[Lin S]

Hi, Turtles,

Here's the fable that started it all:

The Hare and the Tortoise

A hare met a tortoise one day and made fun of him for the slow and clumsy way in which he walked.

The tortoise laughed and said, "I will run a race with you any time that you choose."

"Very well," replied the hare, "we will start at once."

The tortoise immediately set off in his slow and steady way without waiting a moment or looking back. The hare, on the other hand, treated the matter as a joke and decided to take a little nap before starting, for she thought that it would be an easy matter to overtake her rival.

The tortoise plodded on, and meanwhile the hare overslept herself, with the result that she arrived at the winning-post only to see that the tortoise had got in before her.

Moral: Slow and steady wins the race.

This comes from a book handed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. The book is so old it doesn't have a copyright date or an author/editor's credit.

That fable has been the motivation for us turtles for several years. Someone on the ancient WW forum mentioned the fable and I discovered it was very motivational for me. I talked about it in posts and other people said that the tortoise philosophy worked for them, too. So, I started a thread for us turtle types.

We've been reflecting on what the turtle philosophy means as we start our second hundred posts. The turtle philosophy was a difficult one for people to accept. People want the weight off--NOW!! But reality is that it took time to put it on and it will take time to take it off. People want it to be easy to take off the weight. But reality is that it's not easy. You can have a program that's easy to follow, but following it steadily--that's hard. People don't want to exercise much, if at all. But reality is that our bodies were designed to move. So, we're setting realistic goals that take the weight off at a healthy pace. We're setting goals that will keep us moving steadily toward the healthy weight we want to be. And we're just plain moving. We're setting realistic exercise goals that will move our bodies the way they were meant to be moved.

We've also noticed that our turtle philosophy has affected the rest of our lives. I've started writing fiction again. I realize that I can finish a novel, or two, or ten. All I have to do is to set realistic daily goals, work steadily toward achieving them, and they will build up into finished books. Turtle Power at work in my everyday life.

Anyone who wants to join us in steadily moving toward all of our goals is welcome. I've met some wonderful people on this thread. I hope to meet many more. I know the battle with our weight is a difficult one. Having such supportive people come and post regularly keeps it from getting overwhelming. I hope to see many more people join us as we move forward on our journey.

Let's Get Moving!!

[choosewell]

Happy Friday!

Bandit 2, welcome! You are in the right place. This is the Scene of Sane Weightloss. I'm the newest member, and I find it reassuring to be nurtured in my 'one-choice-at-a-time' attitude, without being either enabled OR beaten up when my choices aren't so wise.

Welcome, welcome.

Who is Dorian? And how do I get a cool name like that in my next life? Maybe I'll fictionalize that...

OK. Judy, I back you up on that name choice, if you decide to change. You little Yoda, you. Does anyone else get the Joy Letter from howmuchjoy.com? Suzanne Falter-Barnes had as one of her suggestions for subliminal self-support (I don't know that she called it that, maybe it's just me) that we make our screensavers, passwords, and screen names reflect our goals or our true natures. I find that typing in a password that supports my most recent vision of excellence is great reinforcement.

Gosh, that sounded teacher-ish. My apologies, my heart was in the right place.

Lauren, which of the Atkins Advantage bars do you like? I've been looking all of the options over and there are so many brands now. Four points, even if it's a small bar, would be reasonable if it's satisfying. You are our Protein Girl this week. I would give you a dancing chicken if I could find one. How about a cow instead? Eggs! The incredible edible egg. 2 points, great idea. (I'm smacking my head over here in V-8 mode.)

You sound busy! I'm glad your work is going well. You're going to really enjoy your vacation.

Lin...are you ready? I'm so excited. I'm having a kickoff party of my own tonight. I think I might take a nap and start at midnight, for something fun.

Of course, my parents heard that the annual Great Garage Sale (at a church in town) is next weekend, and now my week off "to write" will have the added layers of my parents visiting. Yes, they have to come for the yardsale, although I couldn't get them to commit to just coming to see me. If it was just mom, that would be ok, she's very low maintenance. Dad...snoopy and restless, which means I have to spend time this week putting things out of sight...any writing is fair game.

THIS is why I love my husband!!!! NO snooping!!! Also, those chicken salads.

Hugs alllll around..little fishy smelling turtle hugs, with scratchy turtle legs and the clacking of plastrons. Sorry, that inner-biologist is in description mode these days.

xo!!!!! choose well, one choice at a time!

[Lin S]

Good Morning, Lovely Turtles,

Judy, 1.2# is a good number. You're doing so well. Doesn't it feel great? BTW--you shouldn't be still beating yourself up over those 30 pounds. Unfortunately, the process of learning how to successfully lose and keep weight off often has periods where we gain in it. Not doing that takes practice, too. You and we are all learning that every day that we figure out how to stay OP no matter what else is going on in our lives.

Thanks for sharing your leader's words of wisdom. It's great to hear about strategies and perspectives we may not have considered.

Bandit, to you, too. 1# is terrific. This group thinks any loss is as good as any other because for most of us they're usually small. 30# by April is a very doable goal, as long as your body cooperates with you. I'm not fond of pounds by a certain time goals because we have no control over the scale. We only have control over our behavior. So I prefer to make behavior-oriented goals. But that's just me. Lauren did really well for a while with reasonable, short-term weight goals.

Weekends can be tough. I save some flex points in case we do something impulsive and high point. But what helps the most is to keep posting my progress over the weekend. Knowing I'm not waiting until Monday to 'fess up keeps me from waiting until Monday to get back OP. Good luck learning the best way for you to deal with them. Let us know how we can help

Wow, Lauren. Your job sounds wonderful. That is an amazing day.

Good luck as you add back some carbs. From reading people's experiences and doing a little research on the glycemic index thing, one key seems to be not eating carbs all by themselves. You need a bit of fat or protein with them. They keep the carbs from causing that sugar rush thing. Maybe that's why we've developed recipes that have high fat mixed with the high sugar. That doesn't mean that it's good to gorge on that stuff, but it does explain why we crave them together. I learned a long time ago not to eat sweets as a snack. I eat them only as part of a complete meal. But, I'm so glad I can do fine without going low carb because I tried it and my budget couldn't handle it.

I lost a pound. I'm hoping it stays gone. This one's been elusive, hitting it and then going right back up to the number I've been stuck on. But my clothes are getting looser, so I'm losing inches. I did an aerobic tape yesterday. I should have no problem with getting one in today. My son and his friend went to San Francisco to spend Halloween with friends, so they won't be watching TV or playing a video game right when I'm ready to exercise.

So, I don't have to worry about tying up the phone line chatting with the other weird folks staying up to start NaNo right at midnight, wherever they live. I plan to break my no caffeine late for this once-a-year event, if I need it to stay awake. I'm ready and excited to start this novel. The opening has been teasing my brain for over a week, wanting me to write.

Good luck to you, too, Choosewell, with your NaNo project.

(Explanation for Bandit. The rest of you have read this before and can safely ignore it. ) I'm a writer. There are a whole bunch of crazy writers who've taken on a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in November. It's called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but everyone just calls it "NaNo". Chris Baty, a guy from the SF Bay Area, started this 5 years ago and it's grown so there are people all over the world who participate. (nanowrimo.org is their web site, if you want the gritty details.) I'm also a moderator on a writing site called Forward Motion. (fmwriters.com). It's a little like this site, a support forum, but for writers. We have everything from absolute beginners to published authors regularly posting. It's great.

Well, one of the crazy activities we like to do on Forward Motion is writing marathons. You pick one of the insane word count goals and go for it in two days of pumping out the words. It's fun. The one for NaNo starts at midnight local time and a lot of us are staying up to start together and cheer each other on as we get those first words on the page. We actually have two marathons going this weekend, as it's our first of two regular word count marathons. I'm insane and going for the highest goal--10,002 for the NaNo marathon and 15K for the word count marathon.. That's because I've been going nuts not being able to start this project until November and I'm not sure I'll even want to stop to eat.

Gotta run. I'm still tweaking on my plot. Are you moving?

[bandit2]

Hi everyone:

Lin - good luck on your writing, sounds neat and thanks for filling me in on what you do. When I was reading all I could think of was Mork & Mindy or a star-trek kind of thing, so now I understand.

Choosewell - thanks for the welcome and it sounds like you have great support at home.

Judy - thanks for clearing that up & good for you getting back on track & 1.2# is great! Keep up the good work.

Lauren - this probably sounds silly, but what kind of "fat" do you add to your popcorn? How is the low carb going?

You really sound like a great group of ladies & hope you all have a great OP weekend. Bye for now.

[Lin S]

Choosewell,

I had to reply to your latest note. You must have posted while I was writing one of my novella posts.

I don't know if you'll see this, but I thought I'd pass along the info, just in case you check back in here today. "Sammie" would have a great time in NaNo chat on FM at the "Countdown to Midnight" chat, if you want to show up. We're "officially" starting after the Friday Think Tank at 11pm Eastern. But I'm sure people who aren't doing Think Tank will be there early. Anyway, you're certainly welcome to join us. Have a great beginning and get lots of words!!

Dorian is someone who posted a message on one of our older Turtle threads. I suggested that she join us here, but I don't know if she will.

I love what you said about our names reflecting our goals. I see people with names like "fatty" or something and I wonder if seeing that in relation to themselves reinforces where they are so much that it's counterproductive to where they want to be.

Bandit, thanks for the well wishes on my writing. Wish Choosewell good luck, too. She's also doing the NaNo thing.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

[LaurenH]

Bandit, I haven't been adding fat to my popcorn yet. I always just ate the Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop variety. I'm not sure at this point how I'll do it. I may just make sure I eat a piece of cheese or something with the popcorn. I don't really like flavored popcorn, and I'm not even crazy about super buttery popcorn. I'll just experiment and see.

Choosewell, I like all the Advantage bars except Cookies and Creme, which tastes like powdered milk and chemicals to me. Well, they all taste a little bit like chemicals; I find all high-protein things do (except, of course, where it occurs naturally, like in meat). But overall, these aren't bad. Lin would probably roll over and die if she ate one, but I'm not blessed with her taste buds.

Lin, I think you're right about mixing foods up to make sure they aren't absorbed so quickly. I'll be curious to see how this goes. WAY TO GO on losing that pound!!!! Hooray! I continue to be impressed by your commitment to exercise.

I'm up a tad today (I've weighed myself most days during this initial phase, more out of curiosity than anything else), which I suspect is due to taking Ibuprofen yesterdeay. I'll be interested to see how much of this loss truly is just water. On the bright side, my pants are definitely looser!

The day I had yesterday, where I got to job-shadow the kidney transplant coordinators, was indeed amazing. I also got to see what happens when an organ becomes available, how they get it to the recipient. (This was a kidney in Wisconsin that was to be flown here.) What's been extremely tough is that this is essentially the FIRST TIME I've been able to do this in a YEAR on this project. I should've spent my first few months doing nothing but this, and THEN do the design for the system. But the project leader (my customer) just couldn't bring himself to let me do it until now, after we've done most of the design. So it's a bittersweet thing. But I'll never forget the day, it was fascinating. On days like that, I really do love what I do.

So I have to ask -- how will you NaNoWriMo folks have time to do anything else in November?? Especially you, Choosewell, working full time. How do you find time to write? How does DH deal with your long periods of incommunicado-ness? I look at my job, which can be great, and I look the NaNo thing, and I just think -- there's not enough time in this life to do everything I want to do! I guess that's better than feeling that there's nothing interesting to do out there. I know people like that, and I feel for them.

Have a good Halloween, all.

Lauren

[Itryharder]

Wow! We are really booking. I just peaked in to see if anyone wrote, and everyone wrote. Happy Halloween. Today was a lovely day, but candy is calling to me and it's too early to go to bed.
NaNoers, have a ball and write to us too. It sounds like fun. If I can get my act together, I'll try and join you guys next year. I've always wanted to write a novel.
Bandit2, isn't this group great?
Lauren, I'm sure that pound is just a result of the ibuprophen.
Everybody do well. I'm gonna go keep my dh company.
Love,
Judy
Happy Halloween

[choosewell]

Hi, you bunch of little cuties.

I'm just taking a quick break from writing to ....well, to write to you.

Lin, sorry I missed your post last night! Doggone it, that would have been fun. I went out to some places where I get inspiration, namely bookstores. I went to the mystery aisle and saw where my mystery series will fit when it's published, then went over to Olivia Goldsmith for inspiration for my NaNo title, PWC.

I wrote in the backyard, the Reading Room (also called Betty's Room), the kitchen and the living room. I need a little nap, but I'm less than 400 words away from my first little goal of 5K, and then I'm going out and buy a bunch of candles at the Tuesday Morning store before it closes.

I am drinking tea and Sammie my little grey cat is keeping me company.

Hugs all around, I'm back to my 327 words so I can move around a little. xo!

[Lin S]

Hey, Turtles,

Taking a break from writing to say howdy and see how you're all doing.

Nice to have you check in with such good wishes, Judy. I'm glad you're doing well this weekend. And NaNo is designed for people who always wanted to write a novel. I hope you will join the fun next year.

Lauren, I'm glad to hear that your pants are looser. I think the scale will reflect that soon. (ever the optimist-me )

NaNo, writing, time, and people. NaNo's minimum of 1667 words takes about 2 hours a day, as long as you don't stop and edit, revise, fix things. When you see something you want to fix, make a note of it and say the mantra--"That's for January". Then keep typing. A bunch of us are doing the marathons and extra words at the beginning because we know there will be days we won't be able to write. Some people do 2K a day, which gives them some leeway to take a day or two off and still reach their goal.

But time is flexible. Where we get the time from depends on what we're willing to trade off. TV is a common thing people give up in order to write. Lunch hours. A bit of sleep-get up early or stay up a bit later. Time wasters like solitaire on the computer go by the wayside. Finding time to write, or paint or take up a hobby you've been wanting to do for years or whatever, is a lot like finding time to exercise. You scour your schedule and do it because it's important.

People resist change and it took time for my family to realize that I'm serious about the writing itself, even if no one ever buys it. But now they get it. My husband supports my writing and he understands what it takes to be a writer. He's been doing some of the cooking once I started doing marathons, for example. The trick is to find a way to balance their needs and my needs as a writer. Life is never easy and we all have to find our best path. For me, at this time in my life, it's following my ten-year-old self's desire to write her own stories.

Hey, Choosewell, it was fun. The NaNo chat room will be open all month. Just check the who's chatting link and see if anyone's around when you need a bit of support.

Good going on your word count. I've had a difficult day. I'm just under 2K right now. I keep getting interrupted by stuff I have to deal with personally. But, the rest of the day is pretty free, so I'm planning to write in 1K blocks, with breaks in between. I'll make coffee and stay up as late as I need to in order to reach my goal.

You're writing a mystery series. That's my next project after NaNo--the first book I'm writing, which is actually the second in the series. I'm weird, I know. But this is the one I have the plot for. The first one just has a beginning and characters and a vague idea.

WW is going fine for me. I got some walking in today. I can't sit all day. I'm eating a little more points, but well within my range. So, life is good. But if I don't get back to work, I'm going to be a really unhappy NaNoer.

I hope you're all moving this weekend.

[LaurenH]

Wasn't it Trollope who made himself write some massive amount of words every day? And he was working full time, too, doing some clerk thing.

This is one of my two busiest months of the year for writing, too, but I'm not having nearly as much fun as you two are! For newcomers here, I spend most of my time as a high-tech anthropolgist, but I devote one day each week to writing articles for a local university's newsletters. The newsletters (I write for two of them) come out twice a year and get sent to alumni and interested businesses who work in some way with the university. Most of the stuff I write about is car-related (this being Michigan and all), since the school that publishes the newsletters is an engineering one. I enjoy writing profiles about people but find the stuff about highly technical projects and new laboratories fairly boring. But the pay is good, and I enjoy working from home one day a week. Plus it's always interesting to learn something new.

So right now I've got three more articles to finish this week.

Lin, I'm glad your family is supportive; that must make a world of difference. Break a leg! (Break a knuckle? What does one say to writers to wish them luck?)

Choosewell, loved the bookstore story. Did you also pick out which window your book will be featured in? I love it. Hey, I'll buy it!

Judy, I hope you survived Halloween! I gave out candy I didn't like, and we threw out what was left. Worked out fine.

Well, I've cut short my 2-week low-carb experiment by a day. After a number of very low-energy, low-spirits days, I decided that was enough. Today I had a spectacular apple (eaten with cheese) and some popcorn (eaten with protein). I already feel better. My body is definitely not cut out to do low-carb for a long time; I don't know how people who follow Atkins can do it.

But I will continue to cut out sugar and white flour until Thanksgiving. (Except for the occasional glass of wine.) And I want to make sure I get in a good amount of protein and healthy fat with every meal, which will probably mean cutting back on carbs somewhat just to stay within my points.

Onward and downward,

Lauren

[Itryharder]

Hi Turtles,
Everybody sounds great. Lauren, I wish I had thrown out my Halloween candy. This is how that went. After the last child tricked or treated I wrapped up all the leftovers and put them in my dh's stash of goodies. I haven't touched them at all. *However* I ate 3/4 of a container of Cats cookies instead. I finally threw out the last of the Cats and am determined to do well today. I did record the points and I'm fine for the week, but I am up 1 1/2 pounds. Ugh. Again, I hope it's the salt. Today I need to eat more veggies and get on the treadmill. Yesterday I took down and packed up all the Halloween decorations. Now we're deciding what to do with them. Lots of heavy work, but I'm making a commitment to get on treadmill no matter what!

Choosewell and Lin--go you Nanoers go!

Bandit2 chime in

Lauren, glad you're able to have complex carbs again. I have never been able to do more than a week of Atkins and at this point in my life, I bet I wouldn't be able to do a day. I know I am so rebellious that if any item is taken away, that's exactly what I want to eat. Not a good head set!

Everyone keep on keepin' on. I am going to make this a great week.
Love,
Judy

[Itryharder]

Dear Folks,
Some of you wanted to see the picture of me at Halloween in my Little Shop of Horrors costume. I don't know how to send attachments into private messages. I do know how to send attachments to e-mail addresses, so if you would like to send me your e-mail addresses, I'll reply with the photo. Sorry I'm such a clutz with the computer.
Love,
Judy
ps. Today is going very well.

[LaurenH]

Judy, GOOD FOR YOU for keeping away from the candy! I hear you about eating a bunch of other crap instead. I think it's all part of that post-vacation syndrome, where we're vigilant in one area and then let ourselves lose focus in others. Well, GOOD FOR YOU for throwing out the last of the cookies. I'll bet you're holding water from the carbs. It'll disappear.

I got two of my articles written yesterday; am about to do the third. I'll be so happy to get this stuff done.

In spite of the apple and the popcorn, I didn't gain any weight. Yet! I sure feel a heckuva lot better now, too.

Onward and downward,

Lauren

[Lin S]

Hi, Turtles,

Just a quick note to let you all know that I've officially lost a pound this week. YAY!!

I'm a little over with points this week, even taking flex points into account. I haven't totaled my activity points for today, so I'm not sure how many. I'm back on track, which is what matters.

NaNo is going well. I need to get back to the writing.

I hope you're all moving.

[bandit2]

Hi ladies:

Sounds like everyone is doing great. Had a nice Halloween - daughter had party & all the munchies were eaten but we had lots of leftover candy from my other place. So you understand - my daughter & I moved into BF house in Sept but I have kept my house and bf & I went there Halloween night to give out candy while daughter had party at his house. I am planning on renting my house eventually but then he does somethings that bug me so then I think I still need my place "just in case" and so on & so on. Anyway I overindulged once again this weekend & have w/i tonight so I feel a little bummed about it. But for sure I will go to meeting. I go with two other friends so that keeps me on track for the meetings even if I don't feel like facing the music.

Have a great day.