h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks, ladies. If I can average a pound a week for a few months, I'll be estatic. I like the once a month weigh-ins. That will keep the daily fluctuations from making me crazy and let me focus just on the eating schedule and getting healthier. This morning the scale was put out of sight to keep me from being tempted to step on it.

For February I am concentrating just on staying withing my window. This is a minimum 16 hour fast daily and maximum 8 hour eating window. No counting of carbohydrate or calories. I'm eating whatever I please during my window, within the limits of my allergies, of course. I'm tempted to add in lower carb or a low calorie down day, but if I do that then I won't know which is causing whatever result I happen to get. If I just regulate timing this month, then I'll know for sure how this one factor works for me.

Great plan...and wishing you success, of course.

I've probably said this before, but I think that lots of diet plans do things ass backwards. They start off with the strictest version of the diet and then become more lenient. Since we lose more quickly at the beginning of a diet, it makes sense to me to start off more slowly and then when what you're doing stops working, you become more strict to get things going again.

We all want fast weight loss even though we know that the faster it comes off the faster it goes back on.

I've been living the JUDDDDD lifestyle for nearly 8 weeks now, although I refer to it as alternate day dieting these days. Also doing 30 minutes on the elliptical every morning. I'm 20% into my goal. I wish I had never fallen off the wagon.

I fell off the wagon pretty hard, and am struggling to get back on. Of course, it being test scoring season doesn't help any (nor that Faith likes to bake, and tends to bake on my down days) I should probably start posting weight and waist changes again--that seemed to help keep me accountable. I'll pull up the info on the Wii later--I just weighed and measured myself this morning, and the balance board is more accurate, since we replaced the carpet with laminate

I'm using Lose It to track exercise and calorie intake. It's pretty good at keeping me honest.

http://www.loseit.com

Hm... I *am* going to be upgrading to a smartphone of some sort for fireworks selling season (short reason--we're selling fireworks in 2 towns this year, I'm in charge of 1 town, and I need to be able to take credit card payments) so that might be a good app for me to look into

The app is convenient, but not necessary. You can log from a computer as well.

Have either of you tried the 5/2 version? Can't remember exactly what it's called. 2 down days a week instead of 3 or every other day.

I absolutely must get back on the wagon. My inflammation is back and I know it's because I went off the diet.

I haven't tried 5/2, but I might if I ever get to maintenance.

I might, if I can get a good down day going... Last week, I'd gained 1.5 pounds, but then my period started mere hours after weighing myself, so I was fine with it. Then, when I weighed myself this week, I'd gained 1.9 pounds.

Then again, I've been stuck on the computer until 9pm doing that scoring since the day after Mother's day, so we'll see how I do when I don't have an excuse to stay sitting all day. Should be easier to not sabotage down days, too, (or go too high on up days) now that Tom's quit Walmart--he was working graveyard, so it was all too easy to grab "just one little thing" once the girls were in bed and he had left for work.

What infuriates me is that I keep talking myself out of it, in spite of the fact that this is the only thing that actually works for me. I must be self destructive. I haven't regained all of it, but enough for me to tell the difference in my joints as well as in the mirror. So it is really important for me to get going again. The older we get, the harder it gets, which means that NOW is the time to get serious.

One thing that worries me is that down days are so much harder on home days than on work days. I have to develop some new eating habits so I don't regain every ounce once I retire. I really need to stop worrying about the speed of weight loss and try to get myself into a permanent maintenance level. If I use the JUDDDD calculator on their old website, pop in my goal weight instead of current weight, pick a maintenance level, and then add a few years to my age, I should get some calorie levels that will produce slow weight loss over the next two years. And then I can just keep to that pattern. Surely two years is long enough to make that WOE an actual habit. I know myself. I need to start the way I intend to finish. Now I just have to get all the calculations done.

Yes, home days are harder! And summer vacation starts on the 13th... Of course, if Notepad would actually finish her food, it'd be a lot easier, as well Doesn't help that I'm the least picky eater in the house, either--be much simpler if the girls liked something I can't stand, since they could have that for dinner on down days Now that Tom's a bit more available, he's making dinner on down days (I'm eating pre-portioned things until I'm used to eating less, then I can eat what everyone else is and at the same time/in the same room).

There a 2 things that help me stay on track. First, I record every calorie on both up days and down days. Second, on down days my mantra is "I can have that tomorrow".

WM, with loseit.com (free version), is there any way to have different calorie levels on different days? Or do you just figure out how many calories you need on up days and down days, and ignore the "budget" thing?

No, there isn't a way to adjust the LoseIt budget for alternate day dieting. I ignore it for that purpose, but I do use it as a sanity checker since it's based on how many pounds per week you wish to lose. The calorie totals for a two day period are similar for both methods when exercise activity is included.

That makes sense I just got started on it yesterday and, since my down days are T Th Sat I'll see how I'm doing on up days first (did pretty darn good yesterday, actually, which should make up for not-so-good-because of-in-law-birthday-dinner the night before). If nothing else, having to input everything should cut down on the it's-there-eat-it mentality.

I do a lot better when I track what I'm eating. The hard part is that I make almost everything from scratch. So I have to weigh individual ingredients in dishes. Even so, I doubt if I get the totals exactly right on things like soups and stir-fries.