Azure Not sure if this will help at all, but I found something recently that I love. Someone I know was telling me about a woman who is quite old, but who was a ballerina all her life so she is still quite limber and can sit crosslegged on the couch. I was impressed. Anyway they then showed me "first position". Well I've never practiced ballet or even had the desire to, but I found that standing in a modified "first position" seems to pull all my back muscles into line and makes me stand up straighter.

What you do is put your feet at a ninety degree angle to each other, with your heels together and touching. Press your legs together. For some reason this seems to pull my back up straight hips alligned everything feels like perfect posture, I pull my shoulders back and my head up high at the same time. The really funny thing about it is that your body then feels like it is in perfect balance.

Then it feels like my hip joints are straightening up and pivoting on a single joiint. Liftine one foot onto your toes while leaving the other on the floor causes a nice "crack" in that small part of the back/hips where the legs seem to join to the body, and then put that foot down and lift the other leg up onto your toes. Try it and see if it helps your hips at all. I'd like to know if other people feel as good doing this simple little stance as it makes me feel.

Aud, "disfunctional scale?" You are a hoot! The Y here costs $70 a month. I thought that was expensive but I guess it is average if you're paying $64. And it's probably better than joining a gym with a committe payment period.

I would really love some of that pizza. But the cheese would have me rolling on the floor in pain and gassing up wherever I am.

Talk to you all later.

Hey everyone and welcome to the new people!

I wanted to share a NSV with you....yesterday was my measurement day and I was down 2 inches on my hips! I am just gobsmacked! I had to measure twice, just to make sure. I was also down an inch on my waist and each thigh. Guess my strength training combined with good Atkins eating is paying off. When I get a few free moments, I plan to post a chart on my blog that tracks my change of inches plus pictures that I've taken over the last 6 months.

Also bought my first size 18 jeans in, oh, over 10 years yesterday. Didn't even bring a size 18 into the dressing room because I thought it wouldn't be possible - but there I was.....going back to get the size 18's when the 22 and 20's were too big. What a great birthday pressie!

JG- congrats on 4 years. I remain hopeful that I will be a maintainer this time.

Aud - hope your hips are feeling better. That pizza/quiche sounds yummy.

Sylvia- good job on the exercise!

Puncezilla & Sylvia-have you gotten into GCBC yet? I need to call the bookstore and find out where my copy is....I'm so ready to dive into it. On Jimmy Moore's site, they did a book discussion thread - very interesting but oh, so deep.

Ruby Jan, Leenie, Azure, SherryA and anyone else I missed - Hi!!

I'm off to play with my birthday pressie.....Mr. W bought me a surf mat. Let me tell you, this land-locked midwestie had only been to the ocean a few times until about 8 years ago. I couldn't swim, and was petrified of the water (although I did love it). I can swim now and learning to ride a surf mat is my next challenge! My family totally does not believe this is me. "Who'd a thunk it" is their mantra for me.

Have a great day everyone!

Hey there, KrisR.

I have not received either the library copy or the purchased copy of GCBC. The library where I asked the book to be sent has been closed for renovations and will not open again until late this month. I can only hope the purchased copy will get here before then, I didn't use rush postal service [who can afford that?]. WTG on the loss in inches. Yeah!

Okay, off the Cub Scout meeting. Have a wonderful night!

Good luck obtaining GCBC, Sylvia! And, Kris - congratulations on your NSV! It's so fabulous when clothes start feeling baggy, or when you can move into a whole new size! I think I get a bigger kick out of that than I do out of seeing the scales move!

Good morning all.

I changed my ticker because I am up two pounds as of yesterday to 152. I'm trying to keep myself accountable and be honest about what is happening. Luckily I don't feel heavier but I knew the scale would go up. I can say that I am slightly disappointed but I know that this happens when my eating is off, which it was on Tuesday. I shouldn't say say I ate too much but I just felt off all day after eating my lunch really early [12:30], to the chicken/mayo snack at 4:30 [I never snack], all the way to the sliced tomatoes I had for a 9:30 snack. I usually have lunch at 2:30 after I workout. And the snacks were good/acceptable foods but I just felt weird. I am hoping that by Sunday the scale will go back down but you know how that goes. I am going to really focus on my weekend eating and make sure that I am eating often enough and getting my calories and water. This will be a challenge.

Have a great day or evening depending on your location.

Good morning girls. Well my scale finally dropped a little today. That makes 11.5 pounds since last Monday. I fully expect it to be back up tomorrow though. I didn't eat much yesterday. I had two eggs for breakfast, and that kept me satisfied for most of the morning and at lunch time (3 o'clock and after) I just wasn't sure what to eat so I had a strawberry and didn't eat much else for an hour or two, then found some left over salad from the day before and put some Ceasar dressing on it and ate that. I expected to have dinner, but fell asleep before anyone cooked so my meals yesterday were practically fasting. Not enough water either so today I up the water and start with two eggs again. Keep myself satisfied maybe for longer stretches and maybe I'll keep losing.

I doubt it though. That is the one thing about low carb I like. I don't count calories, but I can tell that I eat way fewer calories when I eat high protein. Some days on LC I get really really hungry, but yesterday I really wasn't all that hungry so I'm sure it didn't hurt much to eat very little.

Anyway I'm pleased to see that other 1.5 pounds go away along with the little bit of gained weight I had on there. 2 more pounds and I will be up to the losses I had the first time I did induction. I was blown away by that loss of 13.5 in a week and a half. Of course I did induction much more strictly that time. Wound up in VERY deep ketosis and by the Wednesday after first starting felt so weird I had to intentionally up the carbs. Of course that meant immediately falling out of ketosis and no further losses during that induction time.

This time I'm much more used to low carb and haven't had those weird symptoms.

Anyone else ever had that? Where you get so cold you have to cuddle under the blankets to get warm and even then it is hard? Like you are starting to get the flu? Just from low carbing I mean? That is how I felt the first time I did induction about a week and a half into it. I think I had that once more after that time, but I don't recall when exactly. I think I determined that my water level was too low, maybe elextrolyte balance too.

Anyway it didn't feel good in spite of the weight lost.

Have a great day everyone.

Happy Aniversary Jerseygyrl !!! I wouldn't go back to a DR like that either, it's hard to find one that realy cares and isn't just trying to make $$$.

Aud, When I started lowcarbing my DH lost ten lbs just because I made him stop eating junk infront of me. He still ate crap when I wasn't arround. It is infuriating, we have to struggle for every lb and they can lose it sooooo easily.

Kris, Inches lost is fantastic, going down a size is such a wonderful feeling! I got GCBC from the library and started it yesterday.

Az, I saw your post on podcasting. Great idea. would love to listen if you do it. I find I do better with the nuts and PB if I eat them early in the day rather than the evening.

Sherry, 11Lbs is fantastic!! I have hungry days and not so hungry days and I think it averages out. I don't like to force myself to eat if I'm not hungry either. I think it only has a negative effect if you stay to lowcal for an extended period of time.

Sylvia, I'm sure it will be gone again right away, Some times theres just no reason for the fluctuations on the scale. Good for you being accountable.

Hi everyone else. Fay, Leenie, Welcome, rubyjan.

Feeling better today, managed to get some sleep, still on induction except for the few nuts I had this morning and last night. My internet's not working very well so I can't post much, Just stopping in to say all is well. Hopefully I will have the problem fixed soon.

Puncey, hope you work out your computer problems. They can really be a drag.

SherryA, congrats on the weight loss. Keep up the good work.

Aud - Good evening AA, I'm Syl and I'm addicted to carbs.

JG, I too am absolutely infuriated that men can do one simple thing and lose. That SlimQuick commercial always cracks me up.

Hey there KrisR, BroadAbroad and RubyJan. Hope you all are doing great.

For today's exercise, in the morning I decided to get in 20 minutes of treadmill. It turned into 18 because my legs were just so sore from yesterday's boot camp. In the afternoon I did a 30 minute abs class. Now this is the kicker. I was going to get back on the treadmill after the abs class but my legs were hurting so bad, I immediately got off. My friend and longtime co-worker said no way, get back on. She had me do her training which is increasing the grade by 1 every minute to the treadmills highest grade and then decreasing the grade by 1 every minute back to zero. I only went up to grade 10 but apparently this particular treadmill goes to 15. I got a good sweat, too. I am going to do that at least once a week. I still want to up my running endurance.

Off to Girl Scouts, ta ta ladies.

Morning, folks! I too am awash with envy of the menfolk who can just drop weight by cutting out bread! Ack! Still, my scales are showing some hopeful signs of dropping htis week...I keep telling myself that my end-of-April goal is 212, so I shouldn't be fretting too much, but it's hard not to get emotionally tied up with the scale. I don't think I'm doing too badly, but there's no denying that it puts a smile on my face when it HAS gone down!

Sylvia - bloody well done you! Colour me intrigued by this increasing-the-gradiant approach - and impressed that you got back on the damn machine even though your legs were feeling like spaghetti! Now I feel like a wuss for not moving up to Week 2 of the C25k program - I had a crack at it on Sunday and concluded that I'd rather keep on with Week 1. (Which is still definitely better than the simple brisk walking I would be doing otherwise.)

My legs were hurting before but they feel like jelly now for sure. This particular co-worker has lost over 100lb and still has a ways to go. She works out 3 times a day. That's a bit much for me. I'm only doing the two times a day right now because I am trying to do two different things. I walk/run in the morning for 20 minutes and 40 minutes weights/abs/kickbox in the afternoon. That's a total of 60 minutes. Totally doable. But I am soooooo sore right now. I hope I can walk in the morning.

I looked up that Couch-2-5K and it looks great! That is great that you stuck with it for a week. Just go on and start week 2 next week, girly. I know you can do it!

By the time everyone reads this it will be morning. So, have a great Friday everyone!