OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

[mitzimarie]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Haven't posted for awhile, but I have been reading everyone elses!

10/29/2007 Monday
B&S: Bacon, 2/5 of a ChocoPerfection Bar & an Atkins Cafe Mocha Shake
L: Grilled Chicken, Salad w/ Ranch Dressing, Broccoli w/ Butter
S: Atkins Vanilla Shake
D: Italian Sausages, Grilled Green Peppers
S: Atkins Cafe Mocha Shake

Calories: 1721; Fat 64%, Protein 31%, Carbs 5%; 18 grams Fiber; 20 Net Carbs

Hey, Wendy

Aren't you scared of having 3 shakes in one day? Veggies look a little low, and would be the perfect thing to use for snacks.

Just curious.

[Alexa]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Hey everyone,

I think I should come back to this thread and try and get back on track instead of resigning myself to 176lbs just yet.

I'm going to focus on veggies as the mainstay of my carbs.

Today's menu:
B: 2 fried eggs, 2 slices bacon, 5 cherry toms, 1/2 c mushrooms, 1/2 oz cheese
L: 2 cups lettuce, 1 1/2 spinach, 1/2 c pepper, 4 cherry toms, egg salad (mayo and 1/2 oz cheese) - don't normally eat 4 eggs but had some hardboiled ones to use up from the trip.
S: 1 oz cheese, 1/2 cup cucumber - if hungry.
D: 1 chicken breast, 1/2 tbsp pesto, 1 cup kale, 0.75 cup string beans
S: 0.75 cup strawberries, 1/2 c greek yoghurt

Veggie carbs: 19g
Total net carbs: 33
Fat 62, Carbs 9, Protein 29
Cals 1610

[*Emma*]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Wendy - watch those shakes they can be huge stallers for people and three in a day seems a lot!

Okay today

11am - wholewheat roll with tuna mayo - 1/2 cup lettuce, 4 cherrry toms, slice of onion

5pm - Turkey breast, 1.5 cup broccoli, 1 cup mushrooms, bacon bits, 1oz cheese, 3/4 cup cream

snack - smoked sausage 1oz cheese - if hungry

annoyed at the roll in there but couldnt really help it.

[julirama723]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

I have some questions for those of you who have cut out/cut back on dairy.

Did you eliminate ALL dairy?
Are there some dairy products that are OK for you to eat?
Do you still eat aged cheeses?
Approximately how many servings of dairy do you eat per day?

Obviously, I have had a gain/bloat from alcohol in recent weeks. I'm starting to wonder what else I can tweak to get on a good losing streak again. I know there are certain foods I can NOT have:

cottage cheese
watermelon
apples
cashews
melon
lighter beer (I seem to be OK with dark beer/guinness but not lighter wheat beers)

I haven't noticed a problem with whole grains. "Noticed" is a key word. Perhaps this is contributing to my slow losses, but I haven't realized it? Not that I neccessarily eat a ton of whole grain products. The things I do eat are whole grain bread (usually a piece before my Tuesday morning class, or 1 piece as part of an omelette sandwich), Kashi whole grain crackers, and flat out wraps. Since I've discovered that most fruit is a no-no for me (and berries, which I can eat, are ridiculously expensive now) I've turned to eating whole grains each day to raise my carb levels.

Should I drop down to a lower carb level and not worry about eating so many grams? Or should I keep eating whole grains to keep my carb levels up? I'm paranoid, because so many people seem to have problems with whole grains.

I guess the thing I'm wondering is...is it possible to not be affected by a higher rung even if I'm affected by a lower rung? For example, I don't seem to have a problem with whole grains, but other fruits wreak havoc on me. Starchy veggies don't seem to be an issue, but cottage cheese makes me a raving addict.

I've been eating a lot more veggies lately, and in goodish amounts. I've also been trying to eat a wider variety within the day (usually 4 different veggies).

[*Emma*]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

I guess the thing I'm wondering is...is it possible to not be affected by a higher rung even if I'm affected by a lower rung? For example, I don't seem to have a problem with whole grains, but other fruits wreak havoc on me. Starchy veggies don't seem to be an issue, but cottage cheese makes me a raving addict.

Wheat helps me to lose quicker, i just dont like having it because i have an addiction to it, but on the days i do have it i always see the scales go down the next day- so i guess yes, it is possible - as most fruits that i've tried stall me, nuts stall me, strawberries make me gain.... i dont think it matters where the rung is, each person is just different on their intolerances.

[*Wendy*]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Mitzi & Emma: Thanks for the feedback regarding the shakes - I have gone for a LONG LONG time with no shakes, and just re-introduced them again a few days ago. Yesterday I reached for them because they were handy and they taste so good. Could well be that I'm reaching for them that often because they are a trigger food - best get it under control pronto! Tomorrow I'm going to pack some raw cauliflower - I usually end up tossing 1/2 the head out each week anyway - may as well have it here at work to snack on!

[gonnabskinny]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Julie, I wish I could help you on that. I don't seem to have a problem with any of it except eating fruit without having a fat with it. I had 1/2 an apple one afternoon as a snack and about 1 hour later I thought I was going to starve to death!

My problems are keeping my calories low while trying to find my ACE/CCLL. That and it seems that no matter how much fiber I get, I still have been fighting constipation! Yesterday for example, I ate 142 carbs, of which 52 grams were fiber! On top of all that I drank about 160 oz of water yesterday and still no movement! I know TMI!

I wonder if I am eating too much protein! I know the ratios are supposed to stay at about 30%, which I rarely ever go over. Most times it is under. I have cut back on the eggs the past couple of days, just to see if maybe that is it.

Here was yesterday.

Breakfast
Atkins shake
1 cup Kashi go lean cereal
1/2 cup soy milk
2 slices Hormel thin bacon
1/2 cup of greek yogurt
1/2 cup of nature's three berries

Lunch
Roast beef sandwich: 2 slices fiber plus bread, 4.75 oz roast beef, 1 slice swiss cheese, 1 roma tomato, 2 pickle slices, 1 leaf romaine lettuce, 1.5 tbsp mayo
2 cups of cauliflower

Dinner
8 oz chicken salad

snack
1 altoid
1/2 apple
1 oz almonds
3 cups of cauliflower

1980 calories, 104 grams of fat 47%, 90 net carbs 23%, and 146 grams of protein 30%

Oh, and another thing. For me it still comes down to calories. Last week I overdid it, but thought that I still should have had a larger loss than what the scale showed. So just to check on things I went to my progress chart and looked at it since July 30th. I am laughing out loud now because I am not very analytical about things, but I did keep track everyday and every week of my total intake and what my total BMR was with exercise at that weight! Hey, I am in sales, other people are supposed to keep track of statistics! Right??? Anyway, on that date I weighed 247 lbs and am now 24 lbs lighter at 223 lbs. I took my total BMR and then subtracted out the caloric intake and found that I had a total deficit during that period of 84,553. Then I divided the 84,553 by 3500 calories only to find that it came out that I should have lost exactly what I did lose over that period. 24 lbs!!! Just goes to show, weight does fluctuate, but over an extended period, it is all going to average out!

[julirama723]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Don, fruit never used to affect me, or at least I didn't notice that it did. But soon, I was eating fruit every day, and then 2x a day, and this summer, after eating watermelon for dessert, I was struck with HORRIBLE cravings all the next day, and do you know what I craved and ate entirely too much of? FRUIT! For me it was a build-up...over the course of 8 MONTHS! It was so gradual I didn't think anything of it. Now I realize what the symptoms are. Just recently I tried eating an apple (with almonds, so I had fat AND protein) and it messed me up for an entire day, I was mad with hunger and had awful cravings.

I'm still having a tough time with calories, too, because I guess I eat too much fat with my carbs. But I am finding that I *can* eat veggies without fat, and be totally OK. I would never be able to do that with fruit, or whole grains. So I am trying to figure out when I should eat fats and when I shouldn't, and how much to eat.

[BLAZING IN FL]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

my menu for today
fat 66%
carb 13%
protein 22%

54 net carbs
out of that 35 were veggie net carbs..

I had: brocolli, cauliflower, jicama, sugar snap peas, kraut, tomato sauce, corn chips and green peppers. (haven't at it all yet, it's just my plan ahead of time, just in case i can't get on here tonight.)

[mitzimarie]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

I have some questions for those of you who have cut out/cut back on dairy.

Did you eliminate ALL dairy?
Are there some dairy products that are OK for you to eat?
Do you still eat aged cheeses?
Approximately how many servings of dairy do you eat per day?

Julie, I don't know if my info will help, because I have never eaten a lot of dairy. But I'm happy to share.
- The only dairy I added in rung 2 was greek yogurt and cottage cheese. I eliminated both of them September 1st, after I had a few weeks of 1 pound losses instead of my usual 2.
- I have never used cream... don't really know what to do with it, since I don't drink coffee and I have a fear of sweets deep enough to stear me away from them since my re-start.
- All other dairy remained the same. And you can tell from the menus I have posted, that I am a "boring" eater... I eat a lot of the same things over and over. That could spell disaster for some people, but I prefer it. And that daily dairy includes 2 ounces of cream cheese at breakfast, 1 ounce of cheddar cheese sometimes at lunch (but not always), and sometimes a slice of swiss or provolone cheese on a hamburger patty for dinner or an ounce of cheddar on loaded cauliflower. And that's it.

Should I drop down to a lower carb level and not worry about eating so many grams? Or should I keep eating whole grains to keep my carb levels up? I'm paranoid, because so many people seem to have problems with whole grains.

Julie, I look at your and Don's menu and I think about this all of the time. I have been very "by the book" up to this point. I see that you and Don are following all of the rules by going all the way up the rungs and constantly searching for the magic CCLL. I did that too, but since mine was lower, it didn't take me that long to find it. The book says that we should enter Pre-Maintenance when we are 5 to 10 pounds from goal. In Pre-Maintenance, we are supposed to put on the brakes and slow our losses to less than a pound a week. I am technically 4 pounds from goal (I say that because I think that I will acutally try to go a few under that), and that means that I should be searching for my CCLM (the amount I can eat up to without gaining). To tell you the truth, I have a very hard time eating up to the same high carb level everyday to test for these numbers.

So, to make a short story long, I don't make a huge effort to keep pushing my carbs up... not now (I have been eating up to 50, but not everyday). This is the area where I am not doing exactly what the book says to do. If you are still at a point where you would like to drop weight steadily each week, I would drop down rungs for a while and not force yourself to keep upping carbs quite yet (unless you want to do that with veggies, but I think that many veggies messes with you?). I just know that my goal weight is not so low that going under it will hurt me, while I go back up the rungs to stop the weight loss (after I get to goal). Your goal weight is probably the same way. Like I said, though... that's not by the book.

I guess the thing I'm wondering is...is it possible to not be affected by a higher rung even if I'm affected by a lower rung? For example, I don't seem to have a problem with whole grains, but other fruits wreak havoc on me. Starchy veggies don't seem to be an issue, but cottage cheese makes me a raving addict.

Oh yes, I definitely think so. I think that there will be some things we can have, and some things we can't have, on each of the rungs. I don't think that we will have to stay below a specific rung... but we will have to test each food on each rung.

[gonnabskinny]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

I thought I would post this here. I just got my company photo redone.


This was at 360++ Me at 223

Anybody know how to downsize these photos? I thought that I had this set right! Oh well!

[julirama723]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Thanks Mitzi. My problem is that I haven't had a losing "streak" (losses every week) since FEBRUARY! In March, I would lose 2 pounds, then nothing, then 2 more pounds, then nothing, etc. In April/May I would lose about 1.5 pounds then nothing, then 1.5 pounds then nothing. This summer I only lost 10 pounds, but focused on strength training, so I consistently lost inches. Since school started, I seem to be all messed up. I haven't measured in a while because I don't even feel like it's worth it...I doubt I've lost very much. As for weight, I was at 175 when school started, and now I'm "technically" at 171, though this morning I weighed 176 (HOLY CRAP!) and it fluctuates CONSTANTLY.

So, I'm thinking I should drop down in carbs, but how far? As low as my February levels when I was losing 2+ pounds per week, or back to April/May levels when I was losing about 1 pound per week on average? February levels were about 60g, April/May were about 70g. I'm actually thinking my CCLL might be between 80 or 85-90...yet somehow I continued to lose even though I ate more than that each day? UGH. I almost wish that inches didn't figure in, because that complicates things more. If you look at my September to October bikini pictures, that's only a 3 pound difference, but I lost inches and lots of body fat...though now I feel like I gained that back (even though I probably didn't).

[ValidRouge]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

Julie,

THAT exactly what happened to me as I approached goal. I kept reducing my carbs and reducing my carbs yet I still lost SLOWWWWW and even gained. Now that I look back at it, I'm really starting to think all the dairy was my problem. Because there were a couple days this past week that i had upwards of 50-60 carbs and I LOST WEIGHT again! So, IMO, it's not so much HOW MANY carbs, it's WHAT TYPE.

Dairy and grains and alcohol cause *ME* weight gain, via fluid retention and bloat (and constipation). Nuts cause major cravings and overeating issues. Legumes, starchy veggies (not potatoes--but the winter squash, peas and corn, but not popcorn) seem to be okay for me. So, it's all about what works and doesn't work for your body. The only way you're going to figure it out is to start eliminating stuff and see what happens.

[misplaced southerner]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

DON!!!! been following your posts. you don't even look like the same person! what a tremendous difference. you look fabulous and i bet you feel like a million bucks!

[mitzimarie]

Re: OWLERS "Stepping Back" thread

I thought I would post this here. I just got my company photo redone.


This was at 360++ Me at 223

Anybody know how to downsize these photos? I thought that I had this set right! Oh well!

Don! Don't you dare downsize that photo!! You look awesome, and are very attractive... pleasing to the eye, for sure. Leave it alone!