Margaret: Congratulations on reaching the 100 mark! You're an inspiration to the rest of us

Hello Margaret!! great job on making it to ONEDERLAND! that's what we call it here when you reach into the 100's, SUPER JOB! you must be just amazed when you look into the mirror now. I know your hubby must be thinking the same thing when he looks at you too, I'm sure he's quite taken by it, or at least I know my hubby would be. SO when do you get to do some clothes shopping?? You know a little reward for making it to a mark on your journey. Oh before I forget I read that you or is it your hubby who likes to play Age of the Empires?? My sons have been playing that for years!! I bought them the game WOW it must be 6 years ago or more, they still pull it out every now and again and play it, they are hooked currently on that WOW game, Im not a big gamer myself, but they seem to love it. I do play a game on our playstation 3 called Dark Kingdom, that is FUN! my hubby plays that with me, but I'm really crazy using the controller, so he gets a little excited when I play. I hope you get a nice walk in today, and I hope your weather isn't to bad. Lots of love
Kim

I understand...

Well, here's rootin' for ya ta get 3 lbs. under and then more and more!!

You can do it!

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Tuesday!*~

Margaret,
I've just finished reading your entire journal. Wow!
You have truly inspired me! I hope you realize what an inspiration you are to people.

I read that you are 5'3. I am 5'1. And I'm about the same weight as you are currently. I am wondering about when you started walking. How far were you able to walk when you first started? I wonder what the difference is between speed and distance? Do you try to pick up speed every time or do you try to keep a good pace, but increase your distance? I find that because my legs are so short, if I set the treadmill to 2.5 I am doing a fast jog. I think I would much rather walk
at a slower pace, but for a longer distance.

Anyhow, I'm SO proud of you, and I just wanted to let you know what an inspiration you are!

Hi everyone

It is really lovely to hear from you all. I really appreciate all your good wishes.

Manda - or 2/3 ME - I love that name
I know what you mean about cans being a bit of a luxury. The trouble is that the cans are 330ml and I never end up able to drink 330ml at the end of the day - I am so full of water. And anyway I am a born cheat. I would still take a mouthfull when fetching a glass of pop for my husband. He is still going through bottles of the stuff every day. Our fridge permanently has one current and four chilling bottles of it.

Freaksgirl and Lagniappe
Thanks for your congratulations.

Kim
My husband tells me he is proud of what I have achieved. I still have a lot of weight that I want to lose though - so now that I have finally found something that works I want to keep on going to the size that I was happiest. Even though I have lost a lot of weight by just about everyone's standards - I am still higher than most people with a serious weight problem ever get to be. I have never felt comfortable since becoming a big person. I just got to think that I had no choice in the matter. As far as clothes shopping goes I am inclined to get only the barest minimum at the minute. My size has changed so many times this year. You have to remember that I shop and wear UK sized clothes (surprise, surprise). The numbers appear to be different from what you have in USA. In February I was size 30 to 32. This is as big as Evans - the main shop here for big people - go up to. The majority of my clothes are this size. Basically clothes sizes are even numbers. I am now wearing size 18. I want to keep going downwards. Whilst on the project I have not stayed at any size for very long. If I can manage to keep going downwards I will save the bulk of my shopping spree for when I get to where I want to be. Before PCOS hit I was size 12 - but I do not see my bust ever going down to that without surgery.

My husband is indeed a computer games addict. He is now talking of getting Call of Duty 4 - out soon. In fact he likes everything to do with computers. If he is not playing games he is taking one apart to mess around with the insides - i.e. upgrading / enhancing it.

Today's walk was generally quite pleasant, thankfully, although I think that we have the colder weather now until the Spring.

Stacy
Thanks. I want us all to get 3 lbs under and more and more. With luck and with hard work we can all have a goal reachin day (and week etc).

Time2change
What a sweet comment.

When I first started walking I started from a zero start. I left my last job a few years ago and had spent two summers in Greece - there is a village there where I have always felt very comfortable. I felt less comfortable when I returned to England. I got so that I rarely left the house - it ended up so that apart from visiting friends and family I was going out of the house / garden once a week by car to go grocery shopping. That is what I mean when I say a zero start. I doubt that my step count got up to 1000 most days.

I suddenly determined that things were to change.

At first I just left the house and walked round the block. The road that I live on is a crescent and it comes from a straight road forming a capital D shape. I now do a number of these every day. I am not sure exactly how long it is but I guess it is between 0.65 to 0.75 miles. I didnt care about speed. All I really cared about was getting from A to B. Whatever the experts say, in my experience a stroll is vastly better than nothing. I built things up. I had so many days when I did that - then I stretched it and went along the straight bit as far as a newsagent shop. Then I increased it again - be it twice round the block or as far as a little parade of shops and back (0.8 miles each way). Slowly things built up. You see my stamina was improving. Also in a matter of a few weeks I found that I had speeded up a bit.

I certainly do not jog now. In fact I suspect that it would kill me to jog - I am not going there at this size. Dont believe anyone who tells you that you have to jog / run to lose weight through exercise - I am living proof - but you do have to put in time. I do step out quite quickly and I do go as far as gives me aching legs. Then I rest for a couple of hours and go back out again. I am very fortunate in that I am still not working so not having to juggle earning a living into my quite gruelling schedule. I compare myself to an athlete in training - the biggest athlete that is ever seen.

I would strongly suggest that you get a pedometer and if the weather is fine go out for a walk. Then your body will dictate the speed - not a number on a treadmill. When you find the right speed for you in a natural environment maybe you can find it on a treadmill.

Go for the longer hours approach and see how it works for you. It has certainly worked for me.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Tuesday 23/10/07

Chilly again – and that will probably be the story for a while!! No yoga class because it is half term.

Entered my Monday’s steps into the USA website for “America on the move”. It appears that I have completed the “UK National Trail”. It seems to have converted my mileage over to the “Oregon”.

I have just noticed the similarity in stepcount numbers between Monday (30,413) and Tuesday (30,813) – how strange!

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles.
Round the block = 4 times (on two laps my husband came too)
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 13st 10.0lbs (i.e. 192.0 pounds)
Steps = 30,813
Distance = 11.42 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – but missed off my bedtime moisturising – very late to bed

Food / Drink:

1 banana
3 weetabix, 1 heaped teaspoon of sweetener (a level teaspoon is apparently 1.9 calories) and the (large) bowl topped up with skimmed milk.
1 Jamaican Tilapia fillet (kind of fish), 4 new potatoes, 130g sweetcorn, 2 small knobs olive spread
2 large handfuls of raisins
2 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Hi Margaret,

Just catching up after several days absence.

Well done on getting through the 100lb milestone - great work! I quite like that we Brits on here have two sets of milestones to aim for: I broke through the 13 stone barrier last week and this week I've gone from the 180's to the 170's, so I get to celebrate again Twelve and a half stone is my next target and as that's only 2 pounds away, hopefully it won't be too long in coming. Baby steps, eh?

I know where you're coming from on the running/jogging thing. I have tried but I still feel too heavy, plus I hate the feeling of all my fat wobbling around. I don't think it's particularly good for my right knee either (I have a longstanding problem with it). I did start doing some short phases of jogging on some of my walks, and I'll occasionally break into a trot if I'm going downhill or the mood takes me but by and large I'm a walker and I don't see that changing until I'm lighter yet. Perhaps when I'm under 12 stone I'll give it a proper go, knee-allowing. I certainly wouldn't have considered it at my original starting weight of 16 stone - heck, my joints could hardly take the strain of getting me out of a chair, let alone pounding the pavements! I agree with you - walking will get the job done (certainly in the beginning), along with diet of course.

Thanks for telling me about Diet Coke. I didn't realise that the chemicals could slow things down. That's rather unfortunate given that it has "diet" in the name You're obviously keeping your consumption to a reasonable level though, or you wouldn't still be losing. I guess it's something you can hold in reserve to tinker with if your weight loss stops completely.

Keep up the good work!

Hi Avenue,

Congratulations on hitting your milestones. They are such fun to celebrate.

I love milestones. I can actually get more milestones out of it than tens of pounds and half stones.

Not only do I go in for those - but also BMI changes. You can use
BMI Calculator
or of course get your ticker signature to show it.

Every 5 of those seems to take you into a new category for a while - so I view all the multiples of 5 there as milestones. I enjoyed stopping being morbidly obese for instance.

Then of course there is fractions of the journey (the difference between start and target) and fractions of start weight. I absolutely loved hitting 14 stones because I had lost a third of my start weight. I wonder if I will ever get to ten and a half stone. Then I would be honestly able to say that I was half the woman I had been!!!!

Take care
Love
Margaret

Hi Sunshine!

I agree w/clothes shopping! I'm not buying anything else "big"... I will lose this weight and go shopping in my 2 storage tubs full of smaller clothes!



I have set out a cute pair of size 13 jeans to help me keep going..

My 14's are just now a lil loose so they don't cut me in half.. By no means can I fit in the 13's.. They won't even go above my big bootie at this time..

You have such great mini goals/goals...You're organized/pumped up..

Yer on yer way!!

So proud of ya..

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Wed!*~

<3

*Stacy

Hi Stacy

I certainly dont want to hang around in UK size 18s for too long. But I dont need too many clothes in a size to get me down to the next one if things keep going the way that they have been. I have a dress, some T shirts and a couple of tracksuit / leisuresuit type things. I do very little other than go out walking these days and those outfits will see me through that just fine. I need to drop a number of sizes to get where I want to be. Clothes that size look like they belong on a child compared to my current clothes - but I live in hope!!!

I think that we all need mini-goals or else the one target feels too far away. It is difficult to appreciate that we are getting ever nearer it with every pound lost.

I hope that your Wednesday is going well - followed by an excellent Thursday of course.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Wednesday 24/10/07

Went to Tescos on the way back from my morning walk.

General Data:

Morning walk = 7.3 miles.
Round the block = 5 times (on two laps my husband came too)
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 13st 8.2lbs (i.e. 190.2 pounds)
Steps = 32,191
Distance = 11.93 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime

Food / Drink:

1 banana
3 weetabix, 1 heaped teaspoon of sweetener (a level teaspoon is apparently 1.9 calories) and the (large) bowl topped up with skimmed milk.
1 grapefruit juice
200g roast chicken, half a cucumber, 5 tomatoes
2 large handfuls of raisins
2 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Margaret! Hello!
I thought I would pop in ...
Thats how I started walking ... lol first was a ten minutes and now its a thirty minutes walk when I am busy with my schedule ..or an hour walk when I am able to get one in ...

but I have not been walking ...
but tomorrow is my thirty minutes walk ..if I can eek out an hour I will be happy ..need to go around the plazas a lot! and in the last round ..will stop into them ..to just get a looksey ...
You have inspired me to go forth ...and keep trecking and do what I need to do


Your awesome! And I am so stoked about your ability ..your movement forward ..your stamina ...

You go girl!!

love yas
always
natalie jo

Hi Natalie Jo

Thanks for your support. It is so sweet of you to say that I inspire you. I honestly do not feel like much of an inspiring type of person. An inspiring person would probably not have left it to my age before dealing with things. The problem is that I just did not know how - and everything that I tried failed. I got into the mindset where I believed that it was impossible. I wish that I had dealt with it as I turned 30 like you are.

You are doing great and I am convinced that if you keep on being good with your food and building up your stamina by walking - more pounds will come rolling off. Remember - I do not go out bicycle riding as yet like you do - and I am sure that you do more toning exercise than me. Apart from my two lessons a week - I rarely have been slotting any toning exercise in over the past month. As my walking has increased, my toning exercises have diminished.

It really does get me cross when I see people say that walking does not help you lose weight and that you have to run or jog. That may be true for people who only have to lose 10 pounds (I have no idea about that - and I will worry about the last 10 pounds when / if I get there - it is of very little interest to me now). All I know is that kind of talk made me think that there was nothing that I could do by exercise. I remember buying a book that said just that 11 years ago and stopping doing the little bit of walking that I had started doing. Surprise, surprise - the diet that I was on at the time failed. It is absolute nonsense to think that the larger person can go out running / jogging. We would all keel over and know it!!! I still wouldnt dare to jog now.

Life is not fair - and we have to be better with our food than everyone else and do more exercise than everyone else - but if we do that I firmly believe that it is possible. And I have to say that I would never have believed that I could drop the amount of weight that I have as quickly.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Hi sunshine.

RE: pilates ....

Thought you might be interested in this..

Winsor Pilates®



I agree w/ya about walking..

Not only does it promote weight-loss, it's so great for clearing your head/melting away stress.

It's so funny bc when I day dream at times, I invision this perfect town where we could move where yer able to walk everywhere and get things you need, run errands, etc..

I wish there was a place like that around here!

I'm so jealous when I watch the travel channel and see all these great places like that! Especially the places with awesome farmers type markets / flea markets everywhere.. Man, I would just love that!

*Have A Great Day!*

Hi Stacy

It is funny that you should say that. We only have one car - and husband has that with him at work (I havent driven in over 20 years) so I do incorporate bits of shopping into my walk. Also there is a market on a Thursday here - and I saw the neighbours kids clearly heading there this-morning (the kids are on holiday this week for half term). I didnt bother going to the market though.

Take care
Love
Margaret