Diana I think it just has several names, many people know it as an eggplant too! maybe its different countries? I'm going to look into some recipes for that now.
Plat I know the feeling. A few years ago I lost about 30/40 lbs simply through exercise, not eating and drinking way too much alcohol and then it continuously creeped up. I'm always trying to support people by explaining that slow loss isn't a bad thing but it seems only recently I'm starting to take my own advice
I'm doing good, I'm staying within my calorie range simply but not thinking about it all day. It's like I'm no longer in a diet but just being healthy. I also agree that having a gym bag on standby helps, I usually just take a big bag but my mum has just ordered me a new gym bag and towel specifically for the gym (and this is so dorkish) but I'm really excited about that. It's like another step towards being serious about this. (Plus it's a really cute bag)
Spoz: Thanks. I don't feel quite so goofy about the eggplant now.
You are not a dork. Getting a new gym bag and towel is cool. I never really get anything for myself so I would be excited about that as well.
I am trying so hard right now to not sample the chilli. I hope his coworkers like flavorable, yet spicy. I added 3 drops of endorphine rush to the pot. yummmm.
If you want to hear a funny story about being dorky I have a good one from yesterday. The story is long.
I have an i-pod mini that I have had for years and I love it. So about two week's ago I downloaded the newest version of i-tunes. My library of music played fine etc... So fast forward to this past weekend. My i-tunes is not working. The music on my i-pod is fine, but whenever I played anything on my computer it sounded scratchy and out of whack and the main vocal tracks were either sounding like they were miles away or just plain not there.
I was afraid to sync my i-pod up with my library because I did not want to mess up my music on the i-pod that wasn't corrupted. I went to the Apple site and did all of the trouble shooting they listed such as updating Direct X, drivers etc...
None of it worked, so I wrote an email to their customer service telling them what it sounded like and what steps I had done for fixing it etc... and asking them what I should do.
Well a few hours later dear husband calls from work and asks if it is working and it is!! It played just fine for when I played it for him on the phone. We talked a bit and he hung up. I turned i-tunes back on and got to grading assignments. I put my headphones on so the kids could watch Lady and the Tramp and it was messed up again!!! I called him back and I put the phone near my headphones and we were both stumped. I accidentally unhooked my headphones and the sound came out my computer speakers and it was fine!! I am such and idiot, it was not i-tunes it was my stupid headphones.
I am so wishing that I could make that email go away. I was polite in it, but I am going to feel really stupid when they write me and I write them back saying "nevermind it was my headphones." They are definitely going to be laughing at that one.
Diana that sounds like something I would do! I am a technical writer for a software company, and more times than not, when something doesn't work for me, it's "user error" versus something that's actually wrong with the product! I figure if *I* am dumb enough to break the software, then there's at least one other person out there who will do the same.
No need to feel dorky, Spoz. I am the same way. When I got my new running shoes yesterday and my hubby and I went on a walk, I was leaping up in the air because I was so excited. I agree with the steps towards being serious. I felt like when I bought my first pair of "real good" gym shoes, I was committing to this for more than a few weeks.
Jo we have been getting some snow in the mountains already. I was in Breckenridge in August and it snowed two inches the day we drove back home! I couldn't believe it. I'm so not ready for the cold weather. I live in the wrong state for that!
Well here's my report for the day: 15 minutes intense weight lifting, 20 minutes on the cross trainer at the gym and 45 minutes walking with hubby. It felt good to be back! Only thing really cramping my style was my blister, so I'll give the new shoes a rest for a few days and use my old shoes so my heel can heal.
Had a chicken enchilada casserole for dinner. Mmm!!
Diana I do things like that all of the time! Mostly though my embarrassing stories involve lots of witnesses and me not wanting to ever leave the house again, so I figure technical difficulties aren't too high up there!
I'm off to the gym later with my mum. Sooo, I'm going for 15 mins on the cross trainer, 15 mins mixed walking/jogging, 5 mins on the rowing machine. And half an hour doing free weights and weight machines and stability ball exercises.
And.. I really have the urge to bake today so I think I may go bake something I'm not fond of so I won't eat it all
Fat Pants: I hope your heel heals soon. Blisters are painful. Your workout sounds good. Doing the cross trainer, weight training and walking in one day is great!:carrot Thank you for not making me feel bad about my "user error" problem.
Spoz: I hope you had fun at the gym with your mom. I think having an exercise body is a motivating factor. It is more fun to work out with someone than all alone. At least the only witness to my stupidity is my husband, aside from the tech that answered my email. My husband is use to my "duh" moments. Of course he is the one who was walking around the living room the other day looking for his glasses when they were on him!
lol. I love to bake and cook. I think it is good that you are cooking something that will not tempt you. The last time the kids wanted cookies I made gingerbread cookies because I am allergic to ginger. They loved them and I did not want them at all.
Christmas will be hard because I like to make and decorate butter cookies with the girls and those are yummy. My mom and sister make enough sweets to feed thirty people and they are all yummy. Of course they are all supportive of my efforts and will probably "police" the sweet table to make sure I don't hate myself in the morning, lol. I come from a family of skinny people go figure. My sisters are 5'4" and 5'5' and about 125lbs and 140lbs and my mom is 5'1" and about 115 lbs. I must take after my dad.
My plans for the day are to get my heartrate up in the fat burning zone for the majority of my exercise hour either by doing a work out video or my treadmill depending on the kids' behavior.
I have no idea what tonight's dinner will be, but I feel like tons of green veggies today so I know broccoli and maybe brussel sprouts will be involved.
Diana I come from a family of skinnies, too. My brother is 6'1" and probably 170, my mom is 5'2" and probably 115. And my dad is six foot and around 185! It is hard sometimes, especially since my brother can practically eat anything he wants and not gain weight!
JO - forgot to mention, my husband is going to St. George in two weeks to test out a new ejection seat. He is so excited about hiking around in Zion. We went to Moab earlier this year and fell in love with it. Can't wait to go back!!
Diana, I can sympathize with you and your techonological situation. Just last week my card scanner at work wasn't working, so when I saw the tech guy in our office I quickly snagged him and told him about my problem. He plugged it back in and voila! It was working! I felt so stupid!
The good thing about my boyfriend and his family being hunters is that we hardly ever have to shop for meat. I can't remember the last time I had beef tacos and not deer meat! And after so long I don't know if I'd like a beef taco...
Spoz, don't feel dorky about the gym bag/towel. I get excited over anything I can buy for exercise. When I took swimming lessons a couple of months ago the highlight of my day was buying swim goggles! Life's boring when you don't get excited over the little things...
FatPants, I'm a horrible Utahn traveler. I have yet to go to Moab or Zion! I've been to St. George a couple times before, it'll be nice and warm for your hubby on his trip... So last night for dinner I tried a variation of your pork carnitas recipe. I didn't have any salsa verde on hand so I tossed some boneless pork ribs in with 2 cans of diced tomatoes w/chilis and 2 cans of green chili peppers and 1 diced onion. I added some chopped garlic and cumin and chili powder, and ten hours later it was delicious! Thanks for the idea! My boyfriend loved it!
So yesterday I made it to the gym again! I did the stair climber for ten minutes, lifted weights for 20, and did some crunches on the balance ball. It was a pretty good day. The reps brought greek for lunch, my total weakness! But I managed to limit myself to one pita and some lemon rice. I finally have the feeling like I'm getting back on track Tonight no gym though, I'm getting my hair done after work. There's nothing like a new haircut to make you feel on top of the world!
Fat Pants: My mom can eat pretty much what she wants, but my two sisters do have to work out quite a bit.
Platnumjo: Sounds like a great workout. Yea! on your only have the lemon rice and a pita. Of course, now I am craving a pita.
lol on your tech story. Definitely something I would do. Have fun getting your hair done. I have an appointment in the morning for mine. I am going to tell her not to highlight it this time though. I can only afford to get highlights one more time before the holidays so I thought if I get them the week of Thanksgiving I won't have to get them done again until after the New Year. I do always feel great after a hair cut though.
Good evening, everyone! Hope you all had a great day...tomorrow's Friday!
Got in a 2-mile walk and... gasp.. ran for two minutes of it! Hubby got me running and man, were my calves feeling it. I also wish I had a much tinier chest. It really made me realize how much weight I carry in my bra... too much. Call me crazy but I'm actually hoping I lose some of my boob weight. My back hurts so bad sometimes, and my posture is very poor!
Jo- your modified carnitas recipe sounds delicious!!! I want to try your version. Way to go on resisting the Greek... I feel you.. we have a fantastic small Greek restaurant about five minutes away. It is the best!
Spoz - I'm inspired by your workout with the free weights. Eventually I'd love to get up to half an hour with weight training. You're burning up the gym!
Well tomorrow is weigh in day so here's to hoping a I see a loss....
It's been a while since I've been on this site, you know up and down and up, and up and up!!
I want to join this challenge! I joined a gym and I go maybe once a week. I want to commit I have to be good to myself. Actaully excersising makes me feel better and I'm always glad I did.
Friday-walk around the lake at work
saturday-gym 1 hour
sunday-walk dog
monday-walk around lake at work
Tuesday-gym 1 hour
Wednesday-pilates
thursday-gym 1 hour
Fat pants - I LOVE weight work outs, I bought some weights a few years ago before I put my weight on and have always lifted them but of course I religiously lift now that I know I'll burn more cals! And you're telling me about boobs.. mine are actually pretty small but when I'm running they really bug me too.
Diana- What did you make for tea? I'm now coincidentally snacking on Broccoli since reading your post (I swear I'm an addict) and I wouldn't worry about christmas too much. Just try and enjoy it and not think about all of the food - last year I found by concentrating on the things like just enjoying family time it was alot easier not ti give in to naughty foods.
Leure - Hello Your plan sounds pretty attainable to me, I joined the gym only last month and am now a gym junkie, and I only do 3 days a week so I'm certain you to can do it
Well I'm doing pretty well, I'm actually not really obsessing over calories or the numbers on the scale but more about getting into shape and hitting the gym. I'm going back in today and I'll probably go for about 15 mins on the cross trainer, 5 on the rowing machine and about 20 mins with the weights.
Hi everyone, well I am really at a loss (not literally, unfortunately). Hopped on the scale this morning and had gained back that .6 lbs I lost last week. I really have no clue why I'm not losing weight. I eat on track between 1500-1600 each day, I've worked out a LOT this week, and I gain weight? This makes no sense to me. Usually at this stage in the game, I should be down almost 4 lbs. Instead I am right where I started 2.5 weeks ago. This makes no sense at all.
Fatpants don't feel bad! It's normal for our body to fluctuate even the healthiest people do it, it's most likely that you're retaining water, especially if you're working out alot
Leure: Welcome. I think your plan sounds great. I do not go to a gym, but I try to work out everyday anyway. Exercise always makes me feel better after I am done, not always during though. lol.
Spoz: I ended up making chuck short ribs in the oven because dh took the crockpot to work to keep the chilli for the pot luck hot. I had never made them before, but I put a cup of chicken broth in a pan added about 3 tsps of horseradish and cranked on some Weber's steak seasoning and garlic. Then I put a lid on them and cooked them for 3 hours on 350 degrees. They were so tender they fell apart with the fork. I had steamed broccoli and brussel sprouts on the side. I weighed my meat, so I had 4oz. With the broccoli and brussel sprouts the total calories came to 459. I am not sure to add any calories for the horseradish because the jar says 0, but I put 3tsps in the whole pan, so is it still 0?
I love broccoli. I can eat just about any vegetable raw for a snack. I love the crispness of them. I think concentrating on the gym and getting healthy is a good idea. When I think too much about the calories I go nuts.
Fat Pants: I'm sorry. I agree with Spoz that fluctuation from retaining water is a big factor. When I went to bed the other night I weighed myself at 281, I got up twice in the night for a bathroom break and in the morning I weighed 275, then this morning I weighed 276, so our weight fluctuates quite a bit during each day. Since you upped your exercise this week your body might be retaining more than usually and in awhile your body will adjust and you will see the scale move.
I hope I stay on plan today. We are going to try to get our walk in before it rains, it is overcast right now. I have to go get groceries, so I should probably eat before I go, lol. Have a great day everyone.
I'm sorry I have been so busy with work and sitting in front of that computer all day I haven't wanted to get in front of this one afterward. Exercise / Dietwise I have done well. I have done my 30 min. of elliptical every day (although no more than that) and have managed to stay between 1,000 and 1,200 calories every day (except tonight I got up to 1,500 couldn't resist free soft serve ice cream!).
I haven't weighed myself for fear that if I haven't lost anything and I'm doing all this dieting and exercise I will totally fall off the wagon! Plus next week is TOM so another good reason to not weigh in!
Fat Pants: So jealous of the new shoes, I meant to get some when I was at the outlet mall the other day and completely forgot! Hope the blister is better though! Don't worry too much about the gaining weight thing, the same thing happened to me and I just figure if we keep up the diet and exercise eventually it has to start working! That is just physics or nutrition or logistics or something that sounds like that! As long as your sticking to it you are doing great!!
Leure: Welcome! This board is awesome and totally helps to keep things on track and in perspective!
Spoz: Very impressed with the weight training, I keep wanting to but just don't know where to start, I work out at home, so no circuit / equipment to know where to start. I have my husbands weights (they go from 5lbs on up) and weight bench, but there the mystery begins........
Hopefully this week is less hectic and I can get on here more!! I think I may even be ready for Denise Austin this week..............
Thanks. I don't feel quite so goofy about the eggplant now.
I am a technical writer for a software company, and more times than not, when something doesn't work for me, it's "user error" versus something that's actually wrong with the product! 
I figure if *I* am dumb enough to break the software, then there's at least one other person out there who will do the same. 
Only thing really cramping my style was my blister, so I'll give the new shoes a rest for a few days and use my old shoes so my heel can heal. 
... So last night for dinner I tried a variation of your pork carnitas recipe. I didn't have any salsa verde on hand so I tossed some boneless pork ribs in with 2 cans of diced tomatoes w/chilis and 2 cans of green chili peppers and 1 diced onion. I added some chopped garlic and cumin and chili powder, and ten hours later it was delicious! Thanks for the idea! My boyfriend loved it
!
I did the stair climber for ten minutes, lifted weights for 20, and did some crunches on the balance ball. It was a pretty good day. The reps brought greek for lunch, my total weakness
! But I managed to limit myself to one pita and some lemon rice. I finally have the feeling like I'm getting back on track
Way to go on resisting the Greek... I feel you.. we have a fantastic small Greek restaurant about five minutes away. It is the best! 
Your plan sounds pretty attainable to me, I joined the gym only last month and am now a gym junkie, and I only do 3 days a week so I'm certain you to can do it 
This makes no sense to me. Usually at this stage in the game, I should be down almost 4 lbs. Instead I am right where I started 2.5 weeks ago. This makes no sense at all. 
