Ahhhh! *Dies* I'm SO freakin' SORE today! I overextended myself with the weightlifting yesterday AND the day before. I think I need a break. I've been trying some new upper body workouts and my body isn't used to them... that's probably a good thing, though, because they will burn more calories/fat than the exercises I'm already used to as part of my routine. I think...

On top of that, I just... overall do not feel very good today. I'm not coming down with anything, thankfully, I just feel like crap from time to time. No big deal, I can tough it out.

Out of curiousity, lily, how many kids do you have? And that quote from Shelby is hilarious - made me laugh out loud. She's a couple years younger than my sister, but I'm sure the Boob Twins would get along. Um... 112 hours? *DROPS JAW* Your DH must be EXHAUSTED! I don't know how he DOES it!! 40 hours drains me enough. I've worked 60 before, which drained me more. I couldn't fathom working 80, let alone 112. GEEEEZE! He must live off caffeine and adrenaline!

ennay

Hi everyone,

I was out on the boat all day and am covered with fish scales and jellyfish stingers. Oooh oooh ouch. Since my mini-freakout earlier this week I have been OP, back to the gym, and sighing with relief. I don't know why I can't see how upset I am when I'm in the middle of an upset. I swear, I used to be the most level-headed person. I blame the BC. I also planted my fall garden yesterday. I can't wait for the fresh lettuce!

My older sister rests her hands at her waistband of her pants. Somewhere along the way, she started tucking a few fingers/part of her palms into her pants (they're not oversized). She isn't doing anything inappropriate, but it just looks rather odd. My mom has been picking at her for years about it, but she's been doing it so long I think it's ingrained for life. That's not quite as bad as rubbing your boobs though, lol!

Ok...smell of fish and mud getting to me...must shower..."see you" all tomorrow.

LOL, I have big boobs, but I certainly don't sit around rubbing them! I do have a bad habit of pulling on and twisting my lower lip though.

Megan - good job getting back OP!

Shane - I've never really talked to my sister in depth about gender. I don't know if she feels that she's in between genders but I know she does not think of herself as male (especially because she is interested in femininity in other ways, just not clothing). I don't know what the deal is about the clothes though. She's always hated dresses and skirts, that I totally understand. She and I both have big boobs (like really big...I wear a 30FF) and she had a reduction surgery actually, and I think that sometimes she wears more manly clothes to detract attention from her boobs. I know she cut all her hair off not because she personally disliked her long hair, but because she was sick of men hitting on her because of it!

Hi Maintainers ~

I will never catch up here!

I am doing well in the weight dept. I actually have hit 177 on the scale 3 days in a row but it has been at .6 or .8 so I am really trying hard to maintain that!

I might have blown it today, I will blame it on the ex-wife! She is in the Sons Of Norway, every year they have a Viking Festival where people come from all over the area, dressed like Vikings, doing Viking stuff like fish throwing, etc. Mostly a lot of drinking and food eating!! Anyway Angie and I do a few BBQ shifts with my son and daughter in law ~ daughter and son in law ~ and my brother. It last all day Saturday and Sunday. Angie and I were there tonight cutting polska kielbasa into links for 600 sandwiches. My ex and another gal were working on fish cakes, Brenda kept bringing in samples for me to try....boy were they good! But, now I don't know what is in them, I bet they were full of calories!! Dang! Good thing I did 6.25 miles and a yard mow today!

My mom is home from the hospital, she talks to me...cheerful...but she is really worn out from her little stay there. Thank you for your prayers.

LILY ~ We can relate to "hands" around here. When my son still lived here, then nephew "grew" up and me My wife daughter and step-daughter were always complaing about our hands. Angie used to say "JUST ONCE I would like to see ALL 6 of the boys hands above waist level!

well Ladies I need to finish my posts...I have a DANCING WITH THE STARS date with my wife tonight!

Have a great day tomorrow! ~ Gary

I hear you, EZ, it is sooo tough keeping up here!!!
Hello, everyone!

Lily, your husband must be exhausted. What are the days like in the oil fields?

Hey, have any of you ever suddenly had to get rid of a food that you were fine with for months? I've been buying these low carb tortillas for my homemade chicken fajitas for months, but in the couple weeks I got into the habit of eating 2-3 of them every night after dinner. It's so weird how they were able to sit in my fridge for all these months, and I only used them when I ate the fajitas, and all of a sudden I started overeating them. I'd toss them in the microwave for 15 seconds and eat them warm. Can you believe it...LOW CARB TORTILLAS??!! I didn't buy any this week because of this!

Tara - Yes! DH has been eating these flax seed cookies ... one is very good for you but ten at bedtime ... is tooooo many!

Oh Tara, yes - most definitely.

Kashi Go Lean cereal has disappeared from my pantry and won't be returning any time soon. I was hitting the box too often for a handful here and a handful there. And since my hands are not the size of a 2 year old, something drastic had to happen - it's history.

I mean Kashi Go Lean? Come on now. I'm thinking there aren't too many people on the planet who have to remove Kashi Go Lean from their menu because they indulge in it too much.

Tara, Gary, and everyone else ... don't worry about not being able to keep up with reading or personal comments for everyone. We're a big and fast-moving group () and none of us has time to acknowledge everyone and everything that gets posted here. We're happy if members can just poke their heads in, let us know how they're doing, talk about any issues they're dealing with, and comment on anything especially interesting. I'd hate for someone not to post because they don't have the time to keep up or respond to everyone.

Good morning maintainers. My eating has stunk the last couple days. DH's job has been bought out and now we're waiting around to see if he'll have a job come next week. Very stressful. I think I better go over to the accountability thread. On the bright side, lots (but not all) of my regulatr clothes fit.

Hi everyone! I've had a stressful week and have been munching WAY too much. At our cross country team meal Tuesday night, I ate two cookies and a brownie. What was that about? Jeez. I don't know why I'm sabotaging myself when I'm so close to goal. What a dork. I think it's just job stress and the fact that I can't seem to get into a routine this year with my lesson plans and juggling the coaching thing with all the classes I'm teaching. It's tough, but I'll figure it out. Our girls' and boys' cross country teams won last night at our meet, so that was good -- the boys pretty much always stomp all the other teams in our district. Woohoo! I like to think it's our coaching but we just have some naturally skilled runners and the other little schools around us don't have big teams. My husband's a great coach, though, and he's worked with these kids for several years now.

Anyway, I'm rambling a bit because I'm on my planning period and I hate the thought of doing my grading. But I really need to, so I'm off!

Hope everyone's doing well today...

Morning everyone!

This morning has been a bit of a disaster. I got up and stumbled to the coffee maker only to discover that there was NO COFFEE in the house. How the devil does that happen!?!?! I decided to turn the disaster into an opportunity so I headed over to my medical clinic to get my bloodwork done--the forms have been sitting on my desk for 3 weeks waiting for me to feel inclined to go out in the morning before coffee. I've never had all those tests before, so I'm curious to learn how my cholesterol and all the rest is. Of course, while the nurse was drawing the blood, she told me that black coffee is fine for the fast. B*st*rds! I could have stopped at Starbucks on the way over to get coffee and beans. At any rate, I went to Starbucks afterwards and virtuously resisted a tempting cran-orange scone. I'm generally not a fan of commercially produced baked goods, but I love those Starbucks scones. I resisted by thinking of the egg white and black bean burrito with fresh pico I had planned for my breakfast, but it was a struggle. To make myself feel better, I checked the nutritional data when I got home--460 cals in one of those little scones! My 300 calorie breakfast burrito is a much better choice.

Anyway, I feel all discombobulated. I don't think I've ever been up for 90 mins before getting coffee into my system. It's disorienting!

Re the conversation about inappropriate binge food: I'm more likely to become deathly sick of something than to go overboard on it. I'm getting to the point that if I even see a zucchini, I want to scream. I've been eating them at least twice a day for months and months and months. That said, I'm developing an unhealthy relationship with the Kashi TLC crackers. They're really quite yummy, and I when I get home from work feeling snacky, they're just sitting there, looking all alluring...

Good morning!

Tara~yes, from time to time, I have to rid the kitchen of foods. Other times, the food can sit there for months (eaten by others and replaced by me) and I'm not tempted. I don't know what gives, but it's a lot like cravings, I think. I'll get a craving for a type of food and will have to eat it a few times before the craving goes away (and then it is on to the next craving!).

I'm quite proud of myself! I'm down to 141 this morning! I went on my run this morning in the bright, bright moonlight (it was so bright at 5 AM that I didn't need my flashlight). I saw a couple shooting stars (or whatever they may have been). I stopped by Starbucks on the way into work and picked up an Americano (much better than a latte) and I'm well on my way to getting a lot completed here at work. Tonight is back to school night for DS's school and tomorrow is another football game at DD's school. Busy, busy, busy!

Hey all! I feel much better today than I did yesterday... infact, I feel great today! I also came to the realization that even though my stomach is still soft and squishy (though VERY flat) and I still have a little ways to go, my love handles are finally gone!!! They were the hardest thing for me to get rid of.. I just want to pop open a bottle of champagne and celebrate! Nah... no champagne for me... what if I drink too much of it and my love handles magically re-appear?

baffled, I went to Starbucks today, too, and had to resist plenty! I was meeting a potential web client who insisted on buying me coffee. I got a tazo chai tea instead and only drank half. The scones and pastries screamed my name, but I refused their calling. I actually checked out Starbucks' nutritional information before I went and was SHOCKED to see that they didn't have a single pastry thingy for under 300 cals. NEXT!

I, too, end up getting sick of things instead of needing to throw them away because I binged. I got tired of GoLean crunch because I ate it all the time. I got tired of having Nutri Grain bars for snacks, even though I ate two at a time when I first bought the big box. I got REALLY tired of egg whites... I never liked them much to begin with, but I tried eating a lot of them to get more protein in my diet. I'm starting to get tired of Subway, but it hasn't happened yet... however, I have decided I'm not getting any more subs because they are too high in carbs.

LisaMarie: I'm in the same boat as you are. I am SO close to goal and can fit... between 2/3 and 3/4 of my "thin clothes" yet I keep MESSING UP! I haven't been overeating much, but I've eaten SO many of the WRONG FOODS that I kept telling myself I wouldn't touch! Perhaps it's that we're so close that we feel we can slack a little. Perhaps we're just tired of strict dieting. Perhaps our brains are so messed up that we have to sabatoge our results because we don't think we are deserving. Who knows?

I eat egg whites almost every day and I'm petrified of what will happen when I can't stomach them anymore. What will I have for breakfast!?! I always mix veggies or beans in with them, so I'm hoping that as long as I vary up the filling, the egg whites won't go the same way as the zucchini. (I have stopped putting zucchini in my eggs though. I just can't eat zucchini for every meal any more!). I have started to play a little faster and looser with the yolks though. I learned that yolks contribute good cholesterol rather than bad and so I'm occasionally having *two* yolks instead of one, or one instead of none. Yolks are just so yummy...

I just can't live without egg yolks, except I don't mind subbing whites into baking. I usually have one yolk + 3 whites for scrambled eggs, etc. I think it's pretty normal to go through cycles of loving/getting sick of various foods. I also have to watch it with the Kashi GoLean Crunch! So Tara, yes - sometimes when I love a food a little too much I have to get rid of it, at least for a while. Some foods get to come back after a bit (Kashi cereals), some never do (peanut butter!).

Shane, I'm totally picturing someone downing a glass of champagne and as they drink the love handles just pop out - pop! pop! lol. I think a little champagne won't hurt.

baffled111, you can drink coffee before bloodwork? The last time I had mine done I had an early appt. They took my pulse and it was around 50, and the nurse was like "Are you ok?!" I had to explain it's naturally low, so that + no coffee = normal people would be keeling over. She did the same w/ my BP.

Joy, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for your husband.

Gary, yeah, blame the ex-wife! LOL.

Tonight is girls' night b/c there is a new season of "girly" TV shows starting. I just need to watch out for the wine and ice cream - someone always brings it. I'll keep my hands busy with my pedicure.

Hi everyone.