ULOG 37: Can You Lose Weight During Holidays?

in #ulog5 years ago (edited)

Weight Loss holidays fitinfun.jpg

Happy Weight Loss Anniversary to Me!

December 5th is one of my weight loss anniversaries. This is the day I started working with the fitness trainer who finally knocked some sense into me and helped me lose weight for good.

People say you cannot lose weight during the holiday season. I lost 13.2 pounds between December 5, 2010 and January 4, 2011. This was after spending three years to lose the first 40 pounds of the total of 130 that it took to get me to my goal.

To say I was desperate when I finally decided to spend money for help is an understatement.

What made the difference when I had been having such a hard time with my weight up until this point? You can see my hesitant thrill in this post I made on Sparkpeople where I was recording my efforts at the time. Here are some excerpts of that post.

First, I found out about the chemicals in the processed food I was eating and stopped eating them:

my success in weight loss.PNG

This was the most important change. The fitness trainer was only supposed to be helping me work out. But after seeing my food supply, he asked if he could make some suggestions. Those suggestions made me take a look at all my food one night after he left.

Every. Single. Thing. I was eating had chemicals in it. I went into a panic, threw out all my food, and flipped the switch the next day.

I knew how to cook, but I had not been doing it. I was not perfect, but after that day, my food became much healthier and had more nutrition. Once I started eating food I cooked from ingredients, everything changed for the better.

Then I started eating less food at one time, but more frequently throughout the day:

my success in weight loss2.PNG

I had tried the “eating less” strategy before (many times) without success. But that had been back in the day when my food was of poor quality. Half of crap is crap that leaves you even more starved than you were.

Now that my food was of better quality, I did not need as much to feel satisfied and keep me going.

And I started working out. Gently, within the limits I had at the time:

my success in weight loss3.PNG

It wasn’t until months later that I learned my stretching was not really yoga. You can see some of what I was doing and still do on this exercise series of posts from my son @bxlphabet’s blog.

I do not exercise in a gym. I exercise where I am, with what I have, and it has been the best plan for me. I exercise many times a day, throughout the day. Each time I get up from my computer, I am doing something for a few minutes.

Can YOU lose weight during the holidays?

Yes! You can lose weight during the holidays. If you are trying to lose a substantial amount of weight, the holidays can work for you or they can be an excuse. I have already written a whole book on overcoming weight loss excuses and several recent posts about them too.

Here is a long list of excuses if you want to search and find yours.

Do you want to lose weight?

You can! Decide to do it and don’t give up until you do. Take action each day, learn skills, apply them, and soon you will be thinner and healthier than you are now.

A healthy holiday without weight gain!

How did my holiday go that year? It was a good one. I cooked a nice meal for my son and myself and probably ate more than I should have. But it was healthy food, and I was not sick after eating it. I exercised that day and kept going eagerly, praying this new plan would work.

My next anniversary of weight loss came a few months later, on October 5 2011. That was the day I saw a photo of myself and decided I looked normal. It’s the second photo in the poster below and I was about 155 pounds on that day.

fitinfun You can do it if I did! sharon before and after.jpg

I had never been thin in my life before and only wanted to not stand out. I had no idea what that weight would be.

The photo on the right is from about a year later. I adjusted, kept on the path, increased my exercise, and lost about 15 more pounds. This is where I have stayed ever since.

Anyone can do this if I did. After all the struggle, it did not even turn out to be very hard. And staying at my weight for the last years has been a thrill every single day.

The outline of my weight loss program includes these topics:

Overcoming excuses

What are you eating now?

Winning the Food Fight

Exercise Effectively

Clean up the rest of your life

Rest, recover, regroup

Becoming the new you

Please follow this blog for more weight loss help and information. If you want individual help, I want to hear from you!

steemitedu logo 2.png

My post today is for the steemiteducation tag. This is a great place to teach others what you know. Go on over to the @steemiteducation blog, follow directions, and start posting there too. We want to learn from you!


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You are awesome, my friend. I hope both of our dreams come true!

I do not eat much and I am able to gain weight for periods 2 pounds or more a day. Mainly because of the prednisone I take. I hope to use a lower dosage in future (now). I read long ago chemicals in food are a big reason of high weight but I make mainly everything myself (it did not help me btw). Really overweighted nobody is, my kids neither. I also read an article about the fact it is true you can gain weight of a "glass of water". It is proved that Dna is changed with those who survived the "hunger winter" (world war 2). Mainly the grandchildren seem to struggle with these problems.
If it comes to losing weight I think everybody is different so 1 diet will not work for all of us.
Great you made it, congratulations!

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Prednisone is a hard one. I have taken it at high dose in the past and I know what you mean about the weight gain. It was very difficult for me to take that drug, and then it took about 6 months to get off it when I did. You need to work with your doctor on that as it can be dangerous when you stop.

Don't give up if weight loss is your goal. I was a fat 4 year old and lost weight for the first time ever at the age of 50 when I was very ill. I still have all kinds of health issues, but thankfully, obesity is not one of them. Being at a lower weight makes all the other struggles easier to deal with.

The best advice I have for you is to track your nutrition intake and boost it where you can. I have this post talking about nutrition and the essential nutrients and will be posting many more along this line.
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@fitinfun/get-more-nutrition-weight-loss-coaching-by-fitinfun

While it's true that "anything" can make you gain weight, I don't think water is the danger for most of us.

I will keep an eye on you and your posts for sure and will read your "nutrition" post now. Thanks for the link and advice.

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Best of luck, and I know you can do this!

I am impressed by your metamorphosis @fitinfun!
Losing weight is "only" a result of a change in mind and consciousness. It is true that the quality of the food we eat is the most important when we want to be healthy.
Since I started to consciously choose what I eat I don't have hunger attacks and I feel more taste in eating! I congratulate you and wish you the continuation of healthy habits. :)

Thank you very much! I'm so glad to hear this is working for you too. The hardest part of my work is trying to convince people of the difference better food will make for their lives. If they will only try it, they no longer need to be convinced!

Howdy today fitinfun! wow this is so good, it can be life-changing and life-saving too! If people follow the principles which you lay out. Your story is such an inspiration!

Thank you! Let's find me those people lol.

ANYONE can do this. I am not special. Just blessed and lucky to find the answer :)

that's the key right there isn't it fitinfun? people just don't know the answer and they just keep going after the newest weight loss system or program that Nutri-system or someone puts out.

Yup. I work with people all the time to try to get them to gradually become more sane and healthy. Then they decided to try going vegan (when they love meat) or try intermittent fasting, surgery, or any number of other dumb ideas. Slow and steady wins this race but few wish to try that path.

I never eat more on holidays, my stomach does not become bigger by magic spells, so it's impossible to eat more.

Small changes make a huge difference Sharon, your advice is always based on what you have experienced which makes it good to see the journal entries supporting your efforts over the years.

My son had kidney stones earlier this year, never drank a fizzy soda again, turned to water, the weight dropped off of him. Now working on curbing small things like only buying fresh veggies, still promoting fruit into the diet which for some reason the younger generation don't seem to bother with.

Your posts are excellent reminders to everyone of us who have suffered fighting the battle of the bulge!

Thank you so very much for this post. I hate that I missed it, it is very well written and organized nicely.

Scott and I worked really hard to change our eating habits and go keto. Scott lost so much weight, but I seemed to just hardly lose. I know he gets at least 10,000 steps per day due to his job and I am thinking he was getting less food than he normally ate. I don't get many steps because it is painful to do much walking and I get so involved in what I am doing that I forget to move.

Now that the holidays are over, we are getting back on track. One of the things I like about the keto mindset is that we cook from fresh veggies and do the better meats and proteins. Fortunately, the three months we focused on the keto menu and how to do it safely so now we are able to fine-tune our menu and add some other things into it. I will be focusing on my step count this January to at least 5,000 a day. I am hoping this will help me get up and moving so I can work up to 10,000. I will also be working on lowering my food intake.

I am hoping this works. We know the keto works to get Scott's diabetic numbers down and to control my depression and Fibromyalgia pain. I just need to get down to a healthy weight. I guess I tell you all of this so I have a cheerleader. You obviously understand so I am sure you won't let me get away with the slacking.

Thanks again!
Ren

Take a look at this post from my son's blog. Don't beat yourself up, Ren! I will help you in any way I can. Aside from the actual post - look at the links below at the end. The walking is not going to cut it and is not necessary. I'm completely on board with the keto plan and will be glad to look at specifics with you.

I 100% hear the old me in your words. {{{Hugs}}}

https://steemit.com/dtube/@bxlphabet/ragxaff7

I will definitely take a look! I knew you would completely understand.

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