Attention Skinny Girls!

[gkashmira]

Tammy, you and your cupcakes makes me laugh every time I think about it! In fact I am at work right now trying not to laugh aloud (they'll know I'm not working!).

 

Anyway I am also trying to lose about 10 -15 poiunds before my wedding. I figure if I can just lose like 2 pounds a month (a very realistic goal) I'll be down 16 pounds by June!

 

But I had knee surgery about 2 months ago so I'm pretty limited in what exercises I can do... at least I;m forced to go to physcial therapy 2 times a week. I was talking it over with my FI last night becausde I have serious motivation problems. I mean i have TWO gym memberships (one at Gold's and one at a rock climbing gym) AND I own a statinary bike... yet I do nothing. So we're going to team up and exercise together each night. I'll get on the bike and he'll do weights and then we'll switch off... this is the plan at least.

 

Also I had been doing a diet (Zone) through a company called "Sunfare" here in Los Angeles but I didn't even lose any weight! Very frustrating. Goes to show you that even with a reduced calorie/careb diet you still need to exercise...

[gkashmira]

What is Body for Life?

[-Kate-]

I'm uber-late to the discussion, but I still wanted to add my 2-cents.

 

I totally second all the comments about general diet and exercise being needed to lose weight. No shortcuts work.

 

As for the diet part, when I want to be really good I use Weight Watchers online. It's fab for a few reasons:

1) You can eat whatever you want. If you want a big ol' piece of chocolate cake for breakfast - have it. You just have to balance it out. And not it an unhealthy "don't eat for 2 days" kinda way. There are tons of foods with zero points (WW is a point system) so you will not starve - even with the cake.

2) The recipes are great. I used to use their recipes every night for dinner for myself and non-dieters and everyone always loved them. Their onion rings are to die for.

3) I am not a fan of frozen meals for dinner - I like to cook using actual foods like chicken and veggies. (I'll totally hoss down a frozen meal for lunch at work though.) All the WW recipes use "real food" and are super easy.

 

Specific food tips: Frozen grapes are the best dessert and you get in fruit. If you really need chocolate (like I do most days) look for No Pudge Brownie Mix. You can make it in individual servings and when you top it w FF Cool Whip it's like a little bit of heaven. Avoid juice - waste of calories and so much sugar.

 

Exercise: I run 3-4 times a week with my dogs just so they don't eat my house - works for me. I don't belong to a gym right now so I have to get creative with other ways to workout. We have a cable channel FitTV and I Tivo random workout shows so I can use them whenever I want. It's awesome for those days where you have about 30 free minutes to exercise and that's not enough time to get to the gym and back.

 

Hope it helps!

[Sarah]

Thanks Lala. More great tips! A bunch of you girls have mentioned Weight Watchers online- I think I might check it out, I'll let you know how it goes.

[-Kate-]

I have some recipes from WW that I still use. If you want a few to try out before you actually pay for WW let me know and I'll email them to you. I think I might even have the portion amounts for them.

[Sarah]

LaLa, that would be awesome! I did a little browsing around there and it looks like something I might want to try.

[Sarah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gkashmira What is Body for Life?

Kash- Body for life is a program that came out probably 5 years or so ago. It's premise is basically changing your lifestyle to incorporate healthy eating and weight training and discipline to lose weight. You have to eat 6 small meals a day, each with 1 portion protein and 1 portion healthy carb, with 2 meals including a portion of vegetables. You do weights 3 days a week for 40 min each, and cardio 3 days a week for 20 minutes each. There is a book called Body for life that you read and just follow the principles. It's good food and I felt much better when doing it, it's just very hard for me to get the 6 meals in (eating every 3 hours basically) when I'm working the schedule I do.

[REBECCA]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AQHARIDER Ok you skinny girls, I need help! I've got to lose some weight for this wedding, and am wondering what you all are doing, or if you didn't need to lose weight, what is you routine that keeps you in shape? I've never been one to exercise, and didn't need to until I went to nursing school. That stress put on about 20 lbs, then I switched to night shift last year and promptly put on another 10. On someone only 5'1", an extra 30lbs is a lot! I've started doing Body for Life (very old program, similar to South Beach Diet, so I'm told) and exercising but I'm seeing very slow results. I want to lose 25 lbs before the wedding. Any suggestions?

The best tip I can give is to NOT cut out carbs, but to eat SMALL portions and snack on string cheese, yogurt and fruit throughout the day. That was the hardest thing that I had to train myself to do. Those Lean Cuisine-sized portions should be your portion size. I always ate huge meals because I was afraid I'd get hungry...well guess what? When you get hungry again...you eat a snack! Once I figured out that I would never go hungry, the small portions worked fine for me. Plus I would eat one of those Sugar Free Jello Pudding cups (sugar free, not fat free) with a scoop of fat free cool whip on top every night for dessert. Those are really yummy!!!

[Sarah]

Thanks for your input Rebecca. I love sugar free Jello and Pudding too! I agree about the carb stuff. I can't do Atkins or any of that super restrictive carb dieting. I lose tons of weight, then put it all back on plus more as soon as I go back to eating regular. Right now I'm trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies, lean meats & proteins and "healthy" carbs and exercise more. I can't say what I weigh, because my other rule is that I can only weigh myself once a month (I tend to obsess on the scale!) but my jeans already feel looser!

[REBECCA]

That is the perfect way to do it. The most important part is not to stress about it.