help! my 1st masters practice

I'll have to third knelson. I'm about your age, and I've lost about thirty pounds in the past year and change by eating mostly the same and upping my swimming. (I eat a lot of food and a fair amount of sweets, though not much "junk.") I now do five days/8.5 hrs. a week and eat more cupcakes than anyone really ought to. I'm still losing weight. My only other advice is to eat really good sweets. Don't have just any mass-produced cookie or candy bar--buy good chocolate, something sweet from a real bakery, etc. You eat less and it's better for you. Become a food snob.

Tory is giving you some really good ideas. You need to be disciplined, but in that displine plan for treats. I know the feeling of wanting something sweet, so a piece of hard candy can help that, gum. Make sure you drink plenty of water. Most people do not drink a lot. When going out to eat, check the internet for a menu of the place you are going so you can plan before hand to have something you will enjoy but that is not to calorie laden, and then stick to it. When I was losing weight, I actually found having a day off once a week worked well for me. It may or may not for you, it depends how you manage it. That day off for me allowed me to have treats or have something a little higher in calorie. I found I did not binge, and really ended up with just a slightly higher calorie day. I usually choose a day that was high yardage in swimming, so it balanced itself. Don't become scale obsessed. A scale is a tool, and so is a tape measure, and how your clothes fit, and how much energy you have when you eat 99% healthy foods. If you weigh daily, just remember, weight fluctuates. You are not a bad person because it is up, or a good person because it is down. Just use it to mark trends, and averages.

I don't like you guys. :mad: For me, it is all about what I put in my mouth. I even breathe fattening foods I gain weight. I can exercise myself to death, but if I don't watch what I eat, I waddle!

Originally posted by dorothyrde When going out to eat, check the internet for a menu of the place you are going so you can plan before hand to have something you will enjoy but that is not to calorie laden, and then stick to it. Why in the world would you limit your intake and/or eat healthy when eating out? Eating out is about losing all control of yourself in the calorie department. BTW - bought a bag of hot cheetos yesterday, I highly recommend them.

And, dorothyde, women with curves are HOT!

It sounds like you're off to a good start! Keep it up! It does seem like you may be trying to make too many huge changes at once. Just be careful not to completely overwhelm yourself. It's okay to make changes more slowly, like over a few weeks or months, if it will help you stick to them. If you can make all the changes at once, that's great; most people just can't stick to an entirely new lifestyle all at once. You mentioned you feel like you are depriving yourself of all sweets. I find that if I try to cut all sweets out of my diet for a week or so, I end up eating enough by the end of the next week to cancel any good it did. Instead, I try to allow myself one small cookie or candy a day, usually in the evening. That way, I'm not eating junk food all day, but I don't feel deprived.

Originally posted by Sydney That being said, it's hard to resist that piece of birthday cake that seems to get served every week at some office party. Birthday cake? I guess I'm working at the wrong office! :)

Sounds like you've got some great workouts going there. How do you journal? I don't know if you're aware of online journals, but there are a few really good ones. www.sparkpeople.com is probably the best free one. You can input your food, add custom foods, and see how you're eating (carbs/protein/fat). www.calorieking.com is a GREAT place for looking up foods that may not be on sparkpeople. They too have an awesome online journal, but you pay $12.00 a year or something. I belong to them. I also belong to www.weightwatchers.com (it worked to take it off, it's working to keep it off). www.fitday.com is really good, although slower. www.journaltosuccess.com is another good, but slow site. In all of them you can also journal your exercise so you can see input vs output. For journaling exercise and keeping an exercise blog, you can't go wrong with either: www.beginnertriathlete.com which is free and fast and has a specific swim component. or www.trainingpeaks.com which is also free, but is a little slower. (I'm all about the speed, except in my swimming. LOL) One nice thing about trainingpeaks is that if you plan a workout routine, it'll send you your next day's workout via email so you know in the evening what you're doing. I used it when training for my first marathon and first triathlon. There is a paid component to both of those. I pay for a bronze membership to beginnertriathlete, even though I don't necessarily need to. The blog is beefy as is. I just think that Ron puts so much effort into making this high quality tool available that he deserves the support. For the sweets thing...I have to have sweets. I could never eat another chip in my life and die a happy camper. But take away my sweets and you've got a raging woman on your hands! It is not pretty, trust me. I tend to do: -Quaker Chewy Granola bars (the lowfat ones) at 120 cals a pop. I do those before running because they sit well on my stomach. -Fiber muffins (I make these with 3 cups Fiber One cereal, 1 box of Krusteaz fat free muffin mix or fat free brownie mix, 2 cups water, 1 can pureed pumpkin (small can), and spices, and 1 tsp baking powder and maybe a little dried fruit...makes 24 small muffins at about 80 cals a pop). High in fiber and just enough chocolate or sweet to satisfy, but still make me feel like there isn't too much damage going on -Sugar sweetened cereal (personal pref would be Lucky Charms) in a one cup serving eaten dry as a snack. If portion control is an issue, buy the single serving boxes. -94% fat free popcorn with a packet or two of Splenda and some cinnamon sprinkled on it just out of the microwave (also great with a half packet of FF or SF hot cocoa mix, or 1/4 packet of SF cider mix and a packet or two of splenda) -All Bran Bars -1/2 cup Dreyer's Grand Light Ice Cream with fresh berries -Coffee with DaVinci sugar free syrup -FF Yogurt with 1/2 cup all bran or fiber one cereal I also try to pop a piece of gum in my mouth as soon as dinner is over so I'm not reaching for a sweet snack to get the taste of dinner out of my mouth, which is a habit of mine. Plus if it's minty gum, mint does NOT go well with so many other flavors so it's easier to get over that "want" of the sweet thing while my stomach signals my brain that I've already eaten enough. I'm not a good one to give advice on obsession because I fully recognize that I am obsessed with how I eat. I'm a numbers person. I want to know how much, what time, and what I have left. I decided right at the beginning to embrace my inner-type a statistic nut and go with it. It's working for me thus far. I just try not to obsess on my obsession so that I really only have two obsession o'du jour. Those would be what I eat, and my training.

Originally posted by aquageek Amen to that! Why do you think we all swim - so we can eat and, for some of us, drink to our heart's delight! That would be me, although I am not much of a drinker. I have never been overweight but I have had a small gut from time to time. Swimming burns enough calories that I can splurge on foods I like without having to deal with an out of shape body.

Every female athlete I know went through a phase right after puberty when they thought, "If only I was skinny again like I was when I was 12 (11, 10, whatever).... then I would be as fast." This can result in a whole slew of eating problems that actually make you weaker and slower, injure you, and then screw your life up when you finally give up on competitive sports. Just think of how fast you'll be able to swim if you can get to a reasonable weight without purging or starving yourself. The guy who said food = fuel was spot on. That being said, it's hard to resist that piece of birthday cake that seems to get served every week at some office party. If you can teach yourself to avoid that and the evil candy bowl at work (you BETTER not keep one on your desk), you have won half the battle. I still say, go with smaller plates.