turbo ~ Oh, compatibility.... It's strange the things that bring people together, you know? ;) DC's about a four hour drive from me, but the trip has officially died on the table... Sad. :( Oh, well. TOM watch is still on, but I think the biggest victory is that I'm watching it and aware, rather than just eating the house and beating myself up over it. Win.

oleh ~ It does sound like you're a bit more relaxed about the whole eating plan and it looks like it's working for ya, girl. And re: dating - These ladies have heard my guy woes for awhile now. (reference: Skinny army guy, baseball dude) I've never been a big "dater" either but I'm starting to put myself out there a bit more and I'm hoping that it's all for the best. Helps me remember to take care of myself first, which ends up making me feel better all around. How long since your separation?

xiao ~ Millet porridge sounds delicious. Is it tricky to get the right measurements so that it doesn't spill over? It's kind of hit and miss with the vitamins. Feeling down energy today, but that could be any number of things. The massive amounts of sugar I ate last night didn't help matters, I'm sure.

Krampus ~ De-LISH-US food porn. Yummers. And hurray for band practice! Re: work - Isn't it shocking how effective and organized we can be under pressure? Sometimes I wish the "work me" would come home a bit more. And re: feeling competent, I think we'd all be surprised at how many people are just making it up as they go along...


~~~
Had some monster cravings as soon as I got home from work last night. Ended up eating some chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup -- not too bad) a caramel Stroop waffle, and oatmeal with brown sugar for dinner. :rolleyes: but was still "head hungry". Told myself ENOUGH and pounded 48 oz of water. Strangely, that seemed to help quiet the emotional hunger, too.

Have a "life group" with friends from cult tonight. Nothing tomorrow evening, then hoping to take a yoga class on Friday.

Happy hump day, feather friends!

xiao : I love running in negative split too, I love seeing my average pace decrease as I run faster after I hit the halfway point of my run LOL That porridge looks like a load of fun to clean up :P Have you tried the ''letting in soak in the water for 2 days'' method? LOL

Olehcat : God, I would not be able to run after a 13 hours day neither. Hope you'll find time to get some nice runs! :)

krampus : RAAAAAR (that is the sound of me drooling) your tons of roasted veggies looks so GOOD. I get your scare of changing the scale, I think I have to change only the batteries on mine and I freak out lol. And yes, TOM is late again. Last month I had a 30 days cycle, but today I am up to a 33 days cycle. Might go get a stick at the drugstore tomorrow... (JESUS CHRIST (&*% (*(*&$//$%%?)

***
Hi ladies! Down to 133.8 this morning, yay! No poop though as I needed to head out quickly to get my summer tires on and take off a flat tire (ooops). If I'm stress in the morning, I find that I don't go pooping despite the coffee intake. Ohh well.

No TOM yet... I really DONT think I could be pregnant, but I'm still a bit nervous about that little chance percentage but also the fact that I just want to have them, stop waiting for them and just moooooove oooooon.

I am currently baking a test cake for the Christening (is that how it is called in english?) of my goddaugther next Sunday. I'll taste it tonight to note if I need to make change and send the remains with the boyfriend at his lab tomorrow. I'm planning to mold a fondant unicorn, I'm so excited.

Have a good day ladies!

Alexis : Did not see you there! Ahh, sorry to hear the DC trip got cancelled. At least you'll have a weekend to relax, you seemed so busy lately! Congrats on shutting off the head '' YOU'RE HUNGRYYY'' voice! You're in control ;)

Quick pop-in update.

Today and yesterday were fairly crappy eating, although not catastrophically so. Damages work up to about 2300 for both days, although yesterday I did do a decent 6.3 mile jog. Today was nada, but I had a big stressful horrid 3 hours at the bank and generally needed to rest. I'll be very happy to get out and do a ton of running tomorrow. I'm considering a 7 mile morning session (possibly fasted state), and then a 10-miler in the afternoon/early evening. We'll see if I actually make good on that.

Good news, however: I weighed myself yesterday morning, and while it ultimately hit 56.0, it hung for longer than a split-second on 55.8 before deciding to hop up. Also, took my waist measurement, and came in at like 26.25".

Turbo ~ *drools* fondant unicorn cake... Deeeeeeellicious. Would love to see pics! Any word on TOM...?

Xiao ~ Oh, man! That scale hang... Like a little taste of victory... You'll get there. Just wait... ;)

~~~
More computer woes. Like the technumskull I am, I transferred the data to the new hard drive but can't access any of it. Made another appt at the Apple store.

Food has been pretty quiet, but I'm making more of an effort to keep it quiet, too. I made pasta for a meeting last night and came home with a ton of leftovers. Would have loved to dive in while watching TV, but treated myself to a liter of white chocolate seltzer instead. ;)

Have a date with "the professor" on Saturday for bowling + dinner. Excited! :D

Happy Friday eve, feathers!

Hey Alexis, one thing you might want to do to protect important files on your computer: If your stuff is not backed up anywhere else, I would seriously recommend using Dropbox. All my pictures, writing, journal, and any other file important to me is saved to Dropbox. In fact, since I purchased a 100GB plan from them, I could basically pick this computer up and smash it on the floor and it wouldn't matter. Rather than a physical external hard drive, Dropbox stores it in remote servers, so it's uploaded to the Internet, but only you and those you give permission to can access it. Then first 10GB is free, and it's crazy easy to set up on your computer.

xiao : You are doing awesome in the weigh in! Woah, 7 miles starved, I don't think I could ever managed that. It would probably be a repeat of ''FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD'' in my head for the whole run ;)

Alexis : I'll post pics when the cake is all done on Sunday! :) And no, no TOM yet... Huuuugh, hope you can solve your computer problem soon, it must be so annoying. WOHOOOO for the date with ''the Professor''!

***

Hi! 133.2 this morning, which left me a bit startled, I was not expecting it at all. Oh well : yay! I did my scheduled 10k run this morning, I picked the hilliest freacking route in the neighborhood (good job, Turbo, good job) it was hard but great once it was over :P

Food was in control, I had a light lunch of Salmon Curry leftover with a salad and we had turkey meatballs with beans salsa and some healthy version of cornbread tonight. I still have a few calories to spare + calories from the run, which I intend on using on a movie snack while watching Jurrassik Park 3D tonight (yes. this is happening. it was the boyfriend favorite movie as a kid, and he still watch it regularly :P)

TOM haven't showed up yet, which is getting me upset. I'm kinda sick of just wearing dark pants ''just in case''. I did a pregnancy test this morning and it came out negative, so it's just really NOT COMING. I asked about it in the Exercise forum, someone suggested I might not be eating enough/low on iron. I'll try to have a blood test next week at the boyfriend's lab to see where I am standing...

Talk to you later, feathers!

heya,

Maybe I'm discouraged a bit? I weighed in at 147, so up 1.2 pounds since Wednesday. Why? Who knows. I am still not eating dinner. I am eating light and healthy at lunch (veggies dipped in salsa, fruit, healthy protein like hard boiled eggs/shrimp with avocado), eating healthy for breakfast (yesterday an omelet, the day before, steel-cut oatmeal, days before that black beans and tomatoes). My only vice is a piece of chocolate at night and a glass of wine. And taking that away would hardly work since the whole point of skipping dinner is to allow myself to have a guiltless treat.

So I guess what I don't know is if this is just a flukey bloaty thing or if my weight is not going to go down. It's hard to be patient and keep doing what I'm doing when I may be doing something that doesn't work. In other words, I'm on the search for that thing that will allow me to relax about food but still allow me to lose weight. Have I found it or is this just another thing that will keep me bouncing around in the upper 140s? I was feeling so hopeful because this is something that I could still do on weekends successfully because weekends are so shaky for me. For example, I'd have no temptations to order Chinese takeout if I knew that eating after 3 was not an option. So well...I guess I'll just give it a week before rethinking? I really would like to be (by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week) seeing a number UNDER 145. If I see that, then I'll know it's working and not to worry about the fluctuations. My problem is not being able to relax and wait for fluctuations to work themselves out....

I'm supposed to go on a 10-mile run today as part of my training. I won't have time on the weekend, so must do it today after work. I'm insane, I think! :) I will be walking part of it, I'm sure, but if I finish, I'll feel VERY triumphant!

@Alex - divorced for nearly a year now. :)

@Turbo - I did a nice, 4-mile run the other day. It was crazy humid, but I was happy that I did it. Long term forecast shows race day as not being too warm at least! I hope your TOM comes soon!!! How frustrating!

14.5 mile run, done. 1860 calories for the day. I bet I'm gonna wake up like 5 pounds smaller tomorrow morning :)

Turbo ~ *cheers* way to go on that run, turbo!!! Mmmmmm... unicorn shaped fondant. I'm having visions here at my desk. Have you ever heard of having a "smash cake" at a christening? (smaller, less pretty cake around just for the purpose of smashing) Do you have any other duties as godmother? re: tom - Came yesterday for me, so if we really are all in sync up in here, you should be right around the corner. ;) And how convenient that you can just have an iron test in the bf's lab! What's his area of specialty?

xiao ~ Look at you go, road warrior! You should drop a ton just from water alone. Thanks for the computer tip! This is the first major problem I've had in over ... five years? but man is that a lesson in effective, regular backing up. I never sure about the security of off site data storage services, but I might check out that dropbox thing.

oleh ~ Just hang in there, girl. Sounds like a good plan to wait it out. If a glass of wine is around 120 cals and a square of chocolate is around 200, that's a total of 320 (possibly 400, depending on brand). Can 400 cals make that big of a difference? so if your overall cals are low and healthy, probably not. The most important thing is to find and stick with a plan that works for you. I keep thinking of Jim Collins's "flywheel concept". Stick with what works, rather than changing tactics midstream (aka "the doom loop")


~~~
Got a haircut last night and I feel fanTASTIC!!! Haven't loved my hair this much in a loooong time. Hoping to make it last until tomorrow night (I sleep in velcro rollers) and picked up a can of dry shampoo, too. Feeling foxy in the hair (but allergy puffy in the face... *sigh*)

TOM came yesterday for me. Ugh for cramping and gross today, but hopefully will be lighter on the scale tomorrow.

Made sasuage and peppers last night. Deeeelicious, but chock full of sodium (just realized that).
Plans for the community yoga class tonight and hopefully meeting up with a friend afterwards. Have a cult group tomorrow morning, then date tomorrow eve. Church on sunday, then possibly an excursion to a vineyard after... Hurray. We drink wine like Jesus did. ;)

Happy FRIIIDAY, feather friends!

People, I just ran/walked 10 miles!!! I'm so ready for this race next week! I don't think I'll get my best time, but I will finish it and proudly!

@Alex - THANK you for listening to my whine this morning...feel a little embarrassed right now. :) The chocolate is actually only about 100 calories (they are two little mini bars, 54 calories each). Doom loop is a perfect description of my weight loss efforts over the years! :) I am going to stick this out a bit. I truly think this is huge for me, especially because Friday nights traditionally I want to stuff my face and have stuff like pizza and Thai noodles, but if eating isn't an option in the evening, it can't happen. :) I would have totally ordered take out food normally. But tonight I didn't. :) One step at a time!

Alexis – you killed me with the “Also must remember that this is PMS week, so objects in the fridge are larger than they appear” part, soooo funny and soooo true! the date with the professor sounds fun! what exactly is white chocolate seltzer??

Turbo – bummer on the TOM! not to scare you or anything, but sometimes home pregnancy tests can have false negatives, too, but perhaps with all the running you’ve been doing has put your body off – best to see what the blood test says! and yes, post a picture of the cake, it sounds delish!

olehcat – I think you should stick to your eating plan, and give it a little bit longer, it could be normal fluctuations or your body may be adjusting – if you like it and feel fine without eating dinner, then continue! and YOU GO GIRL for the 10 miles!!!

xiao – the millet porridge sounds awesome! I am sure you will feel much better after a few good runs this weekend
krampus – that looks SO good! I’m hitting up the farmer’s market today, so I’m definitely stocking up on tons of veggies to roast!
__________________________________________________ ________
I am feeling MUCH better this week, still have a bit of a lingering cough, but the major problem is still my sinuses – stuffed nose, and when I blow it, my ears pop and I become temporarily deaf, and the worst part is I still have NO taste! I have been continuing with the allergy/sinus medication, but I think I’m just going to have to wait this one out. I did buy a netipot, but I haven’t noticed much of a difference each time I used it. Maybe I’ll go back to the doc AGAIN (grumble, grumble) and see if she can prescribe a nasal spray.

However…. this week’s eating was pretty good (again, no taste, so no temptation to eat bad things!) Yesterday we had administrative appreciation day, plus one of the principal’s birthdays so let’s just say cake, brownies, cookies, chocolate mousses, and more cake all over the place! Once a week there is a food day anyway, but the desserts were extra yummy looking yesterday. Also, I have no choice but to cross all of the food to reach my mailbox, so it’s not like I could just ignore it. But my willpower was strong and I didn’t touch one thing!

The scale was very nice to me this morning, I actually weighed myself every day this week (I’m not a fan of doing it every day) but I have an idea of how my body bounces around. Today I came in at 159.2! I had been bouncing between the 159.X and 160.X, so I am happy – I finally broke the 160 threshold, youpeee! :carrot:

Finally today we have some sunshine here, still kind of cold, but I am thinking of going for a nice walk/jog later today at a nearby park. I finally got back to my zumba this week, and it felt soooo good after missing 2 weeks, but now I want to step it up and get back to a workout of 5-6 days a week.

Question for the runners – what is a good way to start up? I know that is a really vague question, and it kind of depends on each person… I’ve seen the C25K program, but I don’t have anyone to do it with and I want to start running again, but I’m not sure if I should have a “plan” to work up to, or just start running what I can and gradually build up? How did you all start/begin? I see several of you talking about 8-10 miles, I would LOVE to make it to that, but I feel like I can’t make it more than a 5k max!

I hope you ladies have a great weekend!

Olehcat : I'm sorry to hear your are struggeling going through fluctuations :( As you said, you might just want to wait next week and weight again. As you said, if it was only a fluke, it will probably be gone. If it is not, you'll be able to rethink the plan.


10 miles! Great job! :D You're gonna rock this race!!
xiao : GREAT RUN! Yo go, woman! Did you end up doing your run in 2 times? I could never do something like 5 miles in the morning, and than 10 in the afternoon, before first, it is a lot of miles :P and second, once I'm at home after a long run I'm like 'set... GO I'M LAZY FOR THE REST OF THE DAY''

Alexis : What, wait, a smash cake? That you just.. smash? Smash where? On what? We don't do that around here :) Hmm my duties as godmother tomorrow is mainly to bring the cake ;) and to answer whatever questions the priest my ask me at the church hehe! But in general, we mostly keep the godmother/godfather mostly for tradition. Have fun with the Professor tonight :D

The boyfriend can get me blood test at his lab, they are doing clinical research (more specially in using nutrition for helping alzeihmer), so by cheating a tiny bit they can check me at the same time. I think I might go to the doc though, if there is something wrong, I don't want my boyfriend to know it before me...!

chahma : Yes, I know that the pregnancy test can be false negative :S Right after I had my tests this week, I was ''OH YEAH''-releived, but than while having my lunch, I watched I didn't know I was pregnant, where the girl did a test (it was negative) and was losing weight while being pregnant too... so I got all nervous all over again. I'll try to get a doctor appointment this week.

Congrats on breaking the 160 threshold! That must feel so good :) And props to you for no going for all the food that was standing all around you!!

On the running question : personally, I did not follow the c25k program, but I've heard great comment on it. I started running during the 2011 summer by just going on there and trying to run. I was running around a park that was covering a 3.5 km. I starting slowly, taking walk break when I wanted to die, and eventually I could run farther, stopping less, etc.... The fun thing with running is that when you start, for a while, almost everything is a personal best! :)

***

Hi ladies! Did not post yesterday, I spent the day running and baking. WI 138.8 yesterday and 134.4 this morning, after having controled portion of tostitos last night. They were low sodium, but they bere probably still in the high sodium category food :P

Got my 13k long run done this afternoon, it went really well despite the wind who really wanted to get a fight me me in the 11th km, when I felt I was just barely moving forward. At least it is doooone.

Tomorrow is a rest day (yay) and I am heading out of town to meet up family for the Christening. I'm a bit nervous, 50% because I hope the cake will turn out cook, 50% because I don,t know what kind of questions the priest might ask us :P

Relaxing evening with the boyfriend tonight, he is cooking tortellini pasta, thank god I had a great workout this afternoon :D

Gave a great weekend Feathers!

Well I am officially a featherweight weighing in at 139.0 this morning and I am on :cloud9: I have been overweight for a good 10 years, this is the thinnest I have been since 2000. :carrot: I was 135p in HS. :) I still have some weight work to do to tighten up but I definitely don't want to get under 138p. I'm totally content at this size.

One thing though...have any of you experienced people seeming a bit irritated with you at 3FC once you get thin? It seems like any time I give advice now (when they're asking for it) people get very defensive or completely ignore me. :shrug: I just want to help but I think I will just stick to this forum, general, and maintenance from now on.

olehcat: I know how it feels to be doing all the right things and still getting no love from the scale. I had that problem all throughout last month, but now I'm totally on fire with the weight loss. Just keep at it. You're doing the right thing. If you're not crazed with hunger just having a bit of wine and chocolate for dinner, then go for it. And about the millet porridge: it's definitely a commoners' food, because you can take a little grain and make it go a long way. All it is is rice/millet/cornmeal/a mix prepared with a ton of extra water and a bit of salt. I've seen porridge restaurants that specialize in "fancy" porridges, and those'll have goji berries, crab, and other Chinese food-medicine ingredients. But a normal meal? The Chinese don't really eat much international food (aside from KFC and crappy pizza), but it's quite diverse!

krampus: OMG roasted veggies. Those look so delightful. And about the 7+ mile runs, all you gotta do is just keep going. Put some goofy pump-up music on on the iPod and just keep bangin' out the miles.

Alexis: Thanks so much for all the encouragement and replies! I was a little sidetracked these past few days, so I didn't get a chance to write good personals for people. How was your date?! Also, what is this white chocolate seltzer you speak of? I've never heard of such a thing!

Turbo: I would be so nervous if I had to make a cake for a big important event like that! However, it sounds like this cake-making business has fallen into capable hands. :)
And thanks so much for the kind words on the running! Few things make me happier than banging out a whole crapton of miles and looking up on the Self.com calculators how many calories I burned. Has old Aunt Flo come yet?

chahma: Awesome job on running the cupcake gauntlet! I most definitely would not have made it out without a few brownies to my name :)
About getting started running, though. I never followed any plan, although people speak really highly of the C25K program. For me, I just started jogging a bit, maybe once or twice a week in college, never getting too serious about it. Then I mapped out an approximately 5K route that used to take me like 45 minutes to do. As I began losing weight and toning up a few years ago, I would just use that route, as running was a new thing to my body. In terms of pace/cadence/technique, basically I started off with "bouncy walking". Slowly, I worked myself up to longer runs, and my technique simply evolved naturally into a longer stride. Also, for a long time I dated a serious runner, and so he kind of inspired me to take it to the next level. That's how I got up to doing 10-15 milers :)

novangel: Congrats on hitting the Featherweight class! Welcome aboard.
-----------------
Just popped in here real fast to do personals. I set up Stayfocus'd for Google Chrome, so as to limit my total time on Reddit/3FC/Twitter to 1.5 hours a day. Thus, I have to dash in and out of here so as to maximize my ability to screw around on Reddit later.

Measured my waist this morning at 26.25". Didn't bother with weighing, but I know it's down.

Probably gonna do at least 10 miles today, although I'm getting kind of bored of my routes.

Hi, feathers! :)

I was out of town this past weekend, which meant I overate a bit and felt overstuffed almost the whole time because twice I ate in the evening and now my stomach's not used to that! I did have some longer runs this weekend though, with a 10 mile run on Friday and 4 miles on Sunday morning. Now for my running I will start tapering off for my race. My race is on Saturday!!! So basically I'll just do a 2 or 3 mile run maybe today after class and then no more the rest of the week. I will probably walk to pick up my race packet and t-shirt, etc., on Thursday, as that's a nice total walk of an hour. Other than that, this is the week I have to rest up. Last year I had great success with doing almost no running at all the whole week before the race.

So back on my plan of not eating after 3 and being as healthy and controlled in carbs as possible. Today I have planned an omelet for breakfast, raw veggies, handful of already cooked shrimp, and salsa for lunch, fruit for a snack, and a tuna unwich just before class. I may not even get to have a glass of wine if I run (tomorrow would be another choice for running, but it's supposed to rain a lot then).

@xiao - Thanks! That gives me some hope! Sometimes it just takes a bit for you body to catch up to what you're doing! Hahaha, KFC is EVERYWHERE. When I lived in Trinidad it was on every single corner there.

@novangel - what have you done to lose weight? Congrats! You're at my first goal that I should have been by now if I hadn't kept fooling around this year. :) I can't understand why people would get defensive or weird about your advice. I am ALWAYS picking the minds of people who have been successful at something I want to achieve (whether it's weight loss or something else).

@Turbo - hope the Christening event went well for you! And the cake! ;) Thanks! I hope I'll do well in this race. I have confidence that I didn't have before. I may even do better than I think, despite some poor training periods on and off the past few months! And yeah, I hate running in wind, too!

@chahma - Thanks! Yeah, I agree, I think I will stick to what I'm doing. I do need to keep an eye on calories more. It's possible I'm letting too much creep in. Congrats on breaking 160!! As for running, I DO recommend the coach to 5K method. I know a few runners who started with that. You can do that with just running shoes and a stop watch (or on the treadmill). I find it to be a very successful way of getting back into running after I've taken a longish break, too!