Plateau'd for Life No More??
 

Preliminaries
Just got home from work and checked the scale (usual time)...drumroll...265 lbs. Not much, I know, but it appears to be moving. This is the lowest I've seen in 2+ months. So I'll hope it continues.

What I Learned
#1 - Be more accurate recording what I put in my mouth. Fitday.com seems to be helping at this point.
#2 - Stop drinking iced teas, gatorades, and lemonades so much. Unnecessary calories. I'll try water w/lemons or limes in it.
#3 - Eat bigger meals earlier in the day. Dinner should be small (smallest?).
#4 - No more eating after 7pm. (Hard because of my work schedule: home between 5-6pm. In bed at 8pm. Up at 4am. Repeat.)
#5 - Increase intake of protein (not to Atkins Diet proportions though!). Protein has a better influence on insulin, helping with hunger feelings. Try small handfuls of peanuts throughout the day.

I think most of those are good ideas. On #2, though -- why stop drinking iced tea? if you mean the bottled crap, if you read the label, you'll see it's probably not even really tea. I love (unsweetened) iced tea. It's refreshing and tasty, and beats the hell out of plain water. Water with plenty of lemons/lemon juice = good stuff too, but it can get old if that's your only alternative to water.

I recommend yerba mate, if you can find it. It's sold in tea bags or as a loose leaf tea (use a french press). Sweetened with Stevia (a natural, non-caloric sweetener), you have a delicious, nutritious, calorie-free drink. It's great hot or cold, too. Throw some citrus, salt and sugar in and you have a decent drink for a ride. It's pretty well caffeinated too, about 1/2 as much as coffee (or about 2x as much as regular tea). I can't get enough of it.

I know it sounds like BS, but a journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. So too does you reaching your fitness goal start with a single pound. There are no insignificant milestones.

Sound like a plan, especially the dumping the gatoraide\lemonades, just too much sugar and like you said, too many useless calories. If you have not tried them, the crytal light individual drink mix is not bad and only have 5 calories when you just get tired of the water and lemon. I drink about 64 oz of water a day at work and every so often need a break from the boredom of it.

Don't forget that Broccoli and Califlower is a better solution for your carbs than a lot of the grain products as they are both high in fiber and low in fat and sugars and are easy to cut up to have as snack foods that don't require refrigeration if they are raw and eaten that day. I take to work and have it at my desk and just snack through the day.

I do the Crystal light thing sometimes also, and other than sports drinks while exercising, I really don't drink any fluids with calories other than a few beers/glasses of wine a month. Trying to get over an addiction to diet coke, but mostly water, pelegrino, and tea.

The other trick of mine, spinach, lots of spinach. If I'm near my calorie limit for the day, I just eat a big bowl of spinach with very low cal dressing and a couple oranges for dinner. That's about 300 calories and I'm full.

I'm a big fan of lemon selzer. You can get 1 liter bottles for like fifty cents.

Thanks for the ideas. I work outdoors during the hottest part of the year here in So. California. Temps routinely get at or above 100 degs. So I drink alot during the day--many times a gallon or more of fluid. Plain water does get old fast. Hadn't thought of Crystal Light. Maybe I'll try it.

Love Broccoli & Cauliflower too. Dinner last night was largely broccoli.

Yeah, I do.

BY the way, if you are going to have a beer or nonalcohol beerlike substance, have it within a 2 hr window after a very hard ride! Then the carbs will go to Blood Glucose>replenishing your muscle and liver glycogen instead of going to blood sugar>Fat storage.;) Same with Chocolate milk. Either one is a great recovery drink.:D

Another option, is to make your own iced tea, get a tea pot, boil some water in a kettle, put a little in the pot, swirl it around, and throw out the water from the pot, now add tea bags, and fill the pot with boiling water. Now you have some properly made tea, let it steep to a strength you like, and move it to a heat proof container, like a large jar or large mouth glass bottle. It's important to remove the tea from the pot before it has a chance to get bitter. Let it partly cool, you can put something on top but leave a gap, so that it doesn't seal. Add lemon and a sweetner, Splenda or Stevia are better then some of the other fake stuff, like Aspertame, you do this while it's still warm, so that the sweetner dissolves easily, it does not need to be hot. Put in the refridgerator to let it get good and cold. Pour into glass, and add a couple of ice cubes, and you have the best ice tea you have ever had.

Congrats. Plateuing sucks big time. I thought i was going one a couple weeks ago. Turns out i wasnt riding enough. The Fitday sounds like a good idea. I've just started using My-Calorie-Counter to do the same thing. I like the journal style entry and the fact that it will track activity calories too. The summary reports are already showing me a trend of way too much sodium in my diet. I've cut out anything white already in favor of whole grains. As a consequence my fiber intake is more than it needs to be. Bottom line is I'm happy as long as my calories out is equal or greater to 7000+ more than i take in. Keeping track of it all seems to help with motivation. I've also noticed a personal trend of 10lbs per 500 miles ridden given the same constant calorie intake. Its seems to happen reguardless of time span needed to go the 500 miles. Right now im averageing 125-150 per week. As the weather warms up and the mornings along with it, i'm going to be ramping it up to 200 a week as best i can.


I havnt had bad luck with eating after 7. I just try not to eat within 2-3 hrs of bedtime. Im a late to bed kind of guy anyway. 11:30-12:30 most nights.

My only drink vices are Caffiene Free Diet Coke and Sprite Zero. 1-2 cans a day. The rest of the time water and a large coffee in the AM.

If i have to give up coffee, i'll probably kill myself.

Unfortunately, my bedtime is 8-9pm as I get up at either 4 or 5am to commute to work. So, I'm definitely eating too close to bedtime, but not much I can do about it now. Like tonight, I won't get home until about 8pm-ish. Eat, then straight to bed. Oh well...

Don't worry too much about eating right before bedtime - there's quite a bit of research out there that debunks that. More likely if you wait till dinner you overdo it - so if you have a sensible balanced dinner you're not going to gain weight all because you ate it before you sleep. Remember you are burning calories while you sleep (especially if you have a lot of muscle) - your dinner shouldn't be 2000 calories anyway.

Update
Last night's weigh-in: 260.4 pounds! Hoping this trend continues.

I'm tracking everything I eat on the fitday website. It's almost hard to eat enough food. Still doing between 2200--2600cals/day. I'll have to bring more food to work. RIght now, munching on peanuts, apples, oranges, and occasional granola bar.

excellent