has anyone heard from catherine?

Hi everyone ... just a quick pop in and breather .. I did my exercise this morning!!! ANNND I did the WHOLE Richard Simmons disc .. a couple of the moves I got a little tangled up and mistimed .. but I kept going for the whole 60 minutes and my heart rate when I finished was only 86!!! To think only a month or so ago when I did just 20 min of exercise my heart rate was well over 100!! Im feeling good this morning (almost midday here really lol) mind you .. that could be a combo of the exercise and the fact my hunny is coming home tonight again :)

I overheard my dad on the phone yesterday .. dont know who he was talking to but I found out he was rather concerned about me ... something I really dont want him to be. He knows I have been under a lot of stress lately and is worried that its getting too much for me ... so gotta make it clear to him Im ok now ... I have reached the position where I can see what Im doing to myself and I even have a nap each afternoon (ok .. one afternoon ... but its a start) rather than keeping going and wearing myself out trying to keep everyone happy.

Okee .. well it was weigh in day today and considering my rollercoaster week and TOM arriving I am actually down .6lbs!!

I have started using Fitday to track my food .. boy thats a great site .. I might invest in the desktop version of it ... although I am having to add a lot of foods to the list as there are a few we have here that arent on those lists lol .. but its still great :)

So Im gonna go update my siggie a little with the exercise and the extra .6 (even tho it wont show on the ticker ... Im just happy that it hasnt gone back over the 300 again!) I have changed my scales to pounds instead of kilograms too .. makes it a lot easier to keep track of what Im doin lol.

Sorry no personals .. oh .. Ammi .. the people in the pubs I went too were great .. I really dont think of Kiwis having accents ... we are such a mixed bunch over here that we seem to adopt what is around us .. from one end of NZ to the other you wont find a similar accent .. and the further down the south island you go .. the more english it sounds :) When I was travelling I was usually asked if I was an Aussie (no offence neighbours lol) .. used to drive me NUTS!!! And (no offence to anyone PLEASE) it was usually Americans that were most insistant on it too .. .so I ended up sayin to them ... "Oh youre Canadian?" he he he .. they took offence at that usually .. then I would just turn around and say now you know how I feel rofl ... and yet by the time I got home I sounded completely different from when I left and I still pronounce some things with an english accent (frome sort of area lol) ... or a Canadian accent (thanks to dad and the family I stayed with when I was there). I just LOVE accents .. only when Im around anyone with an accent I slip into it .. I feel so guilty cos I dont want them thinking Im taking the mickey out of them its just automatic when I dont concentrate on my accent lol.

I think we are going to buy the smaller house rather than the auction one ... When Scoot comes home this weekend we are gonna have another look at the auction one, but the smaller one has nothing needing to be done to it other than putting up a fence and a deck, so its really the better idea .. but if Scoot thinks the auction one will be a bargain we may have a clash of ideas rofl.

I have been reading the side effects for Prozac .. makes me a little more nervous .. Panadol (Panadine etc) make me sleepy .. so chances are the Prozac will knock me out .. Im going to wait til the weekend is over before I have anything cos its a busy weekend and I dont want to be asleep most of it lol .. but will have my pill at night I think then at least I will be sleeping at the right time :)

OOps .. Im rambling again .. sorry peeps ... congrats to those staying OP .. Zelma you are such an inspiration to me and Im sure that you will be a great inspiration to others that havent found this site as well.

Huggies!!

Katt

Hi Everybody,
Hope all had a good day.
Remember what I said yesterday about being afraid the scale would go up
even though I've stayed OP ??
Well, sure enough, I'm up almost 4 pounds. HOWEVER, my leg with the blood clot is SO swollen it's terrible. The swelling had gone down a lot, but it's back. :stress:
Dr says if it's this swollen tomorrow morning I have to go back and see him.
Today was my first back to work and I'll be really freaked out if I have to stay home again.
Anyway, I'm bummed, but not all freaked out about the scale. After all, we have all said it's the nsv that count too. I even walked for 20 minutes at lunch today. And, I wasn't way winded either. :dancer:
Sorry no personals today, but I really am bummed....but determined to stay OP.
Hang tough everyone@
Sandy

Hi Ladies,

Tried to post last night then pushed the wrong button...UGH. So I was angry and went to bed. So back today but I lost all the posts I had written to you all so, just saying hi and hugs to you all. Congrats to the loosers. I have a weigh in tomorrow at WW if I manage to go. Hopefully I'll make it. So busy these days.

Blessings and I'll catch up again with you all later. Please forgive me for not doing individuals.

love ya,
Annie/Dogpal

Well Crikey!! I had a pretty good NSV today I think ... when we went out to pick up a package and do a few other things in town on our way back dad pulled into KFC!! "What do you want?" "Nothing thank you" I reply ... and he kept saying things like come on .. just some chicken .. nooo dad its not good for me!! Just take off the skin he goes .. NO .. thank you dad but no thanks! So he went in and came out with one of those buckets of chicken, fries, potato n gravy & coleslaw!! I was like OMG ... and then he put it all on my lap to hold on to until we got home .. smelt really nice ... BUT .. even tho I was hungry it didnt appeal to me at all! I came home and made 2 wheat rye sandwiches with chicken bacon (99% fat free and a heck of a lot less calories than real bacon lol) and lite cheese slice in .. and it was delicious!! Ash and dad sat at the table an ate the WHOLE BUCKET of 12 pieces!!! I was stunned lol .. although Ash didnt really eat all of the chicken off hers .. she never does ... but while I passed it a few times I wasnt even tempted to touch it! Now if it was Subway that may have been a different story :)

Im onto my second 750ml bottle of water .. so far today Im up to just under 750 calories and I have burned just under 600 calories (according to fitday!) .. Its chicken for dinner tonight again ... might have it with rice as something different as I have had vegetables all week .. still .. I think I like veges more .. will see how I feel .. I did the dishes too and had the music blasting so I was boogying while I was doing them .. definitely need music with a beat when you do the dishes I think lol .. and another thing I do .. the plates are in a cupboard about 12 steps away from the bench ... so every plate gets dried and put away separately .. so 12 steps there .. put plate away ... 12 steps back .. get another one .. etc etc etc... it adds a bit more activity into the job I think :)

Sandy - Sorry to hear you have had a reverse visit from the FFM ... But its good to focus on the NSVs at times like this and Im sure you will get over this hurdle :) Huggies.

Annie - dont you hate it when it does that!? Drives me nuts .. I have now got to the point where I copy what I have written at the end of each paragraph just to be on the safe side rofl. Huggies and nice to see you post anyway :)

Huggies all!

Gotta go help my dad .. he is pulling the stumps of the trees he cut down the other day .. using his truck and a chain lol .. boy the front looks great tho .. my dad is a dynamo!

I've been horribly un-accountable. I've been trying to make good decisions, but at the same time, I just don't even know how to go about counting calories, so I basically gave up...but thank GOD, my food came today!!! So tomorrow it's back on track, and I will never, I repeat never, allow this to happen again. I can't believe I was so helpless without the food- I'll have to figure out how to work that out- but I'll worry about that later, for now I know that this works for me, and I'm sticking to it.

I am happy to report that I only missed two workouts during my "bad food" days (i think it ended up like two weeks....:() and only gained 2 pounds- not that that is good, but I was so scared when I got on the scale wednesday after my hip-hop class, I thought I would cry when I realized I haven't lost all my progress. If I had, i'm afraid of how I would have responded.

Very encouraging thing that nurtisystem does that I didn't know about: there were two bears in my shipment today, a red one and a purple one. The red one has a ten on him and her little card says her name is pound "Pound says congratulations on your initial weight loss. She's here to keep you motivated as you continue toward your goal weight." The purple bear has a 20 and Is named Commitment bear "losing 20 pounds proves you have the commitment you need to suceed, but a little inspiration from Commitment couldn't hurt" How cute is that? and silly enough it made me really feel good to see those bears and to read those messages and think, you know what you have lost 20 pounds and you do have this. Plus I really want more bears :lol:

Any way- I know I said this before, but now that I have the food I feel I can confidently say, I am back! (I really do feel so much more confident about tomorrow)Talk to everyone in the morning!

PS- I was so behind on the threads, so I'm just picking up from here, so I'll catch up with personals once I know what's going on with everyone again. I hope all are well :)

Hi again.. whoa I'm here a couple of times today! Amazing!

Hubby and I went for our walk but to somewhere different than the original plan. We ended up walking along a path around the harbour here in Victoria (Melissa prob knows where I mean) and we walked for 1.5 hours (not counting my pauses for photos). According to the charts along the way it said it was 3 kilometers but my ticker said much less... I think it's not counting my steps accurately.

Then we took a little harbour tourist boat back to our start place (Esquimalt) and had dinner of grilled fish with salad. We started out around 4 pm and got home around 8 pm. Nice too that I felt pretty good when I was finished, not too tired. Hubby was happy too and said he's glad now that I feel more able to walk further, so we can do it more often. I told him eventually I'm gonna learn to jog and he groaned a little :D

Nightkatt
WOW girl, resisting the KFC when it sat on your lap and it being offered to you. That would be a real tough one so good for you. I'm sure a lot of us would have given in, that's a lot of temptation. Though I would have just wanted to eat the crispy off the chicken and left the rest! :p
What you say about accents, funny really (I am Canadian, btw). Here in Victoria, on the west coast of Canada, there are a LOT of british/australian/scottish and ? similar accents. I think there's a lot of transplants here. We are too - from the east coast of Canada. I found it funny when we first got here, there are a few different terms for things than we have on the east coast. For example, on the east coast, they call the carts that you shop with "shopping carts" or "carts", and here they call them "buggies". I think in your area they call them "prams"?

Dogpal
Don't ya hate it when you post stuff and then poof it's gone. G rrrrr.

Sandybar
Ouch with your blood clot. Yes good that a doc is looking after you cause they can be dangerous. I hope it fixes up very soon, take care of yourself :hug:

Kimpossible
Sounds like you had a few rough spots there but you're still going at it, so good for you. Try to remember we all have a few bumps but don't give up!
I'm glad your food and your new bear collection. You're doing really well friend so keep at it!!

~ Angie

ANNIE - GO TO YOUR MEETING!!!!!!!!!! no excuses. its only 30 mins a week. just go. you wont regret it

Hey everyone~

I hope you all are having a good week. Thanks to all of you for the encouraging words about my walking situation! :hug: You know I saw a show on TLC about a woman who weighed about 650 pounds. And she started off by just literally getting a work out from walking to the living room to the bedroom twice a day. And it got me thinking you know why can't I just figure out a walking plan for me. I have NO EXCUSE not to at least just walk back and forth in the house. And it really has come in handy due to the extreme cold weather and road situation here. And right now I am finding workout videos a little much for me. But I am sure as I get used to working out I can do them. Speaking of extreme weather...the high here in Barrow Alaska today was 19!!!! And it was snowing all day! I am a southern girl and never thought I would see snow in September! lol :)

Ammi~ You asked me why I don't order a treadmill or other equipment. Its because it would cost me proably 500+ in shipping costs alone to ship it up here to barrow. There are no roads into town so it would have to be air shipped. And they only ship items like that express shipping. So I don't even want to know the cost! But I wish I could have a treadmill!!

Sandy~sorry about your blood clot! WTG for still getting walking in! Hope you feel better soon! :hug:

Nightkatt~WTG on the NSV! That would be a big one for me! I love fast food in general. Thank God I live in the middle of nowhere with no fast food resturants. But that doesn't mean we don't have tons of junk at the store! Soda seems to be where I get weak. Congrats again! :)

Kim~Sorry you have had a rough time. But you still seem to be doing well. Still working out is great!


And finally some good news. Even though I wasn't able to work out and was sick for 2 1/2 weeks with that cold I did manage to lose two pounds! :carrot:
I know its not a lot. But for not really doing too much but cutting out soda and junk food 2 pounds was great! I really hope to get on a normal work out schedule now.

Well I hope you all are having a good week!

Michelle

Well- off to a good start so far, just finished my nutrisystem breakfast! It's amazing how much more confident I feel knowing that I have this food- a true plan for the day, that won't be hard to stick to! I have to run to work, and my goal today is to go do the elliptical machine for an hour the evening, hopefully right after work.

Angie- how great that you are feeling so much better when you walk! I don’t know about jogging- I think I would groan along with you husband! :lol: It’s a great form of exercise, I just know it would be too hard on my knees. But, it’s great that you want to do it someday!!! Thanks for the encouragement- you are right, the bumps along the road my slow me down, but that’s okay if I don’t let them stop me!

Michelle- I know of been out for a while, so someone might have said this…have you tried Walk away the Pounds? It’s the most low impact exercise tape I’ve seen, you just walk. It’ designed in such a way that if you needed to you really could stop before it was over and just gradually do more and more. Just a thought- good luck! Thanks for the encouragement! Congrats on the 2 pounds!


Everyone have a greatday!

Michelle - I'm not sure whether you have read how I started exercising, but it was definitely with 'baby' steps. I would either do my marching in front of the TV, or put some music on. Then I would just step, with little side steps when I was ready. I actually just remembered that I would also read while I was marching. I'm not sure if you are an avid reader, but I LOVE books. I had a book that I would only let myself read while I was marching. Well, that is quite an incentive when you want to know what happens next. It took me a while to read a whole book at first, but after a while I was marching for at least 30 mins a day, and that makes for quite a bit of reading. I would have the music on in the background and just 'move'. It is actually funny, because I obviously had my favourite CD that I would march to when I was reading a particular book and now when I hear those songs I picture all of the events in the book. For a while I wondered whether I had seen a movie of the book and the music was reminding me of that, but it was just that I constantly read that book to that music.

That is just one suggestion if you are interested. Because I love reading so much, it worked well for me, because I would just do my favourite thing while I exercised, instead of while I was sitting or laying down.

I hope you find some simple form of exercise that suits you and your location. I can't imagine it would be easy choosing any form of outside workout if it is snowing ALREADY up there.

Take care,

Zelma

Angie cats are so smart arent they? Katt great weight loss! no loss for me this morning so i will just try to drink more water!

Angie - Did you go for a walk around where the ferry drops people off? When hubby and I went to Victoria we walked around there and it was SO beautiful. I have to admit though that my favourite places were the Christmas stores that are open all year round. I am SO jealous! I love Christmas and would be in my element with a store like that. I would also be broke, but that would be an OK compromise. When we were in Sydney a department store was just starting to get their Christmas display set up and I still had to wander around their partially organised section. I am definitely a kid at heart.

Take care,

Zelma

Katt - Well done on refusing the KFC!!! I'm not sure I would have been able to do that. It was easier for me to not have it anywhere near me. I would be fine NOW, but not earlier on my journey.

I probably missed it, but have you decided to not have your dad live behind your house? I know you were considering that for a while. I hope the valuation of your house went well.

Take care,

Zelma

OK... not sure why I have been doing these one at a time, but I only thought I would get one or two done. I'll try to fit a few more in this time.

Ammi - Thank you for the comments about the emails I've been getting. I thought it was just natural to answer them all, but since I've sent out the little message, letting people know I'll get back to them, I have had a couple of people express their surprise that I was willing to answer them. That is quite sad to me. I would have hoped that anyone would do the same thing.

The magazine has come out with the winner, so it is OK to tell you. The lady who was 50 and who lost 75kg won. She is a deputy principal at a high school in the eastern states. I didn't really mind at first, but then I read her write-up in the magazine and it said she lost the first 20kg because her mother died and she was stressed. I understand that totally, and I feel SO sorry for her that she had to go through that, but she also told us that she had had surgery to remove excess skin (which wasn't mentioned in the magazine) and that would have taken a few kilos off as well. So, really, she could have lost at least 25kg (60lbs?) in ways that wouldn't be considered 'healthy', which was one of the stipulations of entering the competition. You had to have lost the weight in a healthy way. So, even though I am not that upset that I didn't win, I'm not sure they chose the best person to be a winner. If anybody else had won, other than me, I would have chosen the next lady down who had lost 68kg on the Cohen's program. I'm not sure what that program involves, but at least she stuck to the program and has now changed her lifestyle completely. Anyway, I can't change anything now, but it has really tainted my view of the magazine. I truly feel that I didn't win because I didn't have a 'tragic' story for them that would help them sell magazines. But still... a lot of good stuff has come out of entering the competition, so it was definitely worth it.

I will have to remember to include a link to 3FC when I answer the emails. I was kinda thinking of it, but knowing me I would forget.

Kim - I think that the bears that Nutrisystem send out sound like a great idea. Just a little something to let you know what a great job you are doing.

Two pounds isn't really that much at all, so I'm glad you didn't let it bother you. They will come off quickly enough now that you have the food you have been waiting for. It is great that you can get lots of the foods that you prefer this time. Will you still have them send you a few different choices so you can test them out, or will you stick with those that you know you like?

Good for you for only missing a couple of workouts in two weeks. That is fine, because a rest day now and then is certainly permitted. You should be very happy about that.

Annie - Sorry you lost all of those messages. I usually type my individual responses into Word then paste them in here, but I am risking it today and just typing them directly into the message box. Fingers crossed.

I hope you manage to make it to your meeting, and if you do, I hope that you get some good news at the weigh in.

Sandy - I obviously missed the first message about your blood clot, but I am really sorry that it is causing you so much trouble. Has the doctor said what can be done if it doesn't improve? At least you can see a reason for the scale to be up, but I wish you didn't have to be coping with this. Please let us know how things go. I hope you get yourself straight to the doctor if things don't improve.

Amy - It sounds as though you have a very busy weekend ahead of you. I'm glad you have tomorrow off to get a few things organised. I am impressed that you managed four days of exercise when things have been so hectic for you. I have my fingers crossed that your sister won't chuck a hissy fit any time soon.

I don't think I've congratulated you on giving up smoking. WELL DONE!!!!! What an incredible achievement. Making two major changes in your life can NOT have been easy.

Great NSV at Curves! You will have to find something else to challenge you soon, because their workouts will be too easy for you. Are you allowed to do two circuits in a row, or do they prefer that you only do one? I'm not sure how that works.

Jill - I'm sure you'll be back on track with your eating in no time. You seemed to have such a good grasp of things when you started and you were still being pretty careful, even on your 'rest' days. I don't think I could do that sort of program because I would ALWAYS be getting carried away on the off days.

I have met two of the finalists from Australia's Biggest Loser (Kristie and Adro, the winner) and they both seem like lovely people, but I do wonder how long they will keep the weight off. I think both of them have gained at least a little back, but Adro could be back on track now I think. That is the problem with that program. It is just TOO way out there and people can't be expected to continue such a rigorous workout routine once they are back home. I would prefer to see a program that went for a longer time, but had more realistic lifestyle changes going on, so that people could actually 'learn' from it.

Valerie - Thank you SO much for your concern. I truly do appreciate it. I am trying to be really careful not to burn myself out. Things have kind of settled at work, but I am still looking forward to the end of next week, as we have two weeks' holiday then. That will be wonderful. I will have lots more time to respond to all of the emails I have received and to simply rest and recuperate. I am definitely making sure I get my sleep and I am easing back on the exercise whenever I feel I need it. Hopefully I will keep a clear head about it all and not tire myself out.

You are right about the kids being excited about all of the attention. They are still forever complimenting me, and telling me how wonderful I am, but they are also very happy for themselves and their own 'noteriety'. One of them was wondering whether people would now want his autograph, seeing as he had been on TV. Cute!

Hey! I could cope with the commute if I could get to host a TV show. Perhaps I could drop some teaching days to ease off the work load if they paid me enough. Well... maybe I'd miss the kids too much then. Something to think about though. I don't think I'm quite famous enough for that yet though.

Well, I'd better finish off here, as I have to get some of that sleep I was talking about.

Take care,

Zelma