This morning I was late to work because I couldn't stop pooping. I was down 1.2 lbs from yesterday after all that. BF made masamman curry last night for dinner which was RIIIIIICH, so it was pleasantly surprising not to be up on the scale. I also hit the weights yesterday after a week off and it felt soooo good to be back in action!

Tonight we're supposed to go watch demolition derbies/school bus races/cars smashing into each other. I hope it won't get rained out!

TurboMammoth Don't freak! The half will go fine, you've been super dedicated in your training. Also I'll be in QC when you're running probably, going to Montreal this coming weekend!

JossFit Go to NYC! It's right there! What are your honeymoon plans? Glad the weight's falling right off you.

DottieMae Best of luck getting through this hectic week. I feel bloated too and TOM is overdue, eugh.

Dorian5 Congrats on 2 years smoke free!!!!!!!! I need to get around to that.

LeilaJey I'm a bit disproportionate legs-wise too. I can sometimes wear a 2 on top but I'm not even consistently a 4 on the bottom. I can't wait to go to the UK this fall and load up on SINGLE DIGIT clothes, last time I was there I was in 12/14.

Joss You're totally right, it always seems to happen like that! Sometimes I'm eating at a deficit, exercising and feeling really great. Like it's the easiest thing in the world and I could do it forever.. and how could I ever want to eat more? Then the next week I'm eating 2 scones after dinner haha, oh well, we win some we lose some! Also lol at the bath salts! Holy crap I'd never heard about people doing that until the face eating incident.. is it a popular thing to do? Hope your weekend went well!

Dorian Have us over for dinner some night will ya
Congratulations on 2 years not smoking! that's awesome! I'm just over 1 year myself.

krampus Nice one on the bikini top! That's great! Enjoy your workout.

Dottie Aw, hope TOM isn't too cruel! Bikram yoga will probably help anyway so that's a good idea.

[B]Philana

Turbo hahaha, so romantic! I'm sure the scale will catch up a bit if you peed that much. I wish I could pee! Waaa, I'm here drinking ACV but TOM is also here and they're battling it out. I think TOM's winning I've been drinking so much water and then I go to the bathroom and hardly anything comes out haha ..
don't freak out, you'll be great!! How long have you been in maintenance?

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Frustrated with TOM as I had just started losing again, typical! But I'm staying on track and not eating my weight in chocolate (which is less than it used to be, but hey). Back to 148.2 but this does seem to mean that I'm definitely in the 140s which is awesome! If I can keep this up I'll hopefully have a nice whoosh again. Going to visit friends in my old city this weekend - I'll do my best not to eat pizza for every meal. I'll throw some ice cream in there too

Ok just kidding, I am really going to try to not go crazy.

This week is fine so far.. yesterday I ate a bit more because I was pretty weak from TOM. Large home made burgers with onions, garlic and lots of herbs and spices, sun dried tomato pesto, cherry vine tomatoes and goat's cheese on top with roasted sweet potato fries on the side. I'm no Dorian in the kitchen but I try haha

krampus I think I was a 12/14 for most of my life! It's so nice wearing single digits now. I was so happy to pick up those US6 jeans, I felt so small hah silly numbers. What are you doing in the UK? You seem to get around a lot!

LeilaJey YUM HOMEMADE BURGERS. I have a couple really good friends who live in London that I met teaching in Japan. I am terrible at staying put. It's so bogus that I only have 20 vacation days a year! >_<

That's always nice! I know people every where too just from travels. I haven't left the country in.. oh I don't know, too long. Last Summer was the first year I didn't go anywhere and I'm not sure I'll get anywhere this year either. I want to go for an adventure to Iceland soon. Going to start saving for that. I have terrible itchy feet. I used to spent months out of every year having adventures. Oh well.

Krampus & Leila, I hear you on the travelling - my last serious travelling was in 2010! UHG. Iran/Iraq/Syria/Egypt. Was very awesome. But I know I won't get to go on a cool trip till 2013. I used to go every year.

So, my diet is not perfect again. But that's okay. I am just really annoyed at the moment. My legs are just really a pudding from the knees up. While in clothes I look pretty fab. I hate that without them I still feel uhg. It's only that part of my body too. I just know I need to get down to such a low weight to be rid of that, it kinda feels.. daunting. Because this is the point where I decide I WANT that, and work for it.. or just... never mind. Ya know?

I think I want it. It's just gonna take a while, and I rather be focussing on atlethic goals. But I can't do both - I just cant restrict calories and push myself on the exercise. So I'll find some middle ground. I just dunno, it's hard. I mostly need to find the mindset again, I know I do.



Edit: this sounds like a really negative post - while I am having a superduper awesome week. So, just letting ya gals know. Hihi.

I just need to vent for a minute Feathers... hope you don't mind!

I am a reformed tanning bed user, naturally fair skinned and strawberry blonde, and I no longer tan but I have a large number of fairly suspicious moles on my body (especially my legs). I have not tanned at all (in the salons or outside) for the past year and am very adamant these days about putting SPF 50 on my body from head to toe each morning when I wake up, and even then I avoid being outside and keep my skin pretty much covered up.

Thats actually nice... my skin looks soft and smooth, and I always smell just a bit like coconuts.

Recently the idea of skin cancer started bothering me and so I made an appointment with a dermatologist to get a full-body check on my skin and to get a few of the larger moles biopsied. Other than some of them being large, I haven't had any issues with them that would suggest cancer (particularly itching or bleeding from any of them) and none appear to be growing at a rapid rate, though admittedly, I haven't really paid much attention to them until recently.

Anyway, my first appointment isn't until the first week in August, so in the meantime I am just left to freak out about it until I know more. Even after that initial appointment, if we end up doing some biopsies that day it will still take a couple of weeks to get any results, and I have so many that it's going to take several appointments to get them all biopsied.

My concerns are;
1 - Getting the biopsies will require some stitches/down time from working out (which always freaks me out a bit)
2 - If I do in fact have cancer, that may require more invasive surgeries to remove more tissue/lymph nodes (which is more down time and pain) and...
3 - If the situation is really bad that might require more treatments such as chemo... chemotherapy would wreak havoc on my body... I would lose muscle mass, strength, stamina... my hair. I'd generally be hating life.

Of course chemo is extreme at this point, but I can't help worry about it. My fiance doesn't seem to understand and can't really see why I'm so scared about it. I don't want to be in pain, sick to my core from chemotherapy, frail, scarred up more than I already am and bald on top of it.

The worst part of that would be that my fiance lives in another state, as does my best friend and all of my family, and my roommate is gone for the next 4 months. I don't want to have to do all of this alone.

Anyway... all that is what it is, and if it happens then I'll deal with it. What I am upset about is that in the meantime I'm worried and this should be a HAPPY time for me! Instead of enjoying my wedding and honeymoon next month I'm going to be worried about my appointment coming up right after I get back. Not only that, but stress is keeping me from focusing on studying for a big test I have coming up on Friday, and is making me want to stress eat like nobody's damn business! I haven't succumbed to it, but the urge is there to just stuff myself full of sugar and hide in my house all day crying about it.

I know it probably sounds silly, but I just don't know what to do about it. Telling myself not to worry isn't helping, and doing the opposite by researching treatment and different types of skin cancer stages/warning signs isn't helping me either. I don't know what to do.

I also know that cookies aren't the answer, but it sure seems like a good distraction at this point. I need a distraction.

krampus - demolition derby - awesome! And perhaps that richness of last night's meal was the reason for your 'troubles' this AM!

Ha, 20 days of vacation is awesome. But I know how it is. I had 5 weeks at my last job but I left it because I was miserable. I went down to 2.5 weeks at my current job but thankfully I'm now up to 3.5 weeks. Still, not enough! We've been itchy to get back to Europe since the last time was a trip to London 3 years ago. Money's tight right now though so I don't think we'll have anything in the works until 2013. I'm keeping my eye on Greece bc the news seems to point to their economic troubles being a good thing for tourist deals. We'll see.

LeilaJey - those burgers sound delish! Even coming from a vegetarian. I love goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes!

philana - Didn't sound negative to me, just realistic. I think you can do both, but that as we get lower in weight those fine tuning things take longer.

JossFit - I have so been there - not with skin cancer/moles, but with other medical things. You spin and spin in your head and just stress yourself out. You sit there thinking of all the worst case scenarios and how your life will turn out. Just know you've made the biggest shift by giving up tanning and committing to wearing sunscreen daily.

Is there anything in your life that really relaxes you? bubble baths, reading, going for a walk, etc? Just wondering if there's some sort of relaxation technique you can do until you have real information? That may help in the meantime.

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Tonight I'm going with a friend to a fashion/hair/makeup event - it's only 15 people and is some sort of fundraiser cocktail party at one of the department stores. I have no idea if they're giving us makeovers or what. She's an event planner but gets to enjoy this event. fun!

Side note, 3 blocks from my house there is a crazy guy who has been holed up in his house and is armed. They've closed off part of the street and evacuated some neighbors. I keep checking the news to see if they've gotten him out but its been over 24 hrs now. I found out this morning after hearing crazy cop cars and sirens all day/night yesterday.

JossFit Is there any way to beat out the urge to emotionally eat with reason and logic? Sugar won't make August come sooner. You really probably won't need chemo. It's probably not even cancer. Can you start some kind of really time-consuming project at work? Either way, HUGS.

DottieMae TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT. Crazy guy huh? Stay safe!

Krampus & Turbo, you might like this. I just had SO MUCH FUN running with this game/app. Time flies when you are having fun. http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/exer...ml#post4384806

Joss Ok I know saying don't worry or don't stress doesn't work but you said yourself that the only suspicious thing is that they MIGHT be bigger. It's very possible that you just started to notice them. Skin cancer is on your mind so you're worrying about it and seeing it in yourself when it very probably isn't there. Google anything and cancer will come up. It's so easy to obsess about parts of our body and things that we feel are wrong. I have convinced myself that I have had so many diseases because I fit a few (sometimes all, still didn't mean I had the thing) of the symptoms (when I was 17 I was positive I had throat cancer for a day from my cough and the way it looked lol). Even if your moles looked like the pictures it's still not at all conclusive.

I know you're stressed right now but if you can stop looking things up, do some deep breathing and maybe take a bath or something if you can? Do something relaxing. Food won't make you feel better, you know it'll only make you feel worse. Hope you're ok :hugs:

Philana Just saw my post and realised what I said to you was a total fail.. haha woops, gotta start proof reading these posts. Wow, Middle East trip sounds great, what were you doing there if you don't mind me asking?

You know we'll probably never think of our bodies as perfect (well I won't anyway) but having just one part that you're not completely happy with is pretty damn good. I think just keep working on the fitness for now, what's the point in getting burned out mentally worrying about trying to drop a few more pounds? It's not a race, so enjoy yourself and be fit and awesome for a while and see how you feel then!

Dottie A vegetarian eh? Now I feel pretty damn good haha
Oh and holy crap that's crazy :\ never a dull moment! Well enjoy your night!


I'm drinking so much water I just wanna pee it all out and have a whoosh already, stupid bloat!

Also just wanted to share this

Earlier on when I was getting changed I looked at myself in the mirror and really wasn't feeling great about myself. Then I was putting some clean clothes away when I looked at one of my skirts that I recently realised I fit into. It's a uk10/us6 grey pencil skirt and I was folding it and thought that it looked tiny. I was trying to figure out how I fit into it. So I looked in the mirror and held the skirt beside myself and then held it in front and then I put it on.. it was really weird but it kind of helped something click a bit if you know what I mean.

Hi girls!

Today I had an authorized "binge" after juice fasting for about 4 days as a spiritual/bonding experience with my roommates. It was so indulgent and yet also so (digestively) miserable. And necessary: I was in danger of falling into my low-weight "red zone".

The roommates are still juice fasting to lose weight, which to me feels a little like an irresponsible crash diet. But I do see the benefits of fasting as a practice of self-discipline over a couple of days-- just not as a weight-loss practice to be sustained over some weeks.

Anyone here practice Intermittent Fasting? I think I might enjoy that as a maintenance strategy, simply because it would be a practice of occasional intense focus instead of constant mild-deprivation. How did/does it work for you?

I'm doing my best to manage the stress of it... so far it's going okay. I actually left work yesterday a bit early (there wasn't anything going on and staring at my computer trying to motivate myself to study was not working) - and leaving work early when I'm bored has been a huge trigger for me in the past. Nothing to do, mind wandering... and my number one trigger; boredom/stess combination... it used to lead to some pretty epic binges.

I went and got a manicure and by the time I got home it was the same old routine; packed up my meals for today and cooked myself my planned dinner.

After dinner I still felt a bit snacky which I mostly attribute to my mental state but I'm sure it was partially the extra cardio I did yesterday (I ended up doing 40 minutes of intervals on the stair machine and 35 minutes on the elliptical). I was having a hard time resisting temptations, but I did... mostly. I ended up having only 1/2 (which I have NEVER DONE) of a pint of Arctic Zero... so only an extra 75 calories and that squashed the munchie demon.

Each day brings it's own challenges, but all we can do is take it a day at a time, right? I consider that a success overall.

Yes, absolutely... and I think I did an OK job managing it yesterday. It wasn't a "perfect day" on plan but I hardly think that my little 75 calorie treat undid ANY of my hard work. As I'm sure you can understand being a former/recovering sufferer of BED (or at least EDNOS) I was pretty proud of myself for that.

As for work, I WISH there were more to do right now! It comes and goes; today will be busy, not much tomorrow, and then Friday will be PACKED. There never seems to be a good rate of speed for things around here.

Judging by all the warning signs, there is definitely cause for concern; tanning bed user for 10+ years, fair skinned, red hair, lots of moles, irregular shapes and colors, some larger than a pencil eraser... at the very least getting some biopsies will give me peace of mind, and even if I DO have to endure more treatment than just check-ups, at least it will save my life. Why wait any longer, right?
I don't want to brush it off any longer, but you are right; until I know more I might just be doing myself more harm than good by worrying about it. I just think that buring my head in the sand isn't helpful either (not that you are suggesting that.) My point is, I'm just trying to be realistic. I know at this stage if I do have any skin cancer it won't kill me, but thinking about the different treatments and all the time/pain/work is daunting. It's hard to put out of my mind.

As far as the rest goes, each day is going to be a struggle to keep from using food/alcohol/excessive exercise/etc. as a distraction. I'm just trying to focus on happy things like my wedding!

Anyway, from you and everyone else who has chimed in, I really really appreciate the support. Just bear with me...