Monday 7th Nov weigh in.

Despite my best intentions, I didn't manage to stay totally wine free last week. I did buy a set of smaller wine glasses though I lost 1lb last week. Maybe I should buy a set of smaller plates?
Good luck everyone!

I don't wish to annoy anyone, but I have a real problem with weight loss.
When I moved to my present home in a tiny Alpine ski resort last year, I weighed amost 76 kgs, about 11st. 12 lbs. I used to be 5' 6" and a bit but now I have shrunk to about 5' 5" so my BMI was just into the 'overweight' range. I didn't care about my appearance, (I gave up make-up, contact lenses and hair colouring when I retired to France ten years ago) but my indpendent lifestyle depends on my being fit and healthy. I am 71 and had some mild arthritis in my knees and hips.
I started walking up the steep mountain paths (the only kind there are here) - just an hour a day at first, but I have gradually built up to three, four or even five hour walks (especially when I get lost!). I carry a backpack which weighs about 7 kgs and I use Nordic walking poles, which use up even more calories. For the first time in my life, I have discernible biceps, because of the constant movement of the upper arms. I have never been sporty, although I did do roller dancing for five nights a week in my teens.
At the same time, I cut down on carbohydrates and increased my intake of fruit, vegetables and salads. I have never liked sweet things like cakes, biscuits or chocolate, there are no takeaways in the mountains and I don't like fatty foods, so I grill rather than fry.
My target weight was 10 st. 7 lbs. but I am now 10st. 3 lbs - my measurements have gone from 38 - 35 -46 to 37 - 29 -41 and my stomach and bottom are almost flat. So far, the loss has not shown on my face and neck but my breasts , which have always been firm, are now floppy. On the plus side, my arthritis is much better but I do wear strong knee bandages and knee supports.

I don't want to lose any more weight, but I seem to be addicted to walking - if the weather is really too bad to take a walk I feel sluggish and unhealthy.My daughters are concerned that I have become obsessed with walking (I do tend to have mild OCD, which is one reason why I like living alone). They have told me to throw away my scales.
I live in a staggeringly beautiful part of France and being out in the unpolluted mountain air, with gorgeous views all around, gives me immense pleasure. I think I should increase my intake of calories - for my level of activity I need about 2,300 a day, but I cannot eat large portions any more.
I thoroughly enjoy my food and at 65 kgs I am hardly skeletal, but I think it is time to try to maintain my present weight. I am now making sure I have at least one portion of bread, potato or rice each day, plus some chicken or oily fish and I have a very large bowl of salad every day.

I would appreciate any advice - has anyone had a similar problem?

I'm still trying to get off the weight I put on on holiday, and I'm still not back to what I was before I went away, and though a few pounds have come off, they probably relate to fluid retention! I'm determined to get that stone off before Christmas though!

Wow glass that's a bit of a challenge! Don't know if you have seen the last few entries on the 'immediate weight loss' thread that I started after the birth of my beautiful new baby GD but it appears that after so many lovely messages a proverbial can of worms was opened! Sadly it appears someone didn't get the joke?
Note to sba - must get serious again!
I stayed the same weight last week which I was reasonably happy with considering we did do a 'little' bit of celebrating!
DH and I are having a couple of days break away this week so I anticipate a little bit of sinning on the dietary front but I promise I won't go too mad.
After my 'low' week a couple of weeks ago Isla's arrival was such a boost and now having our short break can only do us good and prepare me to really go for it from next weekend onwards!
Good luck to everyone this week!
Hopefully someone will have some advice for greatnan - obviously we are all going to feel jealous of you but at the same time understand how you must be concerned - good luck to you as well!

One and a half pounds of again this week so 9 lbs in all. I have a target to lose one stone by Xmas. DH has lost a whole stone easting the same food but if I am honest less wine so I will try harder this week.
As to the walking my daughter became addicated to running after losing four and half stone on lighter life I wish I knew how to advise on that.
I thought lost 9lbs overnight was a great story

THERE YOU GO glass susieb has lost 9lbs of the 9lb 5oz target you gave us all to lose between us (I must have misread your orders!!!).
Well done susieb you will make it I am sure. Pain about DH though - my DH eats whatever he likes, does little or no exercise except walking (to the car!) and yet hardly puts on an ounce!
LIFE JUST AINT FAIR !!!

Thank you, Sbagra and susiecb - I am very experienced with the problems of being overweight as my daughter came close to death following a botched gastric band operation. She had reached 17 stone following a very difficult divorce and did not feel she could wait for dieting and exercising to work. The surgeon in question was successfully sued by another ten women and then applied to the GMC for voluntary deregistration because he did not want his own medical problems to be made public at a Fitness to Practise hearing. It took seven years for my daughter's medical negligence claim to be settled and she is left permanently disabled by a huge incisional hernia and is also addicted to codeine, which they gave her when she was in agony from huge abscesses in her stomach. She is still about 15 stone and unable to take any physical exercise. Needless to say, I have not mentioned my own weight loss to her. I still wonder why the surgeon's team of nurses, junior doctors and anaesthetists did not blow the whistle.
Very little is heard of the dangers and side effects of obesity surgery but it is not the magic cure that some celebrities have suggested - it does nothing to address the underlying problems that might have made someone turn to eating in the first place.

I don't expect sympathy for my own case as I am not anorexic - I love good food and a glass of wine with my dinner, but knowing my own tendency to take every new interest just a bit too far, I think I need to stop losing weight now. Does your stomach shrink when you cut down on portion size? I won't be able to walk as much in the bad weather, but I am spending December and January in New Zealand with my other daughter and her family, who are all great walkers. Fortunately, she is also a great cook so perhaps my weight will stablilise.

No weight loss this week, same weight as last week. (Forgot to weigh myself yesterday!)

Greatnan my sister had this same 'problem'. She loved running and eventually became addicted to the natural endorphins that are produced by exercising. She felt fine when exercising but was very down when she couldn't. The GP told her that it is the equivalent of being a drug addict and that she had to gradually reduce the amount of exercise over a period of time. She found it very hard but managed and is now a normal weight. Hope this helps.

Ha ha there you go I knew you could all make the 9lb 5oz

sba dont you dare get all serious!!! Dont you worry about those few people who are miserable and cant see the lighter side of life, it gave a lot of us a good laugh!!

notso 1lb is great dont knock it, you are going nice and steady thats the besy way to do it, well done!!

greatnan hello lovely to meet you! I would throw your scales away, the exercise you have combats the need to be cautious over food. I would make sure you are having a good balance with the food you are eating, and yes your stomach does shrink!
Sorry to hear of the problems your DD has had with her gastric band operation. Your holiday with your other DD may have come at a good time and will give you an opportunity to change your diet a little and may stabilise your weight, do you eat pasta?

green you will settle down again after your holidays and I bet you see a loss next week

susie well done 1/1/2lbs, men always seem capable of dropping weight without thinking about it.

lucid sure you will lose next week

Yes, lucid, it certainly does help. At the moment, I am house/pet sitting for a friend in Switzerland and the weather has been rather dull and overcast. The dog is old and arthritic, so she can only manage a short daily walk and I have amused myself with UK television and reading and sudoku. My friend's house is in an equally lovely part of the Alps, so it is very tempting to go off exploring but I think this fortnight away from home will be a good chance to wean myself off my walking addiction. Obvously, I am not going to stop completely, but I think a steep two hour walk (one hour out and one hour back) is a good compromise, with the odd long hike when the weather is especially fine.

I lb this week, despite a few treats loft over from Halloween.*Greatnan*how horrible for your daughter,I have always been wary of those operations and a friend of mine wants to have one.

Please try to dissuade her, GoldenGran - I know it seems wonderful to lose a huge amount of weight very quickly, but people are often left with a lot of loose skin and anyway, who wants to be restricted to tiny portions of food for the rest of your life? I have done a lot of research (I wish my daughter had done more before her operation) and some of the stories are truly horrible - bands eroding the stomach or food rotting because it was caught in the band. And of course if the problem that led to such over-eating in the first place has not been tackled, some people stretch the pouch or even burst it. Obesity surgery is a multi-million pound business and unscrupulous surgeons will accept people who are not clinically or emotionally suitable for it. Yes, I know most health professionals are heroic, but I have encountered so much lying and covering up that I have become sceptical.

Everyone on this thread is going about losing weight in the sensible way - settling for perhaps a small weekly loss through sensible eating and some exercise. It probably took many years to build up the weight, so it is reasonable to expect it to take several months to lose it.

Will do that Greatnan

By the way the stomach doesn't actually shrink its all folded up so it expands and contract with whatever you put in it - its the appetite that you shrink when you eat less.

Thanks susie thats what I should have said

Well done golden 1lb

The one large portion I can never resist is the pile of crisp, golden brown thin chips that the restaurants here in France give me!

I've just caught up with this thread, and was struck by your comment greatnan, about becoming addicted to walking, not that I am anywhere in your league re. mountain walking.
I live in an area of arable farming which, whilst not as jaw-droppingly stunning as your Alpine area, has it's own comfortable and gentle landscape. I walk the undulating 'white lanes' - the little tracks that criss-cross the fields - which are used for agricultural machines. I leave early in the morning, which I consider the best of times, and step it out for a good hour, every other day. When I can't get out I, too, can feel a bit pacey and tetchy. I've lost weight (but not enough) and hope to continue to slim down to a healthy 10st8lbs - as being 5ft 8" I consider that to be a reasonable goal.
Like you, we are miles away from fast-food, and I home-cook everything. My one failing is bread, which I love, but have discovered a delicious multi-grain
loaf that is made in one of the local villages, so I don't feel too bad about enjoying that healthy option! ;)

I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts, and it has encouraged me to continue to take the sensible plan of eating with gentle weight loss. I do not, however, have any intention of giving up my 2 glasses of wine in the evening!

I don't own scales, as I feel I would become a tad neurotic about using them, so when I need to weigh myself, I jump in my car and jump on a friend's scales. On the whole though, I feel the bedroom mirror and how my clothes feel are the best indicators.

Before my knee went, I used to do a bit of jogging [a mix of walking a few paces then jogging a few] and used to get very tetchy if something stopped me doing it. Unfortunately, since my knee went [it's a lot better now] I went the other way and stopped walking, finding any excuse not to go out [ie the internet, which has replaced one addiction with another]. I think I'm a tad ocd. I'm not sure what the best food is to maintain weight, but feel that carbs [especially bread] are not good for you, so I would imagine protein would be better..perhaps even some sort of protein milk shake that athletes use? It annoys me that I seem to have been on a diet since I was 16, losing it on the run up to, say, a holiday or Christmas then putting it all back on. But then dieting is very phsychological anywhay, is it not, a form of control. I think if I lived somewhere beautiful I'd want to be walking all the time. I used to go walking in the Peak District but now find the slopes difficult [again a confidence problem]. Nordic walking poles are fantastic; I used them on holiday when walking on the beach, and felt fantastic. I know when my ex used to run marathons he would always have a spaghetti bol the night before as it released the right sort of energy for the next day.

Agree Butternut I have a skirt in my cupboard which has been more than a little tight, and trying that is better than any scales for telling me how I am really getting on. Delighted to say that as of this week it is not tight at all

GoldenGran

Crimson - I think the Peaks are beautiful, and I intrigued by your comment ...'again a lack of confidence'. Is it your knee, the isolation, the wide open spaces?
Might it be possible to go walking with a friend to help regain your confidence?

I don't use the word 'dieting' because it is so loaded with expectation and result driven. Perhaps changing the word 'control' to choice might lessen the pressure, and remove the the sense of being a 'tad ocd'.

Personally, I would avoid the protein milk shakes. They are expensive and, I suspect, sugar laden.

I think I will continue to rely on eating reasonable portions of healthy food - I am a long way from needing powdered protein. I find a bowl of porridge with some bottled cherries and some raisins in it keeps me satisfied until lunch, which is usually one round of wholemeal toast with a slice of cheese, or half a tin of sardines, or a small tin of baked beans (I finally found some in France), or a couple of boiled eggs. Otherwise, I have a very large bowl of mixed salad with a little French dressing and two Ryvita. For dinner I have a small piece of meat or oily fish (salmon or tuna) with a baked potato and a very large portion of spinach, carrots or cabbage. I also eat at least three pieces of fresh fruit each day, and my 'treat' is a lemon yoghurt or one scoop of coffee ice cream with a little half-fat cream. I drink about ten cups of tea (half fat milk, no sugar), a glass of fresh orange juice, and one glass of white wine. I also have a handful of walnuts/almonds every day because I think the oil in them is good for arthritic knees.

I don't think I would have lost much weight eating like this, if it had not been for the excessive amount of walking. Is it a reasonable diet for my age?

And I agree the scales should go as I was definitely getting obsessive about using them every day - the fact that I have had to take in all my waistbands
by several inches is probably the best indicator I have.

For the first time in my life, I begin to understand how people become anorexic - you set a target weight but once you reach it you don't want to put it back on . Fortunately, I enjoy my food very much and have never been a 'picky' eater - when I was growing up in the 1940's food was rationed and you ate what was put in front of you.

Complex carbohydrates (bread, pasta etc) are better than simple ones (sugars), which are taken up and used very quickly - OK for a quick burst of energy. Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down.

DH has been prescribed Complan milk-shakes to build up his weight because he eats very small meals. The sugar content of 100g of those is 46g and non-sugar carbohydrate 15g. The rest is protein, fat, minerals and vitamins. I don't know how that compares to the shakes sold as dietary aids for healthy people, but I would think that a good varied ordinary diet is better.

It can be very easy to become hooked on exercise, as it produces endorphines in the body in the same way as addictive drugs. The teenage son of a friend of a friend became so addicted to running that older members of his running club contacted his mother with their worries about him. He was getting so obsessed that he would hardly eat, although he was as thin as a beanpole, but he ran several times a day. I had thought that it was girls who got so caught up in anorexia - but it later transpired that he was worried about his sexuality .......