Hi all just a quick pop in....the moving is going great and should have most of it done today.....well gotta get back helping my brothers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, sounds like we're all fighting some sort of sickness these days.

Andi: Woohoo....3lbs is great! I hope your feeling better soon! I was home today too but only for a half day, I got some extra sleep and went into work for 11am. Now the school day is over and i'm heading home.

Hi Utahgirl : Glad moving is going well and you're almost done.

B]Cats: [/B Congrats on your 2lb loss! Way to go and keep up the good work! I don't blame you wanting to pick up your eldest child. I gave my DS a ride to the bus stop this morning because the wind chill was -10. YIKES!!!

Cassie: I'm glad the scale moved in the right direction for you. YAY!!!

Okay, i'm going home now! TTYL

Muse – You’re doing great on the running. Sounds like you’re due for some new shoes! I just got some new shoes a few weeks ago.

Melissa73 – I have a huge respect for teachers. And an even greater respect for special needs teachers. You are an angel. I could never do what you do. Good job on keeping at or below your points. I’m glad you had fun at the casino. I hope you get to feeling better soon.

Mom23 – I hope your son had a great birthday. It’s great that you were able to bank some calories to use for his special treats!

Andi – It’s so exciting that you’ve hit the 20 pound mark! :carrot: I bet it feels great! I have 2 dogs and have lost about the same amount of weight equal to my small dog. Amazingly enough, my long term goal is about the same as the weight of my larger dog (65 pounds). I’m glad you were able to reward yourself with a haircut. It’s so nice to do something non-food related for a reward. I hope you get to feeling better soon.

Counting – I have been going through the Beck Diet Solution and one days focus was specifically to set realistic goals both in the amount of weight and in the time it takes to get there. One thing I picked up from that day was the quote “How much will it matter a few years from now how long it took?” I always want immediate results. You are so right about us being our own worst enemies. I think it’s great that you recognize that it doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as you get there!

Tina – I know what you mean about the weather. We are having freezing rain here today. I can’t wait until spring! It’s interesting that I keep hearing more and more that strength training is better than cardio. Of course, I’m obsessed with fitness related topics so maybe that’s why I keep hearing it. I do probably 95% cardio so I need to get the strength training started. I’m glad you had a fun game night. The Wii boxing sounds fun and like quite a good workout. Your family Valentine’s day dinner sounds great. You’re a great mom, I can tell!

MSTeacher – 2 sizes! How exciting! Congrats! :cb:

Melissa (Hun) – Congrats on getting your car paid off! That’s a great feeling, isn’t it! That extra money is going to be nice! Sledding with the girls sounds like a lot of fun! Good job on staying in control with the pizza. That’s one of those things that I can easily go overboard on. I hope your throat gets to feeling better.

Cat – I meant to pop on yesterday to wish you a happy birthday and didn’t get it done. I hope your day was fabulous! :woo:

Laura – Great job on running the race even though you weren’t as motivated. Let me just say – you make me PROUD!!!

Floann – great job on the 2.2 pounds. :broc: (It's a good thing I proofread-I had 202 pounds instead of 2.2 :dizzy:)

OptimistK – I’m glad to have you posting. Sending you :dust: to help you get back on track. Kudos to you for recognizing the issues and getting back on track before you did too much damage.

Cassie – I’m glad you got through your mini-plateau. Keeping working at it and the loss will continue!

Yello – I’m glad you’ve been doing well on your plan! 55 pounds is awesome! :woohoo: I’m glad you could find your swim shoes. We all need to treat ourselves from time to time no matter how small of a treat it is.

Nicoya – I hope your jury duty is over quickly. Most people I know that get called to jury duty have the cases dismissed, but mine never do. I’ve only had to actually serve once. We put a dirty old man away for a long time!

Kari – Your valentine’s day present sounds exciting. You’ll have to let us know how you like it. I’m glad your computer’s back in business.

Cathy (Catsgetnhealthy) – Try to stay warm and keep the kiddos warm, too. Congrats on the 2 pounds.

Jen, Rennie, Terapet, Roni, and Utah – :wave: hello! And thanks for posting. It was great to hear from you.

I have been trying to keep my expectations in check and have prepared myself for a maximum of 1.25 pound weight loss per week. When I weighed last Friday I was down 2.5 pounds which was exciting. When I got on the scale this morning it was 3.5 pounds. :woohoo: I don't usually lose at this pace. I'm not sure what I'm doing but I like it!

I was able to resist the cake at my party this weekend. I wasn't tempted in the least and then when I realized it was dry store bought cake that sealed the deal.

Okay - so I keep seeing over and over that strength training is as important or more important that cardio. I do about 95% cardio. I need some guidance on getting the strength training up and going. I don't have access to a gym and I'm not sure what I need to be doing. So for a poll: what do you do? Do any of you do a strength training dvd? Do you use hand weights, other equipment or something that doesn't require equipment. Think strength training for dummies! ;) Help, please! P.S. I'm not usually good about pushing myself when it comes to pain, etc.

KSK - I like the Jari Love DVDs. The first one is a good one to start with it's called Get Ripped. It's got all the basics there. It's a higher rep program, but for starting out you'll likely see muscle gains. It was true for me anyway.

I hate to admit I haven't been doing the weight training lately, but I will incorporate it back in shortly when the basement gets warmer in the spring time. In the meanwhile between the bike and running at such a heavy weight my legs seem to have gained quite a bit of muscle tone but my arms are sad sad sad.

Testing to see if I can put in a chart.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...23il/Chart.jpg

Hey Karen first off congrats on the loss this week...WOOO-HOOO! That is awesome. Do you have the fit tv channel? I do most of my weights at home...I have 3 different sets of weights...3lbs, 5lbs, and 8 lbs. For me that is good. I also have a stablity ball...I would highly recommend one of these. I tivo a bunch of shows off my tv...body electric, gilad, cathe friedrich...I just search under exercise and tivo away. Most of the shows are 30min. to an hour, but that is with commercials. It's nice because the shows will work on different body parts each day. Denise Austin has a good one also. So what I would do if I were you would be start with a few different sets of hand weights. Do you buy fitness mags at all? I get them all, and they have great at home strength training programs. If you don't get any fitness magazines, go to Fitness.com, Shape.com, Womenshealth.com...and they have stuff on their sites to help ya start up also. If you have any more questions let me know:) Your doing great~

Yea! Thanks for the quick responses - Muse and Tina! I have 1 lb, 2 lb and 5 lb weights. I also have a stability ball. I don't have Fit TV or Tivo :(, but I just added Get Ripped with Jari Love and Gilad:Sculpt and Tone to my NetFlix. I need to bump them up to be my next selections. There are several Jari Love dvds with Get Ripped in the title, but I think I got the first one in my queue. I wrote down the magazines to look into.

Diva....I'm so glad to see that you are feeling better!! Way to go on your workout today! After I run I'm spent I cant seem to pull myself to do anything more so the fact that you did is fantastic!!

Nicoya...I hate going to the doctor! I hate doing just about anything that my body is the focus LOL! I hope its uneventful for you!! And I hope jury duty was quick and painless! Great job on the loss!!

Kari...what a fantastic present for the two of you!! I bet you guys will have all kinds of fun on it! :wink: LOL! Really glad to hear that your computer is better!

Muse...you have become my running inspiration! I wanna try how you do it! At what interval did you start?

Melissa73...I've gotta laugh because when I see you talk about C25K, you are a week behind me and I swear I've said EXACTLY what you do...I cant believe I run 3 minutes...twice! LOL!! Boy do I know about those 12 year old boys! Oye! My girl turns 13 on the 4th :fr:

Cassie....WOOOOHOOOO!!! I knew it would happen! Now stay off that scale till next week!! Was that your bumper number? Are we bouncing down the rails now? I hope so!!

Cathy....Yay!!! Excellent loss!! Keep up the fantastic work! Way to go on those workouts!!! You are doing so great!!

Andi....I'd say that workout was a good reason for the loss!!! And a huge one at that!! Excellent job!! I hope you feel better!!

Barbara...:wave: Yay the move is almost done!

Karen...WOOOHOOO!!! Way to go on a VERY successful week!! Congrats on the loss and for avoiding cake!! You are doing so great!! Keep it up! I have hand weights and a ball that I use for resistance. I need to research workouts myself.

<<<<< just did 2000 posts!! LOL!

And I finished Week 3 of C25K! Moving on to Week 4 tomorrow, I've got to make up for skipping last friday!

Today I did upper body, well I am doing part of it later as well. Ran out of time earlier.

Scale sais 198 today, maybe I am over the whole 199/200 debacle? Let's hope so!

Mel -

I started at 1run/4walk then 1.25run/3.45walk 1.5run/3.5walk then 2run/3walk and now 2.5run/2.5walk... The book I had started with 30 second runs, but I skipped that week.

I picked this program versus the c25k because I just liked the layout of the program more then the others I saw. It seemed a bit more realistic with the recovery (walk) times for someone starting out so heavy... and allows me to go for an hour at a time because of those recovery times.

The Book is: The Beginning Runner's Handbook: The Proven 13-Week Walk-Run Program

Edit to say: I'm not knocking the C25k program I think it's fabulous too! :)

Another Edit: Looking at the Amazon reviews looks like the program in the book was overhauled to be a bit more progressive so look for the older version if you want the start off slow (30 seconds)

Muse, I do have to admit that while I love the C25K program because its actually got me running I'm very intimidated by it. This week I'm supposed to run 5 minutes straight...2 times. I'm sure I'll do it. But right now running 3 minutes is HARD! Like...where did 4 minutes straight go? Just seems like such a big jump. And the end of next week I'll be doing 20 minutes straight. That scares the heck out of me and I just dont know if I'm gonna be able to do it. Seems like too much too soon considering I struggle with 3 minutes. Am I just making excuses?

Mel I don't know, but you don't know unless you try right? If it's too hard repeat this week over as many times as you need to before you think you can move on.

This is why I went for something a little more gentle. I can add 30 seconds here and there fairly well and it's less intimidating... but I haven't gotten to the long stretches of running yet so I think I'll also need to repeat weeks at some point.

The point is we're out there DOING it right? Go US!