Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm focused on losing weight right now. I am doing the Nutrisystem thing. I go to the gym 3 mornings a week before work, and I try to get up and walk around the neighborhood on the days that I don't go to the gym. Today I started going to a Bikram yoga studio (relatively) near my place. The yoga was awesome and I've been really energetic all day.

I'm drinking only water and tea. I'm eating the Nutrisystem food w/ yogurt and salads.

My goal is to get down to 130 again. I have about 25 pounds to lose. For my height, 137 is the highest weight I can have to be considered "normal".

I am annoyed that my once baggy clothing is too tight to wear. I bought size 10s for comforts sake and they were slipping down my hips just a little. Now they don't fit anymore. I'll be 30 next year. I don't want to wait until I'm older to get healthy again. Doing it now, will make maintaining it easier down the road.

@Katana: Good job for both you losing weight and gaining stamina, and your hubby for quitting smoking!

@Danamii: xd Zodiac signs and weight, eh? I'm born on July 24th, so I'm technically a Leo, but I behave much more like a Cancer (moody hypochondriac mrgreen ). So I'm both? No idea how that affects weight gain or loss.

I have been trying to drop at least another pants size for a while now. It's hard now, though, with the holidays and all those empty calorie foods. Major carb overload. But, that's my problem. I love Carbs. Bread, pasta, and sweets! Especially chocolate! And every other week my girlfriends and I go out and load up on wings and junk food.

I know I should watch because there is a history of diabetes on both sides of my family. My aunt is a double amputee. I go through phases. I behave for a while and then go bac to my pop and candy. I also need to move more. My mom keeps saying she'll go to the rec center with me but that never happens because we have no time. And it's no fun to exercise alone

Another Taurian ~ huh ~ needs to check in with my sister-in-law on Zodiac weight issues...

At somewhere between 5'3" - 5'4" and 150 pounds, I'm about 25 overweight. I lost weight with my first two kids, but turning 30 and a last-minute C-Section with the third one really messed up my ability to take it off. Somewhere around here I have a pair of very cute short-shorts in a size 5 I wore before the last one was born 8.5 years ago. I might be able to get the waist of them around my thigh now... crying

My issue isn't that I overeat, it's that I forget to eat and for some unknown reason, my body thinks it's being starved. No amount of showing it to itself in the mirror will change it's mind. You'd think the spare tire around my mid-section would do the trick ~ no? Gah ~ I really need to start up with the crunchies again ~ I hate crunchies. burning_eyes

I'm 5'2", and the range of Normal weight for my height is 110-137.
So if you're 5'4" your range is approximately 115-145. So you are actually 5 lbs over weight.
If you're 5'3" its somewhere around 113-140, even then you're only 10 lbs over weight.

If you're worried about your tummy, crunches really won't do as much for your shape as core training. Look it up, you might find it more helpful.

I think it's really important for all of us who are trying to lose weight to understand what is actually a healthy weight when planning our weight loss goals and how to achieve them.

Since I hurt my back 2 yrs ago, I stopped working out. So the pounds started stacking up. My goals now are to loose a bit of weight (take more impact off of my spine) while increasing my strength and endurance (improving my core muscles will also help take some pressure off my spine).

When I was in my twenties, I was on Weight Watchers for 2 years, eating so little I was faint before meals. I lost down to 130#; my bones showed everywhere, and I could not get pregnant. But I was still 8# above their maximum goal weight for my height.

The Weight Watcher charts in 1990 showed 102 to 122# for 5'0". This year I discovered that my bones and muscles alone weigh 108#!!! No wonder I couldn't lose anymore weight; I was probably down to the minimum body fat required for good health!

Now I go to Curves 3 times a week. My goal is not a specific weight, it's 20% body fat. This allows me to ignore the scale and the height-weight charts, and focus on improving my strength and my diet. By my calculations, I need to either reduce my fat by 45# redface , or increase my muscle weight by 180# rofl , or a little bit of both razz

I've been on it for two years (though not anymore, since I don't have health insurance anymore). I gained about 8lbs right away and it just leveled off after that. And I couldn't loose that for the life of me. Evil carbs or not, I'm not giving up on pasta or bread! Not all of Italy is obese....the exact opposite really, from what I saw when I was there, and they live off of pasta and bread in pretty much two out of three meals a day.