[Cocopops]

Hi Dena,

Great to hear from you. I'm going to have a look at the websites you suggested later this morning. I'm grateful for your suggestions as some of the sites I've come across have been quite poor in their factual content.

I'm having a re-jig of my training today. Instead of going in the gym at 6.45 and training before the school run, which has a tendency to impede on family time and cause me stress, I plan to train at 9am as soon as I get back from the school run. That way, I'm not having to watch the clock the same.

I'm also going to get back into the meditation sessions that I used to do quite regularly. I use the Headspace app and when I was doing it a few times a week I found my mild to be a lot calmer.

We fly to Orlando in just over 3 weeks' time and I felt myself starting to panic about the weight loss but I have come to realise that it is all about the big picture and the long term end goal so I will continue as planned and hope to be around my goal weight by the time we go to Gambia at Christmas.

It sounds like your house is getting pretty close to completion now. How many dogs do you have?

Computers are a nightmare aren't they. You must be so annoyed that you've potentially lost photos etc. Hopefully your idea of plugging the hard drive into another computer will work. I try to back up ours once a month but often I don't get round to it. I should really make sure I do it every month as you never know when these things will happen.

With the IF and low carb, do you find you get any side effects other than the constipation - has that settled now by the way?

Speak soon. Corinne x

[EagleRiverDee]

Tell me more about the Headspace app- I'm not familiar with it, and meditation is something I've wanted to add but honestly I just can't shut my mind off so I've always figured it was pointless. The closest I get to meditation is prayer or when I hike through the woods, that's about as clear as my mind ever gets. I've been having a horrible time sleeping for several weeks, maybe meditation would help.

What will you be doing in Orlando? I have an Aunt that lives there, and I'd like to go visit her again someday but also I really want to go to Universal Studios and see the Hogwart's attraction. I love Harry Potter.

The house is getting pretty close. I'd say we probably could move in now, except the paperwork isn't finalized so we don't officially own the house yet. We have two dogs, both are mutts. Oli is a 70 lb Labrador/Standard Poodle mix. Mila is a 55 lb Labrador/Pitbull (we think) mix. Both are rescue dogs, meaning we adopted them from a rescue organization that specializes in finding homes for abandoned pets. They came to us as adults, Mila was 2 when we got her, and Oli was 3. My mother-in-law, who will be living in the mother-in-law apartment in the walk-out basement, has two little dogs of her own. One is a Papillon, the other is a Chihuahua. Keith and I also have 3 cats- Hobie is our old guy, he's about 15. Oscar and Clem are about 5 years old or so each. Again, all rescues that came to us as adults.

The only side effect I've noticed besides constipation (which has not settled down) is that I can't sleep. I have no idea if it's the IF causing it, but I have never had so much trouble sleeping as I have in the past 3 weeks. It takes me 1-2 hours just to fall asleep. Then I have these whacked out dreams all night long. I feel just full of nervous energy, though. It could be anxiety about the upcoming move, it could be a side effect of the IF, it could also be a side-effect of the bioidentical hormone replacement I just re-started, although the trouble sleeping began several days before the HRT did so I tend to think it's something else.

I think you're smart to re-jig your training so that it works around your family time. I take it you have school age children? How old are they?

I did get some exercise in yesterday. At lunch I took the dogs for a walk. I was going to try to do a 24 hour fast and just not eat lunch, but I crumbled and ate a baked potato with butter for lunch. Dinner was baked chicken and fried cabbage. I wanted to finish off the 1/2 pint of ice cream that's been in the freezer for a couple of weeks taunting me, but I abstained. Small victory there! And then I did 10 minutes of stretching and 30 minutes of resistance training.

[Cocopops]

Hi Dena. Great to hear from you.

Headspace is a fantastic app that has hundreds of guided meditations on it. You are taught how to meditate effectively over a period of sessions then once you have mastered the basics, you can choose tois - self-esteem, fitness, health, positivity, calmness etc etc. Like you, in the past I found it difficult to master meditation but with the help of this app I have managed it. It cost me £69 for a 12 month subscription, which I think has been more than worth it.

The trip to Orlando is really for our daughter to experience Disney and all the parks there. This weekend I will be drawing up a plan of which parks we want to visit. We are staying in a villa that sleeps 12 so we will have lots of space! The villa comes with it's own pool but is on a gated golfing complex which also has a pool we can use.

I plan to up my training as of Monday - mix my sessions up a bit and workout for a little longer each day now that I have gotten back into training again.

Our daughter is 10 now and growing up fast. She has an increasing number of after school activities nowadays so the evenings just fly by!

Your sleeping problems are strange - I wonder what could be causing them? Have you tried all the usual remedies - glass of warm milk before bed etc? Maybe it will resolve once you get moved in the new house and that area of your life will be settled.

I am going to work today with my husband so hopefully that will be fun.

What do you have planned for this weekend?

[EagleRiverDee]

Hi Corinne! That is wonderful that you can take your daughter to Disney, etc. The theme parks are a lot of fun. It's been quite a while since I've been there- we took the boys when they were 11 and 6, and then again when they were around 16 and 11. But we haven't been back since.

Headspace sounds like exactly what I need, I will look into it. Thanks!

Today is an errand day for me. My PC has chosen to die this week. I have a laptop but I really, really don't like working on laptops. I need to get an adapter for my PC hard drive so I can download all the files on it to my laptop (the PC wont even boot up, but the hard drive should be accessible if I slave it to another device). And I need to go for groceries.

Keith says he thinks we'll close on the house next week. There are still some issues the builder needs to take care of before we can sign off on it. They went through the house yesterday to look at what still needed to be done.

I didn't get any exercise done last night although I did good on IF yesterday. This weekend I should get plenty of exercise as there is lots of stuff to do.

Talk to you tomorrow, probably!

~Dee

[Cocopops]

Hi Dena,

How was your weekend? I hope you get your computer/hard drive sorted so that you can get back up and running with it soon - it's an absolute nightmare isn't it when computers crash.

I spent all day Saturday with hubbie at work. It was good fun spending time together while still getting work done. He was pecking out some concrete, which created a LOT of mess so I was tasked with sweeping the entire yard afterwards - as I knew I wouldn't get to the gym that day, I really put my back into the sweeping. Hubbie even commented on it! I was sweating like mad by the time I'd finished and had blisters on my hands but it felt strangely satisfying!

I'm still feeling really positive about the weight loss journey and IF. I am switching my training up a bit this week so looking forward to that. Yesterday I nipped into the gym while hubbie was training last night and challenged him to beat my at various ab exercises! It was just a bit of fun really but I was impressed with how much stronger my abs had become since training properly these last few weeks. Hubbie was visibly surprised too - which helped spur me on even more.

What do you have planned for this week? I hope the last few bits on the house get sorted then you can sign off and begin moving in. I haven't had chance to watch the programme I recorded on Alaska but I'm looking forward to watching it soon.

Did you look into the Headspace app? I rate it very highly and am glad I got it. They even do some short meditations for children which my daughter has tried and enjoyed. Let me know if you get it and how you find it.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Corinne x

[EagleRiverDee]

Hi Corinne!

I, sadly, have not been able to repair my PC. I have a device on order that will allow me to plug the hard drive into my laptop USB and hopefully I can retrieve all the files off the PC. Then I'll probably take it to a repair shop to see if they can repair it. But I want to save the files more than anything.

It sounds like you had a really good and productive weekend! That sounds great, plus having the good one on one time with the hubby. Nice! Way to go on the abs stuff- abs are my least favorite body part to work out. So probably you would whip me in abs!

Over the weekend I did some cleaning at the new house. Keith was using a bulldozer out in the yard a little bit. He rented it, and he's no expert, but he got some good stuff done. This week, not sure. Tonight is a lazy night. My dog started acting really sick last night and so I took her to the vet at 9pm, didn't get home until midnight, and couldn't fall asleep until after 1am. She apparently has some how injured either her back or her neck, and she's hurting pretty bad. She's on painkillers, anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants. She's only 7 or so, and has never had a bad injury before, so she's giving me that wrinkle browed worried look because she doesn't understand what's happening. I really hope she gets better soon.

Hopefully the rest of the week I can be more productive. I need to get the lawn mowed, and I'd like to get a hike or a workout in.

I haven't yet looked at the Headspace app but will be soon. It definitely sounds like just what I need. I think I'll actually look it up right after I'm done writing here.

I hope you have a great day! TTYT!

~ D

[Cocopops]

Hi Dena,

I have sent you a private message on here - I hope it gets to you okay!

Let me know if not and I will re-send it.

Speak soon.

Corinne

[Garryolb]

Originally Posted by EagleRiverDee

I have tried HIIT. At least, I think that's what it is because it's definitely high intensity cardio. I was doing T25 (a video workout), and Tabata workouts. But lately I've been so tired! I just restarted hormone therapy because my blood tests showed all my hormones were very low and I have felt better the past few days so I'm very hopeful that I'll be feeling good enough to start exercising again soon! And I love the HIIT approach because it's all about getting it done so you can get on with other things. I would much rather give 110% for 30 minutes than work out for hours.

I had a practically similar situation. I tried to lose weight for a long time and nothing happened. Only after taking the tests I realized that the problem is in the hormones. I managed to lose weight with hormone replacement therapy.

[effysunshine]

Hiya Cocopops

I can totally relate to where you are now its taken me ages to finally establish a routine in terms of diet, exercising and taking my phen375. i tried numerous diets in the past with no success and just weight gain. I end up feeling quite disheartened by this that I could get further in my journey. I even tried the healthy lifestyle approach where according to the NHS you eat 2000 a day and do 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercising and still didn't lose weight. In the end I was like stick with you prefer to do with Phen375, drinking more water and cut those calories down and exercise a lot. And finally at last I have lost over two stone and I am still losing. It's a lot easier and i don't feel guilty and quite effortless at time. Some weeks, I can sit at home all day on my mac and I lose weight without trying. You can do it