Good morning Peeps

We are finally to get above zero today - maybe even close to freezing - sounds like a good day for a nice long dog(s) walk.

Sharon - point made - I will think about it. It's the whole photo thing at this point although I wasn't afraid of the camera while we were on a cruise last month. Normally I am the one taking the pics and I actually would hand it to my hubby and ask him to take my pic. Thanks for the zing as I certainly need it at times.

Today I need to get the serious stuff done for my mom's surprise party next week - including house cleaning fit for company. So everyone enjoy your day, move your bodies, drink your water and SMILE.

Hugs to you all,
Carol

Sharon -- Thanks! I actually don't feel that bad about it. The old me made an appearance for a day and ate donuts and sweets galore. But I hope the new me is back today and should be headed for the gym!! In the scheme of things, it's fine. Provided I don't let it escalate!!

Annie -- I can't believe you forgot to weigh in! Well, I guess I can, I've done that too...

Carol -- What's entailed representing the hospital?

Well Good Morning everyone. I didnt post yesterday and I probably should have. I had a horrible food day. It started off fine. However, I have a disabled son who has seizures and his medicine (which keeps him from having seizures) cost a lot, so my husband and I are meticulous about keeping up the health ins. Dh started a new job back after Christmas, he was hired and took the job due to having immediate benefits. He asked and asked and asked about them, finally we were given a paper that had all the numbers on it and told to go online and set up everything. So we assumed all was well. I went to get my son's meds yesterday and was told we had no ins. I had a melt down, this is a $800 med that he has to have. I had to come home wake DH up (he works nites) and the next 3 hours were a blur. Needless to say I ended up eating a Whopper with cheese half a sm fry and a Drpepper. Plus 4 mini reeses pb cups. I went over points by atleast 10 that is with using up my flex points. Long story short I messed up, however by 4pm we had the ins straight and my son's meds in hand with a sm co pay. I really have some emotional eating issues. I did weigh this moring preparing for the worst and I have lost 3 lbs. It is bitter sweet.

Julee--nice to see you I am new to the board myself.

AmmiUK and Carol--I have not been a big protein eater in the past and yes I am trying to sneak some in for breakfast and lunch which is helping me.

Thanks for listening everyone.

Tina

First weigh-in on the new scale was 332. That kinda stinks as it's a pound more than the lowest weight I had gotten on the old scale. Boooo
I did eat bad for *one* meal yesterday but it wasn't "one pound bad"


I didn't drink nearly enough water. I just had two big glasses of iced tea with splenda at the restaurant. Maybe I'm retaining a bit of water. I also weighed myself on the old scale to see if there was a difference. There was a 3 pound difference. Crazy thing.

Heather Dw - I think you need to use just one scale - throw the old one away. If you are going to weigh every day you must realize - no matter how you eat - your weight fluctuates. Choose a day for your official weigh in and only use that weight. If you want to weigh every day just use it as a benchmark - I am up 3 pounds from my Tuesday weigh in - I have been completely OP - it's just a number. The only one that matters to me is Tuesday. Last week I stayed the same - I am wanting the scale to wooooosh on down - the more important thing is I have stayed absolutely OP and I have exercised. The scale will move but changing my habits is so very important.

Hugs,
Carol

Carol: Wow. I'm so impressed they picked you. I hope you are too. You should be.

Alison: Hi

Sharon: Congrats on -3. You are doing well. Sorry it wasn't -5 like you hoped but you are doing so well.

Heather: I know. Duh. By the time I remembered to weigh I was pulling out of my driveway. I did it today though.

Tina: Congrats on the -3. I'm so very sorry about your insurance. I will be praying things get sorted out for you and your family. Hugs.

HeatherDW: Maybe it is water weight. If I weigh daily I would make myself crazy by the ups and downs. It really is best to just make it once a week.

I weighed this morning and I am down 5 more. I updated my ticker. Hope everyone has a great day. Mine is now starting as I'm at work so... toodles.

Blessings all,
Annie

Hello All,

Well I’ve been lazy today and I haven’t exercised, but that’s OK, I did twice as much as I should have yesterday, so I’m not feeling slack for not exercising today

I’m in my 3rd week of being back OP now and I haven’t faltered once, it’s been easy to say no to temptation and I really feel like I am 100% back in control now. Goal weight here I come

Heather D – I’m glad you had such a lovely day on your birthday. It sounds like you got some lovely gifts, and you made great food choices at that pasta place, even not eating all of the entrée. I LOVE pasta and I don’t think I could ever leave any, diet or not

Dusty – I am glad you could find a sauna suit to fit you too. Its ridiculous isn’t it how things that should be designed for the bigger person especially clothes to exercise in, are generally aimed at the skinny people!

Jeanne – It’s wonderful isn’t it when we fit in the bath better after losing weight. If you ask me its things like that and fitting into our clothes better that are far more important and more rewarding than what the scale says

How often do you see your step daughter? Mine lives with us, and although I wouldn’t call them close, my daughter and her don’t fight or anything, so it’s not too bad. I hear you on the hard time from your SD though, I’m in the same boat. What we endure for the love of our men huh

Debbie – how are you doing kicking TOM’s butt I like to let him win when he wants too, time enough to catch up with exercising when he’s gone

Julee – welcome back, and a belated congrats on your wedding!! When do we get to see the photos

I’m sorry that you gained back some of the weight you lost. I did the same last year, so we are both returning warriors I too follow the WW points diet, but I don’t go to the classes. That woman at your meeting is enough to put anybody off going to a group, I hope now that you are going back there that you can avoid her, or at least make yourself immune to her stupid comments

That’s brilliant that you won that singing bee competition, you must have an amazing voice. I’m sorry that you weren’t happy with how you looked on the TV, but hey, you can put some of that prize money towards helping you look how you want to look. Maybe buy some exercise equipment, or join a gym. Or keep it for if you need a tummy tuck when you have lost all your weight!! OR have you spent it already? Maybe they’ll do a second follow up show, other than the one you have already filmed, and you can go back on as your new svelte self.

Nancy – I didn’t think it would be possible for your new hair cut to make you look even prettier than you already did, but I was wrong!! What a flattering style, you look gorgeous. OK that’s it, I’m growing my hair now

Heather – sorry to hear about the breaker going, but at least you were lucky enough to have a second freezer and cold weather so that the food you had to move from your fridge/freezer didn’t end up needing to be thrown out. I know that having the breaker go, and having to find an electrician, and then the expense on top of back to back work commitments won’t have been nice for you, so I think you definitely deserved a little comfort food!!

Ratkitty – hey why don’t you invest in paper plates and plastic cutlery, you’d never have to wash another dish

Carol – finally somebody who hasn’t got horror stories to tell about the menopause. I hope I’ll be as lucky as you when it finally comes to my time I’m with Sharon, you don’t look old enough to have gone through the ‘change’ yet!!

Oh yes, definitely ask your hubby as a Valentine treat to have a cuddle fest!! I can recommend them On our very first one last week hubby gave me an hour and a half of foot pampering, talk about being in heaven Not only did I have him away from his PC, but I and my feet had his undivided attention

I think, lol, on being chosen to represent the hospital for the year of the Heart Association. I hope you will be glad you relented and said yes. What kind of things will you need to do?

That’s cool that you have been told you can use the fitness centre for free on Sundays, and even better that it’s a 24 hour facility!! Do you think that’s got anything to do with you being the hospital’s rep, or are you just lucky that your trainer was nice enough to wangle it for you?

Alison – glad to hear that you are enjoying using your juicer, I love carrot juice, but have never had any home made, and I love loads of fruit juices, unfortunately they work out high on the points scale and I would rather spend my points on food than drink lol, so I don’t drink it often. I hope you get some great ideas for all sorts of fun concoctions from that juice book you have ordered.

Sharon - congrats on the 3 lbs lost, that’s brilliant. I know you saw a 5 lb loss earlier in the week, maybe you’re just retaining some water now? Either way, you know the diet books say it’s best to aim for a 1 or 2 lbs a week loss, so you shouldn’t be disappointed with a 3 lbs loss

Tina – so sorry that you had the stress of finding out your son’s medication wasn’t covered as it should have been by your hubby’s insurance. I am sure you could have well done without having to get it all worked out. I’m glad that in the end it is all OK and that you could get the meds

As for the comfort eating, I think we all do it, sometimes there’s just nothing else that ‘does it’. You are doing the right thing getting straight back on track, and hey you still had a brilliant result on the scale congrats on the 3 lbs lost.

Annie – I know I’ve said in my email, but on another 3 lbs down won’t be long until you are whizzing past me and getting to your goal You can have the tummy tuck first and tell me all about it then I can decide if I want to go through with it myself

Kayley – good to see you posting. If you ever need more exercise and to earn a bit more money you should ask your neighbours if they want you to shovel snow for them too, it must be an AMAZING work out Or heck, even do it for free, anything to help burn off the lbs

OK I better go now, take care all and I hope everybody has a great weekend,

Hugs,

Ammi

Heatherdw - you might want to put the scale away for a week (and toss the old one). To answer your questions though, yes, you probably are retaining water. Meals out can often have more sodium in them, and if you drank less water yesterday your body may hold onto it with a vengeance. Keep your food, and exercise on plan for a week (or even two) before you step back on the scale. I've attached a couple of weeks trend from my FitDay. As you can see (with daily weighing) that weight does fluctuate. I decided to track daily as I remember (from past experience) that my TOM really screws with my perceived weight loss. Eventually I will go back to weekly, although I don't let a gain freak me out. I've also started counting my water intake as I know I was up and down with it as well.

Depending on what day of the week I had picked for my weigh-in I could have lost as much as 5.2 lbs (Sun) or as little as 0.6 lbs (Wed). If I go back a little further I could likely find a 7-day period where I have gained weight. However, if I go and look at overall loss (from Dec 7th) I've lost 18.4 pounds. I think that's how you need to look at it - as an overall, long journey. So take the new weight from the new scale and check again in a week.

Thanks to all for the greetings and warm welcome back. I will try to post some pics on my blog.

So yesterday was my first day on Points...wow is it hard to get all my points in. By the end of the day I had to really try hard to eat 32 out of my allotted 33...which is fine because I may have miscounted points on something so a little wiggle room is ok. But by the time we got home ftrom dinner and errands and it was almost 8 I still had 6 points left...I'm sure it will get easier and make more sense soon. Core was a lot easier for me to manage...but it was also my downfall...Core lets you think that life is an AYC Eat Buffet as long as you're AYC Eating Core Foods...too easy for people who want to cheat and make excuses. Apparently there is a new plan called PowerFlex where for like 6 points a day you can eat all of the chicken you want...but I'm not there yet...and I don't like chicken that much.

Tina: I had a really crappy night a few weeks back and when I picked up my friend to go where we were headed, I had a bag of some ridiculously delicious and sinful snackfood (not mentioning the name because I don't want to tempt anyone else) in the car and I looked at her and said...ok...now we're going to eat my feelings...all of them. Emotional eating happens. It way harder to control it to give in. I'm so glad you got all of your insurance taken care of. We just had a major insurance thing at work where about 30 people changed providers and while their new cards were being prepared a lot of them did not know how to get proof of coverage for prescription meds. In the end it all workd out but a lot of people were totally freaked. The upper mgmt at work told the rest of us department heads that anyone who was in a total financial bind during that 2 week period would get their meds and not have to worry about the upfront cost if that was what it came down to. Anyone who did have to pay fully out of pocket was reimbursed...but it was nice to see such a good faith gesture since it was upper mgmt who convinced a lot of the people to change providers.

Heather...for all intensive purposes iced tea (unsweetened of course) is water. It's no different than drinking the water with the Crystal Light to go in it or whatever. It shouldn''t be the sole source of water...but there are some people who just do not like drinking plain water and who have to get it other ways.

It's still raining like crazy here in "sunny" southern CA...so the goal is to stay inside today. I have to run an errand for Hubby and past that...I am totally unmovitaved to do anything. Grocery shopping wouldn't hurt...at least to get some staples to get me through the weekend. Hmmm.

Best...and Happy Friday!!

~Julee

Ack! 2 posts while I was typing...

AMMI!! You look wonderful!!! Thanks for the advice. The Singing Bee really had nothing to do with being a good singer...it's a show about knowingthe lyrics to songs really well. The episode that was aired already was all TV Theme Songs. It was a lot of fun and a total rush! They taped the 2nd episode that same day...so oh well. I'm wearing a different outfit (TV trickery) but it's the same day. IF the show gets picked up again in the spring I will get to go back...but it is what it is...

As far as the $50K...we don't have the $ yet. They don't send out checks until 2-3 months after the show airs...and of course...they aren't taking out the taxes...so we have that to deal with. No real plans for the $ at this point. A lot of people assume we're going to use it for a downpayment on a house...but honestly...as much as we want to move, it's not quite time to buy yet out here. The housing market is still overinflated and we have other tings to deal with financially first.

And just to clear up...the WW woman who weighed me ONLY does weigh-ins. She is NOT a greoup leader...thank goodness. My amazing leader has actually kept tabs on me since I have been gone and has been amazingly helpful in getting back on track. If this woman were a leader...oy...I don't know what anyone would do. She is not motivational, inspirational...or even nice!

Ah well...

Julee - I've watched that show several times. Wish I wouldn't have missed you being on there!! That would have been so neat. I hope it gets picked back up, and you have a chance to go back and win some more money!

Ammi - I helped out my neigbors last year a lot, but both of them have snowblowers, and always beat me to it this year! Heh.

I hate being stuck at home. Did a workout this morning, and now I'm just sitting around. It's -5 without the windchill right now, but I want to go DO something. Heh.

How much water do you guys usually drink? I know that we're supposed to drink more than 64oz because of size but I'm good if I get that much in.

At least I have 48 ounces done already today, so I should be able to go over 64

I take in about 96oz (12 cups) most days. That doesn't include the water in the protein shakes I take, but I don't drink coffee or tea either. I don't know that theres a real number, but consistency is good. Let's say today you take in only 4 cups of water, tomorrow 8, next day 3 or so. Your body will likely retain more water than if you had 6 or 8 cups each day. It knows that more is coming so it doesn't need to hold onto any extra (just in case it's a 3 cup day).

(Someone else may have better information, this is more what I've picked up from reading probably way too many articles.)