Minor things that bother you

[hbelkins]

I normally have a cycle for my weight.  It goes up over the weekend and it goes down over the course of the week.  It can have bigger blips around trips and holidays, but usually goes down reasonably quickly and the overall trend was down.  Well, not this time.  I've had a net gain of 10 lbs over the past two months due to the holidays (and a workshop I had to travel to) and though I just got back to my normal eating habits this week, the scale isn't moving (despite the fact that I can usually expect a swing of at least 2-3 lbs down from Monday to Friday!).  I don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm already very frustrated with my diet because I feel like I'm depriving myself on week nights (and I can't make those meals more substantial without depriving myself of my weekend favorites that pull up my average daily calories for the week), and it seems like I'm going to have to be very strict about it for a long while since I'm basically restarting my weight loss from scratch, except now my metabolism seems to have decreased for some reason.

To make matters worse, I have a formal wedding to attend later this year, and I want to look good for it (this weight gain had led to a lot of fat accumulation around my midsection and looks horrible), so the sooner I can get the weight off, the sooner I can go dress shopping, but it feels like that won't be soon at all.  All the while I'm battling food cravings and the urge to binge eat (alas, my body doesn't understand what moderation is) my favorite foods and eat all my favorite sweets.

Honestly, it's extremely tempting to give up on any attempt at not being overweight.  I probably will after the wedding, maybe even sooner.  I had to give up a few old favorites in order to get my weight down and I miss them a lot.

Get your thyroid checked.

Six years ago, I lost a bunch of weight. Got down to within 20 pounds of what I weighed when I graduated from high school. My dose of levothyroxine (synthroid) was 125 mcg.

But for some strange reason, my pharmacist mis-filled my prescription. Instead of 125 mcg, they filled the prescription at 25 mcg. That threw my thyroid out of whack, and I gained back 65 pounds of the 110 pounds I'd lost.

When I figured out what was going on, my TSH levels were so off-kilter that the doctor ended up putting me on 137 mcg and I'm finally back to close to my 2019 weight of being 20 pounds higher than my high school graduation weight. Last month, my dosage got cut back to 125 mcg.

The lesson learned was that I should always check to make sure the dosage I receive from the pharmacy is the dosage I'm supposed to get. Somehow, the "1" in 125 got dropped between the doctor's office and the pharmacy.

[Rothman]

I think these are likely nicknames that were gained as personal circumstance than because of their given names.

e.g "That kid eats a lot of potato chips" or "that kid looks like he lost a battle with a lawn mower buzzing him"

More likely, his dad just thought one day while looking at his baby:  You know, I like the nickname Chip.

I wonder if it's just short form of "chip off the ol' block" or something like that.

That was the case for a friend of mine.  He was the "third" after Sr. and Jr. and was called Chip through his childhood.  Preferred using his middle name when he got older, though (Vincent).

[Amaury]

I was out in Willits that same week.  The weather from Santa Rosa northward to at least the state line was awful.  Were you get hammered by rain on top of everything else you described?

It was pouring down rain along a good portion of Oregon Route 18.

[Beltway]

I'm skeptical that a few lost pounds will make much of a difference to your appearance.  Either your appearance isn't as bad as you imagine it to be, or else dropping the pounds won't have as profound an effect as you imagine it will.

Depends on how much. I had my weight at BMI 25 or below for 13 years. During the couple years of covid related stress I gained 20 pounds. At my age metabolism slows and it is harder to get off, but I am working on it.

[Beltway]

I think these are likely nicknames that were gained as personal circumstance than because of their given names.
e.g "That kid eats a lot of potato chips" or "that kid looks like he lost a battle with a lawn mower buzzing him"

More likely, his dad just thought one day while looking at his baby:  You know, I like the nickname Chip.

I wonder if it's just short form of "chip off the ol' block" or something like that.

That was the case for a friend of mine.  He was the "third" after Sr. and Jr. and was called Chip through his childhood.  Preferred using his middle name when he got older, though (Vincent).

My Dad had the same first name as his father, but different middle name. Family called him "Mickey" to differentiate and he never liked that. He fixed that in adulthood.

[vdeane]

It's hard to lose weight, especially as we get older.  In my experience, fully admitting I'm overweight currently, it takes a dogged counting of calories each day over an extended time period to lose it and that takes all sorts of energy to achieve.

Anyway, keep that in mind -- it's not an easy task, despite all the "my plan is easy and works" con artists out there -- and don't beat yourself up over it.

I think what's surprised me is how constant the scale has been even after returning to my regular eating patterns.  Plus just how much I gained (and that it was fat rather than water weight) after the workshop, Thanksgiving, three work holiday parties (plus associated leftovers from one of them), a family holiday party, whatever fraction I had of the cheesecake Mom made, and more cookies than I can count.  I was expecting to bounce back quickly, but it doesn't seem like that will happen.

I'm skeptical that a few lost pounds will make much of a difference to your appearance.  Either your appearance isn't as bad as you imagine it to be, or else dropping the pounds won't have as profound an effect as you imagine it will.

But it isn't good for your mental health to be so focused on what your waistline looks like.  It's better to focus on eating healthy food and getting some exercise, and then to just accept whatever body shape those lifestyle changes produce.  Especially considering the conversations you and I have had about the relationship between your body and the "real you", it's disconcerting to now hear you put so much emphasis on your physical appearance.  Don't let your identity get so tangled up in the pounds and inches and clothing sizes:  those are all just math.  Your value does not depend on the shape and size of your skin, and nobody around you thinks it does—at least, nobody worth listening to.

If you don't think your midsection is attractive enough to fit into a certain outfit, then it's a perfectly acceptable solution to simply wear something else that hides it better.  It's also a perfectly acceptable solution to just say "to hell with it" and wear it anyway.  I realize, of course, that the latter may be a step too big to take, at least at this time, but, other than your own self-confidence, what do you really have to lose by wearing something that makes your belly look a little less perfect?  Heck, doing so might even be an encouragement to someone else who struggles with a similar thing.

Well, women's clothing tends to be a bit more fitted (not to mention that I'd like to get something resembling a bikini body back by summer, though I would hope that I'd have gotten around to dress shopping by then), and the way I carry weight on my midsection is particularly unflattering.  I've been known to compare it to a male beer belly.  Clearly I didn't win the genetic lottery with that predisposition.

I may be placing a lot of importance on this wedding as it's my last chance to get all dressed up in the foreseeable future (and, having not been to prom in high school, I'm essentially using these weddings as watered down replacements).  Especially since this time I'm hoping to wear dark red, which I couldn't last time since that's what the bridesmaids were wearing (so I settled for dark blue).  I've even been debating whether to get my ears re-pierced and should probably start figuring out what to do with makeup (especially as what I've had for the past decade is long since expired and probably doesn't work for my face as well now that I'm in my 30s).

If you don't mind my asking, what sort of diet are you on?  My wife has recently been on a health/weight journey, and she's lost about 45 pounds just since Easter.  We were already eating fairly healthy, but we've made some small-ish changes to our diet anyway, and we went from not exercising to exercising almost every day.  She still has an occasional treat, but she's also found some new on-plan treats too.

Now that I'm back on my standard diet, on weekdays breakfast is two fried eggs and two slices of toast, "lunch" (as I'm used to two meals a day from college and couldn't figure out the best way to coordinate meals that could be flexible and not too many calories - and work around the weekends) is just a bowl of cheerios at my desk, and dinner is a thing of Stouffer's mac and cheese (the small 480 calorie version, not the big who knows how many calorie version), a thing of Campbell's chicken noodle soup, and a small plate of mixed veggies (peas/carrots/corn/green beans).  1360 calories total.  Yeah, I should cook more, but managing ingredients has always been a challenge for me, especially with me taking overnight trips at least once a month outside of winter (I do take a daily multivitamin to fill in the missing nutrients).  Saturday and Sunday have the same "breakfast" except in early afternoon, but dinner is a higher calorie affair both days - pizza and wings Saturday (2257 calories total) and bagel bites and Stouffer's mac and cheese on Sunday (1900 calories total).

Now, if I wasn't actively trying to lose weight I'd have Devour buffalo chicken mac and cheese instead of the Stouffer's in those meal slots (which would change the week day total to 1550 and the Sunday total to 2130*), since it's more filling, kinda addictive, and less of a hassle to deal with (the plastic comes off cleanly with much less effort and the cheese doesn't tend to get caked on the plastic).  I'd also use winter as an opportunity to sneak in some cooked meals that I don't bother with in the parts of the year when I travel more (for instance, if I want tacos, I have to commit to twice a week for four weeks straight to use up the sour cream and shredded cheese... which is an issue when it blows up the amount of calories I eat each day; I also retired the pasta meal that I based off my favorite college dinner because the Alfredo sauce doesn't divide evenly and I was having issues with opened bottles going bad whenever I'd take an overnight trip, and also because the peas were making me bloat, as all frozen veggies that I prepare seem to, though not quite as bad).  I also have to be MUCH more worried about sweets than I was before November (when it didn't seem to matter as long as I didn't go crazy, but now it clearly does).  I have a definite sweet tooth; I like to get a slice of edible cookie cake whenever I happen to go to the mall, and I also tend to have cravings for things like cookie dough, choclate covered pretzels, and Wegmans mini chocolate chip cookies (although right now I'm oddly craving Freihofer's) that I have to be careful about how often I indulge.  The past couple grocery trips I've snagged one Reese's egg and one fun sized bag of Cadbury mini eggs (gotta snag those while I can, since the tend to disappear weeks before Easter for some reason, and then all that's left is the "too big for one person to finish on their own" size).  And in the summer, the local soft serve ice cream place.  Also the frozen yogurt place I discovered at the other mall.  And I like to get a pint of Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream for my birthday.  So many sweets I like, too little time to slot them in without indulging too much.

And this naturally doesn't factor in travel, but this post is getting long as it is.

As for exercise, I have some portable pedals that I use for 30 minutes on week days, which is enough to get my doctor to not yell at me, but probably not enough to be truly beneficial.

*I actually used the which cheddar and bacon mac and cheese instead of the buffalo chicken for Sunday, which is why the math doesn't math.

Get your thyroid checked.

What's interesting is that I've long suspected hypothyroidism based on my metabolism and fatigue, but my TSH has always seemed normal in labs.

[kkt]

I normally have a cycle for my weight.  It goes up over the weekend and it goes down over the course of the week.  It can have bigger blips around trips and holidays, but usually goes down reasonably quickly and the overall trend was down.  Well, not this time.  I've had a net gain of 10 lbs over the past two months due to the holidays (and a workshop I had to travel to) and though I just got back to my normal eating habits this week, the scale isn't moving (despite the fact that I can usually expect a swing of at least 2-3 lbs down from Monday to Friday!).  I don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm already very frustrated with my diet because I feel like I'm depriving myself on week nights (and I can't make those meals more substantial without depriving myself of my weekend favorites that pull up my average daily calories for the week), and it seems like I'm going to have to be very strict about it for a long while since I'm basically restarting my weight loss from scratch, except now my metabolism seems to have decreased for some reason.

To make matters worse, I have a formal wedding to attend later this year, and I want to look good for it (this weight gain had led to a lot of fat accumulation around my midsection and looks horrible), so the sooner I can get the weight off, the sooner I can go dress shopping, but it feels like that won't be soon at all.  All the while I'm battling food cravings and the urge to binge eat (alas, my body doesn't understand what moderation is) my favorite foods and eat all my favorite sweets.

Honestly, it's extremely tempting to give up on any attempt at not being overweight.  I probably will after the wedding, maybe even sooner.  I had to give up a few old favorites in order to get my weight down and I miss them a lot.

Get your thyroid checked.

Six years ago, I lost a bunch of weight. Got down to within 20 pounds of what I weighed when I graduated from high school. My dose of levothyroxine (synthroid) was 125 mcg.

But for some strange reason, my pharmacist mis-filled my prescription. Instead of 125 mcg, they filled the prescription at 25 mcg. That threw my thyroid out of whack, and I gained back 65 pounds of the 110 pounds I'd lost.

When I figured out what was going on, my TSH levels were so off-kilter that the doctor ended up putting me on 137 mcg and I'm finally back to close to my 2019 weight of being 20 pounds higher than my high school graduation weight. Last month, my dosage got cut back to 125 mcg.

The lesson learned was that I should always check to make sure the dosage I receive from the pharmacy is the dosage I'm supposed to get. Somehow, the "1" in 125 got dropped between the doctor's office and the pharmacy.

Wow.  I've never had a pharmacy make a mistake like that, but maybe I'm just lucky.  Yes, checking is good, pharmacists are humans too.

I did have a pediatrician prescribe a penicillin-derivative for our child under a trade name once.  The pharmacist caught that the child was allergic to penicillin, which really the doctor should have noticed when they prescribed it.

[Rothman]

Get your thyroid checked.

What's interesting is that I've long suspected hypothyroidism based on my metabolism and fatigue, but my TSH has always seemed normal in labs.

Have to say that I went through Graves' Disease burning my thyroid out and have been medicated for many years with levothyroxine.  I've found aging a much bigger factor in increasing the difficulty of losing weight.  Lost 30 pounds, no problem when my thyroid was shot.  Gained it back, lost it again while medicated.  Really don't feel anything different with the thyroid medication.  Just keeps my TSH or whatever it is in the right place on the lab graph.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

In snowy states, people deciding any snow on the ground is an excuse to ignore the lines and park like jackasses in parking lots when the lines are still partially visible.

[SSOWorld]

In snowy states, people deciding any snow on the ground is an excuse to ignore the lines and park like jackasses in parking lots when the lines are still partially visible.

Snow isn't even a requirement. they do it anyway.

[vdeane]

In snowy states, people deciding any snow on the ground is an excuse to ignore the lines and park like jackasses in parking lots when the lines are still partially visible.

People were doing that today and it was just rainy.  The lines in the parking lot were perfectly visible and yet 2 cars managed to take up 3 spaces.

[GaryV]

yet 2 cars managed to take up 3 spaces.

Pikers. A "good" driver can take up 3 spaces, maybe even 4, with just one car.

[vdeane]

yet 2 cars managed to take up 3 spaces.

Pikers. A "good" driver can take up 3 spaces, maybe even 4, with just one car.

Wouldn't they have to be at an odd angle though?  These weren't, they were just parked in normally like everyone else, just not in between the lines.  That actually made it even worse, because I thought for a moment that I could park in between them, only to get there and realize that I couldn't fit in the gap between them and that they were over the lines.

[kphoger]

I think what's surprised me is how constant the scale has been even after returning to my regular eating patterns.  Plus just how much I gained (and that it was fat rather than water weight) after the workshop, Thanksgiving, three work holiday parties (plus associated leftovers from one of them), a family holiday party, whatever fraction I had of the cheesecake Mom made, and more cookies than I can count.  I was expecting to bounce back quickly, but it doesn't seem like that will happen.

It's a medical phenomenon that someone who gains weight and then loses it again has a harder time maintaining that lower weight than someone who never gained it in the first place.  Your metabolism does its job to maintain its "normal" baseline.  When you gain weight, your body, at least to some extent, considers that to be its new "normal" baseline.  Therefore, it stores calories as fat in order to maintain it, and preventing that requires more work than if you had never put on the extra weight to begin with.

two fried eggs and two slices of toast
a bowl of cheerios at my desk
a thing of Stouffer's mac and cheese
a thing of Campbell's chicken noodle soup, and a small plate of mixed veggies
pizza and wings Saturday
bagel bites and Stouffer's mac and cheese on Sunday

So, basically, you're eating carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, some protein, and a bowl of soup.  Without getting a decent amount of exercise shortly after eating all those carbs, your body is going to store the excess energy as fat.

Some simple substitutions I'd recommend:

a) High protein, high fiber bread for your morning toast.  Look for zero net carbs or similar, and the word 'protein' will probably be prominent.

b) Nuts at your desk instead of Cheerios.  If you want flavored ones, then stick with salty or spicy, not sweet.  Cheese sticks are also a good snack option.  My wife sometimes puts a string cheese stick on a plate, microwaves it till it's gooey, then tops it with "Everything but the Bagel" seasoning.  Yummm!

c) Mac 'n cheese is basically a plate full of carbs and fat.  If you're shopping in the freezer section, then look for dinners that have meat and vegetables.  Then buy some extra bags of your favorite frozen veggies to pop in the microwave and fill out the meal a little bit, so you aren't starving an hour later.

d) Your soup choice isn't too bad.  Remember than canned soup has a lot of salt in it, but that shouldn't affect your long-term weight loss very much.  Just try and limit other salty foods if you're going to continue eating canned soup regularly.  Also, vegetable beef soup has half the carbs as chicken noodle, and I think it's tastier too.

e) Pizza is a big plate of carbs and fat.  You should limit that to every other week, or even once a month.  Grilled chicken is healthier than fried chicken, and try to avoid typical dipping sauces because they're high in sugar.  There are some much healthier options out there, such as no-sugar ranch dressing, but they do cost more.  It's worth the extra couple of bucks, though.  A healthier way of making "pizza" is to use low-carb tortillas, spread them with low-sugar pizza sauce from a jar, then top with shredded cheese and Canadian bacon bits and onions or whatever you like.  I know it's not the same thing, but it's surprisingly good and much healthier.

f) Lately, my wife has been buying at least two FULL bags of broccoli crowns at the grocery store, then she trims the stalks off, roasts the crowns in the oven with salt and pepper and high-quality Balsamic vinegar, then keeps it in the fridge.  She pulls out some to have with practically every meal.  The Balsamic vinegar helps to satisfy a sweet tooth, she gets loads of good vitamins, she's got an automatic vegetable side for pretty much anything, and it's easy.  Something like that might be a good idea for you.

Yeah, I should cook more, but managing ingredients has always been a challenge for me,

As long as you're buying highly processed foods, you're going to struggle to find a way into a healthy diet.  They're either going to be high in fat, high in sugar, high in salt, low in fiber, or some combination of those.  I'm used to cooking for a family of five, so your situation is different from mine.  But cooking several chicken breasts in the crockpot once a week doesn't take much work at all, and you can do a lot with that.  That, some salsa, topped with cheese, maybe one fried egg:  a decently healthy meal that tastes really good.

I do take a daily multivitamin to fill in the missing nutrients

That's good, but your main issue isn't the vitamins.

calories

We don't count calories at all.  I have no clue how many calories are in anything we eat.  I mainly just avoid cooking fats that are solid at room temperature (other than a little butter now and then) (we go through a LOT of olive oil at our house), limit red meat (ground turkey is a perfectly good substitute for ground beef in most dishes), choose small portions of whole grains instead of large portions of more processed ones (farro instead of pasta, high-protein pasta instead of regular, brown rice instead of white), serve a vegetable with almost every meal, and eat healthy lunches.

to use up the sour cream and shredded cheese
issues with opened bottles going bad whenever I'd take an overnight trip

Shredded cheese can go into the freezer immediately after you buy it.  Then just take out the bag a little bit in advance, break of some frozen shreds, and let them thaw a few minutes more.  Put the bag back into the freezer.

If the sour cream goes bad, then oh well.  We never have that problem in our household, because most of us love sour cream, but you don't have to worry about tossing it out.  Just buy the smallest possible container to begin with, and make your peace with not eating all of it.  Same thing with pasta sauce.  If you don't use it all up before it turns, then who cares?

I also have to be MUCH more worried about sweets than I was before November (when it didn't seem to matter as long as I didn't go crazy, but now it clearly does).  I have a definite sweet tooth; I like to get a slice of edible cookie cake whenever I happen to go to the mall, and I also tend to have cravings for things like cookie dough, choclate covered pretzels, and Wegmans mini chocolate chip cookies (although right now I'm oddly craving Freihofer's) that I have to be careful about how often I indulge.  The past couple grocery trips I've snagged one Reese's egg and one fun sized bag of Cadbury mini eggs (gotta snag those while I can, since the tend to disappear weeks before Easter for some reason, and then all that's left is the "too big for one person to finish on their own" size).  And in the summer, the local soft serve ice cream place.  Also the frozen yogurt place I discovered at the other mall.  And I like to get a pint of Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream for my birthday.  So many sweets I like, too little time to slot them in without indulging too much.

I've known more than one man who lost a lot of weight simply by cutting back on the candy.  This is no joke.  You need to find a way to curtail the sweets.

Honestly, one square of chocolate can satisfy a sweet tooth craving.  Pair that with some nuts and you've got a decent snack.

As for ice cream, my wife does well with the Halo Top brand [EDIT:  Rebel brand].  It's probably full of air, but it satisfies the craving.

As for exercise, I have some portable pedals that I use for 30 minutes on week days, which is enough to get my doctor to not yell at me, but probably not enough to be truly beneficial.

All the food stuff is just half of the equation.  It's the "calories in" part.  Exercise is the other half, the "calories out" part of the equation.  Since my wife started this journey, we either walk at least one mile or go to the gym for an hour almost every day.  At one point, we had a solid 71-day streak of that.  That's been huge.  But it doesn't work if you fill your evenings with meaningless rituals and sleep in till afternoon on the week-ends.

[JayhawkCO]

to use up the sour cream and shredded cheese
issues with opened bottles going bad whenever I'd take an overnight trip

Shredded cheese can go into the freezer immediately after you buy it.  Then just take out the bag a little bit in advance, break of some frozen shreds, and let them thaw a few minutes more.  Put the bag back into the freezer.

Also something that is healthier is not getting pre-shredded cheese; buy blocks. Shredded cheese gets coated in cellulose so that it doesn't clump (and gets anti-fungal stuff added so it doesn't mold as quickly). This stuff isn't great for your gut.

[kphoger]

Also something that is healthier is not getting pre-shredded cheese; buy blocks. Shredded cheese gets coated in cellulose so that it doesn't clump (and gets anti-fungal stuff added so it doesn't mold as quickly). This stuff isn't great for your gut.

I'm skeptical of the claims that the cellulose added to shredded cheese is bad for you.  Cellulose occurs naturally in vegetables, so you're already eating a bunch of it anyway.  I'm not convinced that the cellulose added to shredded cheese is in any way worse for your gut than the cellulose in a stalk of celery.  Cellulose is also added to things like bread and spices and granola and sauces and all sorts of stuff, yet I never hear anyone say to stop buying loaves of bread because of the cellulose.

But whatever the case, we get the bags anyway, because none of us wants to clean the cheese shredder or food processor or whatever we'd need to use to shred it ourselves.  Especially considering how much shredded cheese we eat, that would be a pain.

[JayhawkCO]

Well, at a minimum, it doesn't melt as well because of it.

[kphoger]

Well, at a minimum, it doesn't melt as well because of it.

meh.

Enough of your Make America Grate Again campaign!

[JayhawkCO]

Well, at a minimum, it doesn't melt as well because of it.

meh.

Enough of your Make America Grate Again campaign!

Do I wear a cheesehead instead of a red hat?

[kphoger]

A lot of my family's food choices revolve around both blood sugar and weight loss, but to some degree those are related things.

One hack when it comes to carbs:  with some such foods, if you cook it, then refrigerate it, and then re-heat it, changes it into a more resistant starch through retrogradation.  So, whenever practicable, cook your rice or pasta or potatoes or whatever the day before.

Also, eat your vegetable first, then most other things, and then eat your starchiest item last.

[TheCatalyst31]

Well, at a minimum, it doesn't melt as well because of it.

meh.

Enough of your Make America Grate Again campaign!

Do I wear a cheesehead instead of a red hat?

I think you wear one of these, as much as posting this picture pains me as a Packers fan.

[hbelkins]

Back to the car:

The lack of illumination in my trunk is a minor thing that bothers me.

[kphoger]

Back to the car:

The lack of illumination in my trunk is a minor thing that bothers me.

I have the opposite problem.  The light in the trunk works fine, but not the one in the passenger area.

[kphoger]

As for ice cream, my wife does well with the Halo Top brand [EDIT:  Rebel brand].  It's probably full of air, but it satisfies the craving.

FYI, I edited this part.  I was remembering the brand she used to buy, not the one she buys now.

[kphoger]

When I'm listening to an album with two tracks that run seamlessly from one right into the other, on a type of media player that takes a couple of seconds to cue up each track, such that there's a break between songs when there isn't one on the actual record.