Newbie Here

Hi Everyone! My name is Jessie. I am from Northern MI and I have decided to loose more weight. A bit of backround. I am a 26 year old female and a proud mother of 2 beautiful girls 20 months and 8 months. I was almost 280 at my heaviest about 2 1/2 years ago. I am now down to about 180 (size 14) and I still feel like I am 280. I just became single about 7 months ago and I am still hurting from that, but I have met a great man that is in great shape. I love the out doors and things like that. But I have hit this HUMP. I can't seem to loose anymore weight. I don't know how I did it the first time. I need help with toning my under arm flab, loosing the theighs and tightening my buns. I also want to tighten my stomach and loose about 50 more lbs. The bad part is. I never excercise. So what do I do where do I start. Give me advice please. I think I eat a good diet. Allot of apple juice water, and fruits and veggies. But I am a hunter and this time of year I live on hot coco what is a good substitute? I also love eating my venacin and it is not good for me either. So any and all advice would be great. I will say however that I don't read and have got about 10 books and have not even opened the first page. So help would be greatly appreciated. What is the best time to work out how long what should I do. I don't have any equipment to work with so house hold ideas are great. Remember single mom of 2 on a fixed income LOL!!!

Anyways Congrats to all who have lost weight. Let me know how you did it! Feel free to join me on myspace as well!!!

Link

Sat. Dec 22, 2:51pm

First off, I would stop drinking apple juice. It may seem healthy but it's full of excess calories and it doesn't fill you. The hot cocoa as well. What about drinking hot tea?

In terms of exercise, just start off walking. Say 20 minutes most days of the week? Also make sure you do strength training (you can find exercises online) to build muscle, thus boosts your metabolism.

Lastly, you should go on one of those websites to calculate your calorie needs to reach your goal weight. All those extra little calories really do add up in the end.

Good luck!

Saturday, December 22, 2007, 3:09 PM

If you aren't opposed to sugar substitutes you can make sugar free hot cocoa.

Saturday, December 22, 2007, 4:02 PM

first, welcome! Second, nice to hear that you've found someone that you feel good about and you're getting outside. Try some hot water with lemon and a touch of honey, it's usually very satisfying from some people who have posted about it here. I would start looking at people's logs here and see what people are doing to lose weight. You'll start to see things that will work for you.

Saturday, December 22, 2007, 4:10 PM

Your ex left you 1 month after the birth of your second child...I can't get past that one. What an absolute SHIT.

So I'll address your exercise plans, since working out helps generate happy hormones. Time of day is utterly irrelevant - the standard (and best) advice these days is to do it as early in the day as you can reasonably manage, because life and lack of energy get in the way as the day wears on. For me that's lunchtime, for others it's 6am. I'm thinking for you, it's whenever you can get someone to watch the kids for 45 minutes so you can go for a 2-2.5 mile walk, working your way into a jog someday, as you feel fitter. For strength training without equipment, pick up some power yoga videos (great Christmas idea, if anyone is looking for a gift idea for you). Most people think yoga is for flexibility, but that's a bonus rather than the intention of yoga. Anyway, the videos are usually 30-45 minutes long, so you can do them when the kids are napping.

In any case, CONGRATULATIONS on achieving a 100-lb weight loss and not piling it all back on despite the adversities you've had to face in the past year. It sounds like you've made some truly worthwhile lifestyle changes already and will get there when your body is ready.

Saturday, December 22, 2007, 4:46 PM

Venison (proper spelling) is a very lean meat, and since it's wild there are no hormones or other additives--it's actually very good for you as meats go!

Strength: Use that baby! Lift her over your head while standing, lift her straight to the ceiling while lying on your back, bend over and lift her from the floor like the old "weed picking" exercise, hold her by the upper arms just at the shoulder and do bicep curls. Most babies will love this stuff and it doesn't take much to start building muscle. Do ten reps twice of each and you'll be well on your way. You can also do pushups (wide hands and close hands), or pushups on the counter (stand three or four feet away and lean toward the counter, holding yourself with your hands, body straight; push as for a pushup only you're just pushing yourself away from the counter--do this with hands set close, with hands set wide, and then turn around so your hands are on the counter behind you and lower/lift your body that way. In our kickboxing class the coach has us do these, and she counts the sets like this for each position: 32 reps, then bend elbows and hold in the flexed position 32 quick counts, then do 32 reps. It DEFINITELY works the muscles!

For legs and butt you can't beat a good set of squats; for calves, hook one foot behind the other ankle and raise up on your toe ten times (you'll probably need a kitchen counter to balance on).

Saturday, December 22, 2007, 11:32 PM

Wow everyone. Thanks for the great ideas. Keep em coming.

As for the poster worried about my ex leaving one month after our baby. I consider it a blessing. Things would have gotten worse with the kids, so us splitting was GREAT!

I stay with my walking or somewhat jogging routine. 2 miles daily, even on days like today. It is 26 degree's out with wind gusts up to 25 mph. I still did it and froze off about 100 calories I swear!

Have a Merry Christmas Everyone!

Sunday, December 23, 2007, 11:38 AM

Congrats on your huge weight loss! And I agree your ex was a shit for leaving after a month with the new baby. It has to be hard but you sound positive and upbeat, so you go girl!

First stop drinking the apple juice, eat the apple instead, lots of fiber and it will fill you up and stick with you longer. Venison is a lean meat so its not bad for you so you can eat it. Now as for exercise, being a mom of 2 myself, and my husband is hardly ever here so most of the time I feel like a single mom, lol, this is what I did. First I started by putting the kids in the stroller and going for a brisk hour walk, bring toys for the older one and do it before their naps, I noticed that after the walk my kids napped really well, so it was an added bonus for me since I could go right home and start on some toning videos. You can go to your library and they should have some you can borrow. Another good suggestion someone already mentioned, use your baby for weights. You can put her on your tummy and do crunches, hold her while doing lunges and squats (great for the butt), you can also use things around the house like large cans of anything for weights, a sack of onions or even gallon size milk containers, a gallon of milk or water weighs about 8 pounds. I think the biggest thing is to just keep moving and you'll get over that hump.

Sunday, December 23, 2007, 12:28 PM

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