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Reply  Back to story:  Yeeeehaaaa I did it -- I've Lost 120 lbs in 35 weeks!
 
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  #1   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 05:11
Mama Sebo's Avatar
Mama Sebo Mama Sebo is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 5,202
 
Plan: Keto, IF
Stats: 224/136/124 Female 64 inches
BF:44%/23%/20%
Progress: 88%
Location: Kenya-teleworking Austria
Default

Wow! Way to go! And yes, the journey begins here!
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  #2   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 05:15
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
Posts: 13,368
 
Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
Default

Congratulations again! In 35 weeks! Oh my, you really are a success story...do post more about your weight loss so it will remain in one place for people to read.
There are a number of people in Dr. Westman's support group who remain around 20g TC and never more than 30 to maintain their loss. Their bodies just cannot handle more carbs without gaining and it is perfectly healthy to do so. Sounds like an excellent plan to find your CCL.
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  #3   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 06:10
Elizellen's Avatar
Elizellen Elizellen is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 10,733
 
Plan: Atkins (DANDR)
Stats: 290/141/130 Female 65.5 inches
BF:
Progress: 93%
Location: Bournemouth (UK)
Default

Congratulations on your excellent progress, Jo!

Sounds like a good plan to find out if you can eat more carbs and not regain those excess pounds!
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  #4   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 10:01
gweny70's Avatar
gweny70 gweny70 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 4,319
 
Plan: Figuring it out
Stats: 366/282.2/166 Female 5'6"
BF:YEP/YEP/YEP
Progress: 42%
Default

Wow awesome and inspiring! CONGRATS!!
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  #5   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 10:53
BrandyRed BrandyRed is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 25
 
Plan: General Low Carb
Stats: 178/120/120 Female 65 inches
BF:
Progress: 100%
Default

Great job.
Keeping weight off sometimes is very hard. Good days and bad days. Keeping most days low carb helps me with cravings.
I do have bad days when I eat too many carbs and then I try to have couple days with as close to zero as possible.
Some people are able to eat more carbs and keep the weight off, but for me nasty cravings go away only with very low carb.
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  #6   ^
Old Mon, Mar-10-14, 14:15
MISSNLA MISSNLA is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 37
 
Plan: A'72
Stats: 170/170/135 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 0%
Default

Congratulations!
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  #7   ^
Old Tue, Mar-11-14, 04:10
Just Jo's Avatar
Just Jo Just Jo is offline
A'72 Lifer Hard Core
Posts: 15,566
 
Plan: A'72 Induction Lifer + IF
Stats: 265/114/130 Female 5'4"
BF:Not so much now!
Progress: 112%
Location: South Central New Mexico
Default Thank You All!!

Thank you! I really appreciate your kind words and support.

After careful consideration and thought, I have added a new twist for maintaining the weight loss. I will lose 3-5 more pounds and use that as my cushion before I increase my daily carbs 5 per day for 2-3 weeks. Evaluate the results, then add 5 more carbs a day, etc. In all the years I've done A'72 I never found out what my CCL was/is. I will this time!
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  #8   ^
Old Tue, Mar-11-14, 04:57
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
Posts: 13,368
 
Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
Default

Great Churchill quote on other thread, where you also mentioned you can't eat certain foods. That reminds me, When adding back the 5g, also consider which food it is. If you add back 5g of cheese, is it the amount of carbs, or something about the hormonal or insulinogenic effect of dairy? What is a typical day's menu now and what do you plan to change? Only asking because I have drifted up from my goal and need to shake up things myself. Thanks,
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  #9   ^
Old Tue, Mar-11-14, 08:11
MISSNLA MISSNLA is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 37
 
Plan: A'72
Stats: 170/170/135 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 0%
Default

Jo, have you placed your daily WOE journal anywhere? Did you limit yourself to certain kinds of foods (meats, cheese and eggs)? Also, did you incorporate excercise as well? If so, how soon did you start - did you wait the initial two week induction or start right away? Did you avoid caffeine the entire time? I'm sure you've posted this somewhere; I just admire your triumph in such a short period of time and would prefer not to reinvent the wheel when it obviously has worked so well for you!
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  #10   ^
Old Tue, Mar-11-14, 12:24
esam's Avatar
esam esam is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 374
 
Plan: atkins 72
Stats: 308/282/165 Female 5'9"
BF:...whatever!
Progress: 18%
Location: Arizona
Default

yes, we would all like to know the road map you followed.
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  #11   ^
Old Wed, Mar-12-14, 03:13
Just Jo's Avatar
Just Jo Just Jo is offline
A'72 Lifer Hard Core
Posts: 15,566
 
Plan: A'72 Induction Lifer + IF
Stats: 265/114/130 Female 5'4"
BF:Not so much now!
Progress: 112%
Location: South Central New Mexico
Default My Journey so far...

Okay here’s my journey to date:
I did a lot of research this time around when I restarted A’72. I thought for like a nanosecond that I might try out weight-loss surgery. I said I thought about it for a nanosecond, realizing of course that it’s not the be all and end all of weight loss. It would still take months to drop the weight and people that have the surgery have no more than about 600 kcals daily from the research I’ve been able to find and usually it’s low carb. And I know all about low carb and their success rate after weight loss surgery in gaining back the weight is no better than any other method of trying to lose the weight. I figured I’d try A’72 again because I’m an old pro at it. My biggest struggle, of course, will be learning how to maintain and no matter which way you manage to loss weight -- maintaining it is the real goal!
With nothing to lose (except for WEIGHT) and plenty of time on my hands (I’m a school teacher, so the summer seemed perfect for my new journey) I decided to try eating 600-800 kcals a day (like the weight loss surgery people) with no more than 6 grams of carbs.

What do I eat:
Coffee with International Delight Liquid Coffee Cream 2 T. = 40 kcals & 2g carbs
One bag (5-6 oz) Butter Lettuce type salad, with homemade garlic vinaigrette dressing = 80 kcals & 4g carbs
So I get my other kcals from:
Tuna, Baked Chicken Breast or Broiled Cod
I take 2 multi-vitamins, calcium and potassium

Sounds pretty boring, but I love it -- I know the night before what I am going to eat the next day and that seems to satisfy me and any cravings.
I averaged 756 kcals daily and 6g carbs from July 5 to Jan 1, 2014 and lost 100lbs by 23 Dec.

On Jan 1, I decided I needed to up my kcals. So every week I’d add 50 kcals daily. I try to do 1200 kcals daily but it’s difficult to eat that much food and I still only have 6 carbs daily. I added the one thing I missed most and that was pork rinds. On average, I do about 1100 kcals daily. Some days I do 1200 other days 900, it depends how hungry I am.

Activity:
I exercise every weekday morning for 2 - 2.5 hours. I have a stationary bike that I’ve rigged with my computer keyboard so that if I have to be on the computer, I have to peddle. Being a school teacher, I do a lot of lesson planning etc on the computer. And now that I’ve found all of you -- I peddle as I blog. LOL I’m an early riser so I do this before I go to work in the am.
On the weekends, I can log up to 4 hours depending how much work I have. Okay, I’m not sweating bullets as I peddle, but I am peddling constantly for 1 hour at a time (my behind needs a break every hour). I also weight train every other day for 15 mins. I have a Galaxy Gear watch (goes with the cell phone) and I track how many miles I walk as I teach -- I rarely sit at school (I teach Guitar, Family and Consumer Sciences “Home Ec for those of my generation” and Technology). I can log around 5 miles each day just at school.

So that’s how I got to my 120 pound loss. I've charted my monthly weight loss, so as of March 5 (Month 8) I weighed 133, as you know I've lost 3 more pounds. From size 24 pants (3XL tops) to size 6 (M/L tops).

There's something really weird -- in my mind's eye I'm still "Fat Jo" -- I don't see myself as thin -- maybe that's helping me to stay with this WOL and WOE, I don't know...



I have a motto that I live by that I call SEAL:
Stay Committed 100%
Eat & Exercise Properly
Accept the things I cannot control & change the things I can.
Live my life to be Successful!


“Success is not Final. Failure is not Fatal.
It’s the Courage to Continue that Counts.” Winston Churchill
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  #12   ^
Old Wed, Mar-12-14, 05:22
MISSNLA MISSNLA is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 37
 
Plan: A'72
Stats: 170/170/135 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 0%
Default

You're a winner, Jo! Thanks for sharing this with us - it confirms that I am on the right track and can now look forward to seeing my results soon. I will definitely use this as motivation on my journey to a healthier lifestyle overall.
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  #13   ^
Old Thu, Mar-13-14, 04:27
Just Jo's Avatar
Just Jo Just Jo is offline
A'72 Lifer Hard Core
Posts: 15,566
 
Plan: A'72 Induction Lifer + IF
Stats: 265/114/130 Female 5'4"
BF:Not so much now!
Progress: 112%
Location: South Central New Mexico
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by MISSNLA
You're a winner, Jo! Thanks for sharing this with us - it confirms that I am on the right track and can now look forward to seeing my results soon. I will definitely use this as motivation on my journey to a healthier lifestyle overall.


Thanks for the kind words missnla!! This really is a journey and not something I want to give up. I've tried this WOE countless time and lost literally 100s of lbs over the years -- gained them all back. Couple of things are so different this time around:

1) I use to think that once I lost the weight, I could go back to eating like other carb-eating people -- after all these years, I know that isn't going to happen because I'm a carboholic! (You can't change what you don't acknowledge!)

2) I never ever tried to figure out what my CCL was so that I could maintain the weight loss -- this time I will! I want to lose about 3-5 more lbs so that I have "wiggle room" as I slowly increase the carbs (5 per day for 2 weeks, then evaluate the results before I add 5 more)

3) I use to box up my fat clothes for later. Then it HIT me, Holy Hannah I was giving myself permission to GAIN the weight back! That was so stupid. I didn't have enough confidence in myself to keep it off -- NOT THIS TIME. I donated everything to a charity thrift store once it didn't fit.

4) I keep meticulous records of my exercising and eating (I weight and measure EVERYTHING - cuz I'm a bit OCD like that).

5) I know what I am going to eat well before I get hungry - no chances of poor food choices or excuses and I always have plenty of "my" food in the frig.

6) I write daily in a journal where I express my thoughts & feelings, etc

Wow didn't realize there was more than a 'couple" of things... Sorry if it's TMI -- and there are probably more...

“Success is not Final. Failure is not Fatal.
It’s the Courage to Continue that Counts.” Winston Churchill

Last edited by Just Jo : Thu, Mar-13-14 at 04:32.
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  #14   ^
Old Thu, Mar-13-14, 07:01
Susann's Avatar
Susann Susann is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 125
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 252/230/140 Female 5'4"
BF:43%-38.6%-23%
Progress: 20%
Location: Hoosier Heartland
Default

Good job!!
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  #15   ^
Old Thu, Mar-13-14, 07:23
Neanderpam's Avatar
Neanderpam Neanderpam is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 1,388
 
Plan: Ketogenic now
Stats: 277/121/125 Female 61 inches
BF:
Progress: 103%
Location: NE Indiana
Default

A big, heartfelt congratulations to you!

And..just because a lot of people tend to ask me what 'worked'...yep, I did numbers 1 through 6...and even at the 12 years maintenance mark, I still do them ALL.
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  #16   ^
Old Thu, Mar-13-14, 07:44
erinleigh's Avatar
erinleigh erinleigh is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 7,028
 
Plan: Atkins/LC
Stats: 276.4/266.6/200 Female 5'8
BF:I've got some!!!
Progress: 13%
Location: Minnesota
Default

CONGRATS!!! That is amazing!!!!!!!!!!
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