[famograham]

I couldn't find one for this month...did we not start one yet??

I finally got some pics posted.. it feels so good..I've been meaning to for such a long time now

I've gone ahead and changed my ticker (long term goal) from 130 to 150 pounds. The reason is that I'm feeling really good now, and I'm beginning to feel like I'll be more comfortable around there....of course I have no idea honestly...I haven't been 150-130 or anywhere near there since I was ten or eleven years old!

I also have a bit of an NSV which I'll also post on that thread...I'm going to be wearing my wedding dress for our Halloween dinner party..I got married when I was 18. That dress is now slightly too big for me It'll still work just fine for the party..not noticeable to others..but definitely to me

That's my yadda for today!
xoxo
Linda

[Sheila53]

Great photo!! And that's an incredible NSV. Most people can never wear their wedding dresses again for the opposite reason. You should be really proud of yourself!

[Jillegal]

Lovely pic, Linda. Funny, you look just as I imagined you! What a great NSV ~ make sure you post a pic for us (how about posting a wedding one and a halloween dinner one! How cool would that be??) Thatta girl, setting a goal weight that feels and looks good!

P.S. -- Other gorgeous new avatar pics I've noticed recently belong to Sandi and Goddess J!

[howie6267]

Yes I've noticed the new avatars also. You all are looking great. I am thinking of dressing up as the old me for Halloween. I thought I might stuff my old clothes with pillows. Not sure how I feel about that though. It might be fun but on the other hand I don't know if I want to feel that way for a night.

This is are Great Pumpkin weekend. We always get together with our best friends and go to a local farm that has all kinds of fall things going on. A petting zoo for the kids, corn maze, pumpkins and all that stuff. After that we go back to there house and carve pumpkins and have dinner.

Then on Sunday we are going to go out leaf viewing. I love taking drives in the fall. My Mom and the in-laws will be going along. We will stop somewhere for a healthy dinner. Should be a real nice weekend.

Yet somehow, no one tops yours, Jilly!!! That avatar is adooorable!

Well, October has been even crazier than September.

Next weekend (October 22) is my sister's wedding! So you can only imagine what things are turning into around here.... (Oh good, I'm in charge of the "dessert" table.... lots of baking, chocolate, and otherwise non-diet friendly paraphenalia!!!)

I looked into both Curves and WW today.... I was shocked at how expensive they are! It's like 11/week for WW and 40/month for Curves! Hmmm.... It all hinges on what my faithful 3FC friends have to say. Which one is worth it/why?

[Jillegal]

Well, Apryl, you know I'm a big fan of Weight Watchers. Sure, it costs $11.00 a week, but I was spending much more than that weekly on junk food before I joined! I like the structure of the program, the accountability and the support in the meetings. Its an easy plan to follow and if you stick with it you'll lose. Of course exercise is an important component also, so Curves is good value for the money, as well. I guess for me I find it easier to exercise on my own and more difficult to control the eating on my own, so I give the nod to WW.

P.S. - Thanks for saying nice things about my pic. It helps take the sting away from George's baby's recent comment of "Wow Jilly, you were born before there was colour?!"

[ScarlettDrawl]

Sorry everyone, to butt in. But I'm new to forums and all... what's NSV?

[famograham]

Shannon,
NSV is a Non Scale Victory...so anything that makes ya' feel great aside from the numbers on the scale

xoxo
Linda

PS thanks everyone...about the pics..I'm really happy to have them up

[rabidstoat]

Hi, jumping in this thread too, and new to the boards. Is this an okay place to ramble?

I was thinking today about appetite and cravings. I guess a lot of it is probably hormonal, but I swear, it drives me up a wall! Like this past week or two, I've had one night where I had a really bad McDonald's craving. Since my 'plan' allows for 1-2 'junk food meals' a week, I went ahead and got a quarter punder with cheese and fries, and instead of 'supersizing' got a side salad to go with it too.

But then other days, I just don't want McDonald's at all. It's weird. Or chocolate. There are some days when I could just about kill for chocolate, it seems. Other days, not at all of interest. I tend to eat something sweet once a day anyway, either a small dish of ice cream or some chocolate or a cookie or something. So I guess maybe I don't have cravings because I still eat a little, but man, some days I have serious big-time cravings, for chocolate and lots of it. But I've had this Godiva chocolate bar in my desk at work for over 2 weeks now, and eaten like a quarter of it, no real cravings. I swear I don't know what gives.

Is it hormonal? Is it emotional? I wish I could sort it out. I just feel like if my appetite / cravings were always like they've been the past week, where I'm not super-hungry and have no huge cravings, it would be so much easier to lose weight. Some days, it's not an issue at all. Sometimes, I just want to eat everything unhealthy. So weird.

And after that rambling, my random discovery of the month. I have Edy's double-churned low fat ice cream (which is really good!) but have a huge problem with portion control. Part of my problem, I think, is that my bowls are all just huge. So now when I eat ice cream, I put it in one of the much smaller tea cups that I have. I think they hold about 6 ounces, so even if I really cram on the ice cream, it's hard to put too much in them. I swear I could fit the whole half gallon into some of my bowls!

[artist]

Linda - you look amazing....you must be feeling great to have your wedding dress too big...that is such an achievement.

Howie - I am laughing at the idea of a Great Pumpkin weekend. Guess maybe its something to do with living somewhere very very urban (London)....we don't do a lot round here to celebrate seasonal produce.....And, personally, I couldn't imagine anything worse/more humiliating than dressing up as a bigger me...but whatever makes you happy, man!

Apryl - enjoy the wedding.....and good luck with the dessert table.....As to the cost of ww and curves, I know it sounds a lot, but personally, if its going to lead to better health and happiness, then I would say either is worth every cent. I guess, as Jill says, its worth thinking through what you would like most support with - eating or exercise.

Rabidstoat - yes, well, I have been struggling a lot recently, and giving a lot of thought to the cravings issues. Personally, I think there both an emotional and a biochemical/physical element going on. By which I mean I think certain kinds of foods are addictive - once you start eating them, you tend to want more and more... there is some scientific evidence around for this, but I forget where I read it.

As for me, well I am sitting here this afternoon willing my dear bf to pass his driving test - he is taking it as I type.....hopefully the great traffic-god will smile upon him! Other than that, I am hugely preoccupied with a big high profile celebratory event we are organising for work next week....it should be fun, as long as everything goes smoothly......My other preoccupation is all the coursework I haven't done that is due in next week (I am in the 2nd year of training to be a systemic/family therapist)...I ought to be getting on with that this afternoon...but am easily distracted!

[barbygirl43]

I've had a rough couple of days with the kiddos. Lilly and William stayed up too late Tuesday night. (we put them to bed at 8 but they didn't go to sleep until after midnight.) Lilly was throwing quite the fit yesterday morning on the way to daycare and then after I picked up the kids, she didn't want to leave. She threw herself down on the ground, started screaming and crying. It took me over 5 minutes to get her buckled into her booster seat because she would arch her back and get real stiff and not sit down. I finally got her buckled but she was still crying. I called my mom to see what to do. I put her on speaker phone and she got Lilly calm. I hung up but then william started crying because he didn't get to speak to her. Called her back and handed him my phone. He started hollering for his pappaw so Mom went to get him on the phone but william hung up before he got there. I got the phone back from him but now Lilly was crying again because she didn't get to speak to pappaw. I called back and let both kids speak to him on speaker phone and hung up. Well that wasn't good enough. She cried for about 30 minutes straight on the drive home and stopped about 3-4 minutes from the house. Needless to say I was wore out by the time I got home. Luckily Jeff cooked dinner for us. While the kids were being fed, he went up and checked on his grandma. She's got shingles and a slipped disc in her back. She's still recovering from the two knee surgeries she's had over the past year and doesn't want to have back surgery until she recovers from it. She's not understanding that as much pain as she is in, how is she going to continue to recover.
the kids were in much better spirits this morning so hopefully it will be a good day with them.

Linda: I love the wedding dress costume. I too wanna see some pics. I also have a goal of 150. I used to want to be 135 but I really think 150 would be more maintainable than going lower than that. I figure I've been fat all my life so anything under 200 would be wonderful!!!
Howie: The pumpkin patch sounds like a ton of fun as does the leaf drive. They aren't really turning much around here yet.
Apryl: When I joined WW I only went for a month so I could get all the supplies for it and then did it at home.
rabidstoat: Glad or Ziploc one of those companies makes the reusable containers and they have the 1/2 c. size. I love it for measuring out my canned fruit. Maybe you could get some of those and when you get your ice cream scoop it out and store in them for 1 serving size.
Claire: It's good to see you posting again, even if you are struggling. I know the whole time I was struggling to regain my control I still came here and posted and read about everyone and it helped me out more than I can put into words. Without it I don't doubt I would've given up on it all.

[jillybean720]

Originally Posted by aprylcadabra

I looked into both Curves and WW today.... I was shocked at how expensive they are! It's like 11/week for WW and 40/month for Curves! Hmmm.... It all hinges on what my faithful 3FC friends have to say. Which one is worth it/why?

Psst...have you looked at TOPS at all? It's like $30 a year for membership and $5 a month for dues (that's a MONTH, not a week), and you can follow any diet you want. They are just there for support and encouragement plus they offer a lot of helpful nutritional information. They suggest the dietary exchange program based on the new food group pyramid, but you don't have to do that. I have women in my group who count WW points (they joined online to get the materials or just got materials from friends or even just bought the materials off Ebay--or you can search online and find Excel spread sheets that add up your Points for you for free ). Anyway, just a suggestion if you feel you need the face-to-face support of meetings and the weekly accountability of weighing in with other people www.tops.org

Interesting tidbit of information--Weight Watchers was started by a woman who used to be a TOPS member. TOPS was non-profit then and is still non-profit today

[howie6267]

Well Claire I never really thought about it being a celebration for seasonal produce but I guess it is. We decorate and celebrate the bountiful harvest.

Rabidstoat I know from my experience that some of the things I really enjoyed were the things that caused the biggest cravings. Cheeseburger's were my favorite and I ate a lot of them. At first I did just like you are and allowed myself to have them once or twice a week. I found out that by doing that the cravings for them were a lot stronger. So I cut them out. I still once in a great while have one but not on a regular basis. That was really the only thing I cut out of my diet. So if you are having severe cravings you might try cutting that out for a few weeks and see if it's just a craving being caused by eating that food of if it's because you really enjoy it and want it to be a part of your diet. With me and cheeseburgers I found that I did not really enjoy them that much and they did not need to be a part of my diet. Both times in the past few months that I've decided to have one I found that the taste I thought was so good was not really all that good. So I don't have that craving anymore.

Apryl I did not think about Tops. It is pretty reasonably priced and my sister lost a lot of weight with there support.

I'm hoping they turn a little more here by the weekend Dawnyal. Usually there is a lot more color right now but we have just not had the sunny days to help them turn. It's sunny today so that should help some.

[Jen415]

Hi y'all: I love reading these chit-chatty threads!

I had my procedure today (colposcopy). Now I have to wait two weeks for results. It was sort of uncomfortable, but I think I did okay. I got to see pictures of my insides--very interesting!!

[boiaby]

Oh Apryl, TOPS is an excellent idea! I wonder if they have any teen chapters??

Dawnyal, I feel ya on the temper tantrum throwin babies! Poor thing, you must have been completely frazzled!

Linda, I said it in another thread, but I have to say it again here, your new avatar is simply stunning!

Good luck with the test results Jeanette! Got to see pictures of your insides, huh? EWWWWW! JK!

Oh Howie, Fall is my fav time of the year! If you get any awesome pics of the changing leaves, please post 'em, I LOVE that stuff!

to everyone, I hope you're all having a fantastic day!!

Beverly