I have really been enjoying going on evening walks with my fiance. I am getting more excited as my wedding plans are coming along. I have been pretty busy with school, work, and wedding planing so I have not been on in about a week. I am glad to see this new thread. I still have 4more pounds to lose before I would have transferred to the 140's chat forum but I was not looking forward to it. I am still new and still getting familiar with everyone. I would hate to say goodbye so soon. So, Yay!!! I don't have to say goodbye now everyone will be together in the 140's and 150's :D

Ok, time for a real post...

sotypical, I LOVE that image of you singing in the car! Anything that gives you a little boost! Also, I hate when I have such good plans and then I go and forget something. I used to do that sometimes and I never had time to leave at lunch, so I'd end up rifling though the snack cupboard- never a good idea. Parents apparently thing that corn- in every imaginable form- is the only acceptable snack. Salad rolls sound like a MUCH better option than fishy crackers and fruit snacks :). As far as the ipod thing... I'm actually probably not a good person to get an opinion from. I'd say just keep the one you have if it works fine, but that's just me being cheap (as per usual) ;). Hope your back feels better after the massage!

urthworm, welcome! I like your resolve to make a change- you'll be back down in no time!

mickletoe, when are you getting married? That sounds like you have a lot on your plate! Glad you're still with us :).

As for me... I was pretty pissed off this morning at the scale and I think I've decided not to weigh myself anymore for a while. It's been so all over the place, it just drives me crazy. I'm also taking a break from counting calories and carbs and just try to focus on making healthy choices and eating when I'm hungry. I almost think that being so restrictive is maybe contributing to the wonkiness of the scale. Anyway, I think this week of listening to my body more will be good practice for the next two months. I think doing it in a familiar environment with familiar foods will help me get a grip when everything is new. I'm trying not to freak out too much, although I did eat some fro-yo with my sister today and might've ordered it with chocolate chips on top. I would've never done that before (my off-plan days are usually so impulsive, I never order/go buy anything off-plan- I just eat whatever's in front of me), but I was feeling free after making those decisions today. My sister was also complaining about a TV show with women who were "perfectly healthy and normal" and weighed 140- or 150-something and were trying to lose weight. She's always been a healthy weight and athletic, so this gave me some perspective. Not that I'm ready to stop losing, I definitely want to get to my goal, I just know I need to be less obsessive about it.

Anyway, that's where my head's at today. My mom was telling me I looked "so thin" today, which I hate and wanted nothing more than to grumble, "well, tell your freaking scale that," but I resisted. My sister also made fun of me for looking like Jillian Michaels today. I think it was the v-neck t shirt and aviators that did it (if anyone watches her show, that's kind of ALL she wears), but still. Both of these are kind of annoying on a "fat day," but definitely not the worst thing in the world...

Hope every one's week is off to a good start!

urthwurm - welcome! And congrats on making it this far. You have come a long way from your start weight , to where you are now. Don't let those last stubborn pounds trip you up.

mickeltoe - Wow, you have so much going on right now. When are you getting married? Have you found a dress yet that fits the new you?

tuende - The scale seems like it has gotten eviler once you start getting to the home stretch. It feels as if those last 10 to 20 pound is all about finding a balance between being obsessive over weight and not caring at all.

Me: For some reason the my weight has been going bizerk, the other day I weighed in at 153.8 and today I weighed in at 158. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Hey ladies, just thought I'd stop in for a bit of an update. I'm sitting around 152 lately, I busted through my 155 stall by having crazy busy weekends where I had not much time to eat! However, I did eat out at least once each of the past two weekends. Not sure if anyone remembered my Indian food dilemma, but lemme tell you Mulligatawny soup and Chicken Tikka (served with 2x salad instead of rice) saved my butt! And it was delicious!

This week may be a write off for me, it's Canada Day on Thursday and I am travelling across the province to my parents and throwing a bbq for my best friends that I never get to see anymore! My parents have a pool and treadmill though so I will have to put those to good use to counteract the possible bad eating.

I know there are a few Canadians around here, what are you guys doing for Canada day? any exciting plans?

tuende-thank you for the welcome. :)

Jelbb-thank you Jelbb. :)

Cally Callahan- Have fun, and I'm sure you'll be ok. lol

Few. I'm going to do a joice fasting. It's raw veggies and fruit juiced...unfortinitly I only have a bender and no money to get a juicer. But I hope I get some good results...it sucks, but the outcome will be very good!

Oh and I'm going to focus on 135 instead of 130 because I think of the number so fare away...like it's impossiable idk...I need to break up my goal so it feels more reachable. I'm around 149 right now...so very dissapointed with myself. I feel ashamed I've been here for a year...and there was a point when I got down to 141...but then I gave in because I was stressed out. :(

hi ladies. i am moving over to this thread after being in the 160s since april. yay! finally! i weighed in at 158.6 today, so i'm hoping the 150s are here to stay. i am a little worried because of all the 4th of july bbqs this weekend and then i am going on vacation next week. does anyone have any tips on eating out and still losing? i really don't have a specific plan anymore, started with mrc, but it was so restrictive and i couldn't keep up anymore. i just try to eat lean protein, veggies, some fruit and low carbs. i haven't had bread/pastas/startches and those things in a long time. i would like to not gain anything over the vacation period. i'm going to research restaurant we can eat at and try to plan ahead. my other goal is to be at 150 by aug. 1. i hope i can do it! i look forward to "meeting" all of you and being in this thread.

A NOVEL by Jelbb

Tuende:
I get those days too... the ones where you just wanna eat despite not being at all hungry! For example, RIGHT NOW, I've finished lunch, and now I would give my left leg for a Kit Kat. I'm doing my damnedest to resist, and hope I can get through the rest of the day without making a trip to the vending machine.
Also, when I lived abroad I lost a tonne of weight in the first month... I think it's just... more walking, more adventuring, and fewer bad habits. So despite your ice cream habit in Kenya, you probably easily balanced it out and then some.

Claire:
Hmmm. Yeah, I definitely know what you mean by the intense feeling of guilt. I stood at a convenience store cash a few weeks back, undecided until I was at the front of the line whether I was going to let myself get some chocolate. I still hadn't decided as I threw the chocolate bar onto the counter. As I paid, this intense feeling of horrible GUILT just WASHED over me. My mind was racing with scrutiny and self-flagellation. It was overkill. And I think to a certain extent it's unhealthy to have those feelings.

HOWEVER, I have to remind myself that it's also unhealthy to be stuffing my face with chocolate on a regular basis. And that's just it-- I haven't been eating WELL long enough for me to justify having a sweet snack. Right now I'm counting hours that go by with me being perfectly on-plan, not days... not weeks. When I've been eating well all week long, and getting my exercise in, and I reach for an extra 250 calories, I won't have those feelings of excessive guilt. But right now, I think the guilt stems from the fact that right now, it's not just a "treat," it's the continuation of a bad habit that I'm having a hard time breaking. And that's where the guilt comes from.

No matter what you choose to do though, "dieting" or not, you can keep losing weight, you just need to have a little dedication and motivation to work out and burn the guilt-free treats you allow yourself. :)

Shasha:
Rah rah for the water. I think I've peed a shocking number of times today. I have to walk past the admin assistant at the front desk every time I visit the washroom and I think she judges me a little. :D

I was cheering for England too, what a ridiculously bad call THAT was... yet again, another reason to push for video playback in soccer. It's necessary to stop things like this from happening. Bad calls.

sotypical:
Hahaha, I like the idea of engraving it with something. Slippery when wet is good lol. I lost my decent newer generation iPod, so now I'm using my iPod mini from 1960-whenever the **** they came out. It's got all my old music on it because I'm too lazy to sync it... and because it's a 2 gig... so when I'm working out, I'm often listening to Avril Lavigne, Nickelback and other favourites of my teenage self.

I wasn't on plan this past weekend anyhow. I'll rant more about that soon, but... yeah. I didn't post either. I never do when I'm being bad. :p My disappearances are very very telling.

Urth:
Yeah, I did the same kind of thing. Sheer laziness, and too much junk and I went from 142 to 150... it's a slippery slope those few pounds up. Kudos to you (and me!) for refusing to let things get any worse, and re-dedicating ourselves to turning it around!


Mickle:
YAY! I'm glad that you're pleased with the new thread. I sure am; I love having a populated thread to visit, and see the same people all the time. I've just dipped more permanently down into the 140s, and I'm very grateful I'm not leaving here!

Tuende Again:
I wish you serious luck with the scale boycott and with the instinctive healthy eating trek! I'm sure it'll do your body wonders to be a little less stressed about everything. Also, I always try to remember that weight loss is not linear.
Neither is weight gain. When I was eating absolute sh!t every single day, not working out, and feeling garbagey... I would occasionally force myself to weigh in, just to see how bad things had gotten. After several weeks of not caring and eating REALLY badly, I had only gained three lbs. I thought, "Hey, not bad!" but tried to cut out some of the junk. Then after a few more days of eating... kinda okayish... I had suddenly gained almost 4 more lbs.

If you're working out, if you're eating well, if you're doing all the right things... the ups on the scale mean nothing. Nothing more than that your body is a bit confused, and it's still working on balancing everything out, or you're a bit bloated for whatever reason. But you WILL see that scale going down, you just need to... well, do what you're doing, and ignore the scale for a bit! Keep us posted! :hug:

tots:
When do you weigh yourself, lady-doll? :)
The following might be obvious to you, and you're gonna be like, "Why is she telling me this?" but I'm always surprised how many people don't think of this.

Unless you're like me, and you weigh yourself first thing in the morning, after a washroom break... then your weight fluctuates by surprising degrees all day long. Especially dramatic are the gains and losses observed when you're eating or drinking. For example, I've got a 700ml (sorry mi Americanos, I don't do ounces) bottle of water in front of me. I've had about three of them in the past couple of hours. I would hazard a guess that each bottle of water weighs a couple of pounds. The result of this is... when I pound back a bottle of this water, and haven't visited the washroom... an extra 2 lbs of weight is sitting in my stomach.
In "The Biggest Loser" a contestant cheated, intentionally gaining about 8 lbs by pounding back a couple gallons of water right before the weigh in.

SO... if you don't weigh yourself at the same time every day... if you do it after eating or drinking different amounts of food or liquids at different times... your weight will be an absolute crapshoot.

If that's not the case, then it could be a number of things. Impressively high water retention... this can often be solved by drinking ridonculous amounts of water (See above where I mention that I've had three 700 ml bottles of water already today...die bloat, die!). Or your TOM coming up-- different people retain water at different times around their TOM. The week before mine, I bloat up like a shiny red balloon.

Or, there's always the possibility that your scale is unreliable and on the fritz?

Cally
Happy early Canada Day!!!! :D
My aunt's birthday is tomorrow, so I'm heading out of the city and up north for a Canada Day/Birthday party. I'm a bit concerned myself about the potential for absolutely ****ty food tomorrow too. Especially because I fell apart this past weekend at my brother and sister-in-law's Buck and Doe and ate toooo much.
Kudos for planning to rock the pool and treadmill tho. Good luck, we'll check in post-Canada Day on how we did!!!

Snowwolf:
Ahhhhh, honey. Okay, so maybe you've been there for a year. You know what? You've been in the 140s for a year, then. You may have lost down lower, and have floated back up... but you didn't gain back to your highest, and you didn't gain any MORE than your highest.
It's time now. Stop beating yourself up over the gain, it happens... I just had it happen too, and I did a good amount of useless self-flagellation... but it's not worth it. We're here, because we know we can make a difference in ourselves. You've proved that you've done it before, and you can definitely do it again. So instead of focusing on how we messed up, let's focus on how we're going to fix it. Together. :hug:

Skinny:
:welcome: Well done on making it into the 150s!!!!
Eating out is always extremely tricky... I often have the waiter/waitress bring out a to-go container and put half of the overly-large portion into the container before I start eating. This way, I don't keep eating once I'm full, just because the food is in front of me.
Also, planning ahead is really great, especially if you can get your hands on the nutrition information online before you go. I like planning what I'm going to order before I get there, so I'm not as tempted by the garbagey fried/pasta foods.

As for meeee....
Geez. Sorry about the absence ladies. I've been quite naughty eating-wise since the weekend, and I felt AWFUL about it. I'm sad to say that while I was pretty good at my brother and sister-in-law's Buck and Doe (wedding fundraiser in the form of a party), I fell apart the day after. My aunt gave me a huge box of cupcakes (30+) that were left over to take to work. I did so, thinking I'd have the willpower not to eat them. Turns out... I didn't. I had more cupcakes in the two days before Monday than I really care to admit, and I was a little disgusted with myself. Actually, I was very disgusted with myself. But I took the box to work and pushed them on my coworkers, and they were gone before lunchtime. (Thank god.)

Unfortunately, due to my cupcake capers, and the drinking at the party, my weight bounced back up to 149.2. However, Monday I still went to the gym and had a healthy dinner, and Tuesday I ate like an angel, and this morning I was back down to 147.2.

The Buck and Doe (wedding fundraiser) on the weekend was fun tho. There were some crazy hilarious games, including auctioning off food items to throw at/pour on/pour into the clothes of my brother (the groom) and his fiance. Myself and my boyfriend bid on a jar of relish, and my boyfriend did an impressive job of pouring it all over my brother's face.
Sadly, the only picture taken of my boy and I together, I feel like I look icky in. I'm so overly-critical. I look at it and I just see the sheen of sweat on my face, the fact that my hair was starting to get ragged from the humidity, and the 5 lbs that are especially evident in my face that weren't there two months ago. Bleh. I haven't even tagged him in it, because I worry about what his friends will think about my appearance. How insane is that?

I mentioned in another thread that I've been a bit of an emotional wreck lately... crying every single day, feeling blah and depressed and generally crappy all the time... to the point where it was affecting my relationship with my boyfriend, and making me anti-social at work.
So finally, I went to my doctor yesterday, and after talking to him a bit about whether he thought it might be my birth control or what--- he finally prescribed me a very low dose anti-depressant. He told me to take it in the morning, warning me that it might make me drowsy, and if it does, to start taking it at night. I don't know why I wouldn't just take it at night if it might make me drowsy, and taking it at night is an option... but I did as he said, and took it this morning. Today's been interesting.

I looked up the drug, and of the side effects mentioned online, I've experienced the following this morning:

-(Extreme) drowsiness
- Shakiness
- Excessive yawning (so weird)
- Periods of elation followed by periods of sadness (I suddenly got really happy hyper and hung out by the front desk with our admin assistant, chatting, cracking jokes and feeling very cheerful. By the time I got back to my desk, I felt moody and tired.)

Weird. The period of elation was nice, but mostly I've just felt very tired all day. I think I'm gonna start taking it at night from now on. Hopefully the side effects will ebb, and I'll start to feel better in a few weeks. If not, my doctor and I will chat when I go back for a follow-up appointment soon.

Going to the gym tonight then to the movies. I met a 3FC girly for a drink at Second Cup the other night. We drank our sugar-free Italian sodas and marvelled at the police presence in downtown Toronto after the G20 riots. The parade of mounted officers on horses that passed the coffee shop window were a nice spectacle.
We headed back in the direction of the subway, and decided to sit in a food court downstairs in a shopping centre for a few to chat more. There were a couple of police officers, and we sat a polite distance of about 7 tables away. Well, apparently this was a meeting place, because after about 15 minutes, we were actually full-out SURROUNDED by police officers from every side. Probably about 35 of them. They cracked a few jokes about whether they were making us nervous. I said, "Oh no, we just feel very safe," but... it was a bit surreal, lol.
Anyhow, she and I are heading to a movie tonight, which is nice because a) My boyfriend won't go see it with me, and b) He's working late tonight.

Hugs to all, hope you're having good days. :)

OH, EDIT--- One thing I like about myself:
I like the shape and length of my nails. My boyfriend doesn't like long nails, and it bothers him when I accidentally scratch him, but I LOVE my nails. It's only in the last few years that they've been healthy and strong enough to grow to a decent length, and I think they look great. I was asked once if they're fake. ;)

Holly crap Jelbb that is insane.

I will be back to try and catch up on this.

Again not so on track, trying to be good today. A friend wanted to go for Chinese tonight but thankfully I think my back hurts to bad to do anything but go home. I just went to the Chiropractor and hurt by the time I walked back to work *sigh* - he said to come back this afternoon if it wasn't better. But I feel like I am starting to over react or something. :(

ive finnaly got to the 150s!!

158.8!

I feel another long post coming on...

Jelbb, glad to see you back! I love how you describe my "scale boycott and instinctive healthy eating trek"!! I think it's good for me to try to get a feel for it when I still can kind of mentally calculate calories- at least get a rough estimate anyway. You're totally right about ups on the scale- usually totally meaningless- I just can't seem to get that particular piece of information to stick in my memory :). So because of this, weighing less often is much better for my mental health. I might weigh once before I leave and then maybe a week after I get back, which will be the beginning of Sept. If been having this vague nagging to get on the scale, but I know that I'll just be grumpy if I don't like what it says.
I'm a little jealous of all you 3FC Canadians having little powwows up there :). It's always nice to have a new friend.
I'm glad you got to talk to your doc about the antidepressants. I think mental health is a huge part of your overall health and feeling better emotionally should make losing weight (not to mention every day life) a lot more do-able. Hopefully you'll start feeling better soon!

sotypical, you feel better too! Don't feel like you're overreacting- if it hurts, it hurts! And really, a Chiropractor is the last person who should be judgmental...;)

jahjah, WELCOME! Congrats on the 150's!

skinny, welcome! Sounds like you have a pretty solid plan going into the holiday weekend. Advice for eating out and staying on plan... I usually try to order things that are as simple as possible- if I know what it is/what's in it, I'm usually OK to eat it. Things with a ton of ingredients, things with tons of toppings (even salads) or things like sauces, dressings, etc I usually try to stay away from because there can be tons of hidden calories, sodium, sugar, etc. that I wouldn't necessarily know about. Also, feel free to be as high-maintenance as you like. I like eating at the Dirty Bird (aka Red Robin) where my sister is a server so that I can be super picky about comes on everything and not care :)!

As for me, I'm supposed to be working on job applications and cover letters right now, but as you can see... that's not exactly happening. I have an interview tomorrow for a 1st grade job, which was totally out of the blue, but I'm really excited about. It's from a district I applied to last summer, so it'll be nice to have a whole year of new experiences to talk about.

My scale boycott/instinctive healthy eating is actually going well. I've also been thinking that maybe I have been going too low with my calories. I used to try to keep my calories low to create as big of an energy deficit as possible. I'd shoot for 1000 cal deficit a day (half from diet, half from exercise- usually) to keep me losing 2 lbs/week which worked well for a while. Now it's getting harder and harder to lose and I'd be happy with 1 lb a week, and I haven't really even been seeing that. I'm thinking that since I'm still creating these big deficits (more now that I have more time to workout) that maybe it's freaking my body out and making it want to hang on to the remaining lbs. Just a theory, but I've decided to up my calories to about 1600 on days I work out. I'm not strictly counting, but I have a rough estimate of about how many calories I want to eat at each meal. I've never eaten this many calories of good food before on a daily basis and I'm having to be a little creative. I haven't been on the scale, so I have no idea if it's helping, but I think having no idea is an OK place to be for right now.

Daily Compliment: I have kind of developed an I-don't-give-a-**** attitude, and I like it. I should say, I have that attitude about stupid crap Americans tend to spend way too much time worrying about. It amounts to a lot less worrying. I'm not even super worried about the interview tomorrow. I feel prepared and if they like me, awesome, if they don't, at least the interview will be good practice. I think it comes from being more secure with myself and what my priorities are.

LADIES!!! I have no time, and everyone has posted such lovely, long chats that I would love to read thoroughly and add to, but I don't have time right this second... because... my boyfriend got the promotion!!! YAY BABE!!! :) Thank you all for your happy thoughts, it worked! We're going out to celebrate, and I will definitely be off plan, ugh. I will be back tomorrow to confess and start anew, and I will give you all your due! xoxo

Just giving this thread a little bump...

Sasha- congrats to your boyfriend on the promotion! Hope you had fun celebrating!

Today my interview went great! I felt like I was saying what I wanted to say, which isn't always the case in interviews. Now the only hurdle is whether or not they actually liked what I said ;). I'll be in China when I find out if I got it or not, so I won't have time to be too sad if it's bad news. I'll be in freaking CHINA! I'm leaving in 4 days! Ah! I have also been warned that the Chinese use tons of oil in their cooking and apparently it's rude to ask for less- because oil is expensive, it's a sign of respect and generosity that they give you more. Great...

HIIII didn't stop by yesterday, because I was very, very bad. More on that later... :carrot:

Urthwurm- welcome back!! good job stopping taking hold of that weight gain before it gets outta control! I actually did the same thing... i was down to 147 at one point, but was maintaining around 150 for about a month, and now i've been eating like crazy and I'm at 153 this morning. I feel ya sister, let's get this thing under control!

mickletoe- first of all, your name cracks me up! second, congrats on getting married!!! so fun :) yay for long walks with your sweet, and you're gonna be looking sexxy on your wedding day!!

totsandfries- could it be your scale??? have you checked it for reliability? if you step on the scale first thing in the morning, it should tell you a valid weight, but then if u step off and back on again it should say the EXACT same weight as it just did. do it 3-4 times, and if it doesn't say the same or nearly the same weight over and over, you need a new one :p if it does, then you must have had a severe gain of water weight, lol! i don't know what would make a scale jump 5lbs in just a few days... let us know!

cally callahan- good job going out to eat and choosing a HEALTHY option!! i'm soo impressed :) hope canada day was awesome! (or is awesome... don't know exactly when it is/was)

snow wolf- careful with ur juice fast. ouch that sounds painful! i think setting smaller mini goals is a good way to get to ur ultimate goal :)

skinnyby25- welcome!!! well done you, so happy you've made it to the 150s!! i'm with you, i have 2 4th of july bbqs this weekend, and i'm going to try really hard to stay away from the inevitable goodies. for me, i'm going to try to eat something healthy before i go, and drink lots of water. as far as vacay and eating out... i'd go for salads with the dressing on the side. or fish with veggies. and down a glass of water before you eat. and eat slowly. good luck!

jelbb- i like the pic of u and ur bf, but i know what u mean, i'm overly critical of my own pics too. from an outsider's position, i think u look cute :) i didn't see a sweaty face or a chunky face, just a cute girl and her cute bf. i am SO sorry that you're having emotional troubles :( that cannot be fun! i don't know much about mood elevators, but i do know that they take a little while to work properly. i'm really glad that you're listening to and taking responsibility for your body, because a lot of people feeling that down wouldn't love themselves enough to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. talking to your doctor takes courage, so u should be proud. good job!! and that's a funny story about being surrounded by police hahaha!

sotypical- i'm so sorry about ur back. i feel ya dude! do u know what is causing the pain? have u been to a doctor? back pain is debilitating :( also, i've noticed that u haven't gotten on the "thing i like about myself" bandwagon... what's with that? let's hear some compliments, missy!

jahjah- WELCOME LADY!! woooohoooo!!!

tuende- your daily compliments are freaking inspiring! heck ya "i-don't-give-a-****" freaking awesome!! why worry about stuff? it either happens or doesn't... i've become sort of the same way through this process. and with regards to weight loss, i've been able to maintain a sort of--eh, i'm going to keep going, and i'm going to lose the weight, sooo this or that or whatever isn't going to derail me. so ya, you rock. CONGRATS on the interview, i'm very excited for you, and fingers are crossed man!! have a BLAST in china!! how long will u be there? they use a lot of sesame oil, which isn't as bad, if i recall correctly. either way, try to up your veggie intake to combat the oil calories maybe :)

as for me:
confession time. i have been a bad, bad girl. remember last week when boyfriend and i celebrated his interview with beers and brie and a baguette? well, apparently i don't have as much will power as i thought, because that night just made me want to snack all day the next day, and i did. I have this thing where i'd much rather snack on junk all day than eat real food in real portions. i'm weird. i can't even put into words how yuck my eating was for the next 2 days. it just was yuck. i tried to counter it with lots of water and veggies, and i did pretty well for 3 days, which brings us to wednesday.

he got the job weds. i had done so well during the day, then he got the news around 5pm, so we went to celebrate weds night. beers, chips and queso and 7-layer dip, ice cream, and more beer. sooo, yesterday i woke up with good intentions, had a cup of water and a cup of tea, and went into the kitchen for breakfast. and immediately opened the freezer and grabbed the ice cream. FOR BREAKFAST. very, very bad Shasha. the rest of my day went accordingly. so much so that i was a bit sick to my stomach by the end of it. which is good, because at that point, i was doooooooone.

back on track today. the boyfriend knows that i'm recommitting and not to try to tempt me. he's pretty supportive without making me feel fat... no drinking till my cousin's wedding (august 7th), and i'm going to cycle calories again. plus lots of water. word up!

one thing i like about myself:
i am really good at giving advice!! i tend to have good insight :)