got my lab work back today ~ all is well... can't blame my weight gain on my thyroid.. My doctor did mention things like "metabolism", "age", and "weight watchers"...

I did pilates today with my friend ~ this time she got a DVD within our fitness range! And we could feel it... I also walked to the post office.

Striving, I think 8 pounds is too much to lose in a week. And certainly too much to lose in another week. I've heard a pound a week is a safe way to lose, and usually not regain if one continues good eating habits and exercise.

I sure wish I could lose even one pound a week! That would be 26 pounds in a year.

Bless, from your descriptions of meals, it seems to me that you eat healthy, and not excessive quantities. How could you have a weight problem? Glad to hear you are in ballet - are you hoping the exercise will help with weight loss?

Try not to get discouraged, because you will be converting fat to muscle. But muscle weighs more than fat, so actual fat loss may be hard to discern.

I am going to jump on here ladies as I really need to do something about my weight. I never had a problem with my weight until I went to university and became more sedentary as well as a social drinker. I managed to lose it when I left by taking up running then I pulled my hamstring and damaged my sciatic nerve. Once recovered the time never came to get back into it.

So ten years later I am 40 pounds over my ideal weight and since my DS's birthday in mid December I put on 14 pounds by overeating and getting into the Christmas mood early.I have managed to lose 4lbs in the past two weeks by cutting back but even if I lost the 14lb I gained recently I would still be overweight so I am going to aim higher.

My first goal is to lose the rest of the recent weight gain so I have 10 lbs to go. Once that is out of the way I will focus on one stone (14lbs)at a time.

At 35 years me and Dh would like to try for another baby this year. However I want to address my weight first so that I can enjoy my pregnancy knowing I am healthy and not have people wondering if I am pregnant or just fatter lol.

To do this I have started to walk for 1/2 hour three times a week and we have just bought a cross trainer too so I will be trying that out also. We have eliminated chocolate, crisps, cake and sweets from the house to avoid temptation and I am cooking alot more and adding vegetables to all evening meals.

Good luck to you all and wish me luck ladies!

Karen1975: Keep your eye on the goal! I wish that you receive what your heart wants.

Simplicity: My 8 pound loss was in the first week. This week is going much slower. I do have a lot to lose and was inspire by the weight loss. It's going to be a slow process for me as I have a couple of medical "conditions". However, I'll take what I can get when it happens.

Canadagirl: I'm happy to hear that the results are "normal". Keep up the good work and you'll reach your goal.

DD is STILL sick so no walking while she is at Wind Ensemble today because she won't be going. I suppose I could walk near our home, but probably not going to happen as it is VERY hilly (steep hills) and I'm not up to that yet. Perhaps I will park far away from the store when I go to pick up meds, at least it will be something.

Trying to decide if I should be counting carbs, eating low fat, eating according to the food pyramid or what. It's SO confusing to know which is right.

Apparently, I still manage to take in more calories than I put out! And yes, the ballet class is to help with burning up some of those calories, besides being something I truly enjoy doing with my DD and a few of our friends.

Carol: Sorry to hear that DD is still sick. Hope she gets better soon. I'd start with the food pyramid and go from there.

Carol, there are so many conflicting things out there, it's hard to decide how to start!

My own decisions lead me to start with basics:

I don't want to eat any food with ingredients I don't recognize as food. That means our household cut out fast food, most restaurant food, boxed foods, highly-processed foods (we eat small amounts of butter versus any margarine, etc), soda, etc. That one change sounds hard at first, I know.

After cutting out the processed (over time... as we learned to do more and more food from "scratch" ingredients at home), we focus on eating the most high-quality, natural foods we can... more fresh veggies, fruit in season, etc. Adding sustainable, organic foods to that mix is another layer of health (particularly because we can get additional health benefits through the work required to grow part of our own food, or the exercise we get strolling the farmer's market each week it's open).

For most people, healthy living requires we change our activity patterns. We just aren't as active as we need to be for optimum use of our bodies!

I do think that good, fresh foods, minimally processed, and REAL, are the most healthful. The more FOOD we can put in our food, the better. I've also noticed that full (real) fat cheeses, butter, good olive oil, good chocolate, real (four-five ingredient) bread, real (artisan or natural process) cheese, and other "back to basics" foods are VERY satisfying, so the quantity needed isn't nearly so large to reach the "chemically satisfied" point.

Here's a for-instance: chocolate triggers the release of certain endorphins that I find very helpful in my life. However, if I were to try and get to that satiation point with cheap drugstore chocolate, I'm going to eat thousands of calories and additives, and get nowhere but fat and unhealthy. I can choose very high quality dark chocolate, have one ounce, and be satisfied within minutes, and no further need of it for weeks and weeks.

Minimally-processed, real foods will always tend to be healthier in the long run. Food fads come and go, but the basics of "get enough protein for sustained energy and rebuilding, enough carbs for short-term energy, and enough fats to keep everything functioning properly, and don't take in significantly more than you work off" tend to be stable over the centuries.

I try to eat as close to REAL food as I can (usually). I switched to butter a long time ago too (margarine is just YUCKY to me now and I can't believe that I ate it for such a long time). No soda at all for me. It makes my heart go nuts.

I have been trying to keep DF from taking me out to eat so often. Weird to ask to not be spoiled like that. He says he does it to get me out of the house since I work from home so much. On the weekends, he likes to take me to breakfast one day, and then if we go into the city, it's got to be an In-n-Out burger. So good, but we need to cut back on that even more, I'm sure.

Liz...I am wondering where you get your good chocolate. I LOVE dark chocolate and not milk chocolate so at least I'm headed in the right direction on that one.

I also eat the full fat cheeses as I don't like the reduced fat ones and limit myself on the portion size. The one exception to that is milk. I cannot stand anything other than fat-free milk.

So, it's sounding to me (and I have to agree) it Back to Basics eating that is probably the best thing. That and get my rear in gear, pun intended.

Carol,
Look for Callebaut, Guittard or Ghirardelli. Any better store will carry some of these brands.

Yes, real food in reasonable quantities is the way to go. A local supermarket used to have the slogan, "For good nutrition, eat a wide variety of foods." I think that's true. And if we eat "right" most of the time, we can occasionally splurge. For instance, this past Sunday, DS and I had our annual holiday dinner with some cousins. We went to Red Lobster. They have marvelous hot biscuits, and because I'd saved my appetite, I ate three of them while waiting for the rest of the food. I later had a garden salad with honey-mustard dressing, a nonalcoholic strawberry daiquiri (really pureed strawberries), wild rice, mushrooms stuffed with cheese and crabmeat, a lobster tail, grilled shrimp, and shrimp scampi. No dessert. I don't know how many calories all that was - more than I usually eat for one meal, certainly. But since I'd had a light breakfast that day and no other food, it was within reason. How often do we eat like this? About 3 times a year: meal with cousins, DS's birthday, and mine.

I've read articles saying that at restaurants you shouldn't eat the bread (or biscuits, rolls, whatever), not have dressing on your salad, pick a vegetable such as steamed broccoli, order something really lean, etc. etc. etc. Why bother? Of course one can eat healthy food, and I usually do, including when I eat out (not real often), but if you aren't going to enjoy the food or eat any differently from at home, why spend more money to eat out? I like to eat food that I can't or won't fix at home; Chinese is an example.

After years of carefully eating polyunsaturated margarine and oils such as safflower, I have heard that we now have to watch out for trans fats. Seems we can't win - whatever we eat, there is a drawback to it. So I'm back to using butter for such things as toast, but don't eat them often. I still use oil (canola oil now) in small quantities for frying, or a spray such as Pam.