Need What Worked for You with Weight Loss! Let Me Know Your Success Story!

Updated on February 21, 2013
K.W. asks from Evansville, IN
18 answers

I'm a busy mom of a two and a three year old. I work full time and find it hard with everything to squeeze in the time to exercise...but I have to do it. See, my husband has a brain tumor and just finished a round of chemo and radiation. Now, he's up 30 pounds (b/c of steriods used to control swelling) and needs to lose weight and eat better, too. It's important for both of us to lose weight. I had two c-sections, so I have what I like to call "kangaroo pouch". I'm stressed and down because of all of these issues. I even went to a personal trainer and found that to be out of our budget because my husband is off of work for right now. Please let me know your success stories and how to fit in everything!

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R.J.

answers from Seattle on

Eating 6 times a day (no dieting) and walking 3-5 miles a day I lost 100lbs in 2 years.

That simple.

7 moms found this helpful
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A.G.

answers from Minneapolis on

I gained tons of weight both times I was pregnant. Went from 125-200 lbs with both, and am smaller now than before I was pregnant. Weight Training 2 times a week (I really like fitness and oxygen magazines that have great workouts) and running. My husband and I found a great jogging stroller on craigslist and go for 30 minutes runs 3-4 times a week. The kids love it and its great family time together.

2 moms found this helpful

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M.M.

answers from San Francisco on

K.-

Check out Sparkpeople.com free online weight loss program that really is a whole life online support program and it is all free- you can even find groups that are dealing with situations similar to your husband- and get support form others going through similar things.

Good thoughts to you and your family

M.

2 moms found this helpful
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L.A.

answers from Washington DC on

Hi, I'm so sorry for all that you're going through right now. Here is what helped me lose my baby weight. I exercise about 3 times a week, alternating cardio (jogging) with weight training. Remember, weight training helps burn calories as well. But what has helped me most is going on a no-carb diet. It's called the paleo diet -check it out - the best book to read on that is Primal Blueprint. It's a wonderful lifestyle (rather than a diet) because you will never go off it. It's great! You can eat veggies, fruit, nuts, berries, and lean meats and fish. You will never miss the carbs! I cheat sometimes and may eat a bagel or a muffin here and there, but for the most part I stick to it and I feel great!!! And what's most important, apart from weight loss, you start to see your muscles tone. You don't have to count calories, you can eat as much as you like to keep full, the important thing is to eat 5-6 times a day (that's including snacks) and to have healthy snacks around all the time. We've gotten a dehydrator and now make our own fruit leather and just all kinds of dried fruit. If you have any specific questions, please let me know. A good website to check out is MarksDailyApple.com. Good luck!

2 moms found this helpful
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K.F.

answers from Boca Raton on

Jillian Michaels 30 day shred! It's a DVD you can get at Target for under 10 bucks. It's only 20 minutes a day! I lost 20lbs in 2 months and numerous inches. The first few days are hard, your whole body will ache but that goes away and you will build stamina quickly. It's 20 minutes of intensity and there are 3 different levels. I haven't even done level 3 yet. I didn't change anything with my diet. All I did was this DVD 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week. I'm a Sahm of 3 little ones so I don't have time for a long workout or to go to the gym. I do it during nap time. I now have my bathing suit body back for the summer!

2 moms found this helpful
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A.M.

answers from Appleton on

I lost about 30lbs and kept it off--well until I got pregnant again-- by doing Weight Watchers. You don't need much money--in fact you can do it online or you can go to the meetings...you only have to go to a few meetings to get the basic information. I found that changing my eating habits helped because I like you didn't have a ton of time to work out or pay for a gym membership. During the Summer months when I could get out and walk I did do that--but didn't do much more than that. I liked WW because I didn't have to cut EVERYTHING out of my diet it was more about moderation. I hope to have the same success after my son is born in 3 weeks. Good luck to you and to your family--god bless.

2 moms found this helpful
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D.V.

answers from Chicago on

I used something that gave me so much success, that it gave me the encouragement to stay on the program and reached my target. I went from a size 12 pant to a 6. The first place I lost it was in my belly. Because I saw success, I was willing to stay with the program. It was actually affordabe because it made my life so much easier. I knew exactly what I was going to have to eat, little or no clean up, a great program for my family because it didn't effect them. ( As a matter of fact, I started cooking differently to meet my goals and they loved what I made for dinner)

2 moms found this helpful
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C.P.

answers from Chicago on

I've been using Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred as well. I've timed it and it is actually 26 minutes, not 20 as the dvd claims, but it is a great, fast workout. I have a one and four year old and work full time and had the hardest time fitting in a workout. I finally just started getting up 45 minutes earlier on both work days and weekends 4x a week to fit it in. Its been hard (4am on work days and 5am on weekends) but I've gotten so used to it that it isn't bad anymore. I am moving on to her other dvds now as I'm getting a bit bored with this one (I've been doing it for the past 3 months). Good luck! Even a little bit helps!!

2 moms found this helpful
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J.N.

answers from Chicago on

Check out hcg ... I've been doing it since mid-February and I've lost 50 lbs.

http://www.hcghomeopathicweightlossmethod.com/

They have a yahoo group for support, and you can join just to get information about it first.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/hcghomeopathicweight...

The hcg diet is done in phases. You take the drops for about one month and are on a strict diet, then you are off for at least 6 weeks and maintaining the current weight. During the off phases, I did the Zone diet, which is basically where you eat 5-6 times daily, and have a little protein, low-glycemic carbs and good fats at every meal.

http://www.zonediet.com/Default.aspx

I lose weight with the Zone diet, too, but it's not as fast as the hcg. Together it's worked great for me. I'm about 11-12 lbs. away from my goal weight. HTH!

2 moms found this helpful
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C.G.

answers from Davenport on

You have a lot of great ideas for yourself. But, your husband really needs to talk to his doctor about it. I'm sure eating healthy is a great start for him. Until he is off of the steroids, he is probably going to continue gaining. Is he finished with chemo and radiation? If not, then he will probably be loosing weight once the side effects kick in.

2 moms found this helpful

Y.C.

answers from New York on

I am still trying to lose my last 10 pounds but I highly recomend you the book call 101 Fat-Burning workouts & Diet strategies for women by the editors of Muscle &Fitness hers.
Now, don't let the title or the cover scare you.
This is an amazing book made for womans that just like you
a) are just staring
b) have little time
c) need a change of life more then just a bunch of excersice.
The have a UItimate no-brainer diet of 2 weeks, which I LOVE because it takes out the guessing of what and when to eat.
They also give you a lot more recipies and snacks according to your needs.
All the recipes are very jummy, and not weird or expensive foods.
The exercise starts from week one and is very easy and it builds up with the weeks.
Special exxercise for abs.
The book is just $14 and I got it at Barner&Nobles.
I know there is one for men's, I don't know if the recipies are the same, but I am telling you the food recipies in this one are very good.
The most important thing you need to do, is to not hide in any excuse anymore.
You are going through a very hard time, , your husband is sick, you're full time work, and you have 2 toddlers and a house to take care.
And you can see this 2 ways.
You can decide not to exercise (and nobody will blame you) this maybe not the best time for you to exercise, you are already doing an amazing job and are super busy.
Or you can think that this is the BEST time for a stronger healthier you.
I wish you the best of luck and a fast recovery of your husband

2 moms found this helpful
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A.L.

answers from Chicago on

Hi K.. I've lost 25 pounds in the past year. I work full time, have 2 small children. My huband has his own business, and many times he's not around with his work (I find of feel like a single mom sometimes). Here is what I did:

1) Start small and build/add on. My issues were overeating, not eating healthy, and not exercising. I first focused on my overeating, then on eating healthier, then added in excercise.

2) Working out.

2a: Start small. I did this all on my own, with 10 minutes of exercising and then built from there. My library had a series of videos that are called 10 minute solutions - has 5 separate workouts. I did that a couple times a week, the slowly built. I had to start at night, because that is when my schedule was most predicatable with kids. Moved my workouts to mornings to be more predicatable. I now work out 20 - 30 minutes 5 days a week. (I also have the Jillian Michaels Shred - I don't know if I would have been successful if I would have started with that video right away, but that's me). (And I found some of these videos at my local Half Price Book store - cost maybe $5 a video).

2b) mix up cardio and strength. I found a free program on line called the No Excuses Workout with Jonathon Roche. There's boards you can read. His direction is interval cardios burn 30% more calories. I have 3 sets of hand weights (3lb, 5lb and 10lb) and one of those big exercise balls from target. Total cost, maybe 60 or 70 dollars. I didn't buy it all at once.

3) I changed what I eat to not only be more veggies (my previous challenge), but to also watch unnatural foods. I eat what I guess would be called a rather raw diet, I know where my food comes from. Jillian Michaels has a book called Mastering Your Metabolism.

3) Track what you are doing. Take body measurements, weigh yourself regularly, track how many veggie/fruit servings you eat, track how much water you drink. It keeps me accountable and focused on what I need to be doing at the time.

It's been one year. I had lost 20 pounds in the first 6 months, reached a total of 25 pounds at 9 months, and have been holding steady for 3 months.

Best of luck.

A.

2 moms found this helpful
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K.O.

answers from Dallas on

Hi K.,
I have slowly but surely lost 30 pounds recently and have 20 to get to my goal of 50 pounds. I did it thru a new prograam to the US. It's called Slimming World USA. They have been in england for over 40 years and are very well known over there. It's not even been a year here yet. It is by far the easiest program to follow not only for you but your family as well. The men in the program lose quite quickly...we eat "real" food. Almost no weighing and measuring. There are many foods you can eat unlimited amounts of. If you like pasta, potatoes or rice you'll like the program. You can check it out at www.slimmingworldusa.com I hope this helps.
Good luck and I hope for a speedy recovery for your husband.
K. O

1 mom found this helpful
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J.V.

answers from Chicago on

I put on a lot of weight both during and also following my first pregnancy. This was not helped by the fact that my DH got a job in London, which meant we had to move. I think with everything that went on I found it difficult to find a routine or any stability. However I did finally decide to do something and hired a personal trainer from http://www.motivatept.co.uk This helped me to lose the initial weight and the trainer would come to my home and the little one would simply sit in his bouncer watching mommy! Since returning back to Chicago I have found similar services that I have tried. However, I now find I am able to maintain my shape using online tools such as http://www.sparkspeople.com

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M.T.

answers from San Francisco on

Weight Watchers worked for me,

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E.C.

answers from Chicago on

Weight Watchers worked for me. It's a great lifestyle change...

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R.B.

answers from Chicago on

I've found much success with Tony Horton's 10 Minute Trainer. He's the same guy that did P90X, so you know you're gonna get results! I'm 1 year postpartum from my second and after the first, I never lost any of the baby weight. Like you, I was working full time and I just didn't know where I was going to fit exercise in. I didn't eat crazy, but I wasn't doing much to burn any calories since I sat at a desk all day. Had my second child and was stuck with all that weight, too. In January, my husband and I both started 10 Minute Trainer. I have now lost 20 lbs. I haven't really altered my diet that much aside from cutting out "excess" sugar and I am eating more whole food (vs refined, processed foods). Don't get me wrong, I still like my cheeseburger, but I'm better at balancing that with extra veggies.

The awesome thing about this program is that there are 3 workouts each day. Each is 10 minutes long. And because the schedule tells you what to do, you don't have to think about it. If you only have 10 minutes, you do the first workout. If you have more time, you can do the 2nd and then add the 3rd if you have even more time. Or you do the 1st in the morning (gets your metabolism giong!) and then the others in the evening. The cool thing is that you don't have to set aside a huge chunk of time (which, face it, as a working mom you don't have big chunks of time to spare!). You do what you can when you can. Right now, I do 2 of the 3 every day.

There are 5 workouts (cardio, lower body, abs, yoga, total body) in the first set and then the "deluxe" has 3 more to add on (core cardio, upper body, total body 2). I haven't gotten bored yet since each day is a different combination of the workouts and I've been doing it for 7 months! It's a little pricier than something you'd buy at the store, but I think I've gotten my money's worth out of it already. And with my husband doing it, too, we've put many miles on those DVDs!

I still have 15 more pounds to go to my goal weight (which is still heavier than when I got pregnant with my first child, but I have to be realistic, too!) and I've just invested in the P90X workout. I know I don't have the time to do a whole workout of that at once, so I'll probably end up splitting them up. So maybe I won't see results as fast as others, but I'm ok with that.

You can get 10 Minute Trainer from Beachbody.com, but you'll pay full price for it. You can most likely find it on eBay, too, and pay significantly less!

Good luck to you!
(P.S. as the child of a parent who had a brain tumor--though my mom's was too bad to help--I highly commend you and your husband for making it through chemo and radiation! I will keep you both in my prayers)

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L.B.

answers from Chicago on

I personally am trying the 2 step program by Ardyss. You get a scientific garment that holds your body into shape while exercising your muscles and placing your organs back into place This goes along with great nutritional supplements that work. Check out: www.ardysslife.com/LLJBCreativesolution

It works, went from size 20 to 16. Wearing clothes that I thought would be forever lost to the back of my closet.

Visit and let me know what questions you may have. ###-###-####.

L.

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