Good morning, my dear partners in our quest!!!

Will be back in a moment to reflect upon the weekend's activities and the FINAL WEEK OF THE CHALLENGE!!!

Okay - sorry to start a post and then have to cut it off, but we are VERY understaffed today and I am wearing several hats today in addition to my normal duties. Thankfully, most of the office is out today, so I'm hoping that things won't get too crazy.

Well!! It is the FINAL WEEK of our challenge! Some of us have already reached our goals, some of us are close, and some of us have revised our goals, which I think is a great thing. For myself - I fell off the wagon on Friday and haven't gotten back on until today. I ate horrible things, and a lot of them, over the past several days... but you know, the difference between last holiday season and this one is that I only let myself go really hog-wild for these past three days as opposed to eating badly from Thanksgiving through the New Year as I have in years past!

Hooray for change!!

DH got me a brand spankin' new pink iPod for Christmas/Hanukkah, saying that he wants to help me with my workout and that I deserve to have a nice mp3 player to take to the gym with me. I already put together a great playlist for my cardio, and I can't WAIT to try it out tonight! Between illness and all the business of the holidays, my exercise has been really crappy, and I'm anxious to get back into my groove before all the New Year's Posers descend upon the gym.

I've been jonesing for some WEED:
W - 96 oz.
E - gym night tonight - going to shoot for 60 minutes of cardio and going to try to do weight training (shoulder/neck feel much better today)
E - 1200 calories
D - Stick to the plan, avoid leftovers in fridge, shop for healthy food tonight @ the store!

Have a healthy, happy day, girls - we're in the home stretch!!!

Hi gang!! Hi Suz-glad your neck/shoulders are better now, take it easy tonight at the gym, don't over do it! Sounds like the office is hairy right now, don't stress yourself out too much. Or the gym tonight will be an awesome stress-buster. LOL at your comment, we are going to be out of our minds about all the POSERS after Jan 1rst....good thing they usually drop off, by, what, Jan 15th or so? LOL

I wonder what the floor looks like at my work, usually the census goes down during the holidays, (we hold 26 beds and will dip to about 15-18 around Christmas) but my last night(thursday) we were full and the hospital had actually opened up THREE overflow units....that means when all the regular floor beds are filled up, they will find any hall closet to put MORE patients, some have to stay in beds in sameday surgery, a side of the ER or even the pediatric unit (which actually has been pretty full of kids lately)...which means we all work short so we can staff those other places. It's tough on everyone, not to mention those overflow units usually are not terribly organized, don't have enough equipment etc. But what am I whining about? I've been off for five days, and who knows-maybe census will be back down when I go back in tonight. Either way, I've been in a great holiday mood and should go in tonight feeling pretty good.

SO---how was all of your holidays? I feel mine went really well, I always stress about going all over kingdom come and not getting enough quality time with each place, but for some reason, I felt we did spend nice times with everyone..We got up at 8:30 with the kids, the opening of the gifts was so SWEET....my kids are those perfect ages (3 and 7) then went to my aunt's house for dinner, these people have some $$$$ they live in this fabulous $750,000 home and always deck out for the holidays. I love to go there and kinda live vicariously....then went to MIL's house, but was kinda sad, my SIL and her family were on their way from Columbus (about 2hr away) and their car broke down on the way and they had to turn around and go back home, so we didn't get to see them, but at least they were safe...then we went to my mom's and played games clear into the evening....we were stuffed and happy and exhausted!!

So today I AM BACK ON TRACK, repeat that, I AM BACK ON TRACK. I ate my good breakfast, am on my way to the gym this afternoon, and work tonight. I am confident I can be good, except I'm worried about the goody leftovers at work. I think though, that I've satisfied every craving I've been having! PLAN PLAN PLAN:

W: 4-5 liters, maybe I'll buy some lemons to add to the water bottles
E: Gym time, 30 min elliptical, arms/shoulders, abs then 20 min cross trainer
E: Breakfast was whole grain Raisin bran and skim milk, an orange and a liter of water....I'm back to measuring out portions rather than eyeballing them.
Lunch will be a salad with tons of veggies and a can of chicken
Dinner will be the whole grain pasta and zucchini dish I've been meaning to try, maybe a small side of greens?
D: Go to the grocery store and stock up on fruits, veggies, and healthy snacks!!!!

OMG Congrats on getting that iPod Suz, I always tell people I attribute all my success to having mine, I can just zone out and listen to MY music and work it! Let us know what you put on your cardio mix, I'll post mine later, I have to dig the iPod out of the gym bag.

Oh yes I need some advice, one of my favorite gifts was from my dad, he got us a DEEP FRYER!!!! OMG is there any way on earth I can play with this thing and still be good?!?!? I think I'll post something over in the food thread and see what people come up with. You know I like my wings! Dad said peanut oil is better for you than something else, but I can just see the next twenty pounds eating onion ring, cheese sticks, wings, etc.

Thinking of all of you, hoping you'll all check in soon! oxoxxoxoxxo Michelle

HELLO EVERYBODY!!! I've been missing ya.

Ipods are GREAT, My 2 daughters have one so we have itunes on the comp and I love it. You are gonna really enjoy having that Suz. Most people would keep eating from turkey day through New Years and that you did not is commendable. This really truly is a DIFFICult month, glad it's almost over. I just got a mental image in my head of you (although I have no clue what you look like) keep on rotating hats. Yup, I can see you doing it now. Good luck with that.

Michelle, your holiday sounds just so, so, so..... LOVELY. So homey and Christmas-y. What with wealthy aunts and MIL's and your Mom and your 2 little kids. Very nice. I'm sorry about your SIL, that's unfortunate, but like you said at least they are safe.

I had some holiday parties that were really, really nice, people I hadn't seen since before September 4, you know the day of my new life. And they were shocked, absolutely shocked. I never knew my hubby had such a jealous streak. He says he doesn't mind if the men give compliments, but do they have to hoot and holler. So yeah, it was nice. I ate really, really well. I took small portions of a few different things. And had a nice sized portion of baked, I think without oil, salmon. There was a marzipan (my favorite) covered vanilla cream cake. I took 2 bites of it and literally the room started to spin That is some sweet stuff. I am so fortunate that I don't have to deal with leftovers, cause that is something I am not very good with. I managed to exercise most days, some days more then others.

I got my new scale, I'm more obsessed then ever, now I have 2 to play around with. But I'm gonna cut that out. I'm down 1 1/2 lbs for the week, down to 216.5. I've decided that from now on I am only going to weigh myself once a week, on Mondays. If I would have done that I wouldn't have freaked out about my 2 lb weight gain, I never would have seen it. Now I spent all this money and this one fluctuates also. Since it's in .2 increments I find it even more difficult to get the same reading 2x in a row. So if it's off by a half pound or a pound or even 2, what the heck is the big deal. I know when I eat well and exercise and I most definitely know when I don't. The scale will do what the scale will do. I think the need for accuracy is more about reporting to you guys here at 3fc, I want so badly to be 100% honest and fair about it, what with challenges and all. But that's it once a week, although of course I did sneak on it this morning (last time til Monday, I promise) and it was down!!!! But really from now on once a week. Our bodies are always changing and to weigh more often is a recipe to drive me CRAZY and it has to stop.

Talk to ya later ladies. And yes, hello Valentine's Day. Who's gonna take the bull by the horns? - you Suz?

Hello girls!

Michelle - a deep fryer?? Oh wow... I don't even know where to begin, other than that I also have a deep fryer and never, never, ever use it because it is a royal PITA to use! Don't get me wrong, I'm no slouch when it comes to cooking - I love to do it - but hassling with all the oil and everything is something that keeps me from using it too often. Maybe it'll be the same way for you! I will say, however, that one of my favorite things to make in the deep fryer is carciofi fritti - fried artichokes. The first time I ate them I was staying in Rome, and I fell in love with them because they're not heavy... they're just lightly dredged in a little flour, and so they don't soak up all that oil and fat like heavily-breaded foods do.

I think I know what I'm making for dinner tonight.

Robin - I don't want this to come out sounding the wrong way... but... how cool is it that your husband has a little jealous streak!!! Hoots and hollers!! WTG, you!! AND, I think it's also good that you're changing your weigh-ins to once a week. As you know, I'm a big proponent of weekly weigh-ins and no more than that - the numbers on ANY scale are far too fickle and too often misleading and heartbreaking.

Jeni - are you around, honey? Did you make it through all the family hubbub?

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Well, once the initial insanity calmed down, it got really boring around here! There are only three of us in the office today, myself included. I'm wondering now why I bothered coming in! I am sitting up at the receptionist's desk filling in for her while doing my own stuff, and I think the phone rang maybe a total of three times today. Bored, bored, bored.

So yes... looking ahead towards the Valentine's Day Challenge... Robin, do you want to spearhead that effort? Jeni did awesome with Thanksgiving, I took on New Year, and if you take on Valentine's I know I'll be super-motivated by you as our leader because of your awesome successes. Maybe Michelle can take on a May Day Challenge after that!

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I think there's a way you can "publish" your playlists on iTunes, and so I'm going to make it my mission tonight to figure out how so I can share my cardio workout playlist with other folks (Michelle, you're not the first to ask me about it). If I can't figure that out - I'll type 'em out here. It's a mix of everything from classic rock to alternative to old-school funk, but it gets me moving!

Oh Suz, you're gonna love playing around with that thing. My kids have THE best playlist. It runs the gammut from Disney, I kid you not, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, broadway tunes, they're OBSESSED with the movie Rent, so that's on there too. And all the classic rock that I got them into, one of the best things I did as a parent, I might add. Beatles, Chicago, Billy Joel, Rolling Stones, and on and on and on. And of course they have their fair share of current stuff, some pop and rap and it's just the best.

And it didn't come out wrong, I too thought it was kinda cool about hubby being a little jealous, that why I told you guys about it.

And yup, just once a week, there's just too much going on in our bodies and our scales are not perfect and there's just no point. I'm real glad with the decision - now to STICK TO IT. Although I really regret getting that new scale - what a waste.

Those fried artichokes of yours sound absolutely delish!!!! I love artichokes, stuffed of course. But I can definitely see your way being mucho, mucho delicious. I told Michelle on that other thread she started on the topic of her Fryer that she can always use it to store her jewelry. Thieves would never think of looking in there for it.

I think you did a great job with this challenge, so feel free to do it again. Unless you absolutely don't want to. Regardless of who starts it when do you think we should "invite" people to the challenge? And what should we call it? And how do we do it without offending anyone, there are already some Valentines challenges going on?

Talk to ya later gals.

Hi everyone! It sounds like you all had a good Christmas. Mines was alright. My family doesn't really celebrate Christmas which kinda sucks considering I LOVE the decorations and gift giving. I went to work on Christmas which was what I wanted, I mean come on, double pay!!! Luckily, the vets were in the spirit. My mama gave me a nice Sony hand held organizer. I probably wouldn't be so psyched about it except for the fact that not only does it do the normal organizer stuff but it's also a PEDOMETER and it COUNTS CALORIES!!! That's the reason my mama got it for me. Nice to know she pays attention to what I'm into. She's also taking me and my little sister clothes shopping this week on payday. I asked her if this was a shopping trip for us or one for what she thinks is suitable and she said it was for us. So I wanted to go to Hot Topic. She was on the computer at the time so she looked it up on the internet then told me she would just give me the money for the shopping! LMAO

Suz, congratulations on the Ipod! I'm saving up for my own.

Hi gals!! Yes, Suz I am around but barely. I am totally exhausted. But I am still keeping those 2 pounds from last week off so I am happy.

Lets see, My family was not too nice to me, both my mom and sister each got us a movie bowl: 1 movie, 2 packs of extra butter popcorn, big bags of candy. My DH's grandma got me a gift card from my favorite coffee stand. I had a ham/turkey dinner on christmas eve; big breakfast christmas morning and Prime Rib (courtesy of me) on christmas night. I was ready for bed by 6 last night (christmas) Then I worked from 5am to 2pm today. Came home grabbed a bite and took a shower; got my kids; came home, hopping for a nap but Makie decided that wasnt' going to happen. Now I am sitting here waiting for DH to come home so I can run to the grocery store.
Our last week and I wont be around much during the day, but I will check in in the evening. (except Friday, I have to work 5-2 then spend time with the kids before my Work party which starts at 6. and Sat, I work 8-12 then dinner with DHs Dad at 2. SIGH, I cant wait for my next day off!!

Good afternoon ladies,

I am so psyched today. I don't know why. I had a great day yesterday food and exercise wise. It just really got me back into the swing of things. And I don't know I was thinking I really think I can do this forever and ever. At one of my parties the other day a friend of mine and I were discussing "diet" plans, And she told me she had just started South Beach diet. And she couldn't eat this and she couldn't eat that. And no alcohol. Now i think it was probably because she is in the beginning stages, but nevertheless who the heck wants to live with restrictions. NOT ME. And I told her I couldn't do it, I plan on doing this forever and I'm not going forever without a Cosmopolitan and I'm not going forever without pasta and desserts and so on and so on. And I did indeed eat pasta and dessert that night, very little granted, but I didn't feel deprived. And I most definitely did not consider it "cheating". I considered it life is happening and I'm participating and I'm enjoying the food and the company. Just knowing that something is forbidden to me is a recipe for DISASTER and I'm not interested.

Jasonslea, Hot Topic huh? My kids kinda like that place, it kind of spooks me a little though.

Hi Jeni. So glad to hear that you're maintaining!!!! Those are definitely some interesting gifts you received. You sound like you are working some CRAZY hours!! What's up with that?

Enjoy the rest of your day everyone.

Hi gals!!! I made some really good choices yesterday! I did it! I just read a thread over in "support" and it spoke of how we berate ourselves, say things like "I was bad today" etc and how that kind of negativity defeats us and we should make more positive statements about our behaviors....well anyways, I have been crazy lately and always feel like it's so HARD to get back on once you've started the slip back into the old lifestyle, but yesterday I was BACK! Back to getting active, back to eating right, and feeling a little less sluggish.

Anyways it got me to thinking that part of our WEED should include at least one or two daily affirmations, saying something positive about ourselves. Even if it's not weight loss related.

JasonsLea-I thought the same thing--Hot Topic?! LOL I did get some cute Napoleon Dynamite things there a couple years ago....I wish I could pull that stuff off, but a 30-something mom of two just can't do it. LOL Hey if you post one more time-you'll have 1000 posts!!! LOL Why do I notice these things? Robin- you only need about 5 more posts to get 1000 OMG get a life Michelle!

Okay time for a quick hit of weed--

W- 4-5 liters (Oh yes yesterday, I finished 7 liters!!! I know it sounds like a lot but consider I was up all day and all night working, 24 hrs.)
E-Well maybe no exercise specifically but I do have the girls at work laughing around 3 am when I'm doing squats, lunges, wall push ups and wall sits, lifting IV bags, I can find exercise EVERYWHERE!
E- Well DH wants to DEEP FRY something-LOL I had my good breakfast so maybe I'll allow a wing or two for a snack before I go into work but a nice salad with chicken on it for night shift lunch. I got a nice crate of Tangelos yesterday, I forgot how YUMMY they are!
D-Say something positive about myself- My arms are getting nice and toned and my chest is WAY up there, where it's supposed to be!! (in a good bra, that is!!) But I love the way I look kinda CURVY now, my top is bigger than my belly! WOW!

Oh yes, the scale said 222 this morning, but I'm going to wait and change my ticker on Friday, I accept that I've put on a few, but I'll wait til the real weigh in day. Just typing this---one liter of water DEMOLISHED!

Hi guys, I am beat! My crazy hours are due to the business being closed for general cleaning and maintainnce. I am one of 3 that cleans the disgusting grime and grease. It is a tough chore, but I choose my own hours and the ealier the better.

Hi Everybody! Enjoyed catching up with all of you over coffee this morning and so glad everyone had a Great Holiday - altho' we all sound busybusy! I've had this week off but the lay-off for the next two weeks was cancelled for elected officials so to work I will be going and on DAY SHIFT to boot! Ought to be interesting to say the least: ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

2 more pounds to make Challenge Weight . . . going to be w/i at the Doctor Saturday so different scale - as long as its CLOSE - I'm promising myself not to get toooo invested in the results/lack thereof.

Thru the use of Glorious WEED - I see that my problem spot is fitting in intentional exercise--will there be an exercise challenge for Valentine's Day?

Good afternoon, wonderful women!

My prolonged absence yesterday was due to the fact that I am sick yet again. I'm getting tired of this! Sinuses this time, and it's really driving me nuts. I stayed home from work yesterday and let DH take care of me, and I got some serious "fuzz therapy" from our animal companions. Nothing wards off the chills better than two big kitties and a black Lab.

I suppose that if anything good can come of this, it's that I absolutely cannot taste ANYTHING - and so I have no desire to snack or urges to nibble. Always looking for the silver lining...

Aud - I never thought of it before, but yes, WEED is an excellent tool for helping us identify where we as individuals tend to fall short. With me, it's almost always eating where I mess up. I tend to not be as strict with myself on the eating as I am with all the other stuff, mostly because I think the other stuff is so easy to quantify (reading the numbers on the machine at the gym, counting the bottles of water I drink in a day). I mean, I know that just about everything we eat has the calorie intake printed on the side of the box or whatever, but I think that the effort of taking the time to sit and measure out portions is where I fall short. It's something I need to work on and learn how to do. Robin touched on this earlier: what we are doing is for the rest of our lives, not just for a quick fix - and so, thinking about Aud and how she used her WEED analysis to identify areas for improvement, portioning is definitely I need to learn, practice and get good at so I can enjoy everything in moderation.

Nice work, Aud.

Michelle - you also have your own creative ideas on what to do with WEED, which is awesome - and I LOVE the idea of a daily affirmation in addition to a daily goal! I shall incorporate it into my own WEED habit, starting today!

Jeni - I think I'm right there with you on the maintaining... all this sick stuff combined with all the craziness of December has really thrown me off my regimen, so I don't think the scale will move down this week - but it won't move up either, so yay for us! Just be sure you're taking care of yourself during the crazies this week... don't want you to get sick like me!

JasonsLea, that organizer thingy sounds awesome! I sometimes wish I had something like that... especially the calorie-counting part. It'd be neat to have something like a PDA where I could keep a food diary... is that what yours does? Because that would be a really handy tool!

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Yes, I envision a Valentine's Day Challenge, and I will be more than happy to facilitate. However, Robin presented a good point about not wanting to offend others... I see there are already some Valentine's Day challenges afloat on the board, and we don't want to steal anyone's thunder or anything like that...

Maybe we could pick another holiday in February to name our challenge for? This is going to sound wacky (because it IS wacky!), but February 20 is National Hoodie-Hoo Day. If you've never heard of it before, the idea is that at high noon on February 20, everyone goes out and yells "HOODIE-HOO!!" to try to chase winter away. It's so goofy and stupid - we used to do this in college! I'm not saying that we should all participate in the "hoodie hoo" tradition (if you want to, be my guest!), but we could name our challenge for it and call it the "Hoodie-Hoo Challenge" or something like that. Nobody gets hurt, nobody gets offended, and we have a uniquely-named challenge. I mean, I suppose we could do a Presidents' Day Challenge... yawn...

What say you all? Who's in for Hoodie-Hoo?

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W - 96 oz (maybe more because of illness)
E - 1200 calories (no problem doing this today!)
E - Going to attempt the gym. 30 mins cardio.
D - Daily goal: to get myself healthy! Daily affirmation: I did the very best I could this month, given my circumstances - and that's the truth.

Have a great day, everybody!!!! Happy, healthy, focused and confident!!

Good afternoon fellow challengers!!!

Hey aud, good luck on the last 2 lbs, but regardless you've done FANTASTIC!!
I suppose it's a good idea to go over our posts and see where we've messed up on our WEED. I probably should be posting my WEED more often to indeed see if there is a pattern.

Suz I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU"RE SICK AGAIN.. That's really sucky. I hope you recover from this one real quick. I'm fine with Hoodie whoever you said, but I was thinking maybe we should just name our group, then it's the so and so's Valentine's Day challenge or the SO and SO's New Year's Challenge. So now you're thinking "Okay smart one so what's the name gonna be?" So and so probably won't work. But I don't really care one way or the other. The thing is I was hoping to hit 199 for Valentine's Day, I figure it's a better gift then a box of chocolates or a sexy nightie or even jewelry. But I don't need a challenge to shoot for that. Whatever anyone else wants is fine with me.

I had a really good day yesterday, I switched my meals up a bit. I split up my morning's breakfast into 2 little meals, and it satisfied me. Then I ate my big meal (dinner) for lunch. And I drank a ton of water, too much in fact I was feeling gross and full from it. By the time dinner rolled around I wasn't even hungry. So instead I had a 60 calorie pudding with 2 tbs of fat freee cool whip. And I'm repeating the same thing today. It's going well. And I got in 3 sets of exercise yesterday and a walk.

I have a big New YEar's party coming up this Saturday night, not Sunday, my friends figured they'd make it Saturday night to avoid having us all drive amongst the drunks and what not. Yeah I know it's weird but whatever. So we'll have a quite New YEars at home and be with our really good friends Sat. nite. There's gonna be about 20 couples there and we're all bringing a dish. I'm bringing a salad of course. Anyway I'm looking forward to it. The people not the food, that's not true. I'm really, really okay with trying a little of this and a little of that. In fact that is a great time for me to eat some high calorie, "bad" food, because I sure as heck don't want it in my house and I don't want to order a whole plateful of it at a restaurant. So yeah whatever, it's all good.

HAve a great rest of the day everybody and Suz , it's enough already!!!

Poor suz! I hope you get better soon. We are having the same trouble at my house getting rid of the crud My kids have been going to my sisters house while I am at work just imagine the germs: her 4 + my 2 +other sisters 1 + mom's 2 + sister+BIL+mom+stepdad = 13 people with a whole lot of germs. (the house is a small 3 bedroom, I wont get into why they all live there)

I think having a group name for the challenge is great! if we could think of a name; SUZ, national Hoodie-Hoo Day hmmmm. never heard of it but it sounds fun!!! I wouldn't mind that. We could also have a plain old January challenge, but that is kind of boring. We could have a WEED V-day challenge. I honestly don't care what we call it as long as we are all here to support each other. I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for you ladies


I am going to try and check in tomorrow, I work 5-2 then Work party at 6 so I am going to spend as much quality time with the kids as possible. If they nap at all I will check in.

Have a Happy end of the YEAR!!!