Good morning and good Monday to everyone,

I had such a good weekend until insomnia hit last night. I exercised consistently for 4 days in a row - the first 4 days in a row in all of August & September. I ate within my calorie range, and they were good 'quality' calories. I caught up on sleep, cleaned my house, cleaned out my mind. It was great. Then last night it fell apart, and here I am at work tired and mad at myself for eating those peanut butter crackers, a whole can of corn, and half a bag of Craisins that I wasn't really hungry for at 3:00 am. So I'm mad, but... I'm trying to focus on the overall positive-ness of the weekend. This is a new week, and I'm leaving for an 8-day trip Wednesday (friends, family, class reunion, visiting prospective grad schools all in one trip), so I need to keep my head on straight to stay on the wagon for that.

Paperclippy, congratulations!!! What a great accomplishment.

Fae, you didn't tell us that part (that he'd hit on you before, screwed you over, and didn't realize it was you this time). That makes it 10x funnier! Living well is the best revenge.

What's everyone up to this week? How did the weekend go?

Hey girls,
I'm around again. I've been on again, off again, on again off again, with my wl and posting. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and be motivated and keep my self going. I feel like when I use these boards a lot, I stay on track and stay motivated.

I'm moving and its a big mess. I am fixing up a house and my parents decided to sell theirs since my son and I are moving but, it sold before mine was done so now I have to move into my sister, and then to mine. Plus, my parents have been in their house for over 35 years so it is full of crap. what a mess. Anyway, that means, most of my free time is now used for packing and cleaning and I can't get in my work outs in like I was so I have to be extra careful on my food. I need to stay really motivated. I am making a promis to my self to do this and not fall off the wagon just because I'm busy and stressed. That is how I have let myself slip in the past and gain back what I have worked to hard to lose(this isn't my first go at trying to lose wieight). So if anyone has any encouraging words or words of wisdom, I'm all ears.
thanks,
Jennie

Morning all! Well, I had another awful weekend food-wise...I really don't know what is wrong with me. At least I did get in more exercise than usual...I got my bike brakes fixed Sat. morning so I rode it around for a while and spend a lot of time outside, and yesterday we had a gathering for my dad's b-day and I played ball outside with the kids. I notice though that my eating is worse when I'm not sleeping well...for the last couple of weeks every morning I wake up feeling like I haven't slept at all. Or, if I do sleep deeply I have really crazy/disturbing dreams. Maybe I have sleep apnea or something? All I know is my poor eating habits seem directly related to the quality of my sleep...in fact, I find this to be true as I look back over the last couple of years. Probably has a lot to do with stress...so maybe I'm an emotional overeater after all and just didn't realize it?? Oh, I can't wait to get my psych degree so I can analyze myself...LOL

Megan~ Sounds like you had a GREAT weekend...don't worry about the early morning binge...you could have chosen much worse food!! As long as you realize where you went wrong and jump right back on the wagon you're in great shape. Have fun on your trip, and good luck finding a grad school!

Jennie~ Welcome back! I know how those moving woes go...we sold our last house before our new one was done too and had to sleepover with family for a few days. It was the beginning of an awfully hot summer and I had a 7 week old baby at the time to boot! Hang in there...moving is quite a process but once you get done you'll feel so proud of the accomplishment! And don't worry about the exercise too much...moving can be a workout in itself!

HAPPY MONDAY!!! Well this weekend I had sorority rush at my school and there was food ALL over the place, but I was really good and made sure to bring healthy snacks for myself and stuck to only them. Plus, because of such a busy weekend I didn't even drink like I usually do so I am in a pretty good mood. Next weekend though is gonna be a toughie... LOTS of drinking and eating because rush is over and everyone celebrates (wish me luck).

Christy-have you ever seen the episode of Mad About You when Paul is really sore and tired and he thinks he has the sleep apnea so he gets checked out and they tell him (they watch him sleep) that he is sleeping normally. So then they observe Helen Hunt's character's sleeping patterns and she like goes crazy and hits/beats up the pillows and rolls all over the place. I thought that was funny.

Hey all! Had a great weekend. It is so nice not to have wedding stuff to do! Eating was crappy since we spent the whole weekend at Shaun's parent's house. We went out for dinner Friday night, had burgers and sweet corn Saturday, home cooked fattening goodness on Sunday, you get the idea? I started Pilates again though. Mostly since I am so stressed. I am leaving my 6 month old for two days to go to a convention for work. It doesn't sound like much, but it is really stressing me out. I am just in a funk and I think it is because of that. I figured some alone time with yoga and Pilates would help and it really did. It is cool here this week so we can hopefully do some walking. It is either 100 degrees or rainy and windy here in September. Pretty hard elements for a baby.

Regarding sleep...I had never slept well until I had a baby. Now I know what it really is like to be tired. I think I use every last reserve of energy in a given day and I sleep awesome for 5 hours straight until feeding time. I didn't even really realize how bad my sleeping was until I got great sleep.

Hoping to up the exercise big time this week and I'm going grocery shopping tonight so I don't have any more crappy meals. Speaking of food, my daughter started solids this weekend. I mushed up some avacado for her. I have never seen such funny faces. I don't know if avacado is her thing.

Meredith

Happy Monday everyone - hope everone had a good weekend. I had TONS of homework, so I pretty much stayed inside the whole time.

Hi, girls! I'm pretty new to the board so I figured I better just jump right in! I've noticed that some of you have mentioned school.......just curious as to majors. I just got my BS in biology in May 2004 and I'm back in school. I feel like it will never end!! lol I only have 9 more months to go until I'll be a certified nuclear medicine technologist!

I just started trying to lose weight (again.......) about 2 weeks ago. I've been really good about exercising and cutting calories. I've been keeping a food and exercise diary and that has helped tremendously! I've just been doing the treadmill for now. I have a few DVDs that I used to love so I'll start working them in soon.

Can't wait to get to know everyone!

Hey all.. an update to tell you about my day.. one of high highs and low lows, etc.. before off to do more things *sigh* my work never ends...

Today my mom offered to drive me to work. Well standing on the stairs, she fell.. only down 4 steps, but she crashed into the wall and is in bunches of pain right now. Poor mom . She still drove me to work though.

After work I had my interview.. and I was hired!! Much happiness and joy... so we will see about my working Sat. nights at wendys, since they can't have me off EVERY saturday. But still, I am full of joy.. I start on Wednesday.

Then the big happiness of the day.. I went to Curves to see how much it would cost to join. Well I now have a trial membership until the end of the month.. after which (or, in my case, in bits and pieces until then) I will pay $104.. and after that $29 a month! (This is where my working both jobs for the next 2 weeks comes in handly lol) The woman there, Angie, was really nice.. she checked to see if they could lower the joining fee for me because I am in college, but she couldn't find anything.. then she re-introduced me to all the machines (all of which I dimly remembered, but it was good she went around with me, demonstrated, then had me try). She talked to me about weight loss and how sodium can retain fat (something i DIDN'T know). She also told me 185 by thanksgiving is a reasonable goal.. yay! I ended up staying there a lot later than I meant to, talking to her.

So tomorrow morning I will get dressed, go there for my first full actual workout in years, then off to class! Ack! That reminds me, I have homework.. *sigh* I better be off!

the party was a SUCCESS!!!!!! WHOOHOOO! it was huge! about 100 people showed up, spoiled lil brat she is!! LOL MY BABY IS ONE TODAY!! I tihnk Im going to cry!!
On another note, I didnt too bad because I didnt eat at all, I was so busy with everyone there... I have some catching up to do!

Happy Birthday JustForUS baby! Glad to hear your party was a success!

Jennie, welcome back. Good luck with moving, and I hope you'll stick around.

Christy, sleep definitely effects food intake! It's rough, I've been there many times (like right this minute). Here's to better nights' sleep.

She-mullet, yoga and pilates sounds awesome and very relaxing.

Gamma, welcome. I graduated in May 2004 w/ a Biology degree, am currently doing marine research, and hope to go back to grad school for a Marine Bio Ph.D. next year (keep your fingers crossed).

Fae, I'm glad you had such a positive experience with Curves and have fun with your workout.

Happy 1st Justforus baby!!!

I'm off on my trip and will be gone for 2 weeks. I'll either be at home and will try to make my dad run with me, but yummy bad food everywhere. My parents are big eaters (literally and figuratively). Or I'll be with friends, eating out, who are naturally thin no matter what junk they eat. But at least 1 of them runs so we'll run together. I'll try not to come back a marshmallow. See ya'll!

Gammagirl - a certified nuclear medicine technologist! that sounds scary as ****, haha. I have finally settled on a major...Education, elementary that is. Sometimes I get cold feet, but I do that whenever I pick a new major, but this time I am going to school full time.
Keeping a record of my eating and exercise has helped me a lot too! We are right about the same weight wise with about the same goal! I would love to know what everyone is doing with their life too; majors, jobs etc.

Fae!!! I used to work at Ladies Workout Express, I was the manager (it is just like curves), if you kinda tell them again that you may not be able to join because of the start up fee they will waive it or at least lower it. People don't wanna lose a "sale" because of a start up fee. I went into a curves once, as part of my job, to "shop" them, and I had them talked into no joining fee and a couple months free. Just wanted to let you know, in case it will help! I have worked at 3 different gym (not all like curves), and the most important thing to them is that you join, most of the time they'll bend over backwards to have you do so.

Wow, I totally thought I posted here yesterday. I guess not! I guess I'll start with my own update then respond to everyone else . . . We didn't do any celebrating for my birthday yesterday because it was a Monday, and I had class until 5:30 and my bf had to work late (almost 8pm) because of a deadline. We're planning on doing the birthday celebrating this weekend instead (I have a feeling that that engagement ring I mentioned a few weeks ago may finally be making its appearance, assuming he's not too stressed out from working overtime all week!), I don't know exactly what we are going to do. My eating has been off and on lately, and since I haven't been sleeping well (still getting over jetlag and stomach flu) waking up early to go to the gym is out of the question for at least a couple more days. Yet somehow I managed to lose another pound, I guess I am officially 135 now (watch, now that I've said that, it will be 140 tomorrow!!), which is 50 lbs gone!!

I had a funny thing happen last night, I had made sandwiches for dinner (chicken, lettuce, tomato in a wheat pita), and we had our window open, and these two kids (like 10 years old or so) came up to the window and were like "What are you eating?" I said "sandwiches," and the kid was like "oh, what are they?" so I said "chicken and tomato" and he said "oh, I've had that before. Well, enjoy your lunch." Okay, I did make lunch for dinner I suppose, but still, what kind of people come up to your window while you're eating dinner and make conversation with you? It was really weird. We closed the windows after that!

Megan - Thanks! Don't worry about your binge, everyone does it sometimes! I would have the other night when I was up at 4:30, but all we had in the fridge was grapes.

Jennie - Welcome back! The best advice I can give is to just keep coming here for support.

Christy - I'm sorry to hear you haven't been sleeping well . . . I haven't either, maybe it's the weather? The only thing that seems to help me at all is turning the a/c on really high and then getting under a big blanket. For some reason I sleep a lot better when I'm under a big blanket, but it's too hot still! What a waste of electricity.

Jenna - Good luck staying on track this weekend!

Meredith - That's pretty funny about sleep and the baby. Maybe if I had a baby I would get better sleep! (Not such a good reason to get pregnant though!) I do sleep better when I get lots of exercise though.

Jenicra - That's too bad about the homework. Luckily my semester is getting off to a slow start so not much work yet.

Gammagirl - Welcome! I majored in computer science (also got my BS in May 2004), now I'm a grad student in the same field (in particular machine learning/computational neuroscience). Wow, nuclear medicine technologist, that sounds pretty impressive!! What exactly does a nuclear medicine technologist do?

Fae - I'm sorry to hear about your mom's fall! I hope she feels better soon. That's great that you worked out a deal at Curves, let us know how the workouts go!

JustForUs - Happy birthday to your baby, sounds like the party was great fun!

I hope everyone has a great week! School is going really well for me so far, I'm hoping it stays that way!

I just deleted my replyyy...

So.. the short version..
Sorry I'm always a day late. My Mondays are CRAZY!!

Healthwise... I'm back on track now, but this weekend wasn't so great. I mostly "hung out" or went to parties so there was just a lot of alcohol and junk food.
I got in some good work outs though, so I don`t feel like it was a total loss. I'm really pushing myself to be able to run at least 35min during the 5k next sunday.

Lifewise...

I met a guy who I actually like and have chemistry with!!!
We hung out friday night, saturday night and all day sunday watching football and grilling out. Saturday night I actually spent the night with him, but didn't do anything except sleep. I promise ! I'm not that kind of girl (anymore. ) Anyway it was so nice to finally be around someone who I have things in common with and who I am attracted to. However, a lot of time was spent in the Do-You-Like-Me? Gray Area of Doom.
Anyway... it turns out... OF COURSE.... he has a girlfriend. She lives across the country, but they have been together for 3 years. He didn`t tell me this, I found out through another friend. I'm confused in a way that I know I shouldn't be. In 20 years how have I not come to expect this type of thing?? But I mean... seriously... how does a 3 year relationship not come up in three days of hanging out? Does he think I already know? Does she know we spent the night together?

I guess he just isn't that into me!



I really want to catch up on everyone and I'll start working on it...but if I don't get back here today... HAVE AN AWESOME TUESDAY!!

JustForUs - Congrats on the success of the party!

Megan - ooo =x Have fun!

LockItUp - I never thought of that.. but I actually have more like 3 weeks to get the first fee, rather than two.. so I think I can work it out. I don't like people working extra-hard just for me. Self defeating? Yes. but true. But thanks for your suggestions!

Clippy - Wow. That's.. strange. Takes all kinds in the world I suppose.. and here's to hopin you get your ring! *G* Im excited for you!

Wasted - Ouch. That's all I have to say.

Well ladies, this morning I did a full, actual, 30 minute workout.. my first time at Curves, and I have learned a valuable lesson.. if I am going there and do not have time to walk home, shower, and change.. ALWAYS put hair up in a bun! My hair is long, about halfway down my back.. I had it in a ponytail, thinking "Oh I won't sweat that much, i remember it bein really easy when I was a member before.. so I'll just do it and then go to the square and catch the bus for school..." So of course by the time I'm halfway through the workout I am sweating my bum off! Half my ponytail was soaked.. but I felt so great afterwards! I had been thinking that this was a silly idea, since I'm poor so I shouldn't spend my money on any kind of gym membership.. but you know what? Now I'm glad I'm doing it, because after I stopped feeling uncomfortable because I'm working out where *gasp!* people can see me, I was actually enjoying myself. (Even though the idea that people were watching me was also silly, considering the time I was there it was myself, Angie, and another lady who was working out too.) After this, of course, I had to walk in the HEAT for about 35 minutes to get to where my bus is.. after which I went into the drugstore, bought 2 20oz bottles of water, and drank one within 2 minutes. They are now refilled, and sitting in my freezer.. waiting until tomorrow, when I can go work out again... be nice and cold for walking there and back (to shower!)

Of course, then I screwed it all up by eating fries and nuggets at Wendys. Man I cannot wait until i start my new job, because as far as I can tell it is a LOT harder to steal food there, and I need someone to tell me no! Haha tomorrow is my first day!

Thank you all, for sharing this strange, random elation (about exercise!) with me.