Happy Friday everyone,

Hooray, it's Friday. I don't have much planned for the weekend but I have a feeling that a rebuilding dedication of a public landmark tomorrow will turn into a social affair, since a lot of friends are involved in the efforts. My only real plans are to go to the gym first thing in the AM. My workout yesterday was eh - I was just so tired (can not eating enough fat make you tired, too?). My heart wasn't in it. I skipped a bunch of abs, my pace on the stair machine was slower than normal. I ran from the gym to a lecture and at the reception afterwards there were peanuts. All the talk/thinking about nuts and healthy fats yesterday made me eat a serving and yum, my stomach/body were happy. I had a few walnuts on my cereal today and have more for lunch.

Gary, yes sir! I have stayed away from the peanut butter filled pretzels and gummy bears. Great job losing, keep up the good work!

Allison, sorry to hear about your crummy day. Try to look on the bright side: your IT guy comes to work when he can, especially when he knows you have a problem. And he is competent. Some offices' IT people do neither of those things, ahem. Hmm...yeah, stay out of those cashews!

Carolyn, how nice of your doctor. Congrats on being an aunt! Keep us posted on how things are going w/ your lawyer & insurance situation.

Jessica, sounds like a great workout. I know you're busy, but remember to wash your face, drink plenty of water, and get as much sleep as possible. And skip any extra make-up wearing for now, if you wear a lot day-to-day.

Mmm, wine.... (wait, it's 10:20 AM... I guess I'll have to hold that thought until 5:00 at least).

Does anyone have any exciting plans for the weekend? Have a great day (or weekend) everyone!

Morning all!

Good morning!

TGIF! I had no classes yesterday because of Rosh Hashanah so my boss said I could come in to work for a full day. It's an eBay company that sells antiques and collectibles that people sell to them. So basically I spent 7.5 hours inspecting and listing items on ebay. It was one of my coworker's last days so they surprised her with an ice cream cake. I turned it down and didn't feel too bad about it because 2 other girls turned it down as well. One of their reasons was that they get sick when they eat ice cream. They gave her no fuss. I should start using that line! After work I had tons of energy from sitting all day so I went to the gym and ran 3 miles on the treadmill -- go me!! Today I have no classes...just put a load of laundry in and will soon start catching up on my reading for classes.

Kery, I definitely understand the many useless holes between classes. I have a 3 hour break between classes on Tuesdays & Thursdays. I kinda like it though because I squeeze in some exercise and reading time. But I can totally understand your frustration with fitting in hours to work.

Baffled, wow congrats on running outside! I have yet to do that. I think it's because setting the pace on the treadmill kind of "forces" me to go at a steady speed but if I'm outside, I feel as though I'll slack off and go slower than I want to.

Shrinking Mama, Congratulations on your loss! Don't beat yourself up though! We're all human, these things happen. Just make peace with yourself and you'll be back on the losing track in no time. Please continue posting here!

Lily, on your loss. Good luck with the BL Challenge!

Megan, I'm the same way -- oversensitive to perceived scrutiny about my food. Actually, I'm basically oversensitive in general.
About your diet, since nuts can be a problem, have you tried sunflower seeds? They contain both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat. How about adding black or green olives into your diet? Salmon? Congratulations on being cast in the play! And being asst. director -- how exciting. What type of play is it?

Jessica, this may seem a little odd but my mom swears by it. She's into all the natural herbal remedies and things like that. For pimples, she suggests applying Witch Hazel with a cotton ball. I believe she uses this one: http://www.thayers.com/store/index.p...products_id=14

From witchhazel.com,

Carolyn, congratulations on becoming an aunt! I hope DH's surgery goes well. How's the increased med working for you?
Gary, congrats on losing! The lbs seem to be melting right away. It's amazing what walking can do.

Hi Susan, Alison, 4rabbit, Anne, Kim, Pat, and Meg!

Good morning everyone! And happy Friday!!

Not much going on today.....DH and I go on our traditional lunch together and then tonight is the first football game of the year (well, first regular season, they played 2 preseason games and are 1 and 1).

I must not have had enough water yesterday....or something.....I was down to 142 yesterday!! Today, 144. The only thing that I ate that was out of the ordinary was bread. I had sandwiches for both lunch and dinner. Could that be it?

Morning everyone!

Gary, what were you doing living in Kennewick? That's my 2 hour round trip to go to TJ Maxx.

Sweet Amor: I think my Heart Rate Monitor helped to keep me honest and forced me to run enough to keep my HR elevated in the cardio zone. (And the nice thing was that my HR was much higher running outside than running on the machine, so I was able to go a bit slower than I usually do.)

I overslept this morning and couldn't make it to the gym. I'm going to bike to my evening engagements tonight, but it hardly makes up for missing a FBWO.

I have a fully packed weekend. Not so good for the waist line, but good for the spirits. We've got a 'department meeting' in a BAR this afternoon, followed by hanging out and having dinner with a bunch of friends (pizza and vast quantities of wine. The worst!). Saturday is a good day because of the farmer's market, and Saturday night we're going to a dinner party. And Sunday I'm going to a brunch. I'm in charge of bringing bacon and some bubbly. I just hope I created enough of a calorie deficit this week to deal with all this excess and fat!!!

Hi everyone, we had a fun night at Karoke last night. We also dined out and I stayed completely on program by having baked chicken, squash and a salad. I'm now waiting for the girl's to get dressed so we can go shopping for all our healthy food for the week.

Gary, WTG on losing that other lb. I'm glad your bet is on me for losing more wt. than the girls. LOL, my bet is on Lacy. The reason I say this is Shelbey came home all excited yesterday saying she's given up regular soda. LOL,she was sipping a large regular slurpee instead.

I gotta run, will catch up more later.

Allison, yes I believe the extra bread could have definitely done it. If you don't usually eat that many carbs, the unusually high intake will cause you to retain water. It's because the human body holds approx. 3 grams of water for every 1 gram of carbohydrate consumed.

Baffled, that's a good idea. I have a HRM but never use it. The one time I used it, I think I attached the electrodes the wrong way because it would lose the signal often. Your weekend sounds very busy and food filled! Have fun and eat slowly!

Lily, WTG for staying OP! Yikes about substituting soda with the slurpee!! The Crystal Light slurpee is 80 calories per 16 oz., which isn't too bad. But the fruit works, blue rasp, or white cherry is 90 calories per 12.5 oz. Not necessarily so high in calories and is a bit lower in cals than regular soda, but is basically nutritionally void. The 24 grams of sugar in 1 serving certainly don't help a waistline. Maybe she could try diet soda or flavored seltzer water instead.

Megan, sounds like you're off to a good start incorporating fats into your diet. I also wanted to mention that there are essential fatty acid supplements. They come in pill and liquid form. They are made from a number of natural sources including evening primrose seed, borage seed, flax seed, and some species of cold-water fish.They do have some calories... but not nearly as much as a serving of walnuts.

More info about them...http://www.fatsforhealth.com/introdu...pp_sources.php

The meeting with the lawyer was good, but his interpretation of my disability insurance policy indicates I'm at risk of lossing it. The company considers me totally disabled and the policy states that if I do any work, I'm no longer disabled. If I had known that years ago, I would have done all the work on a volunteer bases.

He's going to review other cases of disability claims and work on the response letter I need to send. One thing in my favor is that I itemized all my income and expenses on my taxes and I didn't profit from the sale of my artwork.

I'm planning on going up to CT to see my new nephew next week. My mom's there from Florida and I haven't seen her since we visited in March.

Here's some pictures of baby William Henry...

http://www.babyhomepages.net/babythrasher/index.php

HI GALS ~

I am so happy I weighed in this morning at 180! I have reached my second goal! I have lost 21 pounds in 54 days! I may have to get off my PITY - PARTY Thread...nah! I get too many requests for it

I thank all of you for your support!

Well I had a short day at work so I was able to get 7 miles in, split between a dog walk and treadmill.

It's date night so Angie and I will probably go out for dinner. I think I'll eat like I used too! to try and pop my belly!.... NOPE! Not gonna let down my support group!

Cute baby CAROLYN ~ Have fun at the game ALLISON..probably not going to need hot chocolate! Oh by the way, ANGIE says those Starbucks breakfast sandwiches are $12.50 here, no wonder she won't get me one! Heck that's 4 weeks of my allowance! Glad you found some extra energy SWEET AMOR Way to stay on your program LILY. BAFFLED we built a house there a few years ago, we had friends in the area, first looked in Bend Ore. almost bought one there...anyway we had palns to "maybe" retire there. We built the house and planned to live there that summer, we did, then come home for a year...Angie is a teacher and was on contract....then go back, try it for 2 years then decide WHAT to do. Long story short...I couldn't leave my kids...yet ...so we sold it. We actully loved the area...not southern California..different...but we made a lot of friends in a short time. MEGAN enjoy your landmark dedication. Hi ENNAY~ KIM ~ MEG ~ WATER RAT ~ ANNE ~ SUSAN ~ KIM and all the rest!

Have a GREAT WEEK-END LADIES!

Hi everyone, I had to cancel our 10K walk tomorrow. DH's cousin died of Lung Cancer and his funeral is tomorrow morning. I've never met this person, but DH didn't want to go to the funeral without me. So , I'm going (after my MIL making me feel selfish).

I got my grocery shopping done. The girls and I are gearing up for our BL competition. We start tomorrow morning. I have already warned DH that I don't want to stay for the after funeral family luncheon, (which is always a diet killer for me). One of his aunt's always makes the best chocolate cake I've ever had in my life and last time she sent the rest of it home with DH. Needless to say, I didn't let it go to waste.

Gary, WTG on meeting your second goal, you are sure enough getting skinny.

Sweet Amor, I didn't know how many cal's were in a slurpee, but I figured it was comparable to drinking regular soda. What she is drinking is from the convenience store where she works and they don't have any diet slurpee. Me and the girls ate lunch out today. Shelbey ate 3 large white dinner rolls with gobs of butter and fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. I don't expect she will do too awfully good on our challenge. Truthfully I've never seen anyone eat as much bread as she does. Lacy and I both ate baked chicken, cabbage and a salad.

Carolyn, my disability is set up the same way. I found out I'm not allowed to do any work whatsoever. I hope your attorney can help you. Since you didn't profit anything, maybe that will make the difference in your case.

Lily and Carolyln - my DH is on SS Disability, and has been since about 2000. He is allowed to earn up to $500/month, but I suspect if he did that very regularly, they'd be around to investigate him! As it is he does very little for pay. He works on the local elections, which pays a pittance, and he teaches a stream water testing class, that I think he gets $25 for. Other than that everything he does is volunteer work. No need to jeopardize those regular payments. (all this is not say he sits around; he never did that in his life, and the one of the worst parts of the cancer treatment for him was the forced inactivity)

We had a lovely fall day here today. But there is snow on the very tips of the moutains, and it'll be creeping down very soon. It was a day I loved working in a small town though. I walked to meet my GF for lunch, then we walked a couple of blocks and checked out a new women's clothing store (very nice, but also very expensive), and then she walked back to her office, and I walked to the bank, and then back to work.

DH is gearing up to build us a new greenhouse. He has hired a teenaged boy to help him tomorrow, both with moving lumber, etc for the greenhouse, and just to do some general yard maintenance. I have to go to a meeting for work in the morning, then will probably go to lunch with a friend who'll be at the same meeting, then grocery shopping and maybe the gym. Depends on how long the meeting runs....

Now I'm off to read my book for a bit and turn in at a reasonable hour.

Have a great weekend.

Hi everyone. Again, I'm in a hurry this morning--I can only hope my Sunday at least will be quiet, because Saturday sure won't be. Here's to hope your week-ends will go good, too!

I went to the parents yesterday, my grandma's surgery went perfectly well, so I'm glad! It wasn't too heavy, but still, at her age, you can't prevent yourself from worrying about any kind of intrusive procedure, I guess.

Sweet Amor -- You can certainly use that line about the ice-cream, because one can actually develop becoming ill due to ice-cream. So it wouldn't even be that surprising. (I do, among others. One less worry to have about trigger foods, I suppose, if they make me sick.)

Megan -- I think not having enough fat can make you tired, yes. But I wouldn't know the fine mechanics behind this. And for sports, maybe it's only a lack of complex carbs. I still have little knowledge about all the fine-tuning, I admit. ^_^;

Wow Gary - congrats! You're just speeding through this "diet" stuff, ain't ya? Keep it up. Just keep it up.

Lily, I'm sorry to hear about DH's cousin.

Kery, I'm glad to hear your grandmother surgery is over with - and went well.

Hello to the rest of the gang.

Okay, now that I've read a little, maybe, just maybe I can fall back asleep. I was tossing and turning in bed (at least maybe I burned a calorie or two) and figured I do a little catching up here at 3FC. But I am getting sleepy again, so night night you all.

Gary~Wow! I've never had one of the Starbucks sandwiches--but I doubt I'll be trying one soon at those prices! The game last night was sure sad. We lost, but in the last 45 seconds we had the chance to score and win. Then a player on the other side was injured, so they had to call a timeout to get him off the field (he must have really hurt is leg--he was still sitting on the grass 20 minutes later. very sad). I think that little delay ruined the team's motivation and the crowd got a little less rowdy (our team LOVES it when we make a lot of noise). Anyway, it got down to the last 7 seconds and we ended up losing. Oh well.

Lily~sorry to hear about DH's cousin. Don't you dislike having to attend funerals for people you don't know? I sure did that a lot when DH and I were first married. Then we moved far away so we have an excuse! I know, that's bad. Sorry you won't get to do the 10k--it would have been fun for you. Next time!!!

Kery~glad to hear your grandma's surgery went well. Hopefully recovery will be as good.

I'm in a weird funk. I've gained 4 pounds in 2 days. I'm sure hoping that it is water weight and it'll come off really fast. I was so disappointed this morning. I went for my run despite my bad mood and I ended up completing Day3 of Week5 of the C25K program! That's a full 20 minute run with no breaks. It took me 3 weeks to work up to that!! I've NEVER before run that far in my entire life! So excited about that--but the weight, that's another story!

Well, off to get some chores done. Have a great Saturday everyone!

ALLISON that's a shame about the injured player. I don't know if you saw my Christian Encouragers or Friday Night Lights posts this morning, but there was a player, from the high school my son teaches at, the was severly injured in his game last night. His family was told that he has only a 5% survival chance, as of last night. So very sad. I am asking for prayers for the family ladies. The young man's name is Scott. Thanks, Gary.