Has anyone watched Fat Camp? I realize that these kids probably have self-esteem issues and all that...but oh my, it is entertaining. Snark-tastic teenage drama at its FINEST.

Pat, Allison, I sometimes have workouts like these too. Occasionally I don't want to go to the gym in the first place, but on those days I try to follow a deal I've made with myself - go for 1/2 hour. If I still don't want to be there, I can leave. Usually I end up doing a full workout, but if I don't, at least I've moved my body a bit, and usually I'll have a better workout the next day. Allison, my workouts on weekdays after work versus weekend mornings also always carry a different 'tone' too. Strangely enough I think sleeping in/sleeping more throws my body off.

I grew up living at a boarding school where my parents taught. During the summer the whole campus was rented out to an all-girls weight loss camp. Most of those girls did not want to be there, they were miserable, and they did their best to make everyone else miserable. It was not a happy place.

Lily, your girls always make me laugh with the weight loss plans they come up with, and then within a day they come home with soda or candy or whatever. I don't think 20 lbs & not overweight warrants going to 'fat camp'! A gym membership sounds much more reasonable.

Shane, great news! Do you know when your interview is? It was so cold here Monday night/Tuesday morning too! We didn't have the heat on and it got so cold I woke up at 3 am thinking "oooh, it's going to be hard to get up in the morning, I should go turn on the heat now! but it's so warm under these covers..." Of course I didn't get up, so it was a chilly 48 degrees getting dressed in the morning. But it's all relative - I'll bet most of the people on this forum have it colder than us! (I think the problem is just that I need to watch the weather report and turn on the heat pre-emptively ).

Carolyn, lol, I would have done the same thing. I hate backseat drivers!

I did 55 minutes of mostly upper body lifting, core exercises, and a few legs yesterday, and ate very clean. It felt good to move again! I'm not sure if I'll try to go do some cycling today, or slow walking on the treadmill. But I'm feeling good, all in all. The scale hasn't gone up.

Have a good 'hump' day everyone!

Carolyn wrote:
Baffled - when I first read that you "wanted to make an Ethiopian feast, but these friends are VERY anti-dog" all I could picture in my head was when I was in Vietnam and saw three dogs being roasted side by side on three spits and thinking to myself, "I didn't know that Ethiopian's ate dog also!" Until I realized that you meant your friends didn't like dogs as pets. Koreans also eat dogs, but I didn't see any on the menu when I was there.

LOL. What's wrong with dog for dinner?! Actually, I had a similar moment yesterday when Lily wrote about her dog eating dh's jacket. The dog's name is Lucy and I read 'Lacy'. Why on earth, wondered I, would Lacy chew dh's jacket?!

Shane, great news on the interview!!! And nice work with eating clean for one day, too. Immediately obvious abs sounds like an excellent reward for one days good work.

Hi to everyone else!

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

I'm trying desperately to catch up on all the posts, but I'm so behind that all I have in my head is a jumbled mix of congratulations to the new grandma, congrats on the job interview, and someone's going on Fat Camp? I swear I'll try to go back and read everything and get it straight!!

I showed some kids in my 1st class today an old picture of my face when I was at my heaviest, and they freaked out. I don't even know how it came up, but someone mentioned they heard I'd lost a lot of weight, and they wanted to know what I used to look like. They're only in 9th grade, so they didn't really see me before this year. They had no idea I was so big. They just kept looking back and forth from the picture to me, with shocked expressions. One kid said, "Um...this one is better," pointing to my face. Haha -- no kidding!!

There are a few snow flurries outside (the first of the season), but not enough to send us home early. Boohoo.

Megan~I think you're right--sleeping in is what is doing it. But who really wants to get up at 4:30 on a weekend morning! I also had the problem when I got DH to go with me--he didn't move quick enough in the morning and I ended up waiting for him. I'm usually up and dressed and out the door in 6 minutes. I don't know if he just isn't a morning person or what, but he'd stand at the sink and look bewildered and I'd have to tell him to put his contacts on, brush his teeth, etc. before I could get him out the door. Then he treated the warm up walk like a stroll in the park! I'm usually walking almost as fast as I jog!! Perhaps I'm doomed to exercise alone!

Lily~as a teen, I used to dream of going to fat camp, too. The magazine ads make it look so fun--horseback riding, swimming, etc. Perhaps it would be better to just send the girls to a regular camp. One thing about camp is that there are usually no in between meal snacks (or limited snacks). And often, the food just isn't that good, so they'll naturally eat less. One year, my DD went to a music camp that was housed at a Seventh Day Adventist's camp site. That meant that everyone attending, regardless of the actual camp they were enrolled in, had to eat vegetarian. DD said that the pasta and salads were fine, but the "tofurkey" and "soysage" and "facon" were disgusting and she rarely ate any of it. Another camp she attended had pretty bad food overall and she had scheduled herself rather tight so she often missed one meal a day. She lost 7 pounds in two weeks (it also helped that this was in a mountain area and she had to walk up and down the hills a lot each day to get from one class to another).

LisaMarie~too funny about your students seeing your before photo! Makes you wonder what they were thinking while freaking out!!!

Well, gotta get to work. I doubt I'll be here tomorrow, DD and I are driving in to meet some folks at the school she'll probably be attending next year (University of Redlands).

Morning! Well it snowed about 1/2" at our house overnight. But here at work, 3.5 miles away, not a bit. At least the wind has stopped. It was horrendous. Several business with those high plastic signs had damage. The Wells Fargo coach has been cut in half.

Got my CSA box last night, so I'm thinking of ways to use the veggies - which are mostly greens. No such problem with the mushrooms, squash or fruit. We had oranges with flavor for breakfast.

Yes, these girls have been watching the show "Fat Camp" on TV and that is how they came up with the idea. I watched it a time or 2 and it is definitely just teenage drama. Neither of them need a fat camp anyway. Shelbey needs to quit eating candy and soda and Lacy just needs to exercise. Last night I made a home-made meatloaf with 1/2 turkey, 1/2 extra lean beef, a pot of pinto beans, salad and spinach. Shelbey chose to buy herself a large bag of doritos, a big can of bean dip, 2 reeses cups and a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper. Lacy did at least eat the meatloaf and salad but wouldn't eat the spinach or beans. I always cook reasonably healthy meals, getting them to eat it is a different story. Then they both came in my room and had the audacity to say I was drowning out the TV with the sound of me on the treadmill. They actually act like it bothers them for me to exercise. Guilt, I guess.

Baffled, LOL, funny you thought Lacy had chewed up DS's new jacket. Our lab pup is named Lucy and this is her 3rd zipper to chew up.

I'm waiting for my grandson's to arrive for the day. They are so much fun and will definitely keep me up and busy today.

Megan, I will be getting the girls a gym membership and they can go to the church camp that they go to every summer. Right now they are bugging me to have Satellite TV put in each of their rooms. Not exactly something that these girls need.

Hello everyone! Update to my last post -- I did call my doctor about getting my thyroid tested. They are mailing me the test order, which I should get in the mail today, then I just have to go to a lab and have my blood drawn and we'll see what happens.

In the meantime I was really upset because the first doctor I called totally blew me off and was a major jerk, the second one (new doc I am trying to get started with) said they can't see me until the end of january, etc. So I called up my old doc and she said she didn't need to see me, she'd just send the order. Phew! DH's dad had offered to write the order for me if nobody else did (he is a doc, but works for a drug company and only practices at free clinics). In any case, I'll probably know within a week whether my thyroid is weird or not.

Lily - LOL about the girls. You should tell them you'll send them to "(Step)Mom Fat Camp" where you'll be the drill sargeant and put them through boot camp exercises and lock the fridge! Or you could have your DS put them through boot camp, since he's done it, right?

Pat - I have "placeholder" workouts too. Usually it's when I really didn't want to go to the gym but talked myself into it anyway, and I spend the whole time there counting down the minutes until I'm done!

Hi everyone else, I can't really catch up but I did read everyone's posts!

I am so useless at work today. My schedule is such that I have about 1 hour to work, then a meeting, then 1 hour to work, then a dentist appointment, 1 hour to work, an interview, 1 hour work, a meeting, etc. In 1 hour I can barely get started on my work. Software development is the kind of thing where you kind of have to get in "the zone" and have an extended period of work time. I like having breaks from typing, but I really can't get anything done like this! At least I have no cavities.

Anyway it's 5 minutes until my next meeting, so I should try to get SOMETHING done.

Oh! I have to brag that today at work, I did NOT eat the giant cookie or the potato chips I was offered. Phew!

Well....my pants are tight. I have been playing around with the same 4 pounds for months now and trying to tell myself that my recent bingefest isnt that damaging but the truth is at the end of 2 months, my pants are tighter at this weight than they used to be.

I am struggling so deeply with this and I dont know why right now. I ate today to a point of uncomfortable all day long.

Just peeking in to say hello. There's no way I can catch up on everything that's been going on in the thread this week (and the previous week as well), but I hope everyone's well and all.

My project is due for Monday, so I hope that once it's completed, there won't be any more last minute crap to poison the rest of my week (and that I'll be able to post more regularly again). Gee, don't we love work deadlines.

Morning! Not good morning, not bad morning, just regular morning. I really need to get more sleep because I find that I am always tired. I usually only get 5-6 hours of sleep a night on my work days. Then, once I catch up on the weekends, I have to go back to work. And strangely enough, lack of sleep doesn't even get to me if I don't have to wake up early in the morning (like, let's say I go to bed at 5 AM and wake up at 10 AM - still 5 hours but it doesn't feel exhausting the way waking up at 5:30 does!) I wonder why.

My family informed me that it's snowing up in the DC area. I can't say that I really miss snow, though it IS pretty to look at. The girlfriend has never seen snow and wants us to take a trip up there where I'll pull her around in a sled. I have a feeling that after we're out there for literally one minute or less, she will complain about how wet and cold it is and want to go inside to drink hot chocolate.

to ennay. It's just hard. And sometimes we have no real reason to binge, we just do.

Jessica, WTG on passing up the cookies and the chips Sorry you had to deal with an a-hole doctor and that it was so much trouble just to request a simple test. Glad you got it straightened out though.

Lily and DG - yup, I saw the first Fat Camp (as I mentioned before, one of my songs was in it) but have not seen the second. I really want to see it, so I looked up the schedule It is DEFINITELY teenage drama... that is what most MTV shows are made of. I still get sucked in.

Megan - yes, other people have colder winter weather than we do, but you should have seen me on my way to work this morning anyway - clothes first (t-shirt, jeans), then a hoodie, then a jacket. I wore a beanie on my head and then put the hood over the beanie for double protection. Then gloves. Then the hoodie sleeves over the gloves so my hands wouldn't get cold. OH, and two layers of socks.
It was 42 degrees this morning. All that meant in VA was a sweater or hoodie! It should be in the mid to late 60's here in the afternoon, though, which is nice.

Shane, lol, I can picture it b/c I'll be it looks a lot like my co-workers and I when we go out to do field sampling on the boat in Jan-Feb. I wear 3 layers of fleece pants on underneath my rain pants (complete w/ bib), 2 layers of wool socks under my rain boots, about 4 layers of long underwear and fleece on top, plus a "float coat" which is a bright, puffy marine coat designed to be waterproof and float/help you be seen if you fall in the water. Then we have hats and hoodies over our heads, but we need our hands free to handle the fish we pull up, so between stations we sit down with them stuck in our armpits to warm them. At least we've got all the waterproof things so we stay totally dry. 8 hours like that - oh, I can't wait for field sampling next month. See, marine biology is sooo glamorous.

I don't miss the snow either! Well, a wee bit, but I do not miss driving in snow & ice at all.

Kery, you can do it! Good luck finishing your project. I'm sure it will be great.

ennay, . Sometimes it is just hard for our minds to tell our bodies what we need to do. I hope today is a better day.

Jessica, I can totally relate - staff meeting days make it so hard to complete other tasks. I hope you find out about your thyroid results soon.

Lily, your dinner sounds good to me!

Allison, every time I buy toilet paper, dish soap, or shampoo for my bf's house I think, "how did he ever survive without me?" Sometimes you just wonder...

Have a great day everyone.

Megan - LOL about the BF. I think the same things about DH when I go buy him socks, underwear, and undershirts. That usually happens after I notice while doing the laundry that his socks and underwear are full of holes and his undershirts have giant sweat stains. The other day he asked me to sew up his socks. They had enormous holes in them. I was like, seriously, we aren't poor, we can afford to buy you a new pair of socks! If I sewed up those holes the socks would be too small for him anyway, and I don't have the time to patch them!

Shane - that's pretty awesome that your song was on a TV show!!

Ennay - I feel your pain. I have three pairs of pants that I can't wear right now because they are too small for me.

Kery - Glad your project will be over soon!

OK, laughing at Megan and Shayne. It was a tropical 3 degrees here this am. I'm sure Pat has us all beat. I have to go to a Girl Scout cookie training tonight. I sincerely hope they don't have samples.

Ennay and Jessica, I'm in the same boat with you two. My size 4's are now uncomfortably tight and I only have one pair of 6's that I'm wearing. I refuse to go buy more, so I really need to take off the extra lbs. I'm carrying. I have been averaging weighing 151 right now instead of 145 and those 6 lbs. do mean a size up for me. I'm struggling with vacillating between really good days and really bad days. I hate the way all my shirts are now snug and make me have a muffin top. I can't seem to get my butt in gear and stay completely on plan. I don't know why.

Jessica, LOL at the thought of DS being their drill instructor, he'd kill em. He came home from the gym last night bragging about what a great weights workout he had and how he can still benchpress more than he did when on the weight lifting team in high school. He was so proud that he weighed 150 lbs. last night, LOL, he always wants to weigh more, I always want to weigh less.

Shane, I gotta admit I've watched the show too. I'll watch anything that has the word Fat/Obese/Weight in it. LOL.

I had all 3 of my grandsons last night and it was so busy here. I didn't make it on my treadmill. Having the 5 month old with the 3 yr. old and 18 month old definitely kicked my butt. Of course DH and the girls helped some, but seems I'm the only one that will change a diaper. (My oldest SD finally moved out of my MIL's house yesterday after a long 10 months. Hence, I watched the baby too so she could move all of her furniture out of our storage building).

I sure need to get a new printer cause I got several pic's I want to post for everyone to see. Maybe Santa will bring me one.