Dance-the last time I was in the 180s was probably high school. It feels great. Hope you are feeling better and cleaning definitely counts as a workout.

Katy-you'll should be dropping lots of lbs with days like that. Good luck with your auditions.

Rode my bike 2 miles and walked 2 miles. Gonna do golds gym cardio or jump on the trampoline later.

I need to up my water again. I was doing ok there for a while but I've only had about 32 oz today.

burgundy - that's amazingly cool to be down to 'teenager' weight! Also, just noticed how close you are to the 50lbs milestone - do you have any rewards planned for yourself when you get there?

katylil - you are a busy girl! How fun to have a good excuse to research period hair and make-up - I love that kind of stuff.

so, had a great run this morning and am totally back in the swing of things. Also had a new tree planted in my front yard - it's huge! Looking forward to more shade in years to come. I was too hot from my run to eat breakfast so I'm thinking cereal and strawberries for lunch and I'm having some girlfriends over for dinner - salmon, salad, sauteed spinach and ww couscous, should be yummy.

How's everyone doing today?

Well done on the run Dancer and yay for big trees! I love them in summer when it's hot and you can sit in the shade with a book and ipod...Hoep you're dinner goes good also!

Meh my singing audition went terrible. I always get so freaking nervous! I'm fine at actual performances, but auditions freak me out. Big time. So me and some of the other girls who didn't do too well ended up going for McDonalds...ugh. Uni life is full of junk food! To make up for it, I had fish and steamed veggeis for dinner. Breakfast was plain porridge. So hopefully the damage aint too bad! :/

Hope you all had a good day!

Allison! Congrats on the 180's!!!! So proud of you!! You have worked so hard and you deserve it.

Dance: You are always so busy with home improvements and gardening. Those have to be some great workouts. How much home improvement do you have left? Yea on the run!!!

Katylil So sorry you think you did poorly at your audition - I'm sure you're just being really hard on yourself. University life is hard, I remember those days - eating junk throughout the day because you're a student with no income, etc. etc. Hopefully the damage wasn't too bad.

Well, spinal injection is done and over with - just as painful as I remember. It can take up to 2 weeks to kick in, so the pain is still there. I went and worked out with Jeff tonight - figuring I'll be in pain no matter what, so I might as well do some exercise. It's hard getting back into it after no working out for a month. Jeff is customizing more workouts for me, so that's something. I go back on Thursday and I may go to zumba with a friend of mine on Saturday.

SIL's wedding is in 2 weeks, I have a dress and would love to drop 5 pounds by then. No guarantees that will happen, but I can try. Trying to figure out how to eat healthy while I'm away since we'll be eating out the entire time we're there. gotta plan ahead.

Hope everyone is doing well. Work and everything is still so crazy, but I'll try to be on here more often.

Was just reminded that Colorado has the lowest obesity rates in the country. There certainly are some extremely fit folks around but I feel like I see a lot on the other side of the spectrum as well. As you guys have lost weight, have your perceptions of the people around you changed? My normalish sized friends look heavier to me now than they did 30lbs ago - I know it's all relative, but it's weird, don't you think?

maddiesmom - I'll keep my fingers crossed on your shot kicking in soon. You are such a trooper. You will be gorgeous at that wedding whatever happens in the next few weeks - I mean, seriously - you have lost ******80lbs***** - you are a flippin' rockstar of skinny gorgeousness! You know how incredibly rare and special it is to do that without surgery, right? I'm sure everyone at the wedding will be very impressed.

katylil - sorry the audition didn't go as well as you'd hoped but I bet you're being harder on yourself than anyone watching was ;) Good job getting right back on the wagon.

Am planning on going to belly dance class tonight - I'm mentioning it here to make myself go as I didn't get to bed until late last night and I know I'm not going to feel like going to class once I get home today. We'll see how it goes... Hope you guys are doing great!

Dance: Thanks for the boost! I needed it. I'm happy where I am, don't get me wrong, but I jus feel like I have quite a ways to go and sometimes it's disheartening. Enough of that thought - you're right! I did lose 80 pounds! I found some really cute satin stappy sandals to go with my dress, so cute. It should be a fun time - I'll post pictures after we get back (wedding is 10/2).

My perception of people has totally changed. I'm thinking - wow, that person isn't much smaller than me. I tend to notice people's sizes more. Also, I'm not sure if I'm the only one who does this, but I judge people a lot by what they eat. A friend of mine said I was like a reformed smoker who can't stand the smell anymore. Basically, I have no tolerance for people who say they want to lose weight, yet still go out and eat total crap and refuse to workout. I even do it to strangers that I see eating out. In my head I'm thinking, "wow, should they be eating that?!?" Kinda mean, I know, but after being on this journey, I know it's possible to lose weight with diet and exercise.

Wow, a record, I was on here 2 days in a row. :) I'll keep checking in. Have a great night!

maddiesmom - hey, nice to have you back on the regulars' list! I totally agree with the parallels to someone who has quit smoking - I can't help but have internal opinions about lots of food choices out there. One of my buddies keeps saying she's 'trying' to lose weight but isn't making progress and I keep thinking of someone's sig around here that says 'there is no try - there is just do and do not do' which is really true about weight loss, don't you guys think? If you make a good plan and stick to it 95% of the time, it works.

Just saw yesterday at the panera near my office that they've posted calories for everything on the big menu above where you order - pretty cool. Unbelievable how high some of those counts are but they have some good options too.

Off for a run in a bit - what are you guys doing for exercise today?

Dance-I know, almost to 50lbs. I want to get there so bad. I dont have a reward planned but I should think of something. It has taken me so long to get here, I should celebrate. I find myself comparing myself to a lot of people. I still dont see a big change in myself though. Oh and also Vicky saying she notices what others are eating. I do that too, especially with people I am close with that are wanting to lose weight.

Katy-Im sure your audition wasnt as bad as you think.

Vicky-thanks!!! Are you feeling any difference since you had the injection? Cant wait to see your pics. I want to take new progress pic but keep forgetting to charge the camera battery.

I was with the boys til 7 this evening and had a headache the majority of the day so I took today as a rest day. I will get back to the grind tomorrow. I'm really trying my best to get to 188 this weekend. We'll see how that goes.

I have lots of housework to catch up on. Been with the boys so much when I get home I just want to veg. So I have been. Dont have them again til Monday so that gives me time to get my house in shape. Im gonna have the 7y/o Wed-Fri. His mom and little brother are going out of town and I'll be staying with him. My days will be free from 7-4 while hes in school and on the bus. Hes probably gonna be bummed that he cant go with them so I will have to do something fun with him those nights.

I mowed my entire yard with a push mower yesterday, that was quite a workout since we have a large yard. I couldnt do all the backyard cos theres a big beehive back there. We have to get our rider fixed. I wish I knew how many miles I walked. I remembered my pedometer when I was almost done.

Im gonna lay down and watch some tv with the hubby. It will probably be an early night for me. Night girls

Walked about 3 miles today with the pups. Wanted to go around the block for 4 miles but some people on the road over from me said there was a german shepard a few doors down from them that attacked their dog so we turned around.

I was at 189.0 this morning. Fingers crossed for 188 tomorrow.

Hey Ladies,

Allison: push mower on a huge yard = a huge workout. Sore at all? Also, you should definitely think of something to reward yourself when you reach the 50 pound mark. That's a huge milestone! Maybe a spa day??

Dance: I love Panera. Of course, just listing calories isn't enough in my opinion. I love their lf chicken noodle soup, but it's full of sodium - there's a ton. I only have their poppyseed salad with chicken. Super good.

Well, back still isn't great after the injection. After thinking about it - it's more my hip than back. Jeff thinks that maybe the muscle in my hip is causing the sciatica problem. We'll see. If it's not better in a week, I'm supposed to go to the doc and let him know my progress.

Got up early this morning for Jeff's class. He totally kicked my butt. At least there was 3 other people there to help push me. I worked out for an hour and 20 minutes and burned..............over 1000 calories! Couldn't believe it. Felt so good after I was done, such an accomplishment. A year ago, there's no way I would have thought I could do it.

Tomorrow is sorta a rest day, cleaning and ripping up my floor. My hubby has been laying down the new tile today and it looks awesome! I'm taking after Dance, and doing a bunch of home improvements. We're getting all new flooring and carpet throughout the house. The flooring was the one thing driving us absolutely nuts because it's just the cheapy floor that the builders put in. It's going to make a huge difference.

Anyone else have exciting plans this weekend??

Hey girls!

Kind of a blah weekend here - not much exercise and some bored eating.

Maddiesmom - hope the home improvement streak is going well - are you holding up with all the disruption to your usual routine? Has the shot started to kick in more? Hope so.

Anyone with me for miles today? I'm going to run this morning and again tomorrow night but tomorrow's will be with a work friend (a guy) and I'm nervous about keeping up although it's just a friendly jog. I think it's good for me though because it makes me push harder.

Hope you all are doing great!

Wow, quiet board.

Doing well, food is back on track. I'm trying to avoid the chocolate candy dish 5 feet from my desk. Yesterday was super stressful and I was going to have a piece and I actually stopped myself and said "will that really make me feel better?" I figured it wasn't worth it, so I didn't have it. Yea me!

Didn't work out yesterday, too much going on preparing for the new floor in a few weeks. We have a month, but every single weekend is busy until then: B-day party and housewarming on Sat/Sunday, then next weekend is the wedding in DC, the weekend after is Matt's bike trip and then the floor is delievered the weekend after that! Super busy time right now.

I am going to work out tonight while Matt is scraping up the floor at home. I told him that I'm going 3 times a week with Jeff, whether he likes it or not. I've made a lofty goal that I would like to be a size 10 by Christmas, my birthday at the latest (1/15/11). I need the motivation to kick my own butt.

Also, the shot. Well, it's helped somewhat, but there is still much to be desired. We'll see what happens in the next week - especially with the trip to DC and all the walking I'm doing.

Hope everyone else is doing well and checks in. Have a great day!

maddiesmom - you sound super busy! What kind of floor are you putting in? And what does the dress that you're wearing to the wedding look like?

Doing okay here - bf is a bit moody again, surprise, surprise. I'm having friends over for dinner after a walk in the park tonight so that should be fun. I'm doing that super thin crust pizza from papa murphys and a huge salad, and strawberries for dessert. Am going to try to stick to a small amount of pizza ;)

May venture out to Marshall's for some discount shopping at lunch - I'm feeling the need for something fall-ish. What's everyone else up to?

Dance: Right now we are ripping up old crappy vinyl tile (which is close to impossible to rip up without an act of God) and replacing it with another nicer vinyl tile. We really wanted to do ceramic, but we plan on moving in less than 3 years, so we didn't want to put too much money into it. So, that's through our kitchen, eating area, and 1/2 bath. Then, with the entire 2nd floor, stairs, family and living rooms, we are getting brand new carpet. It is going to be sooooo nice!! Can't wait (but not looking forward to prepping the house for it. talk about a workout!) How did you do with the pizza??

Today was ok food wise. I'm finding I'm hungry all the time, or I'm bored and snacking. I'm snacking on healthy food, but if I'm not hungry, why am I eating? I did buy a box of Crunch n Munch at Walmart today (weakness - went at lunch time and it sounded really good), so I ate a little too much of that. Oh well, it's over.

So, my punishment? I went to the gym. It was a 1 on 1 with Jeff (class didn't show up), so it was a circuit, doing as many rounds as I could in 30 minutes. He had all his students from each of his classes do as many as they could and he wrote them down. He appealed to my competitive side, which he knew he could do. So, the most rounds someone did was 17 (at the time, I thought it said 19, so I really pushed myself). How many did I do???? 21! Kicked their butts, even tho I was by myself. Jeff did the workout with me, so he pushed me too. All in all, great workout. Burned almost 700 calories. I'm glad I went - even tho I was totally exhausted.

Hope everyone checks in soon. Have a great night!