Good morning everyone! After 2 days of 199, I am 197.4 today! Sending whooshes everyones way!

After losing about 1.1-1.5 lbs a week for a while, I've been completely stuck for a week. I've tried:

1. Staying on plan (1250 cal/day, 1800-200mg sodium, 200mg-ish caffeine, 30 min cardio/strength)
2. Low/Zone carb ratios (1200 cal/day)
3. Whole foods only
4. Restriction (900-1000)
5. Refeed/intuitive eating (turned out to be 1400, 55% carb)

I need ideas, girls... maybe a fast? I feel the same, too. I'm not getting hungry like I used to... maybe my metabolism is slowing down

(No, that's not caffeine supplements... that's how much coffee I drink. Hah.)

LostAngel, congrats on the weight going down again, let's hope it keeps on going n you'll be posting a great loss next week

Daisy, hope your plateau buggers off soon. Not really got anything to suggest other than keep on eating the right things and exercising, and it's bound to shift when it's ready.

JUst starting day 2 here, after a pretty good day one. I stuck to plan, special K, yogurt, banana for brekkie. Noodle and veg dish for lunch and tomato, mushroom and spinach on wholemeal toast for dinner.

I was REALLY hungry after doing C25K last night, so was going to dry fry the little bit of pork I had left over from Sunday, as I'd had no meat all day. Went to the kitchen and turned on teh gas, to find the bottle was empty, which saved me from unnecessary calories, result!

TOM is here today, and I'm well bloated. A KG up from Sunday's weigh in, but, there's loads of time for the bloating to go down and the weight to go again.

My plan for today is to eat on plan, and to do an hour of cardio this evening. Will keep you posted!

Finally!! A small whoosh. My scale said 247.2 today

Awesome, southernbelle!

I was looking at my info. Is it ok to lose 20 pounds in two months? Does that seem low? It should be about 2.5 pounds a week. I was really hoping to reach my goal by June but it might be by August.

Lostangel - It is definitely healthy to lose 10 lbs a month. If you don't find that you are able to lose that amount though, don't get discouraged!! If you stay on plan, it will eventually come off

Yayay to your whoosh SouthernBelle

Lostangel, I think your target sounds spot on, it's just a shame we can't tell our bodies what our targets are and ask them to stick to them!

Well, I'm having a mehhhhhh day today. Eating OP, but just not feeling satisfied. Did a halfhearted workout video but just felt rubbish. It all seemed so hard again, like they did a couple of months ago. I didn't even finish the whole hour, gave up after 40 mins n told myself I'd do another half hour cardio later, but I just can't be bothered.

I think it's really hitting home that I'm going home now. 5 weeks today until I fly, and it's been almost 4 years since I lived there, and two years since I visited. Just all a bit daunting, all I know is, I want to go back looking and feeling as good as I can, but days like today aren't going to help.

TOM isn't helping, nor is work stress. I'm a trainer here, and our office is small, over the three years I've been here I've basically being running a lot of the day to day stuff, which was fine. Trying to organise/document everything I do so others can take over is a wayyyy bigger task than actually doing it. We've also got a new course to write for a summer camp, again this is fine, if I were just doing it. But, I'm meant to be overseeing the new teachers do it, which is far far harder than just writing the thing, and is taking up all of my time when I want/need to get on with other things.

TO top it all off, I'm in the process of putting together a uni application to study an MA when I get home. I'm pretty much done, just need to tweak my CV tonight, but then I actually need to pluck up the courage to send it in. I haven't got my heart set on the course, but if I don't get on, I've no idea what I'll do instead, so that's stressing me out to the max.

Hoping tomorrow I'll be more motivated and put in a better workout and feel better about everything. Need to get a good nights sleep tonight, and I'm sure that'll help.

Good luck to everyone

Hi everyone! Sorry I havn't been on, other things to get to.

@lostangel05 congrats on the whooshing!!

@lackadaisy,try doing some high intesnity intrival training or (HIIT). But, if not, you'll break your platue when your body is ready.

@takingcontrol, aw I'm sorry about all that work and stress going on in your life right now.You will be going back feeling great! Just keep pushing, keep modivated and everything should fall into place for you. Just remind yourself how fare you have come!!! Good luck with all that work! And imagin how accomplished you'll feel after a nice vigorious workout!

mmm, as for me this is day three of TurboFire. It's hard and I'm still sore, I didn't put enough energy into yesturday, but I'll just keep pushing it shows I'm out of shape. I'm going to go for a run after this just to clear my mind, then I have to do some really 'fun' stuff, like homework and cleaning. Before this challenge I was so dedicated to weighing myself everyday, but I'm not going to focus on the scale anymore, I took my measurments Sunday and will be just focusing on weighing in on wi days and on tracking my results specified for Turbofire.

I hope everone has an awesome day! Kick some *** today guys!

Takingcontrol, yeah, the holiday blues are irritating, but I suspect that they’ll fade by the end of the week! I’m definitely still in vacation mode, though. I went to London for a week, and it was utterly amazing. It was also nice to be in an English-speaking country for a while. (I’m an American living in Finland at the moment.)
What are you hoping to get an MA in once you return home? And how do you like living in Thailand? I’m trying to decide where I’ll go once I leave here (still a whiles away, 2012), and I’m wavering between Thailand and Australia. I hope tom clears up soon and leaves you in peace! I’ve been mood swinging lately, so I suspect mine is on its way.

Chantelle, your coworker sounds like a huge jerk! Just keep on plugging away and you’ll show him. Then you can be the one to laugh in his face! The guy and I are now facebook friends, but I don’t really expect much meaningful correspondence. After all, we didn’t get to know each other all that well, having only had the chance to hang out for a week. It was really nice to meet him, though. I’m not really the type to rearrange my plans to make room for a guy, and I don’t think he’s that type either, but I’ll certainly get in touch if we ever happen to be in the same part of the world again. Now if only I could stop fantasizing and refocus on work!

Lostangel and southernbelle, congrats on your whooshes!

Lackadaisy, can you up your exercise or something and attack the problem from the fitness rather than the nutrition side of things?

SnowWolf, how do you like TurboFire so far?

I hope that everybody’s doing well! Trying to get over a stomach bug, myself, but feeling much better than I was this morning.

Thanks. But this morning was rough...back to 199. I took an extra rest day. Worked out really hard yesterday and am soooo sore today so I'm assuming the weight gain is just from that. Ouch, ouch...no more extra rest days.

Hi all

Snowwolf Good luck with the turbofire, I'm looking forward to getting a bit fitter and being able to do one of these programs to really get me fit, I love hearing about the great results people have on them.
Great to hear you're going to rely on your scales less. I used to try to only weigh in once a week, twice maximum, but as my big return to the UK creeps closer, I can't seem to get off them!

Nienna I've been in Thailand for three years teaching English, and hoping to do my MA in the same field. I've had a good time here, but live in a small town in central Thailand (no beach, not fair!) and am well ready for a change now! What are you up to in Finland?

Lostangel Good for you listening to your body and taking an extra rest day, I had to do the same last week. Stupidly this week, I'm just not working out as hard so I can get a workout in everyday, guessing that kind of defeats the object! I'm going to aim to go all out tomorrow, and if I'm in pain on Friday, I'll take a rest day and just move C25K to Saturday with some extra resistance training. Hope the weight moves down again soon.

Well, I'm feeling better today. Had a great friend help me tweak my personal statement, so I could finally get my application submitted, which is a huge relief, now it's out of my hands, I've just got to wait and see.

TOM almost done too which is helping.

I've still got tons on at work, but after a rant at my colleagues today (in a friendly way!!) about how I really need them on my side pulling their weight to help meet the deadlines the boss has set us for course writing, I'm hoping they'll all be more productive tomorrow and we'll get more done. It's hard being the one in the position, the boss gives me responsibility to ensure everyone meets a Friday deadline, but none of them are motivated to work hard as it's only me who's being held accountable for getting it done. And I'm the only one with other things to do as well, like a mountain of other things. I didn't used to mind bringing things home and working here, but now with cooking healthy meals and exercising, I don't want to spend the remainder of my evening working. Sorry, another rant!

Well, on a good note, I've completed my third day completely on plan food wise today, and I've almost stopped wanting 'bad' things now, the goal is too tangible for me to want to jeopardise meeting it.

I did C25K, week 4 day 3, and found it perfectly OK. Did plan to do more exercise, but my uni application got in the way.

Starting tomorrow, I want to up the exercise as well as eat on plan. 5 weeks to England......!

Good morning everyone! Just a quick note, I'm @ work but wanted to post a little NSV. As I mentioned before, I kinda crashed and burned in my C25K attempts - but last night I decided to **** with the podcast, I was just going to kick into a light jog and see how long I could go for. I think I blew my own mind - I was able to go for about 7-8 mins without stopping (HUGE improvement from my 60 sec "OMG I'm going to die!" attempts with the podcast lol) but at a significantly reduced pace from what I was doing before - I used to try running at 5.3-5.4 and was on the floor by the end of it; last night I was going at 4.1-4.2 which was a much more comfortable pace for me. I managed to keep at it for an hour, with walking/jogging intervals, and the walking mostly came into play when my mental "Umm, HOW am I still running after 7 mins?" block kicked in. Treadmill says I burned 370 calories but I'm taking that with a huge pinch of salt (come ON, UPS - deliver my BodyMedia Fit already!) ... just crazy happy I'm seeing strides in my levels of stamina

Sounds awesome Chantelle! Congrats!

Hope everyone is having a good, productive Wednesday so far! I wish that I could have been around more to post and get to know everyone, but things have been all of the place lately.

This week has been a bit crazy for me--not enough researching, paper writing, working out, or apartment cleaning going on---and WAY too much bad news. Monday, I found out one of my older sisters had a miscarriage of a pregnancy she and my brother-in-law tried so hard for. Tuesday, my mom told my sisters and i that my grandma probably won't make it until Easter and that we should make plans to go back and see her within the next few weeks.

But it was a good news Wednesday--I was offered a phone interview for a full-time position in the field I'm getting my Master's Degree in!!

Life's a rollercoaster....