February already!

For this month's challenge I am focusing on drinking water and making some more interesting lunches as I find I am falling into a food rut.

I would like to lose 4-5lbs this month.

What are everyone else's goals?

i just started my exercise routine, so my goal is to continue swimming and walking at least 3-4 times per week. also, limit my soymilk consumption because i think i've been going overboard with the soy chai lattes. LOL. also, really up my veggie intake and reduce my carbs a bit.

my goal for this month - 6 pounds (hopefully more).

happy february everyone!!!

Hello everyone.

February for me is going to be all about staying on track. I am traveling quite a bit and need to make sure I don't use that as an excuse to go crazy.

I will stick with my normal exercise routine while home and I will exercise while on the road either in hotel gyms or by packing my yoga mat.

I will eat sensibly while traveling. I'm going to pack what healthy foods I can and make good choices while eating out.

I'd like to loose the 2 lbs left over from the Jan. Challange

Good luck everyone!

My second week of Weight Watchers starts tomorrow and so far it's been pretty easy. So this month, my goals are to:

-keep with it
-start a yoga practice - even if I just squeeze in 15 minutes a week for now - I've been putting it off for far too long
-rediscover my exercise machine
-drink more water!

Not going to estimate weight loss yet since I'm not sure what a regular loss will be for me yet. Good luck to everyone!

Hello everyone. Just wanted to check in.

I think I'm doing pretty well for this month's challenge. I did well traveling last week. I packed protein bars and fruit to take with me and I made sensible choices at all the meals we ate out. I lucked out with lunch, they were serving chicken fried steak which grosses me out. I just had a salad and some green beans and skipped dessert. Wohoo! Major accomplishment there.

For exercise I attempted to do yoga in the hotel room. I tried to go through the routine we normally do in class but it only took me 35 min instead of an hour so I either forgot some poses or didn't hold them as long. Still I'm glad I did it.

And the best news is I lost 2 lbs this week. Not sure why my body decided to let go and start losing again after holding fairly stead for the last couple of weeks but I'm not complaining.

Sounds like you did well Spideranne! Congrats on the 2lb loss!

I've lost 2 lbs this month so far and have increased my walking time by walking partway home from work. It's been to bitter cold to walk all the way but I will work up to walking all the way by spring.

Well checking in after another week. No weight loss to report but that is probably because we went out to an Italian dinner and had the works, appetizer, salad, bread, pasta. Waaaayyyy too much food. It was one of those situations where we waited to long to decide to go and by the time we were seating we were starving. But I am back on track for this week. I am determined to have a good week because next week I'm out of town for 8 days.

So how is everyone else's goals coming along?

Weigh in sucked! I gained 1lb but I know it's because of my bad eating this week. There are too many chocolates, muffins etc. availabe for free at work and I haven't really established a new routine.

I have been making lunch and getting my clothes ready the day before though so I guess that is a silver lining.

I am challenging myself to refrain from eating any sweets for the rest of the week - I had a large cookie today that I did not need.

I will also be drinking more water at work.

I've been absent from posting for a few months but I have been occasionally lurking when I find the time I was back in Dubai to see my boyfriend for a month for much of February (just got back last Sunday) so it was hard to keep active like I normally do here in hilly, carless Istanbul! Dubai is like an American city in many ways- very very car oriented, and whenever I tried to go out for walks I didn't feel safe (not enough sidewalks or traffic lights and crazy drivers). Also, the restaurants serve huge portions, which I'm not used to. They have a surprisingly increasing obesity rate. However, unlike last time when I was there (around the time I last posted), I didn't gain any weight. Yay! It was a struggle to eat well and move enough.

One thing that has helped me to lose 6 kilos since November has been my new job: I'm teaching in a big company now, and they provide free lunch and dinner, and their cafeteria serves really healthy Turkish meals- there's big salad bar filled with veggies (no mayonnaisy things) with fresh lemons and herbs to sprinkle over them, there are several daily soups, small meze style side dishes made of steamed vegetables drizzled with olive oil or yogurt, and a choice of sane-sized portions of healthy main dishes. The only choice for drinks: mineral water (with or without a hint of fruit juice) or water. I've never eaten so many veggies in my life! It's great!

In fact, I'm down to 68 kilo now, which is better than a boot to the head!

My continuing february goals: stick to my current low key thingy of cutting out as much sugar as possible, cutting back massively on coffee (I always drank too much, and with milk and sugar), eating three balanced meals a day with small, healthy snacks if necessary, drinking more water, staying active (even if its just walking around the city).

Wow koangirl - your cafeteria makes me jealous! Ours recently improved in terms of flavour, but everything's creamy or smothered in high fat gravy. And their salad bar is so expensive, I've finally gotten good at bringing my lunch (though if I forget it I'm very stuck).

Congrats on maintaining while away!

I think I'm pretty lucky to be living where I am because the Turkish diet is pretty healthy to begin with and they still use mainly fresh, seasonal, local produce. There is very little in the way of processed foods or ready meals (aside from the odd frozen pizza that's imported or frozen kofte in family size packs) and meals are based around soup (usually lentil or vegetable), salad (with lemon juice and a little olive oil- think greek without the cheese) and a main course that is very simply prepared from fresh ingredients- usually some rice, some grilled long green pepper, tomatoes, chopped onions mixed with sumac (a sweet sour spice), a small portion of lean grilled meat, or a selection of small, shared meze dishes (stuffed grape leaves served with lemon juice or yogurt, whitebeans with chopped peppers and onions with a light vinagrette, a kind of tomato/pepper salsa, etc). Sauces are rare-- you know the ooey gooey kebabs you can buy in Europe or North America, filled with garlicky yogurt or hot sauce? Well, in Turkey, you get the grilled meat, some sliced onion, some tomato, maybe a little hot pepper puree, and maybe a pickled pepper or two, wrapped in a super thin flat bread. So fresh and flavourful that you don't need a sauce.

If you avoid the foreign fast food chains, it's easy to eat well here... it can be hard though, if you work long hours and hate coming home to a fridge full of food that must be prepared from scratch-- they have few (and expensive) canned or frozen veggies or beans, no pre made pasta sauces, etc--- everything must be done from scratch. It can be very tiring to face after working a 10 hour day. I'm really happy that I get free meals at work now. Saves me from chopping and peeling and steaming at 9pm!

Your descriptions are making me hungry! I really enjoy Greek, Turkish, Lebanese and Persian food. I love the fresh ingredients they use, and the dishes seem so simple, healthy and tasty. The only thing I am not a big fan of is shwarma's - here they seem to be loaded in fat and tons of sauce- very salty and gooey.

We do have a few places where I live that are pretty good "fine dining" Turkish and Lebanese places that serve excellent meals that are probably not truly authentic but aren't totally North Americanized but meet somewhere in the middle.

I have to apologize to everyone for being a bit scarce these days - I'm still settling in to my job and new routines. I've been really busy with WW, belly dance class, my new drumming class and yoga. I feel like I've hardly been posting but will try to be around more often.

Diet has not been going well do to new schedules but I have definitely increased my day to day moving even if it has been by accident.