Hi ladies! I would love to joing your group. My name is Lisa. I am 33 years old 5'9 and weigh 155 lbs. I have a 12 year old, a 3 1/2 year old and an 18 month old. I have been in the 150's for as long as I can remember and my goal weight is 140, which in my opinion is NOT alot to ask. My body is telling me otherwise. I have been struggling to lose this last 15 pounds for years. After having three 9 plus pound babies my body holds all of its fat in the tummy area. (especially lower tummy) I hate how my body looks and have tried every diet under the sun.

I just did 2 weeks of phase 1 South Beach plan and I hated how it made me feel. I was tired and out of breath the whole time I was on the diet. Plus I only lost 2 stinking pounds! I have tried calorie counting on fitday in the past but have never really stuck to it faithfully for a long period of time. I am ready to give this an honest try and shed these last 15 pounds for good.

Lindy - I am so proud of you! I have never handed a cashier anything and said I didn't want it - as soon as it hits my cart I talk myself into "its too late now!" mentality. That really does take a HUGE amount of willpower - you go, girl! hehehe

Today was a good day for me even though my choices in food were poor. Lunch, which is where I always collapse, wound up being two hot dogs and a half of an order of small fries instead of the salad I'd figured on having. Oopsie.

However, I had a small breakfast & dinner, and worked my butt off at the gym tonight, leaving me with a 1081 calorie deficit for today!! Yay! That's double my daily goal so I'm pleased. However, I shall not be visiting the hot dog stand any time again soon. Bad bad me.

Oh look folks a newbie! Hi and welcome Leesaw!

If I go to bed (like I should) right now ... I'll have 1553 in and 1878 out.

How do you know if you have a calorie deficit? I read somewhere that you should aim for a 500 calorie deficit per day in order to lose a pound per week. How to I figure out all the math with calories in and out?

Hi Leesaw .... I wish wish wish folks could remember what they usually eat. Then they could just cut calories ... either by eating less, moving more or both.
Can you come up with a good idea of what you usually eat? You can try putting that in fitday.

Welcome, Leesaw! That is the most-frequently-asked question around here.

The theory is that 3500 calories equals a pound of fat. So, if you take away 500 calories a day for 7 days, that's a pound a week. It's not always 100% accurate so "your mileage may vary" as they say.

I research what I eat and plug it into fitday. Sometimes I create custom foods, other times I use their food but just up or down the portion size until the calories equal what I know them to be, from my research. I put in *everything* even when I don't want to face what I've eaten. If you aren't honest, it's pointless.

You also tell fitday whether you are active or sedentary in your lifestyle. Knowing that I have a horrible metabolism, I put my lifestyle as 'bedridden' and then just add in whatever exercise I do, even if it's grocery shopping. The little chart at the top will tell you how many calories you burned, being you, and doing what you did that day.

You subtract your food calories from your activities calories (hopefully activities is higher!) and bam, that's your deficit for the day.

Glad to have you aboard!

P.S. Susan - I think if people remembered and counted what they ate every day, they probably wouldn't have wound up here in the first place! hehehe

Well, I am ashamed to say that I caved in and my evening snack turned into, ahem, more than something snack sized. In fact, one might think I fell face-first into the box of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and the jar of peanut butter. Ugh! I feel icky. I plugged stuff into fitday and my fiber for the day was like 100+ grams. Whoa. Big-time tummy hurt. I'm an idiot. Sheesh! Pick up and move on. Brushing my teeth now!

Hi to Leesaw! Good to see you!

Lindy

I didn't do great today either. We got iced/snowed in and have been for days. It was at the end at a grocery cycle too so we were out of food to begin with. It is slim pickings now. I felt light headed today and ate ice cream and chocolate to pick myself up when I'd normally have a nice big bowl of high fiber cereal and milk (but couldn't because we have none of either!). Tomorrow will be tough. I did manage to get our last pack of chicken breasts unfrozen for tomorrow though so at least I have 12oz (cooked weight) of chicken breast to eat! I can't say much about anything else though.

WELCOME to all the new folks. Glad to have you here.

SLIMLINDY: for the LIFE of me I can not figure out what kind of mushrooms would need to be bleeped out. The only one's I could thing of are the ones that cause hallucinations and I don't think that's what YOU"RE talking about. Oh gosh,now I'm puzzled.

As far as your chocolate venture, Great going on handing um back, I've HAVE done things like that. Now the chocolate situation is WORSE then ever, what with Valentine's day right around the corner. It jsut goes to show you that that's always where they keep candy at the registers - they EXPECT people to cave in. It really is something, ain't it?

Sorry about your run in with a box of cereal, it's happened to me with the same exact item. And I'm sitting here laughing (sorry don't mean to make light of it) thinking of the same fiber content that I too ingested. Today's another day!!!

Sakuya I'm sorry to here you've been affected by all the ice storms we've been hearing about. How difficult for you and your family.

I started off thinking I wasn't going to hit even 700 calories for the day. I had to take a cholesterol test yesterday and needed to fast for it. The test didn't wind up taking place till about 11:15. And then I had a ton of errands to do, where I walked for miles, so that was good. There are lots of places I could have eaten but didn't want to. I brought some almonds with me and a South Beach Diet breakfast bar. I ate the almonds, but wasn't in the mood for the bar, they; never satisfy me. Anyway, I waited til I got home to make some lunch, never ate breakfast. So lunch was at about 2:30. I had a snack later in the day and was going to have a real lite dinner, but then I started picking at m;y kids dinner, chicken and roasted potatoes. So there went the REAL lite day.

So tuesday's calories - about 1100

Have a great day everyone!!!!!

Hey, Lynn.

I use Diet Power, too!

Welcome to all the newcomers.

Yesterday's calories were back to being high again, about 2200. But despite the higher calories and the way high consumption of salt, my weight is staying put. That's the good news.

Now if I could just stop overeating. Gah!

100 minutes of exercise yesterday though. Go me!

Julie

Monday's Menu:
Calories...1,197 Fat... 19%

Breakfast:
Fiber One, Orange 125 Calories

Lunch: Turkey bologna sandwich w/lettuce & salsa, 3-Bean salad 213 Calories

Snack: Pineapple Fluff w/Cool Whip
Celery w/ Garlic Laughing cow cheese Calories 165

Supper:
Ital Spagetti w/meatballs, Arugula & Pear salad with broccoli, tomatoes, Olive Oil/Balsamic Vinegar calories 551

Evening Snack: Pineapple Fluff w/Cool Whip & 1/4 glass of milk calories 143

Tuesday's Menu
Calories 1,083 Fat...20%
Breakfast: Fiber One/ yogurt, Left-over pizza 232 Calories

Lunch:
Flat Out roll-up with Egg whites, green pepper, chipotle cheese and salsa.
2 slices toast and 2 slices turkey bacon Calories 285

Supper:
Salmon Steak, Arugula mixed salad w/gr. pepper, cherry tomatoes, cottage cheese and Olive oil/balsamic vinegar.
Calories 313.

Evening Snack: Pineapple Fluff/Cool Whip and Raspberry Fluff/Cool whip and 1/2 glass milk Calores 252

Catch ya all later to gab, Bobbi

Hello to everyone, Glad to see we have some new faces in here!!
Well my calories for yesterday were alot better than Monday. 1030 compared to 1764 for Monday. And I am back down closer to what I was yesterday morning. Well I have alot of work to do today. Talk to everyone later!!
Mary

My total calories yesterday came to 1527 with 45% coming from fat.

Had dinner with a friend at Outback and I ordered the Victoria steak (7 oz) with the steamed vegetables and sweet potato. Told the waiter I wanted butter on nothing, nothing, nothing and that's exactly what I got.

It was still delicious (even better on the vegetables because you could taste that squash and zucchini) and my friend's dinner LOOKED better (shiny, silky) but he took a bite of my steak and agreed that the butter wasn't necessary... the steak was primo alone.

Calorie King tells me that the calories for a Victoria steak at Outback are 441 but that's with the butter. So I know that my calories are less than the 1527, but I always err on the side of caution.

Total deficit for January - 6838

Going to the gym three times this week (my week ends Sunday) which will really bump up the number, and tonight, I'm having salmon with mango sauce (I love FoodTV dot com).

I see a light at the end of the tunnel and I am having so much fun with this! Who would've thought???

So this morning I weighed in at 124.8 lbs which is great because I hadn't seen that number since the night I binged on about 7000 calories of chinese food (2 heaping buffet plates of fried food (and I mean heaping as in plate being so full I had to walk slowly or something would fall off...heaping as in 4 pieces of crab ragoon piles on the top of an already heaping plate of everything else), PLUS 2 bowls of egg drop soup, PLUS a fortune cookie, PLUS a small dairy queen blizzard...what was I thinking?!). Oddly enough I've lost this last .2 lbs over the last 3 days when my average calories have been 2400 per day! Oookay, I won't complain but that is over my maintenance according to my s p a r k people ranges which I feel are generally very accurate. (for me at least)

Today's Calories:

Breakfast: 5oz chicken breast, 5.05oz sweet potato (277)
Snack: 1.5c corn flakes, 140g strawberries, 1 cup unsweetened soy milk (251)
Lunch: 3.2oz chicken breast, flat out wrap, provolone cheese, light cheese stick, 14g almonds (381)
Snack: 1.5oz dark chocolate (239)
Snack: 40g oatmeal, 14g almonds, 1 tsp honey, pinch cinnamon (246)
Dinner: spinach and onion salad, 6oz chicken breast (210)

Calories: 1604
Exercise: 35 minutes upper body lifting, 30 minutes DDR (might do more, will edit if I do)