Good for you, Allison. I've had a hard time with eating this week - I've been so hungry that I keep going over every day (not on "bad" stuff, but still!).

Barbara - You are ready for maintenance!! Woohoo! Sounds like Mexico will be a blast, and you'll be looking hot. You deserve it - you work so hard!

Hi everyone

I stayed OP again today, sort of. My high end of calories is 1400 and I ended up with 1405, so I still think I did pretty good .

Claire: I have been starving all day! I don't know why and its been hard not to eat bad things today, but I managed. I did eat a few bad things today, but still managed to stay within my calore range. I sure hope tommorow is a little easier.

Allison: Congratulations on your weight loss. I've had some of those weird moments when you're sure you couldn't have lost weight, but you did. Good for you .

Hope everyone had a good day!

Good morning!

I've got nothing new, wonderful or encouraging to say. I just wanted to say hi!

Allison - congrats on getting back to your ticker weight!!!!

Susan - OMG - your hair FROZE?! Yikes! Now that is cold!

Abbyin - Good job staying within your cals.

Barbara - Happy Belated Birthday!! I hope your cold has gotten better by now? Congrats on hitting your goal weight AND the bikini... Mexico sounds sooo nice

Hi to everyone else!!

Meal planning: Nope, I don't do it - other than planning a few dinners for the week for my family. I keep my fridge stocked with food that I like and decide in the morning what I'm taking to work for breakfast, snacks and lunch. Dinner is determined by whatever I'm fixing for my family and portioned based on how many calories I have left. Over time I've figured out that I just don't do well forcing myself to plan all my meals and then prep them ahead of time... it never fails, the first night I don't feel like it and have nothing for the next day... I'm off plan and eating crap. The no planning thing is my new strategy at getting rid of my "all or nothing" issues (and omg...it's working!!)

Drinks & Diet Soda: I'm a HUGE coffee drinker. HUGE - but have slowly been giving it up and switching to decaf purely because I'm doing in-vitro trying to get pregnant. I go thru the McDonalds drive-thru at lunch every day just to get a large diet coke and flip off Ronald for giving me this fat *** I'm really bad.. I hardly ever drink plain water, but don't drink a lot of soda. Drinking more water is something that I need to improve on.

Goodness! My weight is just all over the place and I can't figure out why. 145.5 on Wednesday, 147 on Thursday and 145 today (Friday). I'll take it but I don't understand it!

Good afternoon. I don't know where the day went! I've only managed to do 1 load of laundry, eat, go to Curves and go to Trader Joe's and the grocery store. Oh, I also cleaned the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen and made some chicken in the crockpot (so THAT is where the day went!).

Allison, do you weigh every day? I've thought about doing that but I'd probably just freak out with all the changes and not knowing why.

Oh my! My son left his tennis bag (and with the bag itself and what's in it, it's worth about $500 ) at another school after some tennis clinic. Can you believe someone found and it turned it in at the local tennis club??!!!! I am so exicted! (and my son is so excited because he was in a heap of trouble!). I wish I knew who the kid is who turned it in. I'm trying to find out because I'd like to reward him.

Ok, better go do at least one more load of laundry and finish putting the groceries away. Have a good day everyone.

Just wanted to say "hi" to everyone. Have a great weekend. I'll be working (nights). I just hope I can control those midnight munchies!

I have a quick question... Has anyone ever used the Tony Little Gazelle? I have several small children, and work part time, so I find the most convient form of exercise for me is DVD workouts. My neighbor is moving, and offered to sell it to me but I know that they are not too expensive to begin with, and I have bought an inexpensive elliptical in the past and HATED it for a variety of reasons. I just hate to spend money on something thats not worth it, not to mention the space it will take up. However, I guess it would be a nice change to my workouts to have something new. Any insight? Thanks!

Morning folks!

I think my sister had a gazelle years ago. As I recall, she really enjoyed it at first. Which was Ok because it didn't last long.
One of my theories is that if you can come up with something that keeps exercise fresh, new and fun ... go for it. So if was reeaallly cheap and not broken yet, I think I might try it.

When I worked nights, I took the biggest lunch bag. The other girls used to make fun of me. But having healthy stuff handy kept my hands out of the cookie tins. I used to chew gum too.

I'm working evenings tonight (a favour) One evening in the middle of my days! So I woke up at my usual time for day shift -drat!
I'm tidying the fridge and kitchen. Dh and I had a body-for-life breakfast. And I'm soon going to go run errands on foot. Clean groceries! I've got my list.

lol Susan...frozen hair...when I was in college I used to style my hair intentionally using the freeze dry method. I was on swim team and I had early morning swim and short hair and I would towel dry it and carefully shape it and then go out into the very cold, very very dry air and it would freeze dry and then it would STAY. I never found a hairspray that set my hair the way freeze drying would. Just dont try to brush it while it is frozen or it breaks.

Hi guys

Just checking in. I did pretty well this week, staying within my calories all week, except last night, but we won't talk about that . I did lose 1 lb. this week and that's a good thing.

I have been really tierd lately and I don't know if it's lower calories or not enough sleep or what . I have also been a little down lately as my company is not doing too well and a good friend resigned last week. I think I also have been a little depressed this week and I'm sure that could be causing my tieredness. I am proud of myself for not overeating this week because I am definately an emotional eater. I had a couple of close moments but got through them.

Hope everyone else is doing well. Have a great weekend!

Greatchoice, I weigh myself every day, but only record it once a week (either Sunday or Monday, depending upon which I think is most accurate based on the other weights). I like doing it every day because sometimes you have extra water weight or something that might affect your one day/week to weigh-in, so if you weigh daily you can tell.

Tamsie---I've also tried to cut down on my coffee drinking. The best thing I've found is to buy half-caff. Folgers has it, and here in Tx H-E-B has a generic of it too. I don't know if any of the 'better' brands have it. I drink my coffee with flavoring, so I go with regular coffee. I went from drinking 5 or 6 cups a day of regular and having withdrawal headaches if I didn't get enough, to having 1 or 2 cups of half-caff, or even none at all and being fine. I'll still have my Skinny Latte once a week or so. You might try it. From one addict to another! LOL!

RNmom---I got a Gazelle for free a few years ago and I HATED it!! I takes up a LOT of room. The exercise is boring and monotonous. It didn't seem to do much. My biggest complaint was how big it was and what a pain to drag out and set up. If you hated the elliptical, you probably won't be a big fan of this. Try a mini stepper. They're smaller and easier to use.

I drink half caf too. If the ordinary stuff is on sale, I buy one regular, one decaf and mix it together in an old can. Actually, a lot of the time it's only about a third caf.