Weight and dressing

[Teresa]

Jenny,
That's 8.5 imperial gallons , no wonder I've lost weight . I'm so grateful I haven't needed it but so good to know I may have given life to someone else .

[Rayleen]

Went from 205 a year ago to 180 today, my clothes fit a lot better. I exercise first thing in the morning and it helped loose weight.

Hope to loose more, and I feel better

Rayleen

[HollyGreene]

I've tried hard to lose weight but it's not gone well. For me it became a lot more difficult after I turned 50. I'd love to lose about 20 kilos (44 pounds?), But I can't see it happening. It really annoyed me over the years whenever I had to go up a dress size and I'd love to be able to fit in some of my favourite things again.

[Tracii G]

I know what you mean Holly I have loads of tops and jeans that I can't fit into anymore.
I have taken a lot to Goodwill and found items in my size to make up for it.
Need to make another trip there this week and take more stuff in.

[kayegirl]

Like Racheal-Leigh, I don't diet as such, but following my heart surgery 3 years ago I did start thinking about the food that I ate. As far as possible I avoid refined sugars, but there is some natural sugars in the fruit and veg that I eat. Very rarely do I now drink beer, although I suspect that the wine and/or spirits that I now favour, are just as fattening. Both my wife and I prefer fish and seafood to most redmeats, the exception being my ostrich steaks (almost zero fat content). That combined with my gentle exercise routine, no gym but regular brisk walks and cyclingerie, has seen a weight reduction of 15kilos, approx 30lbs I think.

[Jenny123]

Once I accepted the truth about myself, i lost a lot of weight. Prior to that,I just didn't care. However, I was amazed at the pressure I felt to lose the weight once I started to come out.

[Marianne S]

Like others here, I'm grateful to my feminine self for helping to keep me healthy. Of course, I realize that many (genetic) women feel under excessive pressure to lose weight, which is not healthy and certainly not happy. Just the same, there is a happy (and healthy) medium!

Mind you, I think I'm reasonably lucky insofar as I've never really "run to fat" in a bad way. I guess i'm an endomorph genetically. Just the same, things change as we get older, and in more recent years I have found my weight going up and down. Not all by itself, I'm sure! It's not as if I had nothing to do with it! It went up when I neglected it (and being a lover of good food and drink doesn't help!) and down only when I made an effort.

It's become more of a struggle each time. I like to stay around 140. But thirteen years ago I gave up smoking, with inevitable consequences. That was good for me in one way, but bad in another. Before too long I found I'd drifted up to 180-something. So I started walking and bicycling regularly and dieting, and got my weight back down again. But the following year it floated up again, this time to 190-something! Once again I made the effort to diet, and got it back down again, but as soon as I let go, up it went again, each time worse than before. And the worse we let it go, the more daunting becomes the task of ever regaining a healthy weight. I was heavy for five years, until in 2012, having gone up to a horrifying (for me) 215 pounds (I'm 5 feet 11), I made a Herculean effort and managed to get down to 140 again.

Since then, at least I've never let myself go so badly, though I have drifted up somewhat. Today I was 156. I have a goal to get back down to a 30-inch waist, which I haven't had for years. Unfortunately as we get older we lose muscle mass, which means I'd probably have to get down to 130-something to recover the slender waist I used to have thirty or more years ago.

Incidentally a guy who wrote a high-protein diet book way back then (the so-called "Boston Police Diet") claimed that people shouldn't use weight as a criterion of health, but one of two other criteria instead, depending on their sex. For women, since fat is more widely distributed around the female body, the criterion he proposed was what he called the "inch of pinch"! That's to say, a woman is only carrying too much fat if places where she pinches herself (such as her upper arms) yield more than an inch of fat between her fingers. Men, the author claimed, shouldn't ask themselves if they're "overweight," but only if they're "overwaiSt," in his terms. That is where more of the fat settles if we're genetically male.

I'm all for using that measure!--even though I have a motive of my own for doing so. I've got so many cute skirts and pants that I used to wear decades ago and can't get into today, not in comfort anyway. Top of my list is a short denim microskirt that I love, but there are numerous others.

I haven't got there yet, but I keep on trying. Even if I never get there. I'm sure I'm wouldn't be trying this hard (and keeping healthy!) if my feminine self wasn't keeping me ruthlessly up to scratch, for which I'm grateful! Unlike some, I'm cool with being male most of the time. But I know I'd rather be a "gracefully slender elderly lady" than a "fat old man"--for more reasons than one! A longer and more active life is only one such reason.

[TheHiddenMe]

I have an internet scale (the daily reading is sent to the web and stored) and the graph of my mostly daily weigh-ins looks like a roller coaster--dips followed by climbs followed by dips.

Since I retired 5 1/2 years ago I've lost about 45 pounds, but includes three periods (climbs) where I put on 10 to 20 pounds over a couple of months. Last November/December I put on 15 pounds, but fortunately I have lost most of that gain. Still want to lose 17 more, which will get me to 165, which would be about 20% body fat.

The reason is two fold. One is to do better in races and triathlons, the other is of course to fit in smaller clothes. I've got four or five dresses that are "off limits" until I get slimmer.

I believe in the math diet. It takes 3,500 calories to either gain or lose a pound. I've heard the ratio 80/20 regarding calorie intake and exercise, and that seems about right. I always am active, but the only way I can lose weight is when I actively count calories and eat less.

I use the myfitnesspal app and it works for me. I also have a watch that tracks calories burned, so I have an approximation of my calorie gain or loss. When I closely track what I'm eating, and keep the calories down (2,000 or less daily), I lose weight.

[Alice_2014_B]

I tend to maintain a decent weight from running regularly and exercise.
Dieting is so dang difficult for me.

Staying in shape for fit tests (PFTs) in the military also helps.

[LindaC]

I discovered a weight loss program recently, it's good news and bad news, but works every time:
Bad news is it's called heart surgery.
Good news is , feel great, lost 25lbs, and 2 dress sizes