 10 because
they
run 10 pounds too  low.  Multiply by 10 calories per pound.

2) Take your current weight.  Multiply by 10 calories per pound.

3) Average numbers from 1 and 2 and use that as your daily target
calories.  Redo every couple of months.

The idea behind this is if you start out based on your target you will
be eating too little for your current size.  Plus figure stored fat as
consuming less calories than lean.  Split the difference because it is
an easy method that works okay as an approximation.

One thing on this... eat plenty of vegetables with each meal and eat
fruit with some meals. I eat around 2200 calories per day... and I do
not feel remotely like it is a small amount of food, even split into
5-6 meals. A cup or two of veggies at every meal takes care of that
rather nicely!

If anything, there are days when it's hard to eat it all!

Most of my meals run around 350-400 calories, sometimes a little more,
sometimes a little less. I try to eat the more caloric meals in the
morning, tapering to slightly less caloric in the evening.

I can have a six egg white omelette (or sometimes 5 egg whites and 1
omega-3 egg) with a sliced zucchini and about a half cup of red pepper
and a piece of Alpine Lace reduced fat Swiss, plus either half a large
orange or a whole small orange for a meal. That's an entire plateful
of food! It looks like you are eating a restaurant sized omelet... but
it is far less calories.

I have chicken salads that are likewise, a nice satisfying plate full
of food. Not every meal fills a plate, others are only salad plate
sized, but those are meals that may have more fats included.

Here's a picture of one of my chicken salads... one is packed in the
ZipLoc container (I usually make up a couple days worth of salad meals
to have handy and store in the fridge this way.) and one is on the
plate about to be eaten, topped with some walnut pieces and low fat
dressing. (Other times I might skip the nuts and use an olive
oil/balsamic vinegar dressing.)

Add a piece of fruit and you ARE filling that plate.

Contents are about 3-3.5 ounces chicken breast (no skin), a good
handful of spinach, a slice of red onion, some red pepper, 5-6 baby
carrots, and maybe 9 slices of cucumber. Looks small packed in ZipLoc,
but definitely fills most of a plate.

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z37/graycyn/Precision%20Nutrition/standard_ch
icken_salad_P7124103.jpg

Not that I eat salad for every meal, but usually at least two meals of
my 5-6 meal day are salad for convenience's sake. Plus they are
portable, should I need to take meals with me on the go.

It's always going to be about calories in vs. calories out.  But most
people find it easier to limit calories, eat food they enjoy, and feel
best when they pay some attention to the macronutrient (carbs,
proteins, fats) content of their diet.  This becomes more important
when one is limiting calories than it might be otherwise.  Personally,
I eat a diet relatively higher in protein than average, and try
somewhat to limit "bad" carbs and fats, but not religiously.  ("Bad"
carbs are things like sugar and white flour; good carbs are things
like whole grains and veggies.  "Bad" fats are those in meat and
dairy; good fats are those in fish, nuts, etc.)  But for now, try to
eat a healthy mix of foods at the calorie level you've chosen and
don't worry about the fine points.

Chris
262/130s/130s
maintaining since June 2004

Hi Lisa!

Lisa, there's no science whatsoever. (Well, very little, anyway.) You need
to find a way to measure and control what you eat. For most people its
counting calories. I did that a long time. It works for everyone who commits
and sticks to it. Now I count carbs instead. That works for me but maybe not
for everyone.

If your goal is to lose weight, all you have to do is count calories. I kept
a log of all the foods I ate and how many calories, and added the calories
together throughout the day to see where I was at. Simple. This is what you
need: a pencil, a small pad of paper, info from the labels on the back of
food packages, a scale, measuring cups and spoons and the USDA database (to
look up calories content of different foods).

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

It might take a little learning and a bit of discipline to get started, but
once you get into the swing of things its not hard at all. As far as the
quality of the food you eat, don't worry about that for now. Get on-track
eating fewer calories. Stop drinking/eating really sugary stuff like soda
and cake 'cause it uses up your daily alotment of calories really fast.

A good technical explanation of calories and all that can be found at The
Hackers Diet website (google it, if you want). Otherwise... I don't know
what to recommend in terms of a book or whatever that teaches calorie
counting -- but there's got to be a website or something out there to help
you get started.

Em

Consider that your current idea of what food mixtures are normal
might be very badly off.  Both low fat and low carb work based on
eating food mixtures that tend to reduce total appetite and they
do in in very healthy ways for most people.  A certain percentage
of the population is never hungry on a low fat diet so those people
should do that.  A certain percentage of people is never hungry on
a low carb diet so those people should do that.  (Where "never"
actually means something like until they hit 10-20 pounds to lose
by which time it's all about calories and hunger no matter what).

Why?  Broccoli and beef sounds scary?

If that was that no one would be fat.  The losing is actually the
easy part.  But so many lose and then regain.  Consider simple
cause and effect - Go back to what got us fat in the first place,
get fat all over again.  The "that's it" part must include a
maintenance phase and there is zero possibility that maintenance
will be eating the food that got us fat in the first place.

Designing a plan takes either science and/or gathering data
a detailed experiment plan that adjusts actions based on the
data.  Guess what?  Any popular book in the field has about
a decade of this sort of work behind it.

But following one of the plan, what that takes can be called
faith.  Step out in faith.  Read the book, follow the directions
in it.  Most especially any book out there is going to have
at least one point that you disagree with or don't understand.
Step out in faith and do it anyways - It's these points that are
what took the authors a decade of work to figure out.  The
good plans work better than anything obvious that you can
come up with.  Go ahead and read all the science you want
about your plan of choice, but the science isn't necessary to
step out in faith and follow the directions.

It's a common enough complaint but it's one that only happens
to folks with under say 100 pounds to lose.  And a lot of the
time it's from not following the non-obvious parts of the
directions.

I need to call you on playing a mind game when it comes to the
way you've worded this.  You have no reason to think that the
mixture of foods you've been eating is in any way healthly or
correct.  It very likely contributed to your gain.  So why is an
adjustment that makes things better to be called a trick?