Hi Gals ~

Again tonight not much time to post. I am working long days out in Hemet...a few of you know where that is....trying to complete a phase of a project before we go to Beverly Hills next week for a few days then back to Hemet.

I did get to take the dogs out for 2 miles tonight before I made a quick dinner of hot dogs. Angie had meetings and senior picture meetings for our nephew.

TAMMY :carrot:

Other newbies :carrot:

ALLISON you would have loved the "wine" party for my BIL's 50th!

LILY ~ Prayers for sis....go Carrie!

Gotta go.....

I'm just dropping by to say good evening, and let you know I'm still here. Lily, I hope your sister starts feeling better and gets on a healthy food plan. She certainly has a good role model in you. Congrats on getting back on track too.

I've been on track for the most part. Tonight I didn't hae time to eat and just snacked on a couple of Kashi bars. Not good, I know. My weight was up today and that was discouraging, but I'm trying to worry about it. I worked my legs pretty hard yesterday so maybe my muscles are retaining water.

Shane, I looked at your pics and they are fabulous. Really. You were definitely cute before but now you are HOT. And, yes, we are definitely built the same way.

I'm trying to post some before and after pics in my signature but can't figure out how to get more than one picture to display. Can anyone help?

Gotta run... I'll post more tomorrow.

Pam

Hi everyone! :welcome: to all the new maintainers!

Lily, wow, Carrie Underwood is a family friend? I :love: her! Definitely my favorite season of American Idol. ;)

I am getting really confused about my weight. Maybe it's just because my new scale show decimal places and my old one wasn't digital, but it seems that my weight has been steadily creeping up all week. I was at 136.2 this morning -- last Friday was 134.6. What is going on? It's supposed to be going DOWN, not up! Sure I had a bad weekend, but I didn't eat nearly enough to gain that weight, and I have been 90% on plan this week so far. I have to go back to the accountability thread to check but I don't think I've been over 1800 calories at all the past three days. Plus, I went to the gym every day.

:sigh: I guess I need to really whip myself into shape and cut the calories out if I want to lose this weight. I know that in the past I lost best between 1400 and 1600 calories, so I guess I just need to stay in that range. Eating that little used to be second nature -- why is it so hard for me now? :?: I guess that is the ultimate question . . . why have I not thrown out my stockpile of halloween candy that's in my desk drawer? Why do I "allow" myself one piece of it per day and always end up eating two? Why didn't I just throw it out yet?

Blah blah blah, whine whine. In other news my company had it's annual health fair yesterday and they had a yoga class so I got to get out of my chair for a little while in the middle of the day. Apparently they are considering offering classes at work on a regular basis. I hope they do! It would be totally awesome.

Just popping in to say: Hemet? That's where the British supermarket chain Tesco has just opened a new venture (no more room for expansion at home!). It's called Fresh 'n' Easy or something like that and it aims to challenge Trader Joe's and ? Whole Foods, I think. Have you seen it, Gary?

Hullo to all you maintainers! You are doing very, very well. :)

Popping in again to say :welcome: to all the newcomers! (Gee, will I ever have time to chat with everyone here?)

Hey everyone! The girlfriend and I are going out tonight to celebrate one of our many anniversaries. I was trying on some really pretty/cute clothes that I haven't worn for years and... EEEEE!!! I have so many options! I had so much fun trying on my clothes and kept gawking at my much slimmer self in the mirror. It's just an out-of-body experience to see myself not only MUCH thinner than I was 5 months ago, but also the same size as my "skinny" girlfriend, who, by the way, is no longer annoyed at me for being the same size and is no longer calling herself FAT, though she is trying to make a few (BADLY NEEDED) healthier food choices.

Is anyone else completely shocked upon looking in the mirror?

Jessica, don't freak out, there is a good chance that you are retaining water. A large portion of "bad foods" are loaded with sodium, so that could be the culprit ;) :hug:

Pam - awww, I'm HOT? :o Wow. And thanks for thinking I was cute even at my HW :eek: I did get a slight bit of attention from a few attractive people even back then, but I wondered WHY and HOW and assumed they must be into fat chicks or something ;) YOU are pretty hot yourself (from what I've seen)!

Here is how to get your pics into your sig:
upload them somewhere like photobucket. Then, copy the link URL. In your sig, click the mountain button to add an image, then paste the URL and click ok. :)

Lily - I'm wow'ed at the fact that Carrie Underwood is a family friend of yours, too! Awesome. She seemed like a genuinely sweet girl and she has a great voice (I love that Before He Cheats song). I'm not too into American Idol, but I like her.

Allison - maybe you can look up a jumbo Fitday? Since the egg is HUUUUGE, you can take the jumbo egg and just enter "1.5" or something. I know it's a guesstimate, but it will most likely be reasonably accurate.

Jessica, if you figure this one out, let me know. Sometimes I think we'd all be a lot less neurotic if our scales rounded to the nearest 5 pounds and left it at that.

DD's teacher died from a massive stroke. She couldn't have been more than 35. I liked her a lot and feel just terrible for her family and friends. DD is too young to understand much right now, and is mercifully sort of oblivious--people do tend to come and go a lot in daycare. We will have to figure out what to tell her when/if she asks about her teacher.

Anne

Welcome Stephanie, Cynthia, and Tammy! I agree, this is great that there are so many maintainers here!

I went to the dr. yesterday for my foot, worried I had some sort of stress fracture in my foot. Instead the X-ray showed...some sort of straight pin, or needle, or skinny piece of metal inside my foot. Whaaaat???!!! :fr::yikes::dunno: I have NO recollection of stepping on anything, and didn't have any puncture wound in my foot that I can recall (I mean, I think I'd remember that). But it is definitely there, showing up on all 3 x-rays in the same place. I am having it surgically removed Nov. 29. The Dr. said it really won't be a big deal, the biggest recovery item should be recovering from anesthesia. She also said that I can do weightlifting & strength training minus anything putting extra pressure on the foot, the bicycle should be ok, and I can try 15 min. elliptical and if that doesn't stress it I can do small amounts of elliptical. She gave me some strong anti-inflammatories and antibiotics in the meantime. But how weird!!!

Pam, there are a lot worse things to snack on than Kashi bars, especially if that's your only dinner. Don't beat yourself up too much. Today is a new day. Sounds like you got in a great leg workout! :)

Hi Gary!

Lily, glad you are feeling so positive. I really like Carrie Underwood's music. Go Carrie!

Rabbit, sounds like going 'cold turkey' on extras for a few days will do you good. Your exercise sounds great! (And fun! I need to do more yoga.)

Kery, IMHO I think that it sounds very much like you are in a good maintenance mind set. You're right, it's important to make changes you can stick with even if it takes a little longer to get those last few lbs/kgs off. And maintenance definitely needs to be something you can live with long-term.

Pat, brrr, stay warm! :shocksn:

Allison, do you have a kitchen scale? Maybe you could weight the large egg versus the mammoth one, then count it as the right fraction (i.e. calories of lg egg x 1.7 or whatever).

Hi everyone else!

Jessica, my step-daughters are all from Checotah, OKlahoma. My oldest SD was a cheerleader and best friend with Carrie Underwood during high school. Carrie used to spend the night with us pretty often. So, we've all gotten to know her really well throughout the years. She is a really nice girl and has such amazing talent. I absolutely loved watching her on American Idol and voted multiple times for her each week. I am very happy for her success. On a sad note about Carrie, she was ostrcized horribly on the AI boards because of her weight (at the time she was 5'6, 130 lbs. and a size 6). I don't know how much she weighs now, but she is VERY thin the few times I have seen her lately. I pray that she doesn't feel pressured to lose so much wt. that she becomes unhealthy from it.

I had been weighing everyday and just couldn't handle seeing the daily fluctuations. Some days my wt. was down and I'd be happy. Other days it was up and I was depressed and felt like giving up. For now, my clothes fit perfect, I'm eating 100% on plan (with no treat meals) and I'm exercising everyday. I'm just using all this as my measure of success and am staying off the scale. I feel like I truly am giving it my very best effort right now, so I refuse to let the scale number dictate how I feel about myself. My next WI will be on Thanksgiving morning. Yesterday I wore my smallest size 4 jeans with a Danskin long sleeve form fitting shirt and I felt completely comfortable with my body cause my legs looked long and lean and my tummy was flat.

Lacy and Shelbey overslept this morning . They only had 15 min's to make it to school. It normally takes them 2 hrs. every morning to get ready, but they made it to the bus on time.

Whoa, Megan, a METAL OBJECT? :eek: No wonder you felt so injured ;) In a way, it's kind of a good thing that it isn't a fracture and that you're able to get it surgically removed, because I would imagine the healing time will be shorter and you won't have to worry about re-fracturing it again or anything. Good you found out! :)

Lily, I've noticed that Carrie Underwood HAS gotten awfully thin. The thing is, any time you are in the public eye, it is hard not to get VERY, very self conscious about your weight. The camera always adds 10 and sometimes even adds 20 pounds, and the American public is SO cruel towards NORMAL, HEALTHY, AVERAGE sized people! We're such a FAT nation, can't we give these poor people a daggone break?! I've had some experience in the public eye myself and while I didn't get TOO skinny, I made sure I often "forgot" to eat often so that I'd never get called fat. Of course, the American public will call anyone over a size 3 "FAT" these days... it's so, SO messed up :mad:

Wow it is going to take me forever to get to know everyone around here! I have "seen" many of you around and about so feel seem what familar but what an exciting new adventure for me! (Yes I am eaisly amused!)

For that reason I am going to avoid alot of personals for awhile but I wanted to say Shane I loved reading your story and seeing your pics! You have done an amazing job! Maybe someday soon I will post my story but it is pretty darn boring and run of the mill! Picture wise there doesn't seem to be alot of photos out there of me at my HW except one my DS has as the only pic of me in his dorm. I darn near fell over when I saw it helping him move in this year and I guess I need to get a copy of it, or better yet steal it and give him a new one of his hot mama not his fat one!

Have a great day!

Stephanie

Megan - OMG! Aren't you glad you went to the doc instead of waiting? :lol: That's pretty scary!

Lily - When Carrie Underwood was on AI, I thought she looked totally great and I was thinking, "I am so glad that there is this normal-sized, healthy-looking girl on here, but I hope she doesn't get forced to lose weight." Of course as soon as she won she lost a lot of weight (probably the record label told her to). :( I saw her on some tv show and her elbows looked really bony and I was just so sad that the media and the public would force someone to go from a perfectly healthy size to being so thin. I hope she is okay.

Anne - Wow, that's really scary about your DD's teacher. If she does start asking questions, I think there are some children's books about death (like "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf").

Stephanie - We sure have a growing population of Hoosiers on this board! :lol:

Megan, I'm glad you saw a Dr. about your foot. See you weren't being a hypochondriac like you thought. Hope it heels well and surgery goes well for you.

Shane and Jessica, I remember talking to Carrie about how upset she was that people were calling her Fat on the American Idol Chat boards. She was perfectly normal sized at that time. I really think it pressured her into losing weight. In person right now, she definitely looks a litte "too thin" and looks much skinnier than she does on TV. In one way I really feel sorry for Carrie cause she is very lonely being so far from her friends and family.

Hi everyone, Welcome newcomers!

I've totally lost track of this thread!

I don't know who Carrie Underwood is, but I fourth the notion that it's terrible the way that the media judges healthy-weighted public women. It's not nice.

Salman Rushdie came to my college last night and gave a talk. That was kind of exciting.

Happy Thursday!

Big warm welcome to all the newbies from a semi newb here...

Megan,
Oh my goodness, maybe someone implanted a microchip in you while you were sleeping. Holy shamoly what a mystery, maybe you were born part bionic..... so strange, it will be nice to have it removed and then the healing process will begin. Whew relief that it is nothing more serious, again sooo strange.... Surprised you made it through the metal detector at the airport...

Nite, happy date night, go get all glammed up, your choices are endless how cool is that?

Lily hope your sis is recovering and she is very lucky to have you as a role model for healthy habits. Cool on the carrie connection.

Anne- wow 35, how very sad. My girlfriend had a serious stroke at age 25, they claim it was from being on the pill, she did not die, but she has a serious brain injury, she quit her job as a teacher and now works with people with brain injuries... Life is so unpredictable, we all must enjoy ourselves everyday because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring..

I myself am holding my own still weightwise. Yesterday I ran into a friend I haven't seen in about 6 months and she told me OMG, you are soooooooo skinny and she cupped her hands and put them together and said goodness you are this big.... URGHHH>>>>I hate that word skinny, because I do not see myself that way at all. I was like, I truly think I am fit, not skinny..... so strange that people view me always as skinny, why can't they see the fit athlete in me ever? Seriously guys, It is not like I need to put rocks in my pockets so the wind doesn't blow me over, geeeeeeeesh people I can stand up to a strong wind storm probably a hurricane even, I still have some lead in my @ss and my legs and thighs and shoulders are supper strong these days too, so my chances are great that I'd still be standing, my hair would be a mess though..... tee hee Aye yi yi, it just makes me crabby I tell you being called skinny. I suppose I should be flattered and happy hearing it, but I am not!!!
~wendalyn