The fireplace is crackling and the tea kettle is warm. Pull up a seat and curl up with an afghan. Open your mind and heart- your amongst friends. What's on your mind? Let's catch up.

"There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound." ~Diana Cortes

As ladies come and go through different decades- it has occurred to me that I will really miss the daily happenings in everyone's lives. Maybe we can try out a daily chat thread to build a nice sense of community? What do you think?

I can start.
I'm wicked excited for my birthday on Friday! I have decided to go into the center on my birthday for a motivation class and to weigh-in with the consultant I like since I took the day off. I'm having lunch with my DH and in-laws and then DH and I are going to Boulder to tour the Celestial Seasonings plan. Anyone like their tea?

We'll have a totally indulgent dinner on Friday night and then maybe I can do some meal replacements that weekend to balance things out. After my birthday, my consultant wants to put me on a meta-protein plan, which I'm pretty excited about. It's basically meat and veggies, I think...which I prefer. I want to tear it up in March and April!

I'm glad to be changing my plan up a bit, because I feel like I get relatively comfortable after every 20 pound weight loss. Oh- I also weighed in today and found out that I have lost 16 inches this month (for a total of 27), which is great, because I'm having a sluggish February (I'm only down like...4 pounds. :: shrugs :.

In addition- I'm geeking out and doing the "Walk to Mordor" challenge.
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/chic...-mordor-4.html
I think it's really fun and I like finding pictures to imagine where I might be in the challenge. Anyone want to join?

What is upcoming in your weeks?

I love this idea, plus I adore tea but have given it up so I can still have coffee. I'm being driven crazy trying to get my kids insurance and schooling set after moving to South Carolina. We've turned the corner there though so hopefully it won't be so frustrating. I'm super excited because I'm going to be heading to Florida to visit my boyfriend who I haven't seen in two months "long distance relationships are hard" so all in all life is beautiful. Wonderful kids, great friends and family and this wonderful place Congrats on all your success that is so amazing and happy early birthday. I hope it's a perfect rocking day.

Happy early birthday LunarSongBird, sounds like you have a fun day planned. Also 16 inches down?!!! Awesome sauce!

I'm starting to fixate on the time (at least 4 months) that it's going to take me to get to onederland. I'd like to find other things to occupy my time to keep me from becoming too obsessive. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm totally game. Is anyone reading or watching anything they want to recommend?

Happy early Birthday Lunar!!! Woohoo! Sounds like you are going to have quite a fun weekend! I love this idea, and I love tea and fires so I'm already on the bandwagon.

Tonight I've just been thinking about ways for me to stick to my plan through and through and how I should go about figuring out a good exercise plan for me. I want to do a full round of P90X but I need something else for the meantime that fits into my schedule better, that's my challenge right now!

Hey there! I'm back on plan and feeling great about it. For me having an off week, it's taught me that planning each day as a good day and still tracking is far better than throwing caution to the wind (my 7th day was a no track day and the scale reflected it). It has also taught me that accidents happens and it's not the end of the world (I have a bad habit of obsessing over having the perfect lifestyle when I do this). Plus waking up with an unhappy stomach was not nice!

I'm going to start a weekly bellydance class for 6 weeks. I'm so excited! I hope it will help my contact skills (that are none right now) since it will involving balancing! I'm hoping to practice bellydance or do a barre workout daily. Today's exercise might involve my fans cause if I can get good at fans combine it with fans, I'd be so slick.

Hi ladies! I'm off to the gym, but I'll check in later. I don't know why my body seems to be needy more sleep lately. -_-

Thinforme- How long have you been in SC again? And when is your trip to Florida? How long have you been with your beau?

charliee- I've been very distracted my the "Real/Whole Foods Movement"
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/whol...lifestyle-209/
I haven't been involved in the forum yet, but I am currently reading Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Plack.
On an unrelated noted- I'm also reading all the books that won "Books for a Better Life" Award (by the National MS Foundation). Currently I'm reading Messages from an Unknown Chinese Mother.
http://www.bookreporter.com/features...fe-awards-2011

Pink Hurricane- I havent done P90X. Why doesn't it fit in schedules nicely?

Daimere- Belly dancing sounds SOOOOO fun!! I wish they offered it at my gym!

I'm taking it at two different dance studios. I also have a few dvds. I'd totally recommended Jenna's Basics and Beyond, Autumn Ward's Beautiful Technique and Tribal Basics vol 1.

We've been in South Carolina about three months or so. Hopefully I am going within the next month "buying a new car first" and we have been together four years and a half years.

hey everyone!

I like the idea of a general chat thread where we don't keep coming and going as we move through the decades (and in my case, hopefully going from the 240s to the 230s at my next weigh in!!)

I am also going to use this opportunity to make a confession and apology in advance. I am AWFUL at trying to do personals (individual comments to everyone on a thread). It stresses me out, and it's actually caused me to not post in the past. I do comment on plenty of specific things that people post, and I may end up sometimes commenting specifically to everyone esp. when there are only a few people posting on a thread. I just get too stressed out if I feel like I have to make a constant effort to go back and catch up and post a personal to everyone who has posted. It makes me feel bad but I have to also be selfish and not allow 3fc to become a source of stress for me rather than support.

So apologies in advance and please, please don't feel offended if I don't reference you by name all the time. I read all the posts and think positive thoughts for everyone and hope we all have wonderful success.

Lunar each of the workouts are about an hour to hour and a half long, so while pulling extra long work days right now and coming home to make dinner for my husband and spend time with him, I only have about 30-45 minutes to work with, if I'm not already super tired. That's why I am trying to get myself awake earlier in the day to go ahead and workout before work so I don't have anything standing in my way! I am going to let this week finish off all crazy, and still manage to do a bit of strength training and cardio (going for a run this afternoon!) but next week I think since I will be back on my normal schedule, I will be able to fit in P90X a lot better. I will just have to restart this round since the past few weeks have been nuts!

Hello, hope it's ok if I jump in here!

Pink, have you considered finding some great crock pot recipes, or trying once a week cooking? When I was working, I had an hour and a half commute everyday and worked 10 hours a day. I found the once a week method very easy to follow. You can find plenty of information on the internet but the basic premise is:
You do all your prepping and planning one day a week (usually a Saturday for me). I would plan out a meal for every day of the week, do all the prep work ahead of time and freeze in ziploc containers. I would also double a lot of the stuff I made and freeze the extra. Lasagna, for example, is just as easy to make two and freeze one. Even though I'm a SAHM now, I still do this. It saves me so much time.

I really want to try P90X once I get to my goal. I've read that it's supposed to help a lot with strength training. I need to work on my muscles and I do not remember much about weight training. I don't know anyone that has done it for more than a week though. I do have a friend who finished her first month of insanity. Her reps for all the exercise increased quite a bit and she lost a lot of inches.

My boss is in a really foul mood today, which really impacts the energy of the office. We are in a small office...Probably 29'x14' so it's hard not to avoid the negativity. I'm just trying to plug away at my work. :: shrugs ::

Every month in the office they bring in this big sheet cake to celebrate the monthly anniversaries and birthdays. And as you can imagine, there were a ton of people that said, "It's for YOUR birthday! You HAVE to eat it! It's only ONE day." But I didn't want to eat that cake- well...maybe I did...until I looked at the ingredients. Shudder. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, bleached flour, high fructose corn syrup. No thanks.... So I put some low fat cottage cheese on the midly obnoxious "Happy Birthday" plate instead. Don't get me wrong- I will indulge for my birthday, but not on chemicals.

April, no worries about personals. I don't think a lot of people do them. It's quite a bit of work, really. I think you can build a community without them. And I too send positive vibes to everyone....even our lurkers that I know are reading.
(Sometimes I secretly hope someone someday will come out of the woodwork and say, "Lunar- I've been watching your journey for months now and your positivity encouraged me to reach my goals!" Is that weird?)
I also miss people when they are gone...and I totally notice- and I wonder about how they are doing.

Pink Hurricane- Have you looked into t-tapp? It could really work for you right now. http://www.t-tapp.com/

Sushi, I love me some sushi.


I don't know if P90x and Insanity will ever be my thing...it seems like torture. Ha.

Hi Ladies -great idea
Happy early birthday Lunar enjoy your special day

Damiere - enjoy your belly dancing class,I took belly dancing classes years ago and enjoyed it
Thin forme are you loving living in the Carolina's? My mom lived in North Carolina for years before moving in with us...it is soo beautiful and the people are so nice and friendly.

April Snow I thought I was the only one with this problem LOL


Pink Hurricane you are so inspiring with your exercise routine


Iheartsushi I love my Crockpot and also too make double batches and freeze them such a great timesaver.

Tziri I need to work on muscle strengthening too !I thought about P90x too but I get bored easy with Videos and it might be a waste of money if I don't use it enough

A little about me I'm from Illinois,I'm a wife,mom and caregiver for my mom when not working as a RN and I work nights, I have 3 dogs and 2 of them are in training to be therapy dogs.