Hello my lovelies!
5.6lbs GONE!!!!!!!
End of my 1st week on South Beach and really good headway made towards becoming a healthier Momma for my boy :D
Can't wait to see how everyone else is doing in the morning!

:carrot: Good job, Karen! Makes me excited to check mine tomorrow morning. Did I just say that?

I didn't do any exercises today after last night, just some stretches especially since my one foot is sore. It was the one I broke 2 years ago, so maybe that is another thing to think about. 2 hrs together may be too much.

Everyone have a great Friday.:hug: I will try to get on to post my results in the 3 hours I have between work and night call. OOOh that could be a rough 24 hours. Kathy;)

Hope everyone survived the crash!!!
It was awfully strange logging in and seeing that the "last post" was made 2 weeks ago.
It is unbelievably and unbearably hot here. I've got Johnny upstairs in his room (I THOUGHT he was going to sleep, but I still hear him playing) and I've got to get a start on some of the massive cleaning that needs to be done by Sunday's party.
Fun.
If I had a box of ice cream I'd probably be eating the whole thing right now just to cool down some!

It's bizarre knowing that everything I posted in the last 2 weeks only exists in the ether now! I had a good day today except for missing 3FC.

:hug: Hey all! I am happy to report that I am back down to where I was the 1st time, 1.5 lb down! Guess I am either back on track, or the extra exercise of moving my son helped. I am on call tonight, but will catch you all tomorrow. Hope I don't have to go in.

Kathy

Morning all, I agree, too weird having all that gone. Just took YS to take the SAT, wish him luck. Today is a bit of a me day, going to get my hair done. Roots are popping thru and have a bit too much gray for my liking. Ah well, tomorrow is my B'day, I'll be 42 and we've raised 2 nice young men (and DH!) guess i've earned all the grays I have!
Fighting the good fight today. My turbo jam DVDs came in the mail, I am going to try one a bit later!

mothermavis
I should be maintaining by then also. Have to keep myself on track. Most of the time all that I am doing is just everyday life. Doesn't seem hard it is just what I do. Going to see about this summer. Last summer I had just started this journey and I was eating lots of lean cuisines. That was great, I learned portion sizes again and didn't have to mess with cooking. I added dairy and fruits and veggies and had a balanced diet. Now, I am eating " real " food lol. Might need to be a bit more carefully because of not making the big meals anymore because of the heat. Those little quick meals are not generally as good for us as the full coarse meals. We are going to have Christmas pics this year. Part of me doesn't want the time to fly by because I want to enjoy this summer. Part of me wants it to be over with so I am at goal finally.

MMavis -- Happy early birthday!

DH and I just did a really nice bike ride and I'm hoping I'll also get to the pool this evening. I am getting excited about the California trip we are taking in July -- due to various circumstances, we haven't gone anywhere together in a loooong time, and this trip is going to be a blast. We going to the Big Sur area and will be doing tons of hiking in all the great places up and down the coast there. I'm working hard every day to make sure I'll as light and as fit as I can be before we leave on July 19th, it is such a motivation.

Yikes, it is odd to have a couple weeks worth of post just gone like that. :?:

Well, yesterday's WI showed me down another pound, to 192! As the day progressed I developed either a short-lived flu or a whalloping case of indigestion, so I hardly ate (and what I ate didn't... er, stick around long). Really unpleasant, but I guess the silver lining is I may lose a bit more from that. :p

Hope you all are doing well. Jo, your trip sounds like tons of fun! I'm not going on a vacation until January, so that's farther than the Christmas goal. My birthday is at the end of July though, it's fun to use that as a bit of a carrot and see how much smaller I can be for my bday.


Edited to add: So I got curious and hopped on the scale. Yow!! Down to 190.5!!! I don't recommend the flu as a weight loss method, but hey I'm not gonna knock it. :rofl:

my weighin was down 2lbs. it is weird to have all those posts gone lol.

Hi everyone! I am new and was looking through the threads wondering if anyone else had Christmas as a goal! I am thrilled that I found you! (o:

My brother-in-law is getting married in October, and I want to take a family picture for our Christmas cards at his wedding. I can make good progress in 4 months! I just wanted to say hello, and let you all know I appreciate this thread!

Monica :carrot:

:carrot: Hey Monica! Glad you are joining us. The group is great and very supportive. Set your goal and away you go. We have been trying to weigh in on Fridays together. Hope we can all get started knowing you. I'm still pretty new and still navigating around the site.

Kathy;)

Thanks! I think this is a great place, and I look forward to progress! I will join the Friday weigh in. (o:

Welcome Monica!!!

Haley & Betsi, wtg on the pounds lost.

I just weighed in this AM, I am back down to 148.4, so that is a tiny bit ahead of schedule for Christmas! I am hoping to hit 145 by the end of the month and change my ticker!!

Rennie, I did the LC thing for a while too, like you, I now eat real food in reasonable portions and move my butt from the couch. Last night though, I went to bed about 10:30 because the cookie gremlins were calling me to graze in the kitchen and I was afraid if I stayed up, I was going off plan. I know when I quit smoking several years back, sometimes I had to just go to bed because the cravings were ridiculous, but I made it through that and hae not had a cigarette in years. I can make it thru this and maintain at my goal weight too.

Josephine, you are a running machine, you amaze me!!

OK all, got to go get ready for church. TTYL

Last Christmas I bought the word BELIEVE (made out of wooden letters)for my mantel. I forgot that it was there. I must see it every day, but it has just become part of the landscape of my living room. It just caught my eye. It means something different for each of us yet something the same I am sure.

BELIEVE

Welcome Monica, beautiful avatar! You are I started in about the same place and are headed to about the same place! We'll get there!

I keep forgetting we do Friday weigh ins on this thread: last Friday I was 174.4, this Friday I was 169.6, which is a 4.8 pound loss. Good week for me!

Josephine-

That is a great week - how exciting! Right now, the idea of joining the "under 200" club is exhilarating for me. Seeing so many people working at getting healthier and making progress is more motivating than I thought it would be. Where have I been?

Hey everyone!

I dont know if the crash deleted the 500 miles to xmas forum but if not can someone send me the link again ...

Thank you :)

Great job, Josephine!:bravo:

Believe--you know, Monica, maybe that is the thing that I have been missing to make me successfully lose weight. Makes me wonder if I ever believed I could do it, because it is just so overwhelming to think about the numbers. Maybe the short goals were even too big, or the "all or nothing" attitude got me. Something to ponder.

Have a great day Monday, all.:hug:

Kathy;)

Here's the 500 miles link! http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142906

I had a great weekend, hope you all did too.

Karen, how was the Birthday party?

Josphine, what a great result, good job! All those miles paying off.

Monica, thanks. Believe is a wonderful way to get there.

Kathy, Haley, Betsi, Rennie and anyone I missed:cheer: Happy Monday!

I did good this week, tracking down, this morning the scale was a little up, but I had an ice cream for my B'day and did alot of Turbo Jam yesterday. I am sure with today's back to work and water schedule it will be just fine.

Morning all! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. It was SO hot and humid here, and it's still pretty bad this morning. Our air conditioning is out, and it's making me pretty cranky. I don't do so well at getting to bed before midnight so getting up before the heat is very hard. I really don't know if I can get myself to do my workout this morning, after a weekend of hot and sticky weather and that stomachache persisting the whole time.

I can feel myself slipping off the wagon, and I don't like it. I don't know how to get remotivated though. I mean, I can stick to better eating habits ok I guess but that's never been my problem. I don't know if I can bear exercising in this weather. Maybe I should reconsider that gym membership, at least there'd be ac.

Morning gang! It was hot, hot, hot here too. But since I live in FLorida it is to be expected. But at least the AC is working, eek Betsi, I can't imagine trying to exist without it. We have ours set at 80 degrees and that is a lovely touch of coolness when the days are so hot!

Betsi, I honestly think food management is far more important than exercise. My mum lost 35 pounds over the last 6 months and hasn't exercised a single moment (she has all sorts of physical problems that get in the way of exercise). So don't think it is necessary to get the weight off!

I do happen to do alot of sports but it is because they are my hobbies more than I'm doing them for weight loss. It is managing my food that is making the difference in weight loss.

Thanks Josephine, I'll try to keep it in mind. I think it probably is the only work-around when it's too hot for much exercise. It's frustrating though because for me this isn't just a weight-loss journey, it's a total fitness journey. I'm trying to get stronger and more capable, and having to put that part on hold while it's so hot and humid (it's the humidity that kills me!) makes me feel like I'm giving up.

Well, we all survived the party inspite of the killer heat & humidity. Johnny got some great stuff and a lot of it makes a LOT of noise which is even better for him (like a drum set and an electronic keyboard and dinosaurs that march around roaring). It was too hot to really want to eat much so I don't think I did TOO bad ... until later when I was so hungry I ate and ate and ate! I'll get back on the wagon, though ... just as soon as my sub is done ;)

Oh, and I completely understand not wanting to workout when it's like this! I don't even want to go near the treadmill and it's right in front of the AC!

I too am looking forward to the day when I am just simply classified as "overweight"! :) I have decided that my first mini goal is 5 pounds and my big goal for now is getting 10% of this weight off...21.5 pounds. That will be very exciting! Once I reach those goals, I will gear up for the next ones. Sound good? So for now, I am going to focus each day on what I can do on THAT day. So many times before I tried to map out my entire weight loss. "I am going to lose 2 pounds per week and by August 10 I should weigh..." I didn't mean to set myself up for failure, but inevitably, I did. I really believe I can do what it takes to lose 5 pounds. I am just going to going from there. I read GLory87's story yesterday and Super Foods made sense to me. I have started focusing on what I can and should eat more than on focusing on what I shouldn't eat. I am really trying to spin things in a positive way for myself. The one thing I am doing though, that I can't help, is visualizing what I want my family Christmas card to look like. What will I look like? What will I wear? Will it be a family picture from my brother-in-law's wedding August, or will I wait until December and be able to wear one of those really great Christmas dresses...the one with the red plaid skirt and black velvet fitted top....hmmmmm.

Mini-goals are great! I usually aim to lose about 10 pounds every "month" (4 week period) and by focusing on that I've exceeded that for each month so far.

I'm doing the same with with the Christmas picture. I've been trying to decide how to pose it and what to wear, etc. Visualize success! Yee haw!

I STILL do the "if I lose x per week how long will it take/what will I weigh on ___". It does get me a little down sometimes on the weeks when I lose significantly less than the "x" though.

The one big downside to the party yesterday was that once again I ended up with pictures of Johnny with everyone .... but me. By Christmas I really hope that changes and I'll be more of a picture takee than just a picture taker!

Wanted to check in. It has been in the 90's here for a few days so not much going outside except for this weekend when we walked a few miles at the park had some fun at the camp grounds and then spent 10 hours working at the soup kitchen lol. That is fine so much still to do in the house. I am never going to get all the windows done at one time lol. I have a ton of them and I just about get them done and something else needs done. By the time a few days pass and I get back to them sill's need done again lol. I have been scrubbing ceilings and boy is that hot work. Still doing the exercise but not as many miles. Have gone down to 4 miles a day instead of 6 or 8 or 10. Just to hot to try to do all that I do a day as far as housework and such and do that many miles.

Still not turning the air on. I keep telling the kids. If Laura Ingles could live without air so can you lol. Hey, I didn't have air when I was a kid and I lived to tell the story.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying cool.

Us too, in KY. It is really nasty already. :barf:

We had a load of fun on call yesterday on call. The heating & AC went out at the hospital for 10 hours. No air circulation. One of the Doctors said he knew something bad had happened when he saw 6 maintainence people buying out Ace Hardware's fans for the units! The worst areas are the OR's because they have to maintain a certain stable humidity or they cannot do any surgeries. Icky conditions to work in.

I think our big AC unit at home needs freon. Our upstairs has been running continuously and we can't get the heat and humidity down to sleep comfortably. Not good when the hot flashes come at night!

Betsi--There are a bunch of 15 to 20 minutes whole body workouts online. Try Spark People or You Tube. some are really gentle stretching, some are yoga, some are aerobic. But maybe you just need a few days of LESS, to re-motivate. Or just a change of pace. We can just keep throwing ideas at you to help you figure it out.

Check in later, or tomorrow. Got to get the smelly camp girl in the shower before bed. Man, she is only 9 1/2, and she really gets rank when she sweats. I about killed her when I got home from work--she had put on the clean clothes for tomorrow and didn't take a shower either.:p

Kathy;)

Christmas pajamas!
 

I want to get myself some Christmas pajamas this year! Pajamas that are completely impractical for the rest of the year because of the reindeer and Christmas lights and Santa on them. A pair of FUN pjs that I will wear on Christmas morning when I take pictures with my kids, not just of my kids.

Also, I am beginning to understand the phrase, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." I am looking to the future with hope, and then focusing on the work I need to do today. Before I got out of bed, I thought about my Christmas pajamas. That made me smile, and then I planned my breakfast, cooked it and ate it. (o: Now that I am not hungry, I am going to go plan the rest of my day. :)

mothermavis - Thank you for starting this post. I can't tell you how much it means to me to have a place like this to go to with my thoughts and feelings. I feel comfortable here.

My funny little story....
 

Me again!

I posted this in the WW Flex area because that is the plan I am on, and I thought I would share it over here....it's good for a chuckle.

My girlfriend and I were on the phone and she was online figuring out her BMI. So we're chatting along and she says, "That's weird." I add, "What?" She proceeds with, "The BMI calculator thing is telling me that I'm not overweight at all. It's actually saying I'm a little under what I should be." I quickly reply with, "Really?" I mean, she's a lot smaller than I am, but I did not think she would be underweight. And then I ask, "How tall are you?" She starts to giggle...."Oops, instead of 5'6", I told it I was 6'6"!" I follow up with, "See, you're not fat, you're just short!"

:rofl: That's so funny! I love it!

wow...i hadn't really thought of a christmas goal as in what i want to be wearing...like a particular outfit. I am definately going to be thinking on this one now. I kinda usually think more of New years Eve. Like wearing a little, tight strappy dress....like in your pic 362638. I've never had an opportunity to wear something like that. Well...not since i was in high school anyways. I had the body for it back then but not the money. My aunt made me this hideous dress. Okay....it wasn't that bad, but it was nothing like what i had in mind. Hmmmm...let me think of what i want to use as my goal for christmas. Great idea!!!

Lumifan! You and I both - that picture is from my Junior Prom! HAHAHAHA!!! I know I look about 28 in it, but I was 17 years old. I'm 38 now ... the dated gold lame` dress didn't give it away?!?!?! May 1986!!!!! I was between 135-140 pounds. All my friends were tiny little things, no hips, no curves, and I was so jealous! I am full of sayings theses days, but here goes: "Sometimes you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone." So, that's me....I'm in that dress, and while I have no desire to wear that dress again, I think I'd like to be able to fit into it. :) Odddly, I'm not overly attached to any particular number right now. I think I look fab at 150 (size 12-ish for me) but quite frankly, a size 16 anything would be a dream come true right now. (o: I am looking forward to just being smaller, and the good news is that 210 is going to feel better than 215 and so on. So, here's to just simply feeling better!!!!

I still have a couple of my prom/homecoming dresses (I'm 40 by the way) including a purple monstrosity from a year when "southern belle" dresses with hoop skirts no less were all the rage. It is the most god-awful, be-ribboned, be-ruffled, lacey, foo foo thing I've EVER seen. When I can fit into it again I'm going to surprise DH when he comes home from work one day by serving dinner in it.

Yeehaw! Well ladies, I did GREAT today. I had a blueberry waffle for breakfast with just a smidge of syrup, half a lettuce and tomato sandwich for lunch, and finished my salad from last night's dinner for a pre-dinner healthy fill-up to avoid over eating when I go out with friends for dinner tonight. Plus, despite the peak (I hope) of the heatwave today, I actually got on the Gazelle for 20 minutes today plus did some sit ups and lifted weights. I'm feeling fantastic! :goodvibes:

I like the Christmas clothes thought too.

Maybe one of those little Victoria Secret Santa outfits. DH would definitely help me get the stockings ready then :devil:.

I would love the little PJ's though, like the one's from Old Navy... and then a flashy, look at me, sexy red dress.

36 you do look all grown up in that Avatar.

Lumi- I think we grew up on the same side of the tracks, we had nothing either, but that's OK. I'm not sure the rich kids are any happier now than I am and my kids have it better. I think that's what it's about.

I had a great day! Even though there were some disappointing things going on, and I was frustrated, nervous, anxious, etc. I did not turn to food for comfort. While I now understand why food was a way for me to relax, I do not want it to be my crutch. I also (now this is big for me) am learning to not get mad at myself. I have spent a good amount of time wondering, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I lose weight? Why can other people seem to do it but not me?" I have had, as I am sure we have all had, plenty of angry moments. For whatever reason, it was the best I could do at the time.

I am loving Super Foods by the way. (o:

Would someone please please PLEASE give me a swift kick in the keister???
:kickbutt:
I'm having a HORRIBLE time getting back into the swing of things and that just gets me bummed ... which makes me want "comfort food" ... which typically means lots of carbs (preferably covered in chocolate).
I'm absofreakinlutely flipping out over the idea of having to get on the scale in a couple of days. BUT, at the same time, it might be the :frypan: that I need.
Ah well. What's done is done, right?

Sure thing, Karen! ;) The kick in the butt that got me started on my weight loss journey in the first place was stepping on the scale when I knew I wouldn't like what it said. I was stressed out, and knew what it was doing to my eating habits and activity levels but I kept trying to convince myself it wasn't that bad and making excuses to myself.

When I stepped on the scale I was shocked to see a 2 as the first digit of my weight for the first time in my life. But it really was a GREAT wake-up call. Don't allow yourself to be in denial about the trend toward craving unhealthy food and skipping exercise. Get on that scale, find out EXACTLY where you are. Own this. Break the cycle of "I feel like crap because I've been eating poorly so I'll cheer myself up with food." Sometimes you need a cold hard fact to reflect the emotional state you're in. But don't let your fear of what you might see stop you, because I'll bet you that while it'll be worse than part of you hopes, it will also be better than part of you fears. Don't let that fear paralyze you! Get up RIGHT NOW and check your weight. THEN go for a walk around the block. Nothing huge, just something anything to get you moving, start some new momentum toward healthy habits. Take action!

Oh, and here's one other thing I've found that helps a lot. If you're craving comfort food, make yourself a deal. Something like "Ok, if I do 20 minutes on the treadmill, I can have two cookies." Be specific about both how much you must do to earn it and what you will earn, and don't allow yourself to earn more than a sensible serving of a comfort food. When I do this, more often than not I find the endorphins or whatever other mood-boosting chemicals that exercise creates short-circuits the craving and I don't want it so much anymore. However, I make sure that if I still want it I go ahead and have it. Otherwise it will never work again! Once you've broken your word with yourself this will NEVER work again. Of course, I don't do this all the time; maybe once or twice a week at most and only end up wanting the treat after maybe once in every three or four times. More often and I think this wouldn't work so well. But as an occasional tool to replace bad habits with good ones it works quite well. Instead of diving for food as soon as I need the comfort, I hope one day to automatically jump on the elliptical or go for walk. This has already started to work, there have been a few times when I felt unhappy when my FIRST impulse was to grab the trampoline and get bouncing. And it WORKS!