Unna: I agree that these challenges really help keep our motivation up! Awesome work. Sometimes not counting can give us a little break from it so that we don't obsess about it. I sometimes do that, a little too often though..

As for me, I ate quite a lot of junk Friday and yesterday. Today I'm keeping within 1200-1300 calories. I think dinner will be salad with some soup. Not sure yet.
Tomorrow is back to normal with exercise. Last week I wasn't feeling like circuit training so I walked more. Tomorrow will be circuit and a walk.
Anyway.. have a good night chickies!

Just checking in...hope everyone had a great weekend!

I overdid it a bit. Friday night I had a (planned) cheat meal with a friend, crab leg buffet (yum!) But Saturday I had an unplanned visit to the Chinese buffet. Our niece came to stay with us and we let her choose dinner...and of course she picks the Chinese buffet, lol. I tried to be reasonable, but I really have no idea on the calorie count. Just one of those things you need to move on from, I guess!

I have another challenge coming up this weekend. Doing a long weekend away with the girls starting Thursday. The good news is both of them have also lost/are losing weight, so hopefully we can keep each other on track!

vitamin c how did u loose all ur weight

tdiprincess: Yeah, I really need to practice the art of counting without obsession.... If I eliminated snacking, I think calorie tracking would be in general much easier - then I would just ensure that I ate, on average 500 per meal..... I'll have to work on that.

NorthernExposure: Well, the crab legs only had 2 calories a piece! HAHA - they are like shrimp.... virtually no calories. You should come up with a liberal plan for counting calories on your weekend away and share it with us! I think we are all going to have to start planning for occasions where we have no control over the food there - the holidays are coming!!

Saturday I ate around 1700 and I did a lot of walking in the city. Sunday my boyfriend and I went on a semi-unplanned 12km run and I ate 1700. So, on the high end, but that is still okay.

Keep going everyone!

Unna: lol...and with the work of cracking them open, maybe they actually had negative calories and made up for my dessert!!

For my girls' weekend, I think I'm going to try to do what I did when I maintained over the summer. No counting, but making reasonable choices (stay away from overly sugary/fatty/fried things) and eating reasonable portion sizes. If it's an "unknown" food, do a quick calorie lookup to see if it's worth it. If it can't be looked up, then it's probably not! If we can stay away from buffets and such, I think I can do OK. We do get free breakfast at the hotel. The hardest part will be turning down those darned "make 'em yourself" waffles every day! I don't know why, but I LOVE those things! SO not worth the calories for all that fluff though.

Yesterday I came in just under 1400 cals. Hopefully making up for the Chinese buffet a little, lol. Hoping to get a walk in this afternoon, but it looks like it will be cold and blustery. Maybe I'll do a WATP video instead. I have a 12-hour day tomorrow, so won't have time for exercise. Zumba Wed. night then packing for girls' weekend

Have a great Monday, all!

I had an awesome weekend. I'm three pounds away from my goal. I'm feeling like I can make it. We started P90X this weekend and my body knows it's been busy. Thankfully I'm not as sore as I anticipated. We will see how the rest of the week goes. I like that the workout changes everyday. Doesn't give me an opportunity to get bored. It's going to be something trying to keep up with him. It is intense and he keeps going. We will be doing Plyometrics tonight. I watched the video yesterday to see what it will be like and it's going to be really intense...guess that's what I should expect from all of them. I love it thus far. We are in the Fat Shredding phase. I'm hoping by the end of the first three weeks my loose skin and excess jiggles will show some improvement.

My anniversary is a month away and I have no idea what to do for my husband. Any suggestions???

YEAH!! 185.8!! 5.8LBS to go to reach my goal by halloween :-) The weight seems to be dropping so easy lately, I am scared my scale is broken!!

Hey ladies!
I had a pretty good weekend, stayed in my calorie range and got in lots of walks with my parents’ puppy. But boy is he crazy! I’m glad that my parents are back so that his energy isn’t focused on me all the time. Unfortunately I seem to be coming down with a cold, but I’m still hoping to fight it off before it gets full-blown.

FunSize: Congratulations! That’s awesome!
Jiggle: I’m glad you’re not too sore from 90X and that you’re loving it!
Northern: Sounds like a really good plan for your girls’ weekend – definitely something I’m going to be keeping in mind during the holiday season. And I know what you mean about waffles, especially the ‘make it yourself’ ones. Yum! My old housemate had a waffle iron and I used to have waffles for desert all the time… It’s probably a really good thing that I don’t own a waffle iron.
Unna: The chicken wing was 70 cals – so not worth it for the amount of meat I got from that wing…
Tdi: These challenges really do help with motivation! And good idea about the not counting once in a while to help with getting obsessed – I tend to stay more on the obsessive side of things

Hola Chicas! ~ Decided to go ahead & do a check in even though Ive been extreeeeemly busy! Work is.. WORK.. lol & family has my time tied up as well.. My allergies have been acting up as well.. lol gosh.. I sneezed 8 times in a row this morning.. .. ah, other than that, my challenge is going pretty well. Ive almost hit goal, I have like 2 more lbs to lose before I hit goal, so I'm hoping these next couple weeks are good to me. I haven't been exercising .. No time! the only thing Ive been doing is walking around like a mad woman during work, taking the stairs, walking up & down every isle at the grocery store when I go, etc. .. nothing substantial, but Id feel so guilty if I didn't get some form of exercise in during the week..

Otherwise Im proud of myself.. Hopefully by the end of the year I would have lost 50lbs.. lets hope.. lol back to work! will check in later!

Easy~ <3<3<3

Jiggle: P90X sure sounds interesting. I am looking for something different to do indoors once it's too cold/snowy to walk outside anymore. Just not sure I would stick to anything that intense...I tried 30DS and I didn't stick with it. Maybe I'll give that another go before I try something else. It's hard though, because I just didn't find it fun at all. I know exercise is supposed to be work, but it should be at least a little bit fun, right?!

FunSize: Great job!! Enjoy those times the scale moves quickly...it is something to remember for those times it doesn't want to budge.

Sparkle: new puppies do have a lot of crazy engery, don't they? They're so cute though Hope you're able to nip that cold in the bud.

Phat: I know what you mean about walking the halls, etc. when you can't get any "real" exercise. I'm at work for 12 1/2 hours today so won't be able to do any "real"exercise either. I'm trying to get up at least once an hour to walk around a bit though and try to take the long way around the building when I can. No way anyone should be expected to sit at a desk for that long!!

Yesterday I came in at about 1650 cals and took about a 2 mile walk (with hills) with the dog. (It was windy and cold, but dry. Wasn't so bad since I bundled up.) As I mentioned above, no exercise today, but have about 1580 calories planned.

Tomorrow is my zumba night, then I get to start my long weekend, yay! I will have to WI on Thursday morning again this week before I leave since I will be gone Friday. Going to have to take this WI with a grain of salt as TOM started today. (SO annoying....lately I've had months where I have this long, lingering "pre" TOM, i.e., I think full blown TOM is going to start any day, but THIS goes on for days. UGH! Just wanted to get it over with before my getaway/WI!! Sorry if that was TMI, lol!)

Anyhoo...I will catch you ladies later!

Oh boy ladies, I was gone for a few weeks and I ended up putting on 7 pounds!!! EEEEEKKK!!!! Well I'm back now and about to go work out. I gotta turn this challenge around, I know I will not be able to lose my 20 pound goal, but if I can at least get these 7 gained off plus a few more, I wont be so upset.

some of you guys are soooo close to your goal!! congrats!! like Jiggle,Fun Size,PHAT you guys can definitely do it!! sooo close!!!!

Northern: my mom has been doing Zumba at the gym lately and loves it! (she's a complete health freak and makes me look absolutely TERRIBLE! haha) Do you like it as well? I was thinking about checking it out!

Everyone else keep doing an amazing job and I need to promise myself to check in more!

Have a good day everyone!!

I did made it through the Plyometrics last night...OMG!!! I wasn't able to do everything but being that it was my first try...I'm happy to say I came close to doing all of it. When it was over, my whole body felt like a wet noodle in pain. I thought I wasn't going to be sore from the upper body workout...WRONG, today I ache everywhere. I'm pretty pleased though because I feel it working. By the new year I should look like someone else....mostly still me though.

Northern - It's hard work but I'm having fun...however I still have a few more dvds to go. The thing about P90X...there's no time to get bored since the workouts change EVERYDAY. I will do the same set of dvds for three weeks then move to next set of six. The seventh day is a rest day or you can do the stretching dvd. I plan to try the stretching video this week to see how it goes and then determine if it needs to be a total rest day or a stretching day.
Farn - Come on Girl...you can do this.
P H A T - Sounds like you are doing a great job in spite of being busy. Even though you aren't exercising it all good since 90% of it is what we are eating. Keep up the great work.
SparkleBE - I'm in pain today!! It must be a delayed reaction. So the workout I did last night will be looking at me tomorrow. I took an Epsom Salt bath hoping if I take another one tonight I can bypass the real pain.
Funsize - YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

I'm thinking this holiday season is going to be a great one. My plan is to be in that size 10 by the New Year...Hence I have to stick with the P90X for the entire 90 days. I need my body to be tight and right.

Hello ladies! I am so happy to see so many of us losing weight!

My weight loss has sloooooooowed down. I'm very thankful that I haven't gained a pound, but for two weeks I didn't budge. Then last week I lost 1 pound. For 17 weeks and 32 lbs lost, I'm still averaging 1.88 lbs lost a week. Not bad.

I'm hoping for my first whoosh.

Farn: welcome back! Yes, I like Zumba a lot. I've done it at home (wii) for a while, but was a bit intimidated to go to a "real" class. But this year one of my co-workers started a class right after work (no excuses, ha!) so I thought I'd give it a try. Now I look forward to it every wednesday!

Jiggle: way to go! I'm sure you'll see great results. I will keep it mind for winter. Is it expensive?

Scottie: I feel your pain!! I was stuck within the same pound or so for almost a month. Finally had a little drop last week. Not so sure about this week with TOM...still feeling bloated, but we'll see tomorrow, I guess!

I did OK yesterday. They had homemade cookies out for conferences last night and I ended up caving at about 6:00 last night. Was hoping to stay under 1600 cals for the day, but with being at work for 12 hours combined with TOM, it was just too much to resist, lol. Going to stay on the lower end today though, plus I have Zumba...so will hopefully make up a little for yesterday.

Have a great hump day, everyone!

I've been incredibly busy. I've been hired at the last minute by the Uni here to edit a very important document on the legal and ethical aspects of live organ donation in the European Union. The person they initially hired became sick. Anyway, $35 an hour mostly for reading, can't complain - but am working 13 hour days because the semester just started and I'm teaching 3 courses at the Uni.

On a high note, that means I haven't had time to snack! However, I have been ordering takeout because I have no time to cook or go grocery shopping. I mostly order big salads with the dressing on the side. Regardless, my calories are still coming in on the high end - around 1700 everyday. It is still within my limit, but I would like to go a little bit lower.

I haven't been doing any official exercise. I do get in an average of 1-2 hours of walking a day - just going from work to home and other errands... so at least there is something.

Monday my life will be back to normal and back to jogging and 1600.

Have a great day!!