Welcome Bethany!
Congrats Poto and Kathy on VT
Today I weighed in after cd at 201. So 2 pounds to go until Vt Wishing everyone the best. I'll check in tommorrow

nepeta-140! In the same boat!!! Woohoo!!!

You can do it Pattilacy!!!

Welcome Bethany... I love those spreadsheets! I was thinking of getting more diligent in recording my efforts so I can evaluate and make changes as necesary.

I think I am going to use this format to track overall cycles.

Hi, guys!

Welcome, Bethany! I love your charts (Anita knows that I love stats and being methodical about tracking on this WOE ). Looking forward to seeing your progress~ Oh, tell me: What's this lemon water in the A.M.? Does that really help you to minimize any gain from carb up?

Poto, thanks for the kind words~ I have been trying for 1200 cals/10ish net carbs on carb down (now that I'm eating higher fat, I'm finding it hard not to be 50 or even 100 cals over that ) and between 1300 and 1500 (20-25ish net carbs) on carb up. I've been pretty good about carb down over the past two weeks, but as I said, recent incorporation of a higher-fat regimen has made it difficult to eat 1200 cals; no matter how hard I try, each meal ends up having far too many calories, which means I have to eat very, very little actual food, portionwise!

Pattilacy, 2 pounds to go to VT!! Woohoo!!! Good luck, hon~

BTW, interesting sideline on eating higher fat--this afternoon was the first time ever that a ketostix I tested showed a "trace" of ketosis. I've never been in ketosis any time I tested! I don't say this because it's a goal I've reached or anything--I've no faith that it will mean anything to me one way or the other--but it's interesting. Obviously I'm human after all , and if I eat enough fat against protein/carbs, it will show up.

Have a terrific evening, everyone!

Thanks for the welcomes.

If anyone wants copy of the spreadsheets, just let me know. I can't PM yet, but if you send Anita your email address perhaps she can forward it me.

Just made my own spreadsheet - thanks for the template Bethany. I think it will make tracking this much easier. I had been relying on fitday to tell me ups and downs but this should be more accurate and actionable.

Hello, everyone!

Anita, I just now caught up on last week's thread and saw your post about not being able to PM me... I'm not sure off-hand how many posts I need to do to get to 25 at this point, and don't want to go back to the other thread to check... so maybe I'll just divide this post into multiple pieces. My apologies in advance to everyone for doing this!

-paula

Okay, here's number #2 of trying to get to 25 total posts so that I can PM and be PM'd!

Sorry, everyone, didn't mean to drop out of sight at the end of last week, but I was just so frustrated, I needed to stop thinking about weight loss. We've all been there, right? I didn't go out and eat carbage or anything; just found something to do all weekend that kept me from angsting endlessly.

Most importantly, my instinct is to agree with you, Anita... and Nancy, and Nepeta, and Pattilacy... I think I have been doing too much exercise for too long, and this is hurting rather than helping my weight loss.

(to be continued in post #3....)

Okay, here's number #3 of trying to get to 25 total posts so that I can PM and be PM'd!

After reading Nancy's suggestions last week, I decided to experimentally cut way back on exercise for a little while. (I'm not going to cut out the weight/resistance training, but I'm going to take my aerobic work way down for a little way -- instead of walking an hour or two every day, I thought I'd try something different this week: each day, I'll do an intense walk (fast, uphill) for a max of 15 mins.

I started this new exercise plan on Friday, except that I didn't actually do the intense uphill walk. Or on Saturday. Or on Sunday. (Did I mention I got caught up in a project?)

(to be continued in post #4....)

fivebyfive: Currently you have 18 posts. So you need 7 more to get to the 25. Look under the chicken leg under your name in the posts. You should see "posts: 18"

(continued from post #3)

Anyway, after 3 days of no particular exercise to speak of, I am "down" 2 pounds this morning, to 177.2.

This is still 3 pounds above my low (174.2) two weeks ago, but a far cry better than the 179.2 I was floundering at for no apparent reason at the end of last week.

(...to be continued in post #5)

(continued from post #4)

(Thanks, KathyD!)

Anyway, so just now, I finally had a chance to go back to last week's thread and "catch up." There, I found posts from a number of you suggesting I might have been over-doing the exercise, which is my instinct as well.

Anita, the article was particularly interesting... thank you!

(..to be continued in post #6....)

(continued from post #5)

All this being said, I'm still feeling a bit paralyzed.

I mean, the formula seems as if it should be SO simple, right? Put in fewer calories than you expend. Lose weight until you don't want to lose any more. Add more calories and expend less energy. Stop losing weight!

So the question now is... if in fact this was my problem (or should I say my most recent problem?), what do I do now?

(to be continud in post #7... wow, this is starting to come across as a really bad pot-boiler novel....)

(continued from post #6)

Don't get me wrong -- I don't actually expect anyone to be able to tell me what to do! I know I'm stuck experimenting and tweaking until I figure out what works for my body, just like everyone else.

But here are the choices I think I have:

1) Keep exercise to a minimum for a while (maybe a week?) and treat that change alone as if I were doing a calorie/carb up (without actually DOING a calorie/carb up)

2) Keep exercise to a minimum for a while AND do a calorie/carb up

(...to be continued in post #8)