Hi all,

I skipped exercise yesterday. Jeez, do I sound like a broken record or what? Back at it today though. Food was great and I had quite a surprise on the scale this morning. It is true that a week goes by with little change and then Whammo! It all comes off at once. I'm not gonna question, just gonna go with it. Food was good yesterday. And I read as my nice thing (and was so into it I didn't walk - oops - can't let the goals cancel each other out!).

Hope everyone has a good day!

Well better late than never today! Phew...today was ok. My abs are hurting a bit but I'll take that hurt over the hip and shoulder cause it's a good 'I know it's cause I worked out and my muscles are feeling it' kind of hurt.
I was pretty good on plan today...not 100% but not awful. I had a big CVB quarterly meeting this morning...and those come with breakfast and coffee...well I eat breakfast at home, every morning so at the meeting I had a croissant and some fruit and just called that my snack for the day...it was at like 1030-11am which is when I usually have a snack anyway....I was late getting home today...eye appointment... so I did grab a bag of chips on the go...not the best choice but it was a single serving bag, 140 cal. so it could have been way worse.

No gym today...Michele went out with a friend and I have no car and was late anyway but I'll be going tomorrow. I should have my car back next week sometime so I'm looking forward to trying to get back into the habit of working out in the morning...between now and then I'm going to be working on getting up a bit earlier every day so I'm ready not to sleep through my alarm when the car is back.

woo.

good morning all,
I hope everyone had a great day yesterday,
Tricia : Did you exercise this morning?
Rhonda how is the knee doing?

Yesterday I was so close to going off plan ( I ate 2 ice cream sandwiches- 100 calories , 1.5 grams of fat), but luckily my calories where low enough that I had 1500 calories with these 2 sandwiches. This probably messed up my stomach, because I had a bad stomach ache last night, and didn't sleep so well. A lesson learned, will I pay it any attention, I better.
I am getting ready to exercise soon,
Breakfast will be Kash go lean crunch, skim milk, banana, water
Lunch : either veggie burgers, or tuna
Dinner : is up for grabs , family will eat pizza, I need to find something healthy for me.
Snacks: I have Kashi Tlc bars, fruit, yugrut.
I know I can do this!!! Cheryl

Good morning, Everyone! Hope you're having a great on-plan day.

I have to keep things brief this morning as I have a ton of work to complete today. I mentally preparing myself for this weekend. Tonight, we are taking another couple out to dinner. I'm hoping to get everyone to agree on a restaurant early so I can pre-plan. If not, I will choose something grilled with veggies and no potatoes, pasta or bread. Tomorrow evening, we are having an engagement party for another neighbor. I plan on eating dinner before I leave and just drinking diet coke while I'm there. I'm hoping that planning ahead will help to keep me on track this time. Last weekend really messed me up, but I didnt plan for that weekend.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

So far so good today. I need it to be 3pm immediately so that I can be released from the chains of my job. It's back in the 90s here today...big change cause it hasn't gotten up out of the 60s in over a week...I totally live in the weather sample state!

Anyway, so far so good today. I'm just finishing up my lunch and I'm rolling in at about 750 calories so far. Going to do some sort of exercise this afternoon, maybe some sort of stir fry for dinner...something with a lot of veggies. I just can't wait until I can leave work! I wish we got to have 'summer friday's' all year round!

uhg

I'm doing ok so far. I didn't exercise, but that was planned. I had one of those little aches that happen, so I'm letting it all rest. I'm hoping for a good weekend. It will be a busy one!

Hi everyone!
Sunshine--We are getting hit w/ the heat here in New York State as well....ugh, I was really enjoying the nice cool weather! It's over 90 and tomorrow is going to be in the upper 90's. ick!
I have been planning all day to go to the gym, but I have to be honest, it is just way too hot. I'll try to do my yoga dvd later, but I just can't force myself to go workout in this heat.

The good news is...I am totally on plan so far and must stay that way for the rest of the day!
MJ

Just planned my menus for the week and am going to do my shopping in a little bit. I'm a little out of synch, these are for the 24th through the 31st.

Friday: Lean Hamburger Patties, 7-layer Salad
Saturday: Buffalo Chicken Tenders with raw veggies and bleu cheese
Sunday: Stuffed Summer Veggies
Monday: Fish Filets with Ratatouille
Tuesday: Baked Chicken-Ricotta Bowls, Sauteed Zucchinni
Wednesday: Shrimp and Scallop Quiche, Salad
Thursday: Cold Avocado Soup, Enchiladini Casserole
Friday: Make-your-own WW Pita Pizzas

I love it when I don't have to think about meals for a whole week to come! The weeks I don't plan are so much harder...
And 4 new recipes to try, fun!

No worries, Schmoodle. The dates are good just for keeping the thread from getting unwieldy. Your menu sounds good! Wanna come cook for me?

Yesterday was a good day. I exercised and ate well. And for my nice thing I watched a really stupid movie, but it was entertaining enough. The plan is to do it all over again today (well, maybe not the stupid movie part). I can't believe it as I feel like I JUST went to the store, but I need to go again. Now that I am home full time, with 3 meals a day and snacks the food doesn't last long here!

Take good care of yourselves and to those of you who we won't see until Monday, have a great on plan weekend!!

Hey everyone! I'm new and going to join in here!

I have stayed on-plan for my diet so far this week -- I'm eating 1,500 calories a day. The only time I went over this week was when I went out to lunch at an Italian restaurant with my fiance. I forgot to count my unsweet iced tea with sweet n low. So good news is that it wasn't much over, bad news, I still went over.

My exercise, however, has been a disaster. I run my own business with my fiance, so late nights are unavoidable sometimes. I generally try and exercise in the evenings after work because I am NOT a morning person. When I was working at home I would get up, eat some breakfast, take a leisurely time waking up, and then I would exercise, shower, and get ready to work, but now that I go to an office, it's all I can do to get up, shower, grab a quick breakfast and get out the door. But anyway, as I was saying, I was working on getting everything together for a delivery (today) for a client, and on 2 of my exercise days, we got home after 1am, last night (thursday) I got home at 5am and it was all I could do to make it to my bed and sleep.

Good news: I am still making progress this week in my weight loss, and now have lost 12.5 lbs since I started (July 31st), so I am encouraged that even if I mess up with my exercise plan, by sticking with my food plan, I am still losing. Today I burned 500+ calories playing DDR. Typically I burn around 18 calories a song, but today I really pushed myself to do every song between 20 and 30 calories, which made my workout go much faster, and keep my heart rate up the entire time.

I am not super good at planning out my meals entirely in advance, though my fiance and I tended to eat out a lot because we're always busy it seems, but I've been trying hard to make more food at home and have been living off lean cuisine's frozen meals. I do log everything in my food log and tally up the calories. I don't want to overwhelm myself right now, so I am focusing on just the calories. Once I reach my first plateau I know it will be time to start limited my fat intake, and doing more vigorous exercise for longer, and possibly limited my calories once more, and work on some weight training.

BTW, I just put up a new avatar, it's a picture I took today. I look quite a bit thinner than I really am, but I have a hard time putting up a picture that is not flattering. I put a full body pic taken earlier this week (10.5lbs lost) as my profile pic so you all can get the full effect. BTW, I know I don't look happy, it's because I was squinting right into the sun :P

Welcome, Rakel!

I SOOO would not bash yourself over sweet n low. My goodness, does that even have calories? I can really identify with you over exercise being hard to do, except I don't have any good excuses for not doing it. You've got the right idea about not overwhelming yourself. Just take it one decision at a time. Enough good decisions over time add up to results.

Your avatar is great! It's nice to see who we're "talking" to.

Post often - this is a wonderful site full of very supportive people!

Rakel - Great to have you here! I think you're really going to enjoy the accountability. These ladies really help me stay in line. If I know I have to post a screw-up I tend to rethink it before it happens.

Hopefully you'll figure out a way to get in your exercising mainly for how good it will make you feel. I really feel that for weight loss, most of the emphasis should be on finding a great plan that works best for you. However, for overall well-being and feeling GREAT in your new body...nothing beats exercise! Just don't let one aspect discourage you to the point that you throw in the towel. Food changes, now, exercise changes when you can make them happen. Babystep.

As for my day...totally on plan.

Stayed under on my calories and worked out not only this morning (thanks for asking, Cheryl) but also this afternoon! This morning I swam 1/2 MILE (32 lengths)!!!!!!! Then I did weight lifting. This afternoon I met a group of friends over at a friend's house and we all did about 20 minutes of water aerobics and an hour and a half of gossip and giggles.

Catch you all tomorrow!

(Oh, and Rakel, don't be discouraged this weekend if it gets a little slow around here. It happens every week! )

Thanks ladies! You all are very encouraging and I am loving it here so far! I passed up a few other forums before I settled on this one. I'm not *too* hard on myself, but my fiance is. He knows me all to well -- I have tried many times to do this and it was always my leniency that brought it to an end. I know he has my best interests in mind. He's helping me a lot, helping me research and figure out the best thing for me to do. So, at any rate, he is watching me like a hawk until I can prove myself responsible :P

So, that said, I got some bourbon chicken and fried rice for lunch/dinner (split it into 2 meals). Not exactly the most healthy thing and I have no idea how many calories are in it, but I am preparing for the worst. If that means I eat less today, then so be it... it was worth it! I figure it's better to treat myself once in awhile than totally deprive myself, as long as it's not a daily thing.

I guess that seems weird because it's like 2:02am, but my whole sleeping schedule is off because of the past 2 days. That's the biggest problem with finding a routine right now -- my schedule is constantly fluctuating, it's a wonder I can even manage to keep things under (semi)control.

UNTIL NEXT TIME ~

Morning everyone
WOO I MADE IT TO SATURDAY!! and I made it sleeping to 10am...I can't remember the last time I made it sleeping past 7 at the absolute latest. Man...If you couldn't tell I'm not a sleeper... I'm happy if I make it a solid 4 hours...and it's not for a lack of trying.
Anyway, I got up and made some brunch...coffee, and an omelet (egg whites, 1/2 serving of healthy choice thin sliced ham and 1 serving of cabot 50% reduced fat cheddar) it doesn't sound like much but I like it so it was sort of a treat.
I'm getting my car back on Wednesday so they say but for the weekend I've borrowed my mom's car so I can get to the gym....my parents went to Maine so they didn't need 2 cars. I'm a little nervous as I haven't driven at all since the crash... and I wasn't much of a fan of driving in the first place. I suppose it's just like weight loss though the only way to evolve is to get back on the horse when you fall off.
It's grossly hot here...well for Massachusetts I guess... mj I'm with you...I love the cool fall like weather! but at this point now that I've experienced south Texas in August I have a new criteria on what is grossly hot...I'll take this over Texas any day! And hey...the gym is air conditioned! Well that is pretty much my plan for the day....take a shower, go to the gym...take my time at the gym and enjoy it....clean my apartment, do some laundry....and relax.

WELCOME to everyone new!!!! It's great to have you!

Hi everyone! Welcome Rakel!!!

It is still really hot here...supposed to break tomorrow and I can't wait! sunshine--I know what you mean....my younger brother came home from Afghanistan a couple of months ago and he said it would reach 140's--YIKES! I can't even imagine! I just don't like the heat, of course when it's freezing and snowing I'm not a huge fan of that either, but at least I can put on a sweater! There is only so much I can take off! Hope the driving went ok--Last year I was in 2 accidents w/ in two weeks. Neither were my fault, but driving after (especially after the 2nd one b/c I was pretty bruised) was pretty scary.

No exercise today, well unless you count the cleaning I did--actually, I should count that it was 3 hours of sweating, it must count for something! It's too hot to clean too, but one of my friends is coming to visit tomorrow and I had to do some stuff!

Food choices so far have been really good and LOTS of water!

Have a great day!
mj