RedC

I weighed in Sunday lost 3.2lbs for total of 10.4 in 4 weeks. Pretty excited. But I had a problem yesterday. Ate lunch at Red Lobster and the cheddar biscuits called to me. Went over my daily total by 5 points but I rode 29 miles at 15.2mph avg so I will be OK

Rock31

-3.2 this week

Have a question for the group, after a long ride..let's say 2+ hours, what are you guys eating? I find myself reaching for the first thing in sight, I sometimes have to sit outside for an hour or so to "relax" my hunger LOL!

curtismk

Rock: I'm not riding often enough or long enough to have a hunger issue when I am finished. I would suggest either having a fiber one bar during the ride or preparing a snack/meal before you leave on the ride. By preparing something before you go, you are setting yourself up for making a better food choice when you return, rather than grabbing something that is quick and easy, but might have a negative impact on your goals for the week.

chefisaac

I usually have lunch. PB sandwiches on thin bread and bananas. Love them. Works great. You will not feel the need to eat so much once your body gets used ot riding more and more. I ride 22 miles on my commute and eat "normally" without the need to grab. A lot of hunger can be calmed done by drinking water. Remember fruits and veg are free points!

chefisaac

I have my WI tonight... not feeling it. $hitty day at work.

imacflyr3

Chef,
Don't sweat it... Go to your WI and move on, up or down.

fyi... I'm up .4 this week.

chefisaac

This last week has been good to me (even though I did not feel it yesterday with a bad day of work). Down 4.2 pounds.

the week before last weeks weigh in, I rode over 130 miles and lost 2 pounds which, again, I was happy with but seemed like it didnt match my exercise. Talked with the leader of the meeting I go to and she said to dive deeper into my weekly points. Made since because I usually have some left over daily points left and never use my weeklies or activity points so I used all my dailys and a good chunk of my weeklies. She said that with all my riding, I need to fuel my body more. It made since because I was feeling a little hungier before I increased my intake. So it was a change this week and it worked nicely.

Down 4.2 this week with a total of 29 point something. Flirting with my 10% goal and so close to being out of the 300 pound range.

curtismk

Chef: Congrats on the great week!!! Keep up the good work...

chefisaac

Thanks Curt. Cant wait to be below 300. Its been over 10 years.

CommuteCommando

I had a binge yesterday. It included girl scout cookies, and I estimate at least 80 pts. I am a little depressed over a major health crisis that just took down a dear friend of ours. (hemorrhagic stroke). Today is also the second leapaversarry of loosing a brother to pancreatic cancer eight years ago.

Back on the horse today.

chefisaac

I understand bro. Did you go to the meeting last week? It showed a cool slide on how to help that in the future.

I used to use food to relieve stress and make me happier. I am on the journey to figure out how to have a healthy relationship with food so these times do not happen again. If you would like, I can share some things with you. Just PM.

I am sorry for your loss such a close person and a friend.

chefisaac

how are we doing folks?

otg 

I'm at 193 today, started at 258 last May. trying for 185, getting close!

jazzgeek79

Hey all. Two years ago I was commuting about 16 miles a day. I ate what I wanted (didn't track my eating) and was maintaining a weight of 295. This wasn't fantastic but it was the a sustained period of weighing less than 300 which I was happy about. Then I fell in love. My fiance felt bad for me and would always offer me rides (i didn't own a car). This was around summer time, and while I have lived in Florida a long time, I have to admit that being offered a ride rather than having to ride in the afternoon sun was to tempting. Then I got a job where I couldn't get from school to work on time with the bicycle, so I bought a scooter for the days where the bike wasn't cutting it. After that it was all over. I started scootering all the time, and my trek started gathering dust. Insert series of stressful events in autumn, and by Christmas 2010 I knew I had gained some real weight. That didn't stop me from being shocked and depressed when I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 325. I tried a free weight loss sight and lost a bit, but it was slow going and I felt like I was starving myself. I soon got discouraged. Then I tried low carb with the fiance. This had worked like a charm to take off a quick ten or twenty pounds when I was younger. Now in my early thirties I lost about five and then stopped losing. Then a few months ago my scooter broke down. I had to bike to work and to school. After a few days of it I felt pretty good. So good I was reluctant to fix the scooter for fear of losing the riding bug again. Not long after this I joined weight watchers online. I was about 319 when I started. At first it was working well though again I felt a bit like I was being starved. This was ridiculous at 65 points a week plus 39 flex points, all of which I was (eagerly) eating. This has really highlighted for me how much of an issue I have with eating and food. Then I started tracking my riding and I stopped losing weight, got discouraged, and stopped tracking (though not riding). Now I am back to tracking, and losing weight. I have not been tracking my activity points because it seemed to be my downfall the first time, but I am running into issues this week. I am pretty good about choosing foods lately that will fill me up without burning points (vegi's cooked with reasonable amounts of fat, lean protein etc..), but my fiance and I are training up for our first supported ride (I have convinced her to take up biking, which she now loves cause she's amazing!) and I did a lot of riding the other day at what for me is a good pace (average 12 mph but cadencing at around 11 on the inclines which happened to be into the wind and 15 on the downhills with wind at my back). I couldn't get full that day. I don't want to sabotage myself by eating the ridiculous twenty or so extra points weight watchers was allowing me (my cycle computer average mph was something like 12.3 or 12.5 mph) nor do I want to slow my metabolism by starving myself after a above average calorie expenditure. Does anyone else have this issue or a good way of dealing with pushing yourself, feeling satiated, and not overdoing the food? Thanks for reading and thanks for your input.

Old Al

While I no longer use Weight Watchers, I am a life time member since before the points thing started. Currently I watch calories and I kind of tinker around with how many activity calories to replace. When I make an effort to not replace more than 50% of the calories I expend I might lose a little or maintain current weight. In January of this year I tried to not replace activity calories and I lost 10 pounds (starting the month at 185 and ending at 175)

That said, on days when I expend a lot of calories, yesterday was a 40 mile round trip bike to work day, I allow myself to eat more. Still, I do not think I replaced more than 80% of the calories burned. My current goal is 166.5. My WW lifetime goal more than 30 years ago was 168.

Continue to work at it and don't give up. My message is it can be done, small changes yield big results. (My WW starting weight at 25 years old was 263)

Mark Stone

My experience with WW is that it's ok to use the extra activity points and the extra weekly points. One of the points of the program is to lose weight at a slow, healthy rate rather than losing weight quickly and temporarily. When I eat up to the limit, my weight loss is averaging 2 lbs per week, which is what I want and what the program recommends. Problem is, in our minds we are thinking that eating the activity points and the extra weekly points is overeating - but it's not, it's part of the plan. One important thing is to make sure we are using correct portions (by weighing and using measuring cups/spoons) because our idea of a "tablespoon" of something and an actual tablespoon of something may be different lol!

However, if you eat the extra points and find you are gaining weight (over a period of time) they can then be adjusted down.

jazzgeek79

Good point on the measuring thing. I do it when it when it comes to volume, but I need to invest in a scale I think.

chefisaac

Jazz: Perhaps you could tell us what you normally eat and then we can take a look and compare. I started with 70 pts and now down to 65 pts. I would say perhaps a revap of the foods you are eating. Also perhaps start going to the meetings once a week. They keep me on track a lot and I love them and learn a lot too.

You will need to eventually start to understand when you are full versus when you want to eat. This was tough for me until I read a book called "Mindless Eating". Take a look at it at amazon. If money is tight, drop me a pm and I will either send it to you or buy it for you. I want you to be successful. WW is a great tool, the meetings are truly amazing. I head so much of me in you when I read your post.

Also, do not think that you need to eat after all your rides. If you are doing serious miles, yes, I can see that. I used to justify pizza for me riding 20-30 miles. NO WAY now. I pack a great lunch that is healthy and useful. Start seeing food as energy and put the best energy into you body. That doesnt mean you need to stop eating the stuff you love (for me it is chocolate and sooo much more! ) but just need to start working on the inner you. The "are you really hungry" thing and start understanding those cues. Please take a look at the book at least.

chefisaac

otg: was it amazing to get out of the 200's? I am so close to being out of the 300's. Getting all gitty.

chefisaac

trac makes good points. Although I do not eat my activity points at all (because I think WW calculates them too high), I do sometimes dive into my weeklies.

chefisaac

and jazz, you need to be honest with yourself when you track and that starts with weighing and measuring!

Also meetings really do help!

rec3036

down 3lbs at my WI this am.... I celebrated by going on a nice 18 mile bike ride.... the longest yet this year feeling good and staying positive! Lots of good advice and motivation being found here. Thanks Gang!

chefisaac

rec! AWesome job bro!!!!! outstanding.

SmokedDeathDog

It is really great to read all the accomplishments that everyone is having on WW. I am not using WW but it is good to see that it works. I am doing something similar but the one part that I don't have is a support group that you see weekly as you weight yourself.

I am on a journey to lose weight, down 50lbs today since I started sometime October (started at 305!). I have been averaging about 2 lbs a week. Over Thanksgiving I went to "Fitness Ridge", a Biggest Loser Camp for 1 week. While there, you ate between 1200 - 1500 calories a day and exercised about 5 - 6 hours a day. The part that had my light bulb turn on is when they talked about how we lose weight. They said if you eat more calories than you burn in a day, you will gain weight. They advocate counting calories and eating healthy. I have never wanted to count calories. I did a test while I was there, called an RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) which tells you how many calories a person burns in a day without exercising. Once I knew what that was, I then adjusted my eating so I ate less than that in a day. Then if you exercise, you add those calories to the ones that you have burned. You basically control how much you lose every week by how many calories you are eating.

I learned a few things while doing this. The first is I can do a ton of moderate exercise without consuming a ton of calories. On the 4th day at Fitness Ridge I did hit a wall while on my morning hike. I didn't have the energy that I had earlier. It was like that for the rest of the week. That meant that I was burning fat.

Anyway, I lost 8lbs (I think) that week but gained a ton of knowledge. So now I count calories and try to stay within a range (very important distinction for me, range). It seems to be working. I wanted to lose weight faster (like I have when I was younger, I'm really not that old) but 2 lbs a week is healthy and steady. The real surprise for me was that 3500 calories is a pound. I knew that but when I figured out how much exercise that is, it gave me a whole new perspective on what I was eating and how much I was burning in a day.

As far as exercise, I have been riding but damn is it cold outside, so I don't ride outside that much yet. It took a few months (!) to be able to finish one of my Carmichael DVD's (1 hour long) that I used to do a few years ago. By the time January came around, I was able to ride 3X's a week, 1 hr at a time and finish with a great workout. My wife decided to ride with me in the house, she is in great shape and didn't have a hard time doing these. In January we started an 8 week Power series by Carmichael. We just finished that up and I am so much stronger, but still I am not as strong as I was 3 years ago when I did the Seattle to Portland ride. My average speed is lower (for the 5 rides I have done outside this year) that it used to be. I have a Garmin 705 that tracks my speed, HR, distance, etc and uploads it to the computer. What is nice is that I weight 10lbs less than I did when I did the Seattle to Portland ride in 2009. Today I did a 20 mile ride and it was 43 degrees out, I am still cold.

Here is the amount of miles I have ridden since I started in October
October- 5 rides, 32 miles, 2:44 Hours:Minutes
November - 11 rides, 87 miles, 7:40 Hours:Minutes
December - 15 rides, 180 miles, 14:32 Hours:Minutes
January - 15 rides, 191 miles (1 week trip, no riding), 14:23 Hours:Minutes
February - 12 rides, 171 miles (10 days in India, on additional week out of town, no riding), 11:30 Hours:Minutes
As you can see by my time, I am getting a little faster. All but 5 of these rides are on a trainer in the house.

Anyway, love to see everyone's journeys, it is inspiring and helpful.

Ron

Mark Stone

Week Six on the WW program complete. Lost 2.2 pounds this week, total 12.2 pounds lost, average loss just over 2 lbs per week. Right on schedule!