Hi everyone, I did fairly well this weekend, stayed on-plan with my calories and exercise. Incredibly tired today though (~6 hours sleep last night, only 9am right now and I'm already planning for my lunch-hour nap! )

I finally took my new running shoes out for a run -- gosh, it feels good not to have shin splints from unequally worn soles. I also love the ventilation & cushioning of the new shoes. As such, I decided to run a bit further than planned.

Finally, I took a 2-hour window shopping trip yesterday, which was about 2-3 miles of walking up down the downtown district & in and out of stores. Didn't buy anything, but I'm happy about checking everything out (and it's also a good feeling when even the smallest adult men's sizes are a bit roomy for me...) Best of all, wasn't tempted by all the food stores I encountered, and when I did feel a bit famished, I got a whole-wheat light chicken salad wrap (330 calories) and only ate half, saving the rest to pair up with veggies for dinner.

Aquawarlock Yowza indeed! Congrats on making your summer goal weight in spring!

Treighsie You're getting close!

Doughnut Congrats on the 3 lb. loss. Nothing like competing with the hubby to lose those lbs.

cuppajoe I developed the menopot during menopause and so have 4 other women I know. One has become super skinny with diet- about 5'7 and 115 lbs - and she just can't lose the tiny belly bulge.

Susan My fairy land is purple!

Dagmar

My DH has just announced that he is getting a membership at a gym and is now out buying "gym clothes". Hope he has the motivation to stay with it this time. I'm too beat at the end of the day from 6 hours of wrestling with big dogs to go to the gym with him but I will try to keep him OP with diet. Any tips for motivating him would be appreciated!

Dagmar

Good evening my friends. The freezing is all gone and my mouth hurts! She had to put a pin in a tooth that was split from the old filling. Very tender! Oatmeal for supper.
I'm still stupid-headed from my antianxiolytic. Yes, I'm a dental weinnie.

Belly fat has been the bane of my diet as well and I hope menopause is a good ten or so years away for me. My dad is one of those men who looks like he is pregnant and I'm sure I inherited my belly from him. A couple of weeks ago, at my trainer's suggestion, I started focusing on using more weights with my ab exercises. I'm now using a 10lb weight on the supercrunch machine and for sit-ups and crunches on the incline bench and doing all my leg lifts on the incline bench. I have to say that it does seem to be helping. Even my SO commented (without any prompting from me, which is so rare as to be unheard of) that he could see some definition in my abs.

SusanB - Yuck! Your teeth troubles do not sound like any fun. I'm a dental weinie too. I just started going again this year (after ten years of not being able to work myself up to it) and it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be, but I white-knuckle it the whole time, even just a cleaning.

Mudpie - good luck with motivating your DH to go to the gym. If you figure out how to do it, clue me in too. I've been paying for a membership for my SO for that last 2 years and he hasn't gone for about the last year and a half. He always has some excuse...

Tracy - Congrats on being so close to your goal! I like to put turkey sausage in soup. I make a turkey sausage soup that has diced onions, a can of tomatoes, and two or so cups of FF chicken broth as a base (however much broth I need to make it a soup). It's also really good with a 1/4 cup or so of red wine added to the broth. I saute the onions with 1 lb of turkey sausage until the sausage is cooked, then add the liquids. Then I throw in whatever veggies I have on hand (a lot of veggies) and about 2 oz of uncooked whole wheat pasta. It doesn't sound like much pasta, but with all the veggies, you don't need a lot of pasta and it keeps the calories low. I usually get six to eight servings out of it. I wait to the end to add the veggies so they don't get mushy.

Morning! Ugh I feel like blech today. Pharmaceutical hang-over I guess.

Barbara, that years of waiting is the problem here. I looked after my kids needs but .... Why would I fork over that kind of cash for something that scares the beejessuss out of me.

Coffee is just not doing the trick for me this morning. I'd better whip up a shake and get my boots swingin' down the sidewalk.

SusanB: Ouch....it makes my mouth hurt just to think about it!

Mudpie: I wish there was a gym around here! There is a really smelly, dilapidated one, but the closest normal gym is about 40 miles!

I'm thinking of getting a treadmill (again). My stationary bike hurts my knees and my new walking partner bailed on me! I'm not comfortable walking at the park alone because they have prisoners taking care of the mowing/yard work. Sometimes, it is just me and a bunch of prisoners....not the most comfortable environment! I noticed today that my weight is the "normal" (high normal, but normal) level for my height, but my body fat is 34%. I really hate my fat analyzer scale for what it tells me! I'm at about 1200-1400 cals per day right now, but cheated the other day and my weight isn't budging! Any suggestions on how to get rid of some of the fat....I don't even care as much about the weight as the FAT! I have really bad tendinitis, so hand-held weights are out...as is any floor exercises that involve upper body. On a lighter note...I did buy a "positive thinking" book the other day. Let's hope it helps!!

Wow. Another POP day and the scale is up another pound. This is getting really nasty! I sat down and looked at my weight tracking and it has been up, up, up for several weeks. I don't understand it. But I have a plan. Sometimes when I need a kick in the pants, I'll change up my lunch routine. I've been buying reduced fat salads from Trader Joes (310 calories each) and I have them 3 days a week with one day of dinner leftovers (usually a salad) and one day of going out to lunch. I'm going to trade my TJ salads for just plain old vegetables with no dressing. If I do that for two weeks, it is usually enough to get me to start losing again. I'll start this plan next week (as I still have some salads to consume--can't stand waste when they aren't "bad" foods).

Am I destined to be either on-plan *or* sleep well? Blargh -- last night I got 8 hours, but as a 3 hour nap and a 5 hour sleep (I was so exhausted after work yesterday that I needed that little siesta, but who knew my 30 minutes can turn into 180). Hopefully I can fine-tune my sleep clock this weekend.

So in better weight-loss-related new, now I've taken to planning what I eat for the next day -- which is working so much better for me to stay on-plan (previously I just set my caloric limit and eat as I go with the "how many more calories can I have for the rest of the day" in my mind.) Planning takes out so much of that mental mathwork (and frustration, when I find out I miscalculated ). Who'd thought I'd be one for some structure? (But I still think I'm a bit too spontaneous to be planning out an entire week's worth of meals.)

Another good news I find out, I can snack on raw carrot & celery sticks and actually enjoy them-- a surprise considering that I remembered utterly loathing those things back in school! Ok, I have to use a little dip, but even with low-fat ranch (40 calories for a generous two tablespoons) it makes a snack I can squeeze into my plan and probably still a lot healthier & filling than other snacking options, given how low-energy-density the veggies are.

Michelin Cardio workouts are probably the fastest for blasting the fat away, however, don't neglect strength workouts too -- which builds muscles to help you burn all day long.

Barb, 10 pound weights AND on an incline? WOW! Even 8-lb dumbbells and an exercise ball is a toughie for me (though I hope to progress to 10 by July). Bet it won't be long until your abs are like a brick wall.

Michelin - I think you lose the fat the same way you lose the weight (in fact, when you're losing weight, the goal is to be losing fat, not muscle). It's all calories in vs. calories out. Cardio will help you burn more calories and create a calorie deficit, but in the end, at least for me, it all comes down to how many calories I eat.

Aqua - Just one ten lb weight! Ten lbs total, not 20. It's one of those round, flat weights and I hold it across my chest for the situps. My trainer did have me do situps on the incline bench with a 25 lb weight one day, but I didn't make it very far (I think I maxed out at 7 ).

SusanB - I know exactly what you mean. Why would I pay someone to stick a pointing thing in my mouth and poke my gums!

alinnell - I got a Williams Sonoma catalog in the mail the other day and ran across a product that made me think of you. They have an avocado pitter and slicer. Maybe that would solve your avocado troubles.

Hey girls and guy ... Sorry I've been MIA but the weather has been nice and I've been outside most of the time...

Today I was out the door for a bike ride at 8:30am, rode for an hour down the #2 hwy by the river, gorgeous there early in the morning.... On my way home I stopped and had coffee with my parents, they are happy and doing fine and that's a good thing .... Came home washed the back of the house, then wasted water and power hosed the drive way... Gorgeously scorching hot here today I love the heat ... My only complaint in the heat is that I can't run, but I can bike ... Anywho that's my day in a nutshell...

Whittlin -- I do that ab trick all the time... It's just been a habit of mine forever to hold my abs in...

Warlock -- Planning ahead is a great thing, I wish I would do it more often... I'm sort of like the old you, plan as I go along and hope for the best at the end of the day... geez ya think that's why I'm not losing weight I need to plan more...

Well, I'm off for a quick swim... TTFN

[QUOTE=michelinwoman;1729608] but my body fat is 34%. I really hate my fat analyzer scale for what it tells me! [QUOTE]


My doctor told me to not take the body fat analyzer that comes with my scale too seriously. He feels there is no way to do that by just standing on a scale. There are tests which are quite accurate but they involve a lot more than the scale.

Dagmar

I am all about planning. I plan out all of my meals and snacks every week. I pretty much eat the same breakfast and snacks every day. Lunch and dinner I plan out before I do my weekend marketing, so that I have the right ingredients on hand during the week. I hate having to make a lot of runs to the grocery store and the farmers' market is only open on Saturday, so if I don't get my produce then, I've lost my opportunity to get it (I am a snob about grocery store produce). Sometimes I'll log all my meals and snacks ahead of time, just because I know what they will be . Although usually I don't log more than a day or two ahead of time; I might have three dinners planned for the week--it's a rule that anything I make has to feed us for two or three nights--but I don't always decide what day I'll have each meal). But on any given Sunday, I can pretty much tell you exactly what I'll be eating for the entire week, even if I don't know exactly what day I'll be eating it.

The only spontaneity in my meal plan is my 2nd afternoon snack. I have a variety of healthy stuff on hand for it, but I don't usually know what it will be until that day. Usually I log all my other meals for the day, see how many calories are left for the afternoon snack, make adjustments if there aren't enough, then decide what I feel like eating that fits within the calories I have left for it.

Sometimes on the weekends I am a little more spontaneous , but then I always make sure that breakfast and lunch are 300 calories or less and dinner is 400 calories or less, so that I'll have enough calories left for snacks and I don't have to worry that I'll be over for the day. I don't ever want to get to the end of the day and run out of calories or be surprised by how many I've eaten.

Good morning! I'm off to work. Be good everyone!