The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[DogMa]

Ugh. I'm looking forward to it, too, but it sure is taking awhile!! Of course, getting more than 6,000 mg of sodium on Friday didn't help. Then more sodium Saturday and Sunday (plus a totally lazy but hungry day yesterday ). So of course right now I'm at something like 128.8, but I know that'll drop in the next few days. Hopefully all the way to below 126, but we'll see.

And the Indian place by me went out of business, so now I'm still craving Indian food. Sigh. I'm going to wait till my weight drops some, and then see if someone in the office wants to go for lunch one day.

[Karli]

ooooh, that's a bummer !! But, at least you know why, though I know it's frustrating to feel as though you are kind of constantly hovering somewhere, when you want to just be moving ! I totally get the cravings for specific things. Two weekends ago when we were at the wedding (and stayed in the area for a couple of nights), our hotel had a breakfast that was supposed to serve biscuits and gravy, and by the time we got there, there was no more gravy !! So, I ate other things of course and my craving for biscuits and gravy lasted the entire weekend and into the following week ... by now it has subsided, but sometimes those particular cravings don't go away very quickly nor easily ! That is one thing I am learning to balance in my times off, how do I deal with cravings like an adult ? I recognize the need to sometimes go ahead and have whatever it is (lessons for maintenance, of course), because sometimes NOT having it can really cause bigger damage ! But there are times, like while on program, that I really should resist !

Anyway, I think this is one area that you handle consistently very well !

[oksoonergirl26]

Have you ever tried Akbar's? It is in Plano on Parker across from the Target. It is the only place I have ever eaten Indian food (other than at other people's houses). I really, really love their food, but the things I like are definitely not diet friendly-the Chicken Tikki Masala is to die for and the samoas are great as well.

[DogMa]

Haven't been there; Plano's kind of far from me. There's a place near work, though, in Oak Cliff. We're going on Friday, when at least I'll have gotten rid of the water retention (and since I'm already going out to eat Saturday; I figure this way I can get all my salt in one fell swoop).

I'm staying away from the samosas, and limiting myself to one piece of naan. I'm really just craving chicken tandoori or tikka plus saag and whatever vegetable curries they might have. So it shouldn't be too unhealthy, other than the sodium.

But yeah, sometimes I can just let the craving pass. But sometimes I'll find myself eating everything ELSE in sight, trying to fight it, when it'd be easier if I just ate the food and got it out of my system. I figure this isn't really such an unhealthy thing to crave, so I might as well just eat it.

[Karli]

Yes, that's *exactly* what happens to me too, at times, when I am craving something !! Right before my first time on program I went through a phase of deciding to stop fighting with myself, because with the history of sometimes severe eating disorders in my earlier years, I felt like I had been fighting with myself about that for so long (to the other extent). So, I decided to give the other side a try and If I craved something, I ate it, end of story. ha ha. I had this funny notion that somehow everything might just balance itself out in the end, and that I would magically wind up at my "natural" weight (which, I expected to be around 160) !! What a crock that turned out to be for me ! I went through times of craving healthful foods as well as pure junk, and then things that could be considered perhaps in between (like granola ... packed with carbs and calories, but not the same thing as pizza and cookies) ... anyway, what it balanced out to was me weighing the most I had ever weighed in my entire life, somewhere at about 240 ... wow.

Anyway !! Yeah, I just don't quite know what to think of all of that at this point ... but, I guess that's what I am learning. Thanks again for your good example, it's very helpful .

[Stihl]

Hey Robin - enjoy the Indian food! You seem to be doing great, running up deficits and are in great control of what's going on in your food life.

So I saw that for you, the bodybugg would give you different readings of calories burned vs. whatever the gym machine says. Do you know why that is?

For myself, I feel that the machine says I've burned way more calories than I thought I've burned. I really wonder why that is...

What I've done to potentially combat that issue is instead of putting in my actual weight (215) into the tradmill/eliptical, I put in 150. That way, I figure that if it overestimates the calories I burned its okay because I under reported my weight, so hopefully it would even out? I have no idea if that would work or not... I really do wonder why the machines say we burn so many more calories than we actually do...

Also, I just had one question for you; can you tell the difference from when you're at 126 and when you're at 128?

For me, if there are 5 days in a row (for convenience, say days A B C D and E)... I'll weigh less on day E than I do on day C, but from day B->C I lose weight and from D->E I don't lose weight, and for some reason I feel better on day C than I do on day E, even though I weighed less on E than I did on C (does that make any sense at all? I can see how that might be confusing)...

Anyway, you're doing great. Keep it up!

[DogMa]

Karli, I tried that, too, about giving in to cravings. Trying to eat like a thin person, because that's what some folks advise. It didn't work for me, either. I just don't think I can trust my body (or my brain) to know what's good for it, at this point. Kind of like the whole idea of eating only when you're hungry, and only until you're satisfied. I'm not sure my body knows anymore when it's truly hungry, or how much food it takes to feel satisfied. So I try to stick to a schedule, and eat when I know I should (and as much as I know I should). Sigh.

Stihl, machines are notorious for overestimating calorie burn. My treadmill thinks I burn WAY more than I do; my heart rate monitor comes closer, but still overestimates. Oddly enough, the harder I work, the further off it gets. On days that I run, it usually says I burned 100 or more calories than the BodyBugg says. Today was a walking day, and it was only about 30 calories off.

[Karli]

Yeah, Robin, those are the exact same things that "get" me as well. For some people I guess that works out okay. There was one point in my life where I believe that's more or less how I ate, but it was for like 2 months, and I have to remember that I was smoking A LOT back then, too. So, anytime I had a craving for food, I would literally stifle it by going and smoking a cigarette instead ... that's not *truly* learning much since it's trading one bad habit for another, and smoking cigarettes actually calms the appetite, so feeling hungry or whatever was not a true reading ! And, to boot, if I ever overate, I would "take care" of that another way. Sometimes all of those fun things that people like to say, coupled with this false idea that I knew how to live that way for a brief moment in my life, gives a very false idea of what I still need to learn !

Right now I tend to use the program as a sort of "safety valve" ... where, if I have overdone it for a time, I just "hop on program" and try to balance things out. It can seem more like a quick fix than a way of life, and I need to learn the way of life ! I know that's mainly a mental switch, and not the fault of the program though. Anyway, it is nice to see people whom have managed to make that mental switch and for me to see that it indeed does work long term to eat according to a kind of schedule and with guidelines.

[DogMa]

It's the only thing that seems to work for me. I can skip a snack occasionally, if I eat a meal later than usual or something. But if I get too off-schedule, that's when I start getting hungry and eating the wrong things - or too much of the right ones. It seems that if I wait until I'm hungry to eat, it's too late and I lose control/focus.

[Karli]

Yes, that is a very good way to describe it. It's very much the same with me, if I get hungry, it's already too late, practically, especially when I don't have a plan like MF. Even when I have had some kind of wannabe plan of "regular" foods (it's almost never been the right plan though), I tend to lose it if I get hungry. My mom is all for trying to eat only when hungry, and she lets herself get starving, and then at times of being more disciplined, she is able to eat only certain amounts (of whatever she wants), apparently (though she has her phases of being less disciplined, too). Like you said about yourself earlier, I just can't trust those signals in myself. I suppose I could even say that, at times, feeling hungry itself feels somewhat out of control to me ... which is so strange to realize in this very moment, because there was a time when it was just the opposite ! Also, there are times where I haven't had anything to eat and I don't get a hungry feeling in my tummy, it's more that my whole system starts reacting ... where I space out and feel strange and so on ... so, sometimes I haven't even gotten the right signal in the first place, so it's like I would have to guess. I have realized that some people just don't understand that at all... oh well ! Sorry to be posting so much about this in your journal, it's just kind of causing some interesting realizations for me ! I hope you had a great day, cheers !

[DogMa]

Ha. Post away!! It's better than me just rambling on.

127.6 today, which I'm not at ALL happy about. But it's hot as Hades here right now, and humid besides, AND the last two nights I've had some roasted chicken from the grocery store that I'm sure has way more salt in it than I'm used to. It's nice and juicy, too, so they probably injected some kind of salt solution in it. Sigh. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Because my deficits have been a little big, but that should just stall me out, not cause a gain.

[Stihl]

Even the frozen chicken breasts at the grocery store often have salt water injected to them to make them weigh more - it makes it taste super salty, which sometimes can be delicious but I've kinda grown to dislike the frozen chicken taste; what I do is I find where they're selling boneless/skinless chicken breasts for $2.00/lb, buy ridiculous amounts (completely ridiculous; like, 10 pounds worth), slice them all into 9 oz raw segments (Ive found that 9 oz raw-->7oz cooked) and then freeze em.

Hope the water retention goes down: salt+hot-->extra water weight It'll go away soon, you're doing too incredible of a job with managing your life and diet for there to be gains.

Hope you have a nice weekend

[DogMa]

Yeah, I don't buy frozen chicken. I always buy fresh, unadulaterated chicken breasts from Costco and freeze them.

[oksoonergirl26]

I am so tired of this weather...it makes exercising outside nearly impossible, unless I want to use my health insurance. I have found that Sprouts has really good uninjected normal sized chicken breasts. I will stock up on those when I can catch them on sale. I did however decide to buy some free-range organic no hormone blah blah chicken from Whole Foods and it was actually pretty tender considering it lacked so many things I am normally use to in my chicken. I just can't afford to buy from there all the time.

[DogMa]

I'm with you on the heat. I've given up my lunchtime walks for now; just the walk from the car to the office is bad enough. To make up for it, I'm spending even more time on the treadmill every morning, which is killing me. Sigh.

Sprouts is too far from me (and yet another place from California that I miss). Whole Foods is far from the house, too, although there's one near work so I go there occasionally before heading home. But yeah, I'm too cheap for special chicken. I just go with the Costco stuff. As long as it's not loaded with salt, I'm OK. And I'm done with the pre-cooked stuff for now, so hopefully my weight will drop this week as I get rid of the salt and bloat (although it would help if the weather would cooperate!).

I'm hoping it's down before Saturday, because I'm eating out Saturday night. Today was 127.4 (after a whopping 129 the other day, when I had over 6000 mg of sodium in one day!!). So it's heading back down, but not there yet. I really, really want to see a number lower than 126 this week.