Man as soon as I let my gaurd down and think yay warmer weather is here well it takes a turn for the worst lol Sunday was 50's sunny I raked my yard picked up garbage was enjoying and cleaning then yesterday cooler and today 20's with 2 inches of snow on it's way,puts a damper in your mood lol.
I know keeping yourself busy helps with taking your mind off eating all day plus yard work ='s BURNING CALORIES....WELL GL EVERYONE!!HUGGGS TAMMY

Focus-
How do you like the ketogenic diet? I've done that twice and had great results with my body composition, but my mood was really up and down.

Well, I'm still in the induction phase, but so far I like it pretty well.

I always prefer to eat natural foods, but when eating at a deficit I find it hard to take in the quantity of carbs and such necessary. And I really can't stand WO nutrition, it's too sickeningly sweet (or if I go with whole foods that quantity of any grain makes me want to throw up). I'm a pretty picky eater for a fat kid. :P Having said that, most of what I like is - you guessed it - meat. And cheese. And coconut (unsweetened, which I've discovered makes a fantastic fiber supplement, and tastes amazingly good on keto because of the sweetness multiplier effect). So, I've gone from forcing myself to eat various things and relying on meal replacements to eating tasty whole foods only when I'm hungry. Overall I'd say that I'm not even noticing the absence of carbs. So much for a "restrictive diet". It's not restrictive to not eat what you don't like. More like liberating.

As a result, my mood is excellent. Roughly the same as on a balanced (Zone-like) diet. But then again, it usually is. Being a boy is nice. (Why yes I did just rip on the ladies ). As far as energy levels being low and such, I'm fine. My first weight training session after coming back from my break I didn't seem to have as much gas, but my gains are still considerable and consistent. And results - I won't know until later tonight, but my inches still seem to be going down at a reasonable pace, despite my ridiculous ability to gain weight at nearly any caloric intake. I'm eating nearly 1000 more calories on keto and making what seems like roughly the same progress in terms of fat loss. I don't even know what's going on anymore.

So, yeah, I guess I could have just said good. Thanks for askin'.

Tammy, I know what you mean. The sun wasshining and it was lovely and then it was a storm, and now the snow is almost gone!
Yesterday it went up to 10 degrees which was excellent! and now its -2.

Thanks for the info. Hope your evening gave you some good results.

I did go to the Gym and had a great workout, and a also had a few epiphanies about my attitudes towards food and exercies.

First, the workout. I coordinate going to the gym with my boyfriend going to boxing, and tonight his class was 1.5 hours, so that means I had a little longer at the gym. So I did an hour of cardio for ~1000 cals (or however accurate the calorie counter is on those machines! But i did work up quite a sweat so I know I was working hard, plus my hear rate hit near max on my intervals). I also did a half hour of weights; tonight was back/chest and triceps.

But I think more importantly than actually doing the exercise is that I realized that I often reward myself for some good deed or sticking to my plan by eating foods restricted in my diet plan (perrogies, chocolate, fries etc.) and punish myself for going off plan by having to do extra mins of cardio at the gym. I'm sure we all do this from time to time; we ate that extra cookie at lunch so we need to do an extra 20 minutes on the stairclimber. Or we're good and on track for a week so we get to eat that huge piece of chocolate cate or have fries rather than salad. And I realized that's just conditioning my brain to always hate exercise, and always seek out junk food! I think it's important to treat oneself every now and then, but I don't think it should be a "reward". As well, I should enjoy and look forward to trips to the gym ('cause I do feel really good afterwards) but if it's always, "I've been bad and here's my consequence", I'm never going to want to go! So, as of today, I'm going to try to associate the gym with all things positive; that endorphin high after a killer cardio session, muscles being sore the next morning (I actually enjoy this, means I worked hard!), being able to lift more and run faster next week. And as for "reward food", I'm just going to treat it as part of my diet plan, that Thursday I'll have a food I'm craving as part of my calorie count and not because I did so well during the week.

Wow, this turned into a rant. Sorry 'bout that!

I hope everyone's Wednesday morning weigh-ins went well!

Ciao

Good job on the work out. Maybe you can treat yourself with a healthy dessert (if there's such a thing). Just wondering, how'd you end up weighing yourself on Wednesdays?

great job, jojo. It is good that you looked into why you didn't like going to exercise and found an answer. I understand what you are saying about rewarding yourself with food and disciplining yourself with exercise. It sets you(and me, and everyone else) up for failure. Thanks for bringing it to light, hopefully it will help me to get into the gym more often.
Cathy

Rewarding myself with food eh? Oh yeah i used to do that, I'd walk to tim hortons just so i could say ' hey i walked here i can have a bagel smothered in cream cheese." It's a really hard habit to break but if you can you'll life way easier.

Right now for me it's a matter of doing the hard workout or doing two easier ones to makeup for not doing the hard one. I know the two easy ones do not burn the same calories as the hard one, I know it and yet I still try and convince myself that two is always better than one.

Also I am jealous of all you people with gyms to go to. I'd kill to have access to machines.

I just copied the timeline someone had written out on the original page. I think everyone who joined a little later and is going until May 7 seems to be weighing in on the Wednesday.

3 days at the gym in a row! Whoo! I think I'm going to take a rest tonight, I can feel my body getting tired and that usually means, for me, a plateau is imminent because I can't push myself as hard at the gym due to tired muscles. I think a nice walk along the river trail right by my house with a friend is a good reward for a week of hard work, then hitting the gym hard saturday.

I hear you about the "short walk = lots of food"! I worked on a farm for a few summers, and there was a corner store about a 2 block walk from the dorm I was staying at on the farm. I didn't have a car, so I justified going to grab a snack if I walked there. Which might have worked if I just grabbed something small, but while I was at the store I'd load up; bag of chips, chocolate bar and icecream for the walk home. I don't think the 15 minute walk there and back added up to ~1000 cals of junk!

1 hard workout vs 2 easy? IMO (and it is just that) maybe alternate days. A good all out ass whooping is always good, but two less-hard workouts in a day can be good too, give your muscles a chance to regenerate and keep the metabolism up all day.

Do you do your workouts at home?

Hello all,

Just checking in with everyone and I see there's some discussion on your progress! Hope the transformations are going smoothly. I can't say as an admin I set a good example, as I was on my holiday this week:P Bad bad bad......as my weight gaining goal I probably did gain some, but not muscle as intended.....probably more in the fat department....ugh.

At least I can't win the prizes:P Speaking of, Sean posted some of the ones we are getting from Sissel, so if you haven't had a chance to look at them, there is a posting aside the other threads for the contest.

Make sure to keep your weight posts weekly and up to date in the weigh in threads!

I'll be looking into some winners for the first set of prizes for month #1 this week.

Keep up the good work!

You weren't the only one on holiday. My tuesday weigh in wasn't what I expected, my body fat reading was a lot higher than what I or my workout buddy expected, I had a cold so I "couldn't" do my cardio this week (plus it was/is cold and wet outside)... what a bunch of downers! To add to that, my mother and I had our birthdays this past week and I feasted for about 4 days! (I'm sort of complaining about it, but I had a lot of fun lol ). I just finished eating some left overs including pecan pie, and I think I'm ready to get back on track. I don't think this week's (02/26) weigh in will be very good, but I'm determined to have a good one the week after (03/04).

jojoluvsu2 ~ yeah home is all i have to work with but it's pretty good. i can finally go outside to workout again. A daily walk in the park should kick up my calorie burning a bit and change up my routine a little.

Most importantly it's one month in and I feel great ( if a bit more tired than usual everyday)

Nikegirl those are some awesome prizes right there.

I can see how having a gym puts us at an advantage for weight loss, but I think you're setting yourself up for a life of healthy living by doing it at home! I'm not always going to have a gym membership (secretly I HATE the gym), and once I decide to no longer go to a gym I'm going to have to figure out how to increase my activity in daily life! You'll have already figured that out. I'll get a dog or something, take it for runs

As for me, down another pound! And that was while on my period Can't wait to see if it was actually more once the extra water weight goes away. I started eating a bit more at night, and I think that's making a huge difference in my energy level.

How is everyone else doing?