Congratulations Libby. I am so happy and excited for you!!!!!

I don't have much to say, but...
Congrats on your lifestyle change anniversary, Libby! :D Now, you need to celebrate by going out to eat, of course. ;)

Congratulations Libby!!! :carrot:

Hi everyone else!

Good morning everyone!

Congratulations, Libby! Well done!!

It's going to be a long day. My in-laws arrive back today and we'll go see them tonight at the high school football game. Until then, it will be a quiet day. Work is going to be slow. Isn't it weird how some days are so busy you can't think straight and other days are terribly slow?

I'm not happy with myself this morning. I got a new pair of jean at Express a couple of weeks ago and this morning the scale was up another 2 pounds over yesterday and the jeans are uncomfortably tight. I was hoping that going from zero exercise to running 3 days a week would help me lose--not gain. It's really quite discouraging.

That's too bad, Allison. Are you still actively trying to lose?

I don't have much to say today except that I achieved an important non-scale goal today! I did 2x10 squats at 140lb. That's my bodyweight! Hooray! I'm rather pleased at how quickly I was able to meet that goal. I was doing unweighted wall squats with a ball in June. Hooray for muscles!

Happy friday, everyone!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy, Baff!!!

You're running with the big dogs now. :D

So what's the next goal?

:bravo: baf!!!!!

Libby- You look incredible! WTG! Two years is fantastic!

Mel

HI MAINTAINERS :wave:

I will NEVER catch up on posting, and I know that is OK! I want to once again :thanks: thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. It has been a rough week, as expected, but gets better each day.

This is the week end me and my kids were going to be in Illinois visiting my mom, plane tickets for them from Thursday to Sunday night and me until next Thursday....so much for planning :(

Little things remind me of my mom, as they should! I was on the treadmill this morning, watching CBS morning show, when the weather came on and went to the Illinois section I looked...out of habit. we always talked on the week-end once she moved to Illinois a few years ago, the WEATHER always came up! So predictable :D Gonna miss those phone calls. Doing better each day!

I am down another pound to 173, that is twice in 4 days, we will see if it sticks. I am eating just fine gals! I have been getting my walks in also, 6 miles this morning on the treadmill. We are a little slow at work so I just took the day off. I might take Monday off too, with a periodontist appointment in the morning. We'll see.

If I can get to 170 that would be cool! I can "spare" it, that's for sure. It would be nice to get a little :turkey: Thanksgiving turkey cushion going too! Angie and I will be doing a 5K Thanksgiving morning, as we have done for 5 of the last 6 years. My ex-wife's sister will be joining us for sure. Haven't talked to the kids yet, they have done 4 of them with us, now that they are off and married, maybe not this year, knucklehead nephew probably will run it....if I get him out of bed ;) It is a pretty fun one, finishes along the beach...last year it was so beautiful!

Tonight is :love: date night :love: so Angie and I will head out to dinner...with eating sensibly at the top of my list!! Then back home for Ghost Whisperer and sneaking off to the family room, for me, from time to time to catch baseball scores ;)

I hope to catch up this week-end with individual posts...if not....know that I am thinking of all of you!

We are having a big day at church on Sunday, it is the 40th anniversary of our Pastor in the ministry, 38 years at my church. I am so glad to be able to go.

Have a great week-end with your families and maintaining ladies!!....Bless each and every one of you ~

Gary

Hi everyone, I've been fairly busy since DH got home Tuesday night. On Wednesday we had a big family gathering at my MIL's. DH's niece is planning her wedding for June, 21st and it's pretty exciting. I got to see our only granddaughter that is now 3 1/2 months old. She already weighs 21 lbs. and I don't think I've ever saw a baby that young as big as she is. She is really long. Her dad is 6'5 so I expect she is going to be very tall. I am happy to report that Whitney (my second oldest SD) is being a wonderful mom to this baby girl and is so totally different from the oldest SD that it seems impossible that they are related.

On Thursday we had our date night and went to Karaoke. We had a great time. My eating that night was definitely not on plan (DH cooked dinner).

DH and I loaded up the boat today and spent the whole day fishing. Caught lots of fish and had a very peaceful day. We left the boat hooked to DH's vehicle and plan to fish more this weekend.

Thankfully today, I was back on track at least with my eating. I really had a totally non-hungry day. Strange how that happens sometimes.

Libby, big congrat's for the wonderful job you've done at meeting your goal and keeping the weight off.

Gary, I'm glad to see that you are doing OK. I know there will be many times to come when things will remind you of your mother. My mother passed 10 yrs. ago and the smallest things still remind me of her.

Allison, sorry to hear of your jeans experience. Today while we were preparin to go fishing, I pulled on an old pair of jeans (that used to be Samantha's , my oldest SD's) and I noticed they were pretty threadbare, but figured they would be fine for fishing. NOT. I ripped the whole seat of them out while fishing. DH got a good chuckle out of my humiliation. My wt. isn't even up, so I'm blaming it on the fact they were wore out. LOL. At least I had some shiny new undies under them. LOL.

Morning! Libby has done fabulous work, yes?

Nothing new to report here. I'm just pluggin' along.

Hello, been out for a while! Yikes! Work has been sooo time consuming. I even barely have time to read a couple posts a week, much less write one. I'm sorry for your loss EZ. Congratulations to Libby and Lily. I hope everyone else is doing well -- I haven't been too up to date on what's been going on.

I had a lot of weight to lose this week -- I reached my 1 year high on Monday of 125.4 after indulging in apple pie for two days. I'm happy to report that this morning I am back to 119.6. I was worried that some of those extra pounds came from real calories turning to fat and would be difficult to lose. I'm going to have to be strong today...I'd like to eat healthy today so that I only have one day of indulgence this weekend rather than two! I find that on Sunday that my anxiety about going back to work causes me to eat a bit more.

For lunch today, I'm going to try to do a microwaved sweet potato and some soup. For dinner, maybe chicken breast and veggies in a Moroccan sauce w/ oven baked seasoned sweet potato fries. I bought these sweet potatoes a month ago, and still haven't used them. Last winter I ate sweet potato fries all the time, but I haven't done so for quite a while. I guess I just got off that ride! Maybe this will set me back on it. When I get started eating something, I usually eat it almost every day for quite some time. I'm weird like that.

Have a great day everyone.

Morning all!

Gary I am glad to hear you are doing so well!

Lily - too funny about your pants!

I am happy to report that 3.8 of my 6 lb gain from the past 6 weeks is gone...:woohoo: I am also finding getting back on track fairly easy. 6 weeks of bad bingy eating I was ready to dive in like its a "new diet". My boredom with tracking and the temptations that have plagued me since April seem to be gone for now so this may be a good time to push to a new low!

I am also chipper because even though ds woke me at an ungodly 3:30 and then again at 4:30 he then slept until an unheard of 7:30--and so did I.

I went to the doctor yesterday to get my foot xrayed and convinced her that no I couldnt wait the 2-3 weeks it takes for a stress fracture to show up on xray, so monday if my foot isnt better I will get an MRI. Then I will know.

Have a good weekend!

Morning all!

Lily! LOL about your jeans!

Ennay, congrats on the loss! I've been feeling unmotivated this week too. Suddenly I'm excessively tired of logging my food. I'm also starting to feel that as long as I eat the same sorts of breakfasts, lunches and snacks, I'm probably going to be on target with dinner. I know what kind of meal composition I need to stay within my calorie range, and I know what I can have for an after dinner snack. I'm just not 100% certain that I can be trusted. My weight is holding steady, so I don't think I have much room for error. I'm still exercising enough, so that's something.

Thanks for the congrats, Meg and Mel! I'm not sure what my next goal will be. My back and shoulders really felt the 140 yesterday, so I'm going to go slow with the increases for a little while, while my upper body catches up. I should shoot for 200 with my squats and focus on trying to do pull ups. I'm just embarrassed to even try pull ups at the gym because I'm quite certain that I can't do one... We'll see. I need to figure out something with my lunges. I've known for a while that I need to increase from the 40lb bb, and finally got around to using the 50lb yesterday. The lunges were easy (I think I could easily go up higher), but as I did lunges directly after military presses, I found that I absolutely COULD NOT get the 50lb bb over my head! The trainer-who-helps-me patiently acted as my weight rack while I supersetted lunges and abs. LOL. I need to work out a solution to that particular problem!

I made an ethiopian feast for dinner last night! I adore ethiopian food and obviously I can't get any out here in the wilderness. The beef, lentils and chard turned out fantastic--it tasted really authentic and delicious. The injera (sort of a sourdough pancake made of a special ethiopian grain called teff, which you use to eat your ethiopian food and which is notoriously difficult to make) was a bit of a disaster. I've been working on the teff batter for weeks (the recipe requires you to start with flour and water on your counter, wait for wild yeast to appear, ferment for a couple of weeks, convert to teff, ferment, make batter, ferment for three days...) but it did NOT work out. Disappointing, but at least the lentils and kitfo (ethiopian steak tartare) were delicious. Practice, practice, practice.

We're off to a wedding on Mt Hood today. We'll be spending the night in OR and coming back tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to be wearing a black summer dress with a pashmina, and tall boots that I don't like and which are far too big around my calves. :( Stupid winter weddings. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Re Ethiopian Feast
 

Baffled - Congratulations on pulling off the Ethiopian feast, and for even attempting injera. We've become fans of a local Ethiopian restaurant, particularly enjoying taking people there for their first time. I really enjoy the food but do seem to overdo eating the injera each time I've gone. I hope teff is a healthy grain :)

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Teff is a super-healthy grain. It's packed with nutrients and is particularly high in protein and fiber.

http://ethnomed.org/cultures/ethiop/teff.html

Apparently you can make porridge ('oatmeal') with it too, which would be a super-healthy breakfast. I have never liked porridge so I've never tried it, but it would be a great way to get protein and complex carbs in the same bowl. :)