SpiritDragon

You're doing great on the outcomes. I haven't noticed any updates on behaviours in the spreadsheet though, how are those going?

I thought you were going to pleased a la those following the diet in this video:

https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Gondolin-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/1328613046 For the convenience of any who would like more Tolkien to read. I had seen references to this book in The Lost Tales Part 1, but only recently realized it was actually released as a stand alone book in 2018 which will surely have much more detail than the brief coverage given to the matter in the Silmarillion which you can listen to here:

@Vort this has inspired me to undertake and complete the Silmarillion. I started it as a teenager after reading LOTR and it seemed like the Bible of Middle Earth - I decided I should embark on scriptures that apply to me before reading one for a fictional narrative. In a sense I owe my testimony to Tolkien, because he took away my excuse that the standard works were just too large to read. Have you read the more recently released Fall 0f Gondolin?

My brutal honesty is to say congratulations on making a plan. Let's give it a chance and see how it goes. Your increased consistency could outweigh the damage of a reward meal. Stick to it for a couple weeks to give it a fair shake. If it is working - great. If not we may to look at limiting the cheats or possibly just fine tuning the rest of the time and having epic cheats. There is more than one way to skin the proverbial fat cat. The trick is finding the way that you can enjoy long term. This sounds reasonable enough to me - I mean you know I'm going to suggest more veggies, and I know you just don't like 'em. Even so, your soups, salads and fruit should help keep your micronutrients up where they need to be for reasonable health and help keep calories low in the process. Don't be afraid to increase fruit and veggie servings at the expense of meat and pasta or traditional entree type foods. The true harsh judge will be your body's response - if it gets healthier and sheds weight in the process it is telling you that you're on the right track. If your weight doesn't budge, you'll need to make some changes. If your weight goes up... well that's a give away, right. It is possible to lose weight, but also lose health -if this happens I would also urge you to reevaluate. From my perspective your health is the most important metric of lifestyle modification success - it's just not the easiest to always tell, but nevertheless important to always pay attention to. If your energy is consistently down, your bowel habits slow, your breath is always bad, your hair starts falling out - pay attention. I'm optimistic your plan of attack could really pay off. I don't expect it to yield amazing results as a stand alone, but I think as a next step it's absolutely worth a go.

I'm sorry to hear that. Less than 8 isn't ideal, less than 7 is noticeable, less than six is unpleasant, and less than five sound like being being a parent with young children or teens who stay out late I'm glad your other gut issue seems to be tamed down for now.

Great job with breakfast. I'm going to make the assumption this is your focused behaviour and the following ones are for bonus points. Keep up the good work.

Sorry for your loss. Edit: I apologize for the redundant post - For some reason I wasn't seeing @zil's post to the same effect.

I can appreciate that too.

I doubt it... but there was this guy https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19520351/28-pounds-poop-mans-bowels-hirschsprung/ If the story is reliable, he was quite literally full of it - almost 30 pounds, yikes!

I just want to make sure I'm understanding the numbers correctly - you're saying that Saturday you had made one pound more progress than the 7 pounds posted in the spreadsheet, but today weighed in five pounds heavier than yesterday for a total of three pounds lower than start? This may help explain what might be going on either way: https://www.verywellfit.com/why-does-weight-change-day-to-day-4100012

Unfortunately I can't see the numbers to go along with your data points, but the trend does look positive overall.

Perhaps we can help with that. What are your favourite meals? I have access to lots of recipes, and I'm sure others here have some winners too. There really might just be a way for you to find some meals that you really enjoy which are helpful.

You live there... I figured the limit to physical activity was for that reason - now that I know outdoors is out of bounds I'll come up with some other potentially useless idea to pitch your way until something actually seems viable, I forget to keep pitching ideas, or you ask me to stop.

Is a walking group an option? You could socialize about whatever while getting some physical activity, but not enough to break a sweat. It might not fly at your workplace, but at my office, I've even done walking meetings where we take off and stroll the city to discuss various agenda items.

All good points about how our environment influences our food choices and how industry can exploit our environment to our detriment. The good news is we do have some power over our surroundings and how we interact with them as well. That's pretty good - I don't suppose you wrote for Wierd Al? I'm saddened by this bolded part. What are your favourite lunch items? Perhaps we can help you to recreate healthier versions that you can love not only for the falvour experience, but because you know you are looking after your body and seeing healthy changes. Substitution #1 instead of Pepsi - Prune Juice (Mwahaha) I'm mostly kidding of course - prune juice is only an adequate substitute for Dr. Pepper and it still contains more calories than the drink of choice (Water), but it may assist with weight loss by getting your tummy churning or simply changing the flavour in your mouth breaking you out of your usual flavour associations. In all seriousness though, I think we might be able to help you get some tasty alternatives to some of your favourites. The hope would be that even if your eating leftovers for lunch that they aren't being eaten with a side of sadness.

If you still need money in addition to the US Embassy's help, do you think you would be able to make a go fund me request without your husband stopping you? https://www.gofundme.com/

@beefche Keep up the good work with the water. Can you explain what eating 5 and 1 means? @NeuroTypicalcongrats on another four pounds!

I'm glad you found us here, Lindy. Do you have any weight loss goals you would like help with? If not we still welcome support from anyone wanting to improve health through lifestyle modifications. For instance, @zil hasn't mentioned any particular weight loss goal but she is working on exercise and I am mostly just concerned with improving on certain habits myself which have slid a little since having children, but I really don't have much weight to lose. Doesn't stop us from checking in to encourage each other. We'd love to have you on board. Any particular tips that stand out to you so far?

I can't recall any studies showing increased mortality from vaccines in the United States off hand. I may have encountered some from other first world countries, but would have to look, as I can't recall any off hand. I'll have to get back to you on first world data, I imagine it's harder to find a true comparison of unvaccinated to vaccinated though because vaccines have been dominant for generations now in the Western world. This leaves studies that look at one vaccine at a time, which is useful for determining the effects of one vaccine, but it does so while other vaccines are in use which also confounds end points like mortality. Another challenge is that when placebo studies are used they tend to use the same adjuvant as the vaccine would, only taking out the antigen. This is a useful means of determining issues from the antigen specifically but not the whole vaccine. It would be like studying the effect of chocolate chip cookies on health by taking out the chocolate chips but still eating the cookies. It can only let us know the impact of the chocolate chips, not the complete cookies. This study would also be confounded by eating other types of cookies or products with similar ingredients.

I should add that I'm not accusing you @NeuroTypical of being uncivil in particular, just that that sentiment always comes out in these types of discussions. There is certainly a sense of belittling people with the minority view and righting them off as fools to believe such nonsensical stuff and to ignore any research that supports the concern and again right people off as simply listening to emotional mommy bloggers and former porn stars with no evidence whatsoever.

There really are two sides to this argument though. It's easy to get polarized, but it's important to listen to what people have to say and not just count them out as uneducated misinformed bumpkins or brainwashed do what the gubment says followers. Consider that the DTP vaccine has recently been reviewed against information collected from the introduction of the vaccine to Guinnea Bissau Africa. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5868131/pdf/fpubh-06-00079.pdf The review found consistently over multiple studies that the vaccinated were at twice the risk of death from all causes to the unvaccinated. Here's some highlights - Now in North America we use the acellular pertussis vaccine because the issues with the whole cell vaccine were becoming undeniable 20 years ago. Our current vaccines may be safer, but they are also less effective at creating immunity. In fact, they do not stop the transmission of whooping cough at all, but make the vaccinated into potential silent carriers who can spread the disease as they are colonized with the bacteria throughout their lives. Where is the outrage that the vaccines doubled the body count, and did so in the face of better nutrition and health indicators among the vaccinated? Where is the call for better vaccines that actually stop the transmission of disease when whooping cough outbreaks occur? We're met instead with the same tired witch hunt of blaming those who dare avoid or delay vaccination. I realize of course, your articles here are about measles, and I'm talking about Whooping Cough which is a different entity altogether. The point I'm trying to make is that studies like this are out there but seem to be swept under the rug with the idea there is nothing to see here, move along - anyone who believes this stuff is ignorant. Is this study not legitimate? It sure seems well done to me. I suppose my further point is that this study was done by looking back in time, the assumption of the day was simply that these vaccines were safe and effective, just as the assumption is today - 30 to 40 years later we find out that they were killing twice as many children as would have died with no vaccine. Shouldn't vaccines really have a legitimate safety test done before being rolled out on the populace? Determining the safety after the fact seems extra problematic when the treatment is something that is becoming compulsory. If the vaccine safety studies are simply being performed on real people by reporting adverse events as they happen, shouldn't people ethically have the right to refuse being study subjects? I want to also make it clear that I'm really not trying to pick a fight. I just find this type of study and many others I have seen to be compelling and haven't had satisfactory answers to my questions. I get tired of feeling like people hate me for questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and just feel like maybe if I can show some of the evidence that gives me pause it can help others to be more compassionate toward people like me. I don't expect to change anyone's mind on vaccination for their own kids, but I would appreciate if people could take a more civil attitude toward those with a different view and I would like to think more people could favour personal liberties to make health decisions for oneself and family.

@person0 I'm sorry to hear about the stagnation. Plateaus are common, but that doesn't make them fun to deal with and especially not when you're in a weight loss competition. The general rule for breaking through a plateau is to eat less and/or exercise more (I know it's original, it sounds like the same plan as always - which it is, but with the realization that the amount of activity and eating you are currently doing is energy neutral or close, so more needs to be done to create a negative energy balance). All of that being said, a one pound loss in a week is actually decent weight loss. Adding strength training is an excellent idea for long term weight control and general health. In fact, grip strength positively correlates with longevity, so the stronger your grip the less likely you are to die any time soon. As far as your contest at the office goes, if they are measuring only weight loss, then strength training could actually up your weight (as Unixknight suggested) in the short term which may not benefit you for the contest - but I absolutely encourage you to do it after the contest. If you're just looking for something different than what you're currently doing a metabolic resistance circuit could be useful. Basically doing higher repetitions that aren't in the muscle growing range (15+) and short rest periods (less than 45 seconds) in a circuit style. This will mix things up so you're not just running, but should minimize muscle hypertrophy (growing bigger muscles) compared to more conventional resistance training that has more of a bodybuilding approach for growth. Also, if you up your fruits and especially veggies you can help to displace higher calorie fair in your diet which will lead to a caloric drop while taking care of satiety. If you really struggle with the fruits and veggies a fibre supplement can also help you to feel full and assist weight loss, but fruits and veggies are far more nutritious and cost effective overall. NeuroTypical is also correct that muscle is more metabolically active than fat. However, to justify this metabolic costs, muscle needs to be used frequently enough. The human body is extremely efficient at streamlining and will be more than happy to give a pink slip to the muscles that ask for CEO wages in energy, but then sit around and do nothing but look pretty. When muscles are pushed hard and the body is consistently stimulated to strengthen them, then their existence is justified. The best calorie burning at rest comes from Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption or EPOC often referred to as the afterburn effect. In a nut shell, the harder you work during a workout, the more anaerobic metabolism is dominant, and the more anaerobic metabolism is dominant the more the body needs to make up an oxygen debt incurred during exertion after the fact. More muscle, means more energy production during workouts which leads to greater demands on the system and therefore more intense afterburn with the possibility of longer lasting effects as well because there is more muscle tissue to recover. As for wanting to sit around and let muscle burn fat, as long as a minimum effective dose of exercise is attained to maintain muscle mass, the so-called age-related decline in metabolism is attenuated by over 90%. In other word, keeping your muscles as you age can help you to keep the metabolism of your twenty year old self years longer than if you let your muscle atrophy. This is why resistance training is paramount to long-term weight management.

Wait - there are more than three Star Wars movies?! 😀

I'll see if I can come up with anything else. The first thing that popped into my head was to play pool, but that often requires going to a bar. I was fortunate to have a little pizza joint in my home town with a pool table. Fun interaction any time of day that's not too strenuous.