My slenderizing friends ... I am having a damn fine day!
My new washer, dryer and freezer are here.
I got a rebate cheque from our house insurance and ....
I got a real live full-time job! After 27 years part-time, I get paid vacation, benefits, pension and my days off are days off! I am so blessedly happy!

I have a post stress let down headache that's makin' me feel like crap ... but I am happy!

Way to go Susan!

I am definitely going to have to try those Penny's muffins. They sound way yummy. I've been intending to order them for a while, but wanted to wait until I got back from vacation. I wish I had a muffin to eat right now!

Congrats on the full-time job with benefits, Susan! Paid vacation is a beautiful thing!

Meowies, I used to teach software training and other seminars that required me to be on my feet all day and I remember how exhausting it was! You wouldn't think just standing and talking would take that much out of you, but it does. As for easy to eat snacks, nuts would work well since you don't need to eat a lot of them. Also, bananas and apples, or whatever fruit is available to you, are great portable snacks and can be eaten pretty quickly. If you have a refrigerator, low-fat string cheese (if you can get it in Japan).

I thought I posted but now I am thinking that maybe I didn't.

OMG I am so scatterbrained this week. So forgive me for flitting about. I think for everyones sake I should keep it simple and just say hi!

I love you all. You're all SOO inspirational to me. BluetoBlue - I always look for and read your posts - you always make me feel like I CAN do it!

Susan:
those are my four faves! CONGRATS ON THE JOB!!!! WHOOHOOO!!!!! I'd give a dancing banana but I know you don't heart th ose nearly as much as I do haha


As for me:

Yesterday I did dance aerobics class, which was interesting,b /c I didn't feel like I was working very hard at all. It was so fast and complex that I spent more time focusing on where to put my feet than on getting any momentum going. But that's okay - it was still time ON my feet instead of ON my behind

I'm finding that it's easier to stay on plan if I eat my dinner in the late afternoon rather than in the evening - otherwise I get ravenous and tend to totally overeat and then want to snack late at night. So, so long as we don't have dinner engagements during the week I'm shooting for about a 4:30 p.m. dinner and then water afterwards with raw veggies as snacks if I get hungry later on in the evening.

Last night at the club: Success!!! I had one cocktail (instead of splitting bottles of wine), 1 roll (YEAH!! That is SO hard for me!) and had two bites of someone else's dessert. I did a salad for my main course too, so even though I don't know the calorie count of the dinner, given that I had eaten only about 450 calories when I got there, I think I did pretty well.

Tonight is water aerobics again, and I'm actually happy about it. Having a buddy to do it with is key. Also; BF is having his running club to his house fo r sm ores, beer and pizza. I won't be partaking in any of it - and knowing that I just did the water aerobics will totally help.


My plan: to co ntinue to stay OP this week and to check out what the Y scale says tonight - if it says what the doctor's scale says (same kind of big scale where you slide the thingy until it balances) then I'm going to just start weighing myself there too to get a more accurate thing.

Hilarious shopping tidbit: Went to Ann Taylor LOFT today and got some summer peices. Bought three blazer/cropped jackets. Guess what the sizes were? 2P, 2 and a 4. Needless to say; I'm really an 6-8P, but I was excited!!!!!

Good afternoon everyone.

Susan-Congratulations! Way to go on the full time job w/benefits

YuppieGirl-that is great that you were so successful at dinner. I find it so hard to make good choices when I go out to eat that I tend to avoid it

Not much going on today. I worked last night o/t from 8pm-6am. I came home but I only stayed asleep for 2 hours. I have a real sleeping problem. The only thing is I feel great most of the time I will go back to sleep at about 5 pm for a bit before I go back to work tonight.

Since I couldn't sleep I got up and went to Curves before they closed for their midday break. I'm thinking about going for a short bike ride but so far it's just at the thinking stage!

Hope everyone has a great rest of the day. Talk to you later. Jane

Well, tonight stunk eating wise. I was at 1300 calories, which was pretty much perfect. And I went to my deep water aerobics class tonight - which was AMAZING - like pilates in water. It was a good hurt in many wa ys...

And my friend asked if I wanted to pick up fast food after class and I declined. I was proud.

AND - Pride Doth Come Before The Fall.

And WOW did I fall tonight.

And then I came home ot the running thing, and the pizza and smores were too much for me The only resoundingly good news is that I didn't drink. I ate THREE peices of pizza, I'm sure about 900 calories worth, and then went on to eat three smores. (which were what, 200 calories each?!) . Which makes my grand total for the day about 2300 calories.

Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Of course, I feel horrible about myself. It didn't even taste good to me.

Good news: So far this week I've exercised every single day - which is more exercising than I've done in the past month, so that is something.

The other good news is that tomorrow's a new day. I'm going out to lunch w/ a friend, but that place has excellent chopped veggie salad that I can get balsamic on the side f or. I think it's going to be a salad and slim fast day tomorrow for me to get back on track folks.

*sigh*

OMGoodness people! I go away for a DAY and look what you do!!! 2 and a half pages of nattering!!!

We were out at the seaside yesterday, for work... But we did get fish and chips so it wasn't all bad!

I am having such a great time with IE. I felt so blissed out yesterday- I managed a day trip in the car stocked to the roof with chocolate, cakes, crisps, biscuits, then F&C, then I got home and had a lovely bath, had some dinner and was so satisfied, and just RIGHT. I just felt so blissed. This thing is changing my life...

I even threw out a poison pen letter before I read it.

Thank you for saving me the bother of posting the above because that is EXACTLY what I did only I had 4 slices The weird thing is this though. I have been craving pizza foever, I really have. Yesterday my boyfriend sort of "talks" me into it. OK, that's a little unfair. He suggests it and I didn't say no - if I had he not's the sabotaging pushy time. I ate 4 slices but it was vile! I usually love ~Dominos pizza but it was heavy, greasy - really horrible and I won't be having it again. So the good thing about yesterday is that after a few months of eating really good food the cr*p I used to eat really tastes hideous

Susan That is really fantastic news, how did it come about?

2FRU Poison pen letter? What?

Poison pen, just a nasty letter really. My granny writes to me occassionally and makes me mad with stupid annoying nags and gripes and back-handed comments and just generally being a The last time she wrote it was in my birthday card and it REALLY spoilt my day. So this time I just threw her letter out, didn't even read it.

Susan - I'm so happy for you I didn't see that at first, WELL DONE

SusanB: That's awesome news! Glad you were having a good day yesterday and hope it's even better today!

I have some good news today....my in-laws went home (haha). I managed to stay on plan the entire visit and HAVE MOVED MY WEIGHT TRACKER TO 147!! (That is where I was before I fell off the wagon a few months ago.) If I could just break the 146 barrier! Then I could be ready to get down to where I need. I may have to get into a snug dress in about 3 weeks and parade around in it in a room full of people ....motivation huh?

Morning! When I first started nursing it was 1979 and our hospital was MUCH bigger. About the time it would have been my turn for full-time (seniority-wise) they started cutting beds. I've always done OK pay-wise because I do have lots of seniority but ... if there's no jobs to fill ... I can't have one.
Then we amalgamated with three other hospitals and seniority became a huge pool! And there are some gals who take every course going. I've been busy raising a family. I take the essentials and if a new skill comes up, I study it and get about it. But I don't have a stack of fancy papers.
Then my darling friend retired a couple of weeks ago ... A mixed blessing as it turns out. I was afraid someone from the other hospitals would take it because with everyone on it ... I'm not at the top of the list anymore. But apparently they don't want to come and work in our little place.
I do!
Apparently I'm valuable for my maturity and experience. Does that sound old to anyone else?

Nope - it means they love you :

So a bunch of them have been telling me. I have quite an inflated ego these days ... let me tell ya!

(((((((Susan!!!_)))))))) It means you're awesome!!

So; today I woke up stiff from the water pilates (YEAH!!) with a headache and a full belly from all the icky food last night (ugh) and weighing a ton. But no, it isn't really possible that I gained 8 pounds between water aerobics last night.

The calories for the day yesterday equalled a half pound probably though, but if you figure in that I need close to 1200 or so just to LIVE, and that I worked out (so I probably needed close to 1250 at least) and then subtract the rest, it isn't close to that many extra calories from last night to make eight pounds..

I think it's water from all the sodium and icky processed food that my body isn't used to eating any longer. So; I'll weigh myself tomorrow morning and see what the deal is (and tonight at the Y, just to make myself feel better since that scale is the same as my dr's and registers me at about five pounds lighter than my home scale). If it's still up tomorrow I will adjust my ticker.

Today I'm going out to lunch with a friend and am looking at the menu online right now to figure out what I'm eating there. I think I'm going to have a salad with grilled fish and the dressing on the side and no bread and some unsweetened ice tea to drink. That sounds like a good plan, right?

I've been looking up calories to things and just looked up the cobb salad - I was going to have them do it w/out the bacon (I don't do meat - only fish) and then get the dressing on the side, but the site I looked it up on said 880 calories!!!!!!! EEEEEEGADS!!! that's as bad as my pizza binge. You know something though, I was thinking about it and talking about it with my boyfriend this morning. A short time ago that binge would not have been 3 peices and 3 smores. It would have been 3/4 of that entire XL pizza as well as all the smores I could eat - probably until they ran out. So that, at least, is progress in the falling off the wagon department

Plan for today:
* Eat lots of fruits and vegetables
* classes for me tonight
* swing dance later in the evening after that per usual.
* get extra water to flush all the ick out of me
* At lunch: salad with grilled fish and dressing on the side. Or the fish tacos if I can figure out the nutritional information on them - it looks like that might be a better calorie choice. Not sure yet - And unsweet tea to drink.

WHOAAAAA I just visited Penny's low fat dessert website - HOLY COW!!!! Those look amazing. I wish I had a 100 calorie yummy muffin right now! I'm ordering things from them to be sure. Way to go whoever thought up that site. It's amazing!