Question for those who successfully swayed pink...

Good advice, auroara! :agree: And that worked for you, so I guess I need to be more gentle on myself. :)

My plan from here on out is, if there has to be a cheat day for whatever occasion, then every other day that's not a special occasion just needs to be as close to the diet as I can. I'll try not to stress about it, but I just worry that I'm not going to be able to lose the amount of weight I want/need to lose to have a good sway, if I'm having lots of cheat days, kwim? I feel like time is running out and I still have so much weight to lose. :(

Sweetpea, now that my 1st attempt is officially over (!) I have to say that the first 5-6 weeks on the LE was very easy, and the last 4 weeks it was very, very hard to lose weight. I had lost 10 lbs at the 6 week mark, gained back 3 pounds, worked really hard to lose those 3 lbs and ended up losing a total of 11 lbs at the end. I have been maintaining at the same weight for 2 weeks, even though I have been cutting my calories down more and more (I really wanted to lose just one more pound, but it didn't happen!) I think now that my attempt is out of the way, I will just worry about maintaining and if I get a BFN, I'll not be too hard on myself and try to lose another 2-3 before my next attempt. And I still have a lot to lose too - I'm pretty happy with my weight overall as it is the lowest I've been in a LONG time, but I am certainly no skinny minnie!

So I guess what I am saying is, just do what you can and don't beat yourself up too much. You have to have SOME cheat days to keep you sane and not throw the whole diet out of the window in frustration! Just do the best you can :)

Thank you for the pep talk and the perspective, Ribbons! :) I appreciate it!

I think for you, the things you really have going for you (in terms of weight loss) is that you were in an overall state of losing, and then maintaining, during your attempts - which is a very good thing! - AND you are at the lowest weight you've been at in a long time, so that's great and can only help! That right there will be swaying for you, regardless of the fact that you're not a super skinny-minnie, like you say! :agree:

I want so badly to get to my lowest adult weight before swaying, but I'm sure that won't happen in time. I can probably make it about 5 pounds or so under my lowest conception weight by the time our first attempt is here, but that means I'll still have to lose another 27 pounds by the end of July. And with a few cheats for my birthday and some other events coming up over the next few months, I'm really wondering if I can do it!

:nails:

You can do it, sweetpea!

:cheerteam:

You can totally do it, sweetpea!!! Enjoy your cheats but be mindful too.....I believe in you!

Awww, thanks guys! ;) DH and the boys made me a yummy breakfast this morning of scrambled eggs and french toast (DH was considerate of trying to make it a touch healthier by using wheat bread :) ), and it was a small-ish portion, so I definitely didn't overindulge there (and kept it vegetarian, too!). I'm going to try and hold out and not eat anything until we have dinner tonight with my parents, to keep my blood sugar levels low, by filling my belly with diet pop throughout the day. I hope I can do it!!

Yay sweetpea! Happy birthday, and enjoy!!

Happy B-day Sweetpea! don't worry about a few cheats here and there:) Enjoy!

Thanks, everyone!! :)

Well, my birthday weekend was AWESOME - my hubby totally spoiled me! Friday was my actual birthday (the 4th), but he had something planned for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was a seriously WONDERFUL weekend - mostly because he has been clocking in some insane hours on a project at work but took 3 days off last week - we got a LOT of family time in and it was just awesome having him home!

On Friday, my hubby and the boys made me breakfast (which I wrote about above), then they surprised me with a Kindle Fire (yay!!), then we hung out for a bit at home, went to lunch at an outdoor cafe (I only nibbled a little bit), took the boys to a kids' play museum for a few hours, had dinner with my parents, then went to a cute little cupcake bakery for dessert. I definitely over-indulged in calories and sodium (couldn't resist the salted caramel cupcake at the bakery - OMG!!), but kept everything vegetarian.

Saturday, I loaded up on diet pop, Benefiber drinks, coffee, etc. and only ate a tiny snack during the day. My hubby surprised me with a whole day of car shopping (I've been bugging him to go with me, but he never has time - plus he kept saying that we couldn't afford a second car), so that was a lot of fun, as weird as that sounds. After shopping around a bit and test driving cars, we met up with friends for dinner (hibachi) and I caved and ordered filet mignon :oops: but only ate a little bit of it (mostly ate the fried rice and veggies). Definitely over on sodium, again, probably on calories too, but then again, I barely ate anything else that day - my dinner was pretty much my only meal. I felt bad eating filet, but then I reminded myself that I've only had red meat two whole times this whole year so far (which is a HUGE change for me), and I did only eat a little bit of it for taste. Had some ice cream for dessert.

Sunday, once again, I only had one large meal and didn't eat any other time of the day (except for a snack before bed). We went to church on Sunday morning and Sunday night, and had lunch at my inlaws' house. She always cooks a big meal for whoever's birthday it is, and cooks whatever they want. I requested eggplant parm, because it is a vegetarian dish, but again, I knew I'd be over in calories, sodium, and fat again - but at least it wasn't meat! ;)

I ended up caving and weighing myself on Monday, even though I told myself I wasn't going to. I had gained 5 pounds over the weekend! :omg: I'm sure a lot of it was water retention from eating a LOT of salty foods, but yeah, I have to be real with myself and realize that I'm sure some of that is actual weight I gained back.

I've found it harder to get back on track with food this week than I thought it would be - I thought I'd hit it hardcore again come Monday, but I was surprised to find that I was craving the same bad foods I'd eaten that weekend - and I craved them BADLY. I'm not eating too badly this week, but not doing the LE diet as well as I should be at all. I really do think I have a strong addiction to food. It seems that the only way to cut out that strong desire to sabotage my diet is to do a day or two of fasting (water-only or a juice fast) - that seems to kind of "break" me, and then I can go back to the LE diet and have a much better time with it. Man, it's amazing what a weekend of bad eating can do to me! :suprise:

Anyway...that was my fun birthday weekend, and even though I'm not exactly thrilled with going backward a bit on my weight loss success, I'm not going to dwell on it, bc I seriously had such an amazing time with family and friends, and I really wouldn't change it for the world! With this awesome weekend behind - filled with great food and great memories - I'm ready to get back on the wagon with my swaying preparations/diet/etc. :agree:

Oh - and one last, kind of unrelated, update - on Monday, we went back to one of the car dealerships we visited, and we ended up buying a car!!! ;) We bought a minivan, so now there is no worry over what we're going to do about fitting 3 kids into a car! Also, I've been stuck at home with the kids, with no car, for over 5 years (my hubby took the only car we had to work each day), so now we have a second car again and I can actually get out of the house with the kids whenever we want! Squeee! :bigsmile: I'm super excited and just wanted to share the good news! :)

Sounds like a mega-awesome weekend, sweetpea!!! Don't worry, you'll be up and running again on the weight loss in no time! So great about the car too! :bigsmile:

Thanks, Ribbons! And...HOLY CRAP!!!! I just saw from your siggy that YOU'RE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!! A *huge* congrats to you!!!! Obviously, I haven't been on the message boards for almost a week now - just been so busy with everything - and I'm just catching up on posts and stuff now. But YEAH!!! I am SO happy for you!!! You had a really awesome sway, too!! I will be :pray: so hard that this is your little pink bean!!!! ;)

:running: :cheerteam:

Thanks sweetpea :) I still can't believe it... maybe it will sink in as the tests get a little darker.. still nervous that it's going to turn out to be a chemical or something, I'm only 10DPO!!

Sweetpea, that is way awesome about having a car now to drive and one big enough to fit 3 kids!! I'm glad your birthday weekend went so awesome, and I wouldn't worry about your cheats at this point...just move and enjoy the memories!! Your DH sounds so thoughtful!!

Wow that sounds like an awesome weekend! I'm kinda jealous!!! :/

Happy birthday!!

I only have the one kiddo (son), but both my husband and I are vegetarian.

HOWEVER, he was conceived RIGHT after my second miscarriage... before my cycle returned... BUT!... we went to Bruges (Belgium) for a mini-vacation and I had what I *thought* was my period trying to start again post miscarriage (but in hindsight, it was definitely ovulation spotting... just a bit of brown on underwear!) and we, you know, ate a LOT of fatty foods (cheese, waffles, cakes, chocolate, etcetera... drank beers... I don't even drink alcohol but I was indulging in a LOT of fruit beers because they were insanely delicious, which is a surprise for me)... and, you know, around that spotting, DTD while there. Unprotected. Roughly 3-4 weeks later, I had a positive pregnancy test only when I woke up feeling like I had a stomach bug.

So, did I gain weight on that trip? Um, most very likely a big fat YES.

:P And that's the story of my Bruges-conceived boy. Heeh.

I'm steadily losing weight now, and TTC this month... so we'll see what happens this time.

Okay here's a question - how closely to TTC do you need to lose weight? If I'm not planning to TTC until around Sept, would it be okay to start dieting and exercising now (like I have - already lost 2 lbs in 3 days) or will I "plateau" and then do all that for nothing?
I'd like to lose 15 lbs...get down to my college weight where I was think...
Katie
4 boys...hoping to try for a daughter in the fall.

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Originally Posted by fourunderfour

Okay here's a question - how closely to TTC do you need to lose weight? If I'm not planning to TTC until around Sept, would it be okay to start dieting and exercising now (like I have - already lost 2 lbs in 3 days) or will I "plateau" and then do all that for nothing?
I'd like to lose 15 lbs...get down to my college weight where I was think...
Katie
4 boys...hoping to try for a daughter in the fall.

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After giving this a lot of thought I think it's best to lose the weight whenever and however you can and maintain it. I'm not convinced that there is much or even anything to be gained by timing weightloss.

2 things can happen, firstly it may be harder to get the weight off than you think and if you wait too long, you may run out of time to lose weight, and secondly, a few people got pg by accidentwhen they were either not totally done losing weight (becuase they tried to leave it till the last minute) or when they were regaining weight to lose closer to ovulation (this is how i got DS 4!!) It's just safer to get the weight off when you can and go from there!!

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Originally Posted by atomic sagebrush

After giving this a lot of thought I think it's best to lose the weight whenever and however you can and maintain it. I'm not convinced that there is much or even anything to be gained by timing weightloss.

2 things can happen, firstly it may be harder to get the weight off than you think and if you wait too long, you may run out of time to lose weight, and secondly, a few people got pg by accidentwhen they were either not totally done losing weight (becuase they tried to leave it till the last minute) or when they were regaining weight to lose closer to ovulation (this is how i got DS 4!!) It's just safer to get the weight off when you can and go from there!!

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Atomic, I think you're totally right here and that this is good advice. I think I'm going to do exactly this - get all the weight off I need to before actually trying (with a little bit of a cushion), and then maintain my low weight. If I'm able to, I'll try to lose a pound or two before ovulation in our attempt month, but I won't worry about timing weight loss in that month, as long as I've been consistently losing weight in the months prior and as long as I've lost all the weight I've needed to lose. :agree:

Hi Sweetpea, I have never swayed for a girl but clearly know how to make them....
If it's any help, I never, ever, ever, let myself put on more than 2 or 3 Kg's and while I have never been on a diet (except for the HE diet incidently which I had to eat more and put on weight...sigh) I have never been that interested in food.
I was always at my fittest and leanest conceiving my daughters. I also drank a lot of wine and smoked before each of the pregnancies (but never during). I always fell pregnant immediately so never got a chance to take a multi vitamin and didn't take them normally.
I never ate bad food (hate fast foods, fried foods, etc...) but just ate very little and basically the same kind of meals day in day out so probably very little variety. My main weakness was sugar - had too much in chocolate and coffee. Never drank much water - maybe a glass or two a day (which I noticed makes a huge difference to your EWCM). Didn't eat red meat before any of the girls (or once a fortnight tops) and always had low iron. I sound like a train wreck reading this back but I never knew any different and besides one daughter having asthma, all my daughters are tall, strong, smart and exceptionally beautiful!!! Thanks goodness.

I love this thread... ;) I was gaining slowly when I conceived both of my boys. This time I was losing.. We'll see how I went soon enough. :)

I was definitely gaining with DS1 (right around my wedding...TONS of cake and goodies!) and with DS2 I was holding steady but gaining muscle from lots of weightlifting and crossfitting. I had just lost weight a few months prior, but was definitely plateauing by the time DS2 was conceived.

This is very interesting! With my ds1 I actually lost a lot of weight. I stopped eating wheat, lollies, chocolate n wine. Ate very healthy to get fit for my wedding. Went to the gym 2x most days but stopped about 1 week b4 wedding as we had it overseas. I was 45kg I think when I got married and Dtd that night. That was my lowest conceiving weight. My lowest adult weight is 38 kg when I was in uni about 22 years old. Too busy to eat lol

With ds 2 I was about 50kg had also given up wheat and starch. I think I better eat wheat this time! I'm really afraid I can't get to my lowest adult weight. It was very underweight!

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Originally Posted by Goodus

With ds 2 I was about 50kg had also given up wheat and starch. I think I better eat wheat this time! I'm really afraid I can't get to my lowest adult weight. It was very underweight!

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you do not have to, it is just something that may help some people

I was not at my lowest adult weight