It's Friday evening here now. That means soon all our group members will be logging on this weekend to share their successes and any problems they ran into during the week. I am waiting with anticipation to read it all. It will be exciting to hear about any weight loss, and I look forward to encouraging those who need it to get to that point too.

My news is I went up 2 lbs but then back down again 2 pounds, so I didn't make too much progress in the right direction. I did keep with the Oceanside challenge and did do pushups/situps/leg holds daily. How did everyone else do who participated in the challenge?

Weight2lose Rob is doing good on his meals. I am trying to work at more variety in mine. How is everyone else doing?

Friday morning here!

Sometimes it's a few steps backwards, a few steps forward. I think that it's important not to let adversity siderail anyone. I know that I've allowed that to happen to me. I know that it wasn't an ideal meal, but I had to get home, feed the kids, feed the dog and get out to a baseball meeting, so my dinner consisted of 2 celery sticks w/cream cheese and some water. I wasn't hungry when I got home, but I had a atkins brownie prior to bedtime.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Rob

Been off track. I really need to have a base of calories first and healthy foods second. Can't always trust myself to know when enough is enough. Quantities are awful lately. Back to basics. With calories and eating a variety of whole foods. Then I can tackle the overeating issues because I will know that my body is not hungry, it must be some other hunger. And deal with that.

Don't you love waking up in the morning to new possibilities and optimism? Just have to work on not losing the optimism and determination by evening time.

Hi Kris,

I love the determination. My sister was terminally ill last year and I found myself eating constantly. I couldn't have been hungry but I just ate. I was in a sort of cloud. Eventually, the cloud cleared and now I'm focused. Sometimes it takes a while for the cloud to clear. Glad your hear and working towards a healthy lifestyle!

Rob

Hi Kris,

Did you get a chance to try that smoothie yet? Or have you been too busy?

How is your push up/sit up/leg hold challenge going?

I hope you did get out and walk those dogs last weekend. I bet they would enjoy it this weekend too.

Overeating is easy to do, when the food is easy to get to it. Try making smaller portions or just not having so much there in the house to begin with so you can't get to it so easily. If I don't have it there in the house, I can't eat it when I get the urge later at night. Makes me a bit grumpier in the evenings, but eventually I will get over that phase. I think you can too.

Happy Sunday everyone. Had a good day on Saturday. Helped cleaning the house, cleaned the fish tank, and still had time to have a music session with the band. I didn't exercise, but I was on the move all day. It's frigid here in the northeast. brrrr! I hope everyone is enjoying their day.

Rob

One thing I am working on is being aware of the nutrition going into my body instead of just the calories. If I feel like eating 2 slices of cheese, to stop and think that the 2nd slice really should be an apple. Or I want 2 veggie burgers which will fit into my calories but stopping and realizing that one is enough and eating veggies for the other burger instead. Since I have a problem with quantities and since my bigger quantities usually lead to mini-binges, this is really helping me. I try to stop and think, have I had enough fruit or vegetables or protein today? And stopping at 1 serving of cheese or grain carbs, 2 of my food triggers.

No smoothee yet. I'll look at the almond milk at the store today.

I bought some almond milk this week and I wasn't expecting much. It was actually pretty good!

Weight2lose - So sorry about your sister! That must have been very hard for you.

Thank you, Kris. It was, we were 13 months apart. She went to the hospital with a headache and was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma. I couldn't focus on anything for the following 18 months. It's been nearly a year now, and I feel that I have the emotional strength to move on now.

So on my quest for new things to try this week, I found my old jump rope. I will have to give it a try tomorrow. I have a hula hoop too, which I use to train the dog for jumping. I use to be a whiz at that thing. I can't even keep it up now to spin around my waits. So that will take some work too.

For food, I bought some yellow grain quinoa and some red grain quinoa. Also some quinoa flakes. I tried the flakes with some water and blueberries. Okay, that one didn't taste good at all. I thought it may be good for breakfast, but it taster like wet cardboard. So the flakes are not going to work for me. I found a few recipes for the red and yellow grains, so I will try those later.

Weight2lose Rob- how is your training going on your gym?

Kris2008-I like your effort on nutrition awareness. Makes me think I should look a little closer at my efforts too. Thanks.

It's going well, I suppose. I started taking some cholesterol meds, and I'm sooo sore. I heard that could be a side effect of the drug. I'll know in about another week when my aches should subside from working out. How is everyone today?

I'm just tired today. Work was rather busy, so I stressed out a bit trying to meet the schedule. Made it but it impacted my eating time and my exercise time. Lunch was rushed and I just crammed it down. Ended up trying to squeeze most of my exercises into the evening, which was not fun. Just tired. Will try to manage it all better tomorrow. There's always tomorrow for dreams to come true...

Tomorrow is a new day! When my schedule gets messed up, I'll manage by doing a stripped down version of that day. If I wanted to do 30 minutes on the weights, and 30 minutes on the treadmill, I'll opt to do one or the other. It seems to work for me. Less stress, more time = happier me.

I hope that everyone is doing well,

Rob

I don't usually exercise after work but I have been hopping on the treadmill the minute I get home. My job is stressful in that I feel I'm not being very effective and there's too many areas to cover and I keep getting sidetracked. Before I know it, it's getting dark and I have to get to my car before it is dark so I can't work any longer. Hopping on the treadmill is getting rid of the stress of the day and helps me to sleep better. And actually today I felt like I was making some headway at work so I did feel more on top of things. Persistence!