I'm telling myself it's a matter of a daily deficit of 200-300 calories plus at least 1/2 hour of exercise each day.

Am I right?

Yea, but the 'problem' is figuring out the base to subtract the deficit from. Our bodies are fairly complex and even from day to day, depending on lots of different variables, the amount of calories we need to keep our bodies going varies (sometimes A LOT!).

I'm telling myself it's a matter of a daily deficit of 200-300 calories plus at least 1/2 hour of exercise each day.

Am I right?I'm not a nutritionist or a sports specialist but what I CAN tell you is that as your body gets more in shape, you will need to challenge your body with increasingly more serious workouts in that half an hour of exercise.

She's being modest about the exercise. I think she gets in about 90 minutes on the eliptical every day for medical reasons. I'm proud of her for that.

The important thing is to focus on health, not on what the scale says.

-Tom

She's being modest about the exercise. I think she gets in about 90 minutes on the eliptical every day for medical reasons. I'm proud of her for that.Zoinks! Excellent!!! :)

She's being modest about the exercise. I think she gets in about 90 minutes on the eliptical every day for medical reasons. I'm proud of her for that.

The important thing is to focus on health, not on what the scale says.

-Tom

I just swooned a la 3894 or Helen.

Whadda man you've got there, honey!!! That definitely is romance novel worthy material right there. ;)

The calorie intake situation has been taken care of for me with WW. Seriously. If I count my points and am active, weight loss and maintainence is a breeze.

No, really.

~kisroo:)

The calorie intake situation has been taken care of for me with WW. Seriously. If I count my points and am active, weight loss and maintainence is a breeze.

Thanks for the nice words about Muggle. :)

I've been on and off WW in its various incarnations since the early '70s - OMgosh, that's 35 years ... ew. Varying degrees of success and thank heavens they got away from the obligatory artificial sweetener stuff and kitschy recipes for low-cal gefilte fish, etc.

I had a lot of success with WW after Baby #1. WW was an exchange system with boxes to check off at the time. I liked visually seeing that I have three boxes in the Bread category and I have checked off two, so one is left. I also tried WW vegetarian about two years ago but I was really sick (didn't know it at the time, though). Probably my illness interfered with things. Anyway, I dotted all my WW i's and crossed all my WW t's and exercised and didn't lose a thing. It was discouraging.

It might be time to try WW again. Your recommendation, as well as the success stan4d_steph has had with it, are solid gold.

You're right, in theory it seems so simple. The body is a complex machine though. It doesn't always behave the way we'd like.

I have had success with WW. It's been a gradual process. I'm going on 2 years now and I've had some ups and downs. I do the online version and they have good tools, tips and recipes on there. I prefer counting points to counting calories or other things. Once I got into it, I realized that even though I'm allowed to eat whatever I want, I can eat more if I eat healthier things like fruits and veggies.

My biggest problem is my love for baked goods. I have a hard time resisting the bakery case at my fave weekend hangout, Starbucks.

You can do it. :)

You can do it.

I appreciate the thought. My 48 year-old body does n-o-t want to give it up, that's for darn sure.

It might be time to try WW again. Your recommendation, as well as the success stan4d_steph has had with it, are solid gold.

Like stan4d_steph, I really like the online WW plan. They have a good board there for support, an online journal that adds up the points for me (yeah, I'm that lazy ;) ), and has articles/success stories that help me. Also like Steph, my major weight loss took a little over 1 1/2 years with WW. I think that's healthier, though. One thing I've had to learn about my body and my maintainence is that I have to be pretty on most of the time. Sugar is my weakness. Pure sugar, like jelly bellies, tootsie rolls...

I'll echo one more thing Steph said~You can do it.

And, you're welcome on the happy Muggle thoughts. I admire a man who values health and happiness over how we look in our jeans. :)

~kisroo

ETA: if you want a good laugh (albeit a more adult one) over the 1970's version of WW go to www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
:D

Sadly, kisroo, I recognize some of those 1970's WW recipes!

Okay, I joined WW again. You know what tipped the scales, so to speak? stan4d_steph and kisroo said You can do it! and I found myself literally shaking my head No, I can't!. How terrible a place to be in.

That means it's time to try really hard again for one month. I would love to prove myself wrong.

I chose the Core Plan. You don't count daily points on this plan. You do have a certain minimum number of servings of vegetables, fruits, milk, protein, and water each day but you can go over the minimum. You do get 35 additional weekly points to spend on non-Core items (like carbs). For those who haven't tried WW or for whom it's been a while, there's a Points Plan, also. You get to pick which one feels like the best fit for you.

So here I go. I hereby put my mind to the Core Plan for a month. Anyone else want to try WW or even any plan of your choice, too?

Well, after losing 30lbs last year on WW, then "dropping out" for 6 mos and gaining 5lbs back, I am back on WW "for reals" as of this month. It's the only plan that works for me (when I stick to it, that is).

I'm considering trying the Core plan this time around, but I'm not sure it will work for me. I already eat mostly foods that are on the Core list. My problem is portion control. Flex makes you measure. <sigh> Maybe I'll try Core this week and just see how it works.

So here I go. I hereby put my mind to the Core Plan for a month. Anyone else want to try WW or even any plan of your choice, too?


Yay you!!

I'll join you in getting back to journaling everyday...I've been lax this winter. Spring back into it, right??? Support is a big part of the WW plan. Although I'm not a WW group person, I'd love to come here to cheer each other on.

I do the points plan. I tried the Core plan. Too much freedom for me, I guess. :p

~kisroo:)

Support is a big part of the WW plan. Although I'm not a WW group person, I'd love to come here to cheer each other on.

Even though I am a go-to-meeting kinda gal (I love my leader), I would still love having a WW support thread or whatever here. The are a few of us here at MP that are following WW. I'd also love to hear from people who have reached goal on WW and are maintaining.

Another WW person chiming in here!

I've been doing it about 1.5 years this time around, but have really stalled out since September. I'm actually 'lifetime' and it was SOOOO much easier to do last time around (about 10 years ago) - I know my goal weight will be different, but I'm not near enough it yet to decide what it should be, so I'm not even sure how much more I've got to go.

I had been doing the flex (points) plan for most of the time, and about a month or two back, tried core just to see if it would shake my body up into responding better at the scales. I liked it, but I found myself doing a lot more cooking, and if I had a busy week, it was really tough to do. So I'm on Flex again this week (after taking a few weeks off from paying attention closely) and am tracking/weighing/measuring diligently this week. I found myself doing lots of stir-fry type dishes on core, because I could make up a big batch of stuff, and then eat it for 2 or 3 meals. 2 or 3 meals I'm ok with not getting 'tired' of something, much more than that and I don't want to eat it AGAIN....

My next hurdle, though, is to get my backside back into exercising. I have tons of excuses, but I've been paying a lot of money to the health club every month and have not been using it like I should. I just wish they had the class that I really like (and was a big reason for choosing this gym when I moved here) at a time I could actually make it to. It's a weight-lifting class, 'choreographed' and set to music, and the same everywhere in the world, and it gets all the major muscle groups. It's just about aerobic in nature (tons of reps, lower weight) and I really liked it when I was in Portland before I moved here.

There, I've said it out loud, now I have to at least go and walk the treadmill or swim some laps a couple of times this week!

Yay, we've got company! Good luck and Godspeed to all of us.

Dr. Muggle wants to know if anyone is doing the Shangri-la Diet?

I just looked it up because although I'd heard the name, I did not know what it entailed. It doesn't look like a diet I could live on with any consistency. The first reason is that I don't eat out of hunger. When I overeat, it's because I'm depressed, bored, or in a social situation. When I'm happy, occupied and not eating out a lot, I eat "properly" without feeling deprived or hungry. The second reason is that, for me, it had too many rules. Granted, I didn't read the book, just several online articles.

I am enjoying using Fitday.com

between visually seeing bar charts of my intake/outtake of both calories and exercise I have realized I am a visual learner.

Oooh, a diet thread. I had to change my diet permanently for health reasons but I lost more than 15 pounds, anyway. Took about a year, though, and it's stayed off. But then I do a LOT of bike riding--as of today I'm up to 2650 miles for the year.

That means it's time to try really hard again for one month.

My trial month on the online WW CORE program is up today. Here are my thoughts:

The CORE program and its psychology make sense. CORE fits my life and will be doable even when I travel. CORE clicked for me. It's not really a diet but a live-it, Richard Simmons says.
CORE fits in with the title of this thread: it is simple.

The beta e-CORE tools are surprisingly primitive, slow, and annoying to navigate at this point in time. The rest of the WW site doesn't interest me. Live WW meetings make me want to ram whatever WW product they're shilling down the leader's throat. Have I mentioned I don't like live WW meetings?

I'm happy I tried CORE and that it clicked for me 95% of the time. My weight loss for the month was four pounds. I'll keep on the path but have cancelled my online subscription to WW.

I'm happy I tried CORE and that it clicked for me 95% of the time. My weight loss for the month was four pounds. I'll keep on the path but have cancelled my online subscription to WW.But the good news is that you found something that works for you.

Tony and I were having this discussion last night, because I'm almost to the point where I'm going to drop out of the weekly meetings and only continue the online subscription (which does work better for those on Points, I have to admit) If you've come to a place where you have internalized the changes necessary to continue with the program, and no longer need or want the external trappings, then save your money for a really awesome pair of shoes.

AVP

But the good news is that you found something that works for you.

Absolutely. And that is hugely good news. Thanks for the kind words, AVP.

The beta e-CORE tools are surprisingly primitive, slow, and annoying to navigate at this point in time.

I dropped my online subscription because even though I was using the points system, I had a horrible time with the slow speed of the website.

I still need the external trappings ;) I do like the meetings because I like people patting me on the back along the way.

I'm glad that you're seeing progress, Helen!

Adrienne

I tried using the beta version of the new tracker, and gave up on it for the time being. I don't think I'm disciplined enough to give up on the tools yet. Maybe when I decide to ditch the whole thing.

I'm glad you found something that is working for you Helen. :)