Hey, all! Happy Halloween, welcome as well to Pinkflower, and happy birthday to neurodoc!

I'm psyched. On Friday I made 100+ cookies, two different kinds, and didn't eat one or even taste the dough. These were experimental cookies, too, so I just had to trust that I knew what I was doing, since I didn't taste them as I added things off the top of my head.

I also went to a Halloween party last night and ate and drank nothing there. Yay, me! I had a blast without food and alcohol. There wasn't one healthy thing there—including my cookies. LOL! So I just talked for four hours and had a great time.

Then, today, I ran into a friend at the gym whom I had not seen in about a year. She told me she couldn't believe how I looked now and she wanted to know my secret. That meant a lot because I know she thought I looked really good before I lost weight, too. I just said I finally started paying attention to what I eat. ;) It really is ultimately all about what you eat. I totally get that now.

I've eaten zero pieces of Halloween candy. Yay! And zero Halloween desserts. And I have stayed within my calories every day. After about a year at this weight, I am really feeling confident about my control over food. And that's a first for me. I even think I'm ready to lose a couple more pounds.

Girls, help!
I'm trying to stay healthy, and frankly I'm not tempted by ANYTHING unhealthy on the food front (thank goodness!).
What's driving me nuts is that school is getting insane (I'm taking 19 credit hours and I'm in the middle of a massive research project and on the list goes) and I'm working 5 hours a week and I'm TIRED. Which is absolutely killing my desire to exercise. I want to quit SO BADLY right now because that whole "I'm thin--so I don't have to exercise" thought keeps rearing its ugly head!
How do you all psych yourself into exercising when your motivation hits rock bottom?

Petite Powerhouse, I am in AWE of your willpower! I did well at the party I went to Friday night, but then today I nibbled on some of our stash of goodies left over from trick or treat night. I think I need to tell DH to hide it. ;) In "penance," I took a three-mile walk today, though, which puts me all the closer to my goal of walking/jogging/running 100 miles total before the end of the year. I'm at 70 today! Woo!

oneoftwelve, exercise is so important for so many things, not just weight loss, but also muscle tone, emotional well-being, stress relief, cardiovascular health... it's like a miracle drug that's free and that you can administer yourself, no prescription required! :D Whenever I don't feel like working out, I think about how awesome I'll feel afterward. Also, don't pick types of workouts that you dread. Experiment 'til you find a method you enjoy, and then change it up every now and again to keep it fresh. If you're in maintenance mode, you can probably do less cardio than someone actively trying to lose weight, for example. Think about fitness goals you might have. For me, I'm doing a lot of cardio, yes, but I'm also trying to improve my strength and flexibility, so I have little fitness goals associated with those types of workouts as well. I have lists of what size weights I want to be lifting by such-and-such a date, I have numbers of push-ups I want to do each day, gradually increasing that number, and so on. It's often also just about challenging my mind as much as my body. I like yoga and doing fitness games on the Wii for those reasons--I feel more like I'm doing something mental than something physical, but then afterward I still feel the positive effects of what I did for my body, too.

Hi Feathers!

November has started (already?!) and I'm feeling positive about this month in terms of eating well and exercising. In the past couple weeks I became much more strict with myself and started packing lunch as well as breakfast. I cut those darn bagel sandwiches out of the morning routine and I have been very faithful to my "no showers unless you've just exercised" rule, with cardio 6 days last week and 6 days the week before. I've also started doing pushups regularly, trying to increase what I can do each day. Last week I was struggling to do 50 knee pushups, and today I did 45 regular ones!

Hope you are all doing well. I'm not looking forward to the weather becoming too cold to run outside in shorts...