You weigh less than me and my abs are gone... haha

Joss... I may have lost weight but you'd have to gain at least 30 to be anywhere close to where my losing weight has me. So, by no means are you a blimp. You simply can afford to go up a couple pounds and still look fabulous. I can't afford it because I'd be basically right back where I started.

Bayzee... YAY for the scale drop! Patience is a virtue in this situation, and persistence :)

mottainai... I think the only thing that saves me during the holidays is my lack of a massive sweet tooth. Except for my MILs cookies. Can't get enough of those. I've been eating them in place of other foods. Yesterday was cookies and ONE meal of left overs. So ya know, desert is fine, just don't eat anything else? LOL

krampus... OH NO!!! Is your back feeling any better today? A hurt back is the WORST.

Turbo... you aren't having luck with baking deserts lately. Maybe the universe is telling you something? And yes I think if you watched portions you'll be fine. That's how I've been doing it! EAT EVERYTHING! In moderation. And there you have my book about dieting during the holidays LOL

LockItUp... Trust me, I know where you are coming from there! Remember, I weigh more than you (ok it's only a couple pounds) so you aren't alone here! I have left here in the past when I felt like the featherweights was filled with too many people with serious body image problems supporting each others body image problems. This time around it's different, at least in the threads I read, but it can still feel frustrating at times being "the fattest of the featherweights" (yep that's my nickname I gave myself in my head LOL) especially with our goals weights even being higher than the current weights of some of the girls. I just remind myself, we all have different body types and different ideas of what looks good. I've been 118 before, and I've been 130 before, and I personally felt I looked best at 130. I also have a different standard for how I spend my free time... mostly sitting on my butt, and I can't FATHOM working out as much as some of the girls here. So for me, the trade off is staying happy with my schedule and with what I am eating and having a goal weight that can work with that. It's making my weight loss super slow, just look at you and I, we started at about the same weight when you got here and you're already 5 pounds less than me! It kinda made me discouraged when you got below 150 and I was barely losing at all. I think we all have our moments of "Oh my gosh look at how THEY are doing!" and sometimes we may need to step away to focus on how WE are doing without the temptation to compare to people smaller than us.

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AWESOME NEWS people!!! Despite eating primarily cookies yesterday, and one meal, I ended up not eating much (when your entire lunch is 3 cookies, your calories are doing pretty good LOL)...

I woke up to 150 today!!! Very slightly above the line, but not enough to be a whole half. Could this be the week I drop out of the 150s???

Also we took advantage of one of the amazing sales this weekend and bought ourselves an xbox to replace the one that got stolen a year and a half ago. By the time I decided "screw bills, I want an xbox" (yeah I know, bad thinking) they were sold out in the store, but still available online. So I'll have to wait for it to be shipped. Then I can start playing DANCE CENTRAL again!! I only got to play it once before the xbox got stolen. I should ask for the other DC games for Christmas! I SHOULD! Oooooo....

Can we tell I love dance games? I have all the regular Just Dance games (1-4) and summer party. And I love Dance Central, actually I enjoyed it more but at least with the 1st one there's no multi player option.

Any of the other US feathers DREADING going back to work tomorrow? I love my job,and I need the hours after last week, but I sure have been enjoying my lazy days, watching lifetime christmas movies, knitting and crocheting, and reading in the bubble bath. Next week I'll have to up the billable hours to make up for this week, so I'll be doing a lot of paperwork etc at home. Not looking forward to it :/

~Katy

Aaargh... I posted a huge reply to everyone and my dang computer froze up and wouldn't post it! I refreshed the page and it's gone! I don't have time to do it again. :(

Big high fives for all you a$$ kickers kickin' a$$; LockItUp, Kakers, Bayzee, and the rest of ya.

For the gals who DIDN'T lose over thanksgiving, lets get going! :)

OMG Feathers I don't even remember if I posted about Thanksgiving, but basically my bf and I ate until we needed a nap, then got up and ate again and needed another nap, and in addition to special brownies his mom made special stuffed mushrooms and there was just SO MUCH FOOD. 8 pies for 6 people, that kind of thing. His sister has gotten really heavily into sourdough bread baking so there were a multitude of impossibly fragrant loaves of bread to try.

TOM CAME TODAY FINALLY after I wasted $4 on a pregnancy test at Family Dollar yesterday. Maybe now I'll start having a human-sized appetite instead of angrily glaring at morbidly obese people eating cheese fries in the "dammit I wish I could do that and not care" way that I did at dinner tonight (I behaved - had salad minus cheese and croutons and a 6 oz sirloin steak with asparagus for my side, and am having white grapefruit for dessert).

Tomorrow is my friends' Friendsgiving, so I'll probably come back on Tuesday griping that I ate 5,000 calories. I DO NOT want to fall into the pattern I did in 2010 where I dieted M-F and BINGED HARD on weekends. My normal fluctuation then was to see a low of 125 or so by Friday morning, and be up to 130+ on Monday. There is NO REASON to do that now that I've scratched the "let's eat until sick" itch.

JossFitI'm with you! I was definitely over 130 for a little while there. Not exaggerating either. Hoping I'll see my abs again tomorrow or Tuesday.

kakers CONGRATS on 150!!! Slow but steady! I am definitely not excited about going back to work tomorrow. Dance games are so much fun - I was a diehard DDR fanatic in 2003 or whenever it was popular. I revisited those glory days in London a couple weeks ago and didn't lose my ability over the years!

Bayzee HOORAY for 116s! It's about TIME. Sorry you're fighting the diet fatigue/hunger demons. Hang in there and remember, the 24th is less than a month away ;)

mottainai Somehow I didn't realize you are not Canadian - both of you living as strangers in a strange land has got to be really, really tough. I hope some answers and some direction come your way soon. I am not in a "career" job at the moment and not sure what I'll end up doing either - I really envy people who have it all together, but then again my personal opinion is that no one ever really feels like a real adult until they have children and thus are forced to devote their next 20 years to raising said children.

LockItUp I know that feel. It happens to me a lot too with lighter Feathers and random people I see on the street. Just remember how X number felt so SKINNY on the way down yet feels HUGE on the way up - it's all a game of mind-tricks and numbers that mean less than we think they do. *HUGS*

LeilaJey WOOO 134 is teeny! I definitely hear you on the "wahhh I don't magically look like a lingerie model" front. I survived Thanksgiving (barely) thanks!

TurboMammoth Nail polish does brighten the mood considerably and make us forget stupid crap that doesn't matter (like staring at our own tummies and complaining). :D

Ugh, THIS TOTALLY!!!

I remember seeing coming back from a deployment seeing 122 on the scale and having my mind completely blown. Now I'm going to be working HARD to get back to 116-ish, and that's not even my lowest! I was 113 pounds in September. It's crazy.

I'll admit that I too have been feeling a bit jealous lately and sometimes I want to run and hide from this forum all together. I'm not going to though... I'm going to keep showing up and I'm going to battle my way through the next 4 weeks and I'll need you all to help me with it!

Krampus - I super overdid it for Thanksgiving too, even though I had the best of intentions not to. Today I was back on plan but my body seriously hates me. I'm retaining SOOO much water that it frankly scares the crap out of me! I'm so ready to bust my butt and get back to my happy weight. I'm just hoping 4 weeks will do it.

I'm going to try again during the Christmas trip to stick to my own rules a bit better;

- No bringing holiday 'goodies' junk into my husband's house for me to eat
- Only drinking/snacking on the EVENINGS of 24 and 31 December (not all day long)
- Enjoying a nice Christmas Day dinner and then getting right back on plan.

We'll see how it goes, but I really don't want to fall back into those old patterns either. Oh, and congrats on getting TOM! haha

We ate everrrrrrything.. it's not Thanksgiving over here so I have no excuse. More friends came and we had another Raclette, then a lot of other delicious things.. We're all painfully full and everyone's passed out. The scale tomorrow should be interesting ;)

Night feathers! I'll catch up over the next few days, hope you all had a nice weekend.

Oh dear! Chatty, chatty feathers!

krampus : first, OH YEAH TOM! God you must be releived! Is your back feeling any better? 8 pies for 6 people? That's the kind of dinner I enjoy LOL What is Friendsgiving? Sounds fun!!

Mottaini : Vancouver is probably not the best city ever to totally embrace the Canadian culture, with the immigration reality there (plus the rain and almost no snow... I personaly probably couldn't be able to live there for that reason!). Even if it's a wonderful place, if you don't feel at home, you can't really help it I guess... Feeling at home is something that may take a long time to change.. At least you seem to have at your game night and church gathering! :)

Bayzee : I'm soo happy for you for the 116's!!! Your hard work is paying off, at last :) Must feel quite rewarding!!!

Joss : Awww girl! It's normal to have some hard times during holidays, especially something like thankgiving where... well let's be honest, is basically all about eating (... and being thankful for stuff when your tummy is full...)

I love your Christmas goals, and you will still have time to re-defined them depending on how December goes :)

kakers : Your xbox got stolen!? Someone broke into your house to get your xbox? I think the universe is mad at me for something and is SCR*WING with my dessert baking, which I AM NOT ENJOYING lol especially as I'm supposed to start my Christmas baking stuff soon! Instead right now I feel much more like this
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/4986/dogl.png

LeilaJey : Raclette overload? ;) Hope you had fun!

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Hi Feathers! Today was weird a bit with the food and I have no idea how everything will turn out. We first had our breakfast out with friends who were in town and I'm suuuuper PROUD to say I behave really good! I had a WW bagel with smoked salmon and a tiny cup of cream cheese (I guess the fact the the restaurent is cheap on the cream cheese is a good thing for my stomach) with fruits. And because we only got to eat breakfast at like 11AM, I skipped lunch. OH YEAH.

We had boyfriend's dad, sister and new mother-in-law for dinner and I did okay again in the food control, had a bit of hummus with crackers and a light homemade spinach dip for appetizers with 2-3 small pieces of bread, followed by a tiny lasagna portion with homemade ratatouille, which is basically roasted veggies, with a small cup of wine. I had a piece of apple pie for dessert, but it was a graham cracker crust, WIN AGAIN.

Everything was going fine but I had 5 shortbread cookies, which is probably around 350 calories... It was unnecessary, but I was just boredom eating while watching tv with the boyfriend. Oh well. Could have been worst, I guess!

I'd like to go for a bike ride tomorrow, but it snowed today, so I guess my season of biking in the trails is kinda over, it's gonna be muddry and not fun. Need to find a new place to bike and face my dislikes concerning cycling on the road!

TurboMammoth, yep! It was a year and a half ago, we moved immediately (the break in happened the day our lease was up!) and they got our xbox, TWO playstation3s, a couple of TVs, my netbook, my husbands macbook air. We replaced a TV pretty quickly, I replaced one PS3 last Christmas, and the computers thankfully were our 2nd computers (he has a full size macbook and I have a laptop) actually, they found our small TV. They brought up two people on charges actually, and one was ordered to pay us restitution once they're out of jail. I doubt we'll see any, but hey, someone went to jail so YAY. Totally killed us financially though. We were hoping to wait a few more months to move, but we didn't feel safe there anymore and so we moved right away. So we had very few options with having 4 cats, so our rent is a tiny bit more than we'd like, and it cleared out our savings paying the deposit. But oh well! We found all our cats, so that's the important part.

~Katy

Good morning. :coffee:

I was doing alright with my re-commitment to nutrition... until last night when I ate a bunch of sweets! :o That apathy is clinging to me as much as it can. But I'm jumping head first into the healthy side of things again today. Perseverance is always what got me out of these slumps in the past. Maybe this time I can skip over the "panic about a slip up and gain ten pounds" section that usually came first.

I'm stressing out about a few small things which feel like giant issues that I'm going to have to deal with this December, and I'm pretty sure it's part of the reason emotional eating is creeping back up on me. But all the more reason to get obsessed with health and fitness again, it'll distract me. I need to remind myself of that the next time ice cream starts calling me...

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krampus That's happened to me before with pregnancy tests. Definitely annoying... how's your back doing after the squat mishap?

Turbo I love that picture! Perfect thing to start my day with. :lol: I really miss biking. I haven't gone since I moved to Utah because there are no good trails around here, and road biking freaks me out. It's actually a decent area for it considering the high number of people who do it... but I'm a wimp. :dizzy:

Kakers - It’s all such a head game sometimes. I appreciate the support very much!! I want one of those dancing games! We have an xbox but only fighting games (husband’s) and guitar hero, which I tired of quickly!

Mottainai – Please don’t ever worry about that! It’s all just my own thing. Honestly a smaller person on the street made me feel bad, just their mere existence LOL!

Krampus - I love your new avatar! You’re so beautiful! Sorry about your back!!! Congrats on no baby! I have a backup pregnancy test at home even though my husband had a vasectomy in May. I’m so terrified of him being the one it didn’t work on! And thank you! So true about the number being different on the way up than on the way down!!!

Turbomammoth - It’s funny you mention that, the whole reason I came over the feathers is because I was sensing some frustration from people about my complaining about my weight, being as that I had much less to lose than said people. I totally know it goes both ways, like I had mentioned, just being a big baby! LOVE that dog pic, so funny! I feel like that in the kitchen most of the time!!

LeilaJey – I guess you could always say you are an American supporter, and you didn’t want all of us US feathers to feel bad, so you ate too! :D

JossFit – I definitely feel like hiding a lot. I also know that the times I have hidden have been some of my worst times. (Including just last week.)

Hope I didn't miss anyone that posted recently! Trying to catch up is hard!

Seems like a rough time for many of us, either scale-wise, head-wise, or both. It’s ironic I suppose that the time of year that is “supposed” to be the most jolly can be the most stressful and kind of just awful!

I had a really bad weekend with my kids, they just were so d@mn grumpy and I don’t know how many times this weekend we were all 3 crying! I cried for about a half hour after my daughter smeared mashed potatoes all over my husband’s computer. Fun story for years from now I guess.

The GOOD news is that I have been 100% on plan since Friday when I started my “28 days to goal” challenge. I even stepped food back in the gym! I finally netted a loss after nearly 2 weeks of gaining or hovering. Glad to be back!

TheBunneh - You must've posted same time as me. Your screen name doesn't happen to be from Veggie Tales does it? If not disregard! Stress can be such a detrimental thing in every way. It's hard to cope sometimes. My fall back is always food. It's takes a lot of control to choose another way to cope, at least for me!

LockItUp Nope, not a Veggie Tales reference. However I am a fan! Well... okay, I'm just a Silly Songs with Larry fan. (Ooh, wheeeeeere is my hairbrush?) I haven't seen any of the actual show though.

Good for you for staying on plan! I can't imagine how I would cope with mashed potatoes being smeared on my computer! Eesh!

LOL I'm with you on the silly songs with Larry. That's the only one I've ever seen.

Still trying to get all the rest of it out of the key board. And the screen is still a bit crusty.

This thread is so busy now!!!

Felt nice and thin this morning, even after eating huuuuge garlic-stuffed steaks yesterday. I am such a carnivore, lol. No weigh-in, but those goal pants fit even better too: I can actually zip them up most of the way now! I took a picture, but you can't really see any difference, so just take my word for it, haha

So anyway, took the opportunity today for another refeed meal this morning, though it actually didn't make me feel very good this time. Not mentally- I'm totally fine with it and planned it in- but just physically.

But still, all in all, I'm doing great! Relaxing and appreciating my body as it is while trying to not go overboard just for the sake of my health and sanity. It's nice.

To be honest, it kind of just hit me: but really, this is it. This, the 100/110's range, is basically where I've been wanting to be for the past, like, four or five years, ever since I started binge eating and gaining weight like crazy. Even forgetting about numbers, this is the body I remember, the one I've been longing to be in again for all this time. I remember not so long ago the day I saw 170 pounds on the scale, or saw photos of myself, and just thought, "oh my gosh, how did this happen? this is NOT ME!!" And I struggled for so long, doing a lot of the wrong things, making progress and having setbacks, for years...and FINALLY this year I've found some moderation and stuck with it and made it. Wowowow. Any extra fat loss and toning up I can do past this point will be sweet icing on the cake for sure, but even right this moment, when I think about it, I honestly can have no complaints. I feel strong and powerful, light on my feet, and so healthy, and just pretty darn good allover.

That all said, one frustrating thing though: my SLEEP recently.
I was always very very very protective of my sleep and slept very deep, every night went to bed early, slept HARD for at least 8+ hours. I could sleep through a fire alarm, or if I had a lot to drink right before bed, I wouldn't even wake up but would just have to go to the bathroom super quick in the morning, haha.
But since getting married and being sleeping with my husband, I've adjusted my sleep schedule to fit his, which means going to bed later and getting a few less hours every night. But I'm also sleeping very lightly now, so I wake up every time my husband gets up to use the restroom or whatever, wake up myself to pee like 3 or 4 times every night, and also will wake up whenever my husband gets up and be totally unable to sleep after that as long as he doesn't get back in the bed. ):
It's not killing me or anything, just makes me a little uncomfortable and unhappy when I consider it. I'm not sure what to do though. I used to take melatonin sometimes to help me go to sleep, but I don't know if that works to help STAY asleep, which is more my problem. Hmmm.... Well, whatever it is, having a man to sleep next to is worth it, for the time being at least, lol.

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Lockitup- Sorry you had a stressful weekend with the kids! Imagining the mashed potatoes on the computer kinda made me laugh though. Gosh, I can't wait to start having kids, but at the same time, I can really appreciate how much simpler life is without them, I guess! And well done getting back to the gym!! Feels good, doesn't it?

Thebunneh- I have a lot of "giant issues" going on right now as well. It's so stressful, I know! I hope you can not worry too much about having a few too many sweets and just get right back on track!

Turbo- Sounds like you're doing GREAT managing the food! You're actually a great example for me on how to deal with eating normal foods in proper amounts, so thanks for posting all the time!

Leila- So much raclette! Sounds sooo good though, I know I keep saying that over and over, haha.

Krampus- Thanks for your encouragement on the life situation. Sounds like you're really having a lot of awesome food, even if you're overdoing it a bit. I know how hard it is! I hope you can stick with moderation and not fall back into old habits....hoping that for myself as well!!

Kakers- Hope you can make it out of the 150's this week!! So exciting. I'm totally with you on having dessert in place of meals, haha. Oh, and my sister loves all those dance games too! But she's really good at them, I'm just way way way so uncoordinated. Even when I think I'm doing good and getting the points, if I look at myself in the mirror, I actually just look super awkward!! hah

Joss- I know you'll do great the next four weeks!! Really, just like you said to me, you know you already look great even with a few extra pounds on you, so don't stress too bad, and just trust that you have the dedication to do what you need to.

Hey Friends!

Sorry I've been MIA. Thanksgiving week was very busy! I tried to watch what I ate in the end I didn't gain but I didn't lose. Today, I started back at work which is great because I am now able to have some what of a schedule. I ate pretty well today but no exercise :( I'm going to hit up Zumba tomorrow and get some cardio in.

It's really nice to be a part of this community! I tend to cave to my husband, he loves yummy food and I have a hard time saying no. Knowing that I can come here and see other women (I don't think we have any men on here) who are making strides to lose weight and be healthy is totally awesome for me!

Mottainai: I take melatonin to help me sleep too.. but I too have trouble STAYING asleep. My husband is a heating pad so i'm constantly putting on covers or taking them off. Let me know if you find something that helps you!

Feathers: I am so happy to see everyone working hard on their goals!