And me! I thought I didn't eat all that much (I wasn't stuffed to the gills *every* day, just *most* of the time ;)), but I really ate an average of 2,500 calories (frighteningly more if I ate out!:eek:) and rarely exercised. Oooooops.

Megan - I applied today. The deadline for applying is November 11th, then I have to take some tests on the 13th. I made my appointment - the tests will be very easy, as they are just tests on typing and Microsoft applications.
If they like my application, I will get booked for an interview in front of a panel of 12 judges. If the judges like me, then I'll probably get called back for a SECOND interview. If they like me more than my biggest competitors, then I will get the job. :faint: That's why I need all the positive vibes and prayers I can get!
Oh. It's getting very cold here, too. For the last few days, I've been able to see my breath in the morning!

The job sounds great Shane! Good luck with it! Permanent jobs with benefits are much nicer than temporary ones. :)

Pat, I don't envy your snow at all. It hardly ever snows here, which makes me happy. When I lived in the northeast, I found snow to be a giant pest. It's really pretty for about 20 minutes and then you have to shovel it and cars and pollution make it all turn brown and nasty. And plus, it's empirical proof that it's very cold. <shivers>

You know, people never ask me how I lost weight. When I did my big weight loss a couple of years ago, from 185 to 143, everyone was very complimentary and stuff, but no one interrogated me about my methods. Perhaps just because no one else I knew was overweight...

I just got back from having my body fat tested. I've dropped 4.1% since the last time, to 16.6%. Yay! I've had 3 tests now, each 12 weeks apart, and between the first and the second I only went from 22.2 to 20.5, and this time from 20.5 to 16.6. My plan to turn my body into a calorie burning furnace is evidently working. :)

:wave: Morning! It did warm up to the 40's yesterday, so a lot of snow melted, but then it was in the 20's overnight, so what's left is icy and crunchy. :shrug: I live in Alaska, what did I expect? But like Baff, I'd be ever so happy living where it doesn't snow. My DH, however, doesn't feel the same way! We talk about moving somewhere else when I retire (he already is) but we can't decide on a place, esp one that we can afford. We really like to travel though, and doing it from Alaska automatically adds the cost and time of a plane trip to Seattle to any trip.

Small NSVs here. Both the pants I had on yesterday and the jeans I'm wearing today are loose :D And I have my shirt tucked in..... Time to start looking in my closet store for the next size down. :lol: Also had a good hour in the gym last night, UBWO plus my PT knee exercises and about 20 minutes split between elliptical and treadmill. (I have to admit I moved to the treadmill as the TV hookup on the elliptical was cutting out, and I wanted to hear the news :o )


Good vibes coming your way Shane! I work for a city too, and while at some levels the pay is not as good as private jobs, the security and benefits more than make up for it.

Nice photos Allison. You have a lovely daughter.

Afternoon all! My hiney is dragging today! Long story short woke up this morning at 3 am to a "hot" smell in the house, after checking the house inside and out ourselves we were unable to find anything and called the Fire Department to come check for our peace of mind. After 45 minutes of checking wall, attic and floors with their thermal device the were unable to find any hot spots and left. Still feeling leary I stayed up and the smell got worse. I then noticed the furnace sounded funny. Woke my DH again and sure enough the side of the funace was black and very HOT.

We have had it checked today, its done. I thank my lucky stars that we were home at the time, had it been during the day it would have caught fire. Furnace guy also told us it was putting out carbon monoxide! Despite the financial strain this will cause I am happy we are safe, this could have been so much worse! I will buy a carbon monoxide dector today and urge everyone else to do so if you don't already have one!

Hope you all have a great day! May everyone have a guardian angel like mine on their shoulders today!

Good morning, everyone!

Shane, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you on the job prospect. I'm sure you have a great shot at it and will make a great impression in the interview. Can you tell us about the type of work you would be doing? That's so cool that your boss is championing for you!

People ask me all the time how I lost the weight and I'm always tongue-tied. There was no magic pill or formula. Just eat less, move more. I think the rules are pretty simple and most people know what they are but I'm constantly surprised to find when they don't have a clue.

Baff, that's GREAT about your body fat. What type of method was use to measure your body fat? I had a trainer use the calipers on me many months ago and I was something like 30 percent. Egads! My Tanita scale still says it's something like that. I would love to get it down but am not having much luck even though I'm doing lots of weight training and cardio.

Thanks for suggesting I try photobucket, shane. I have included a few before and after links in my signature. I wish I could just post one link to before and after photos like I have seen others here do, but I ran out of time to futz with it and am just going to go with this for now.

Have a good day! I'm eating on plan and desperate to get down to 135 but the scale won't budge from 138-140. Grrrr....

Oh, and Allison your daughter is beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing the photos. My Alison is a junior and plays the piano and string bass in the school orchestra. We have a lot in common. My son (he's 22 and just about to graduate from college with a CIS degree) plays the drums. We definitely have a musical household. DH plays the clarinet and listens to music ALL the time. I am not the slightest bit musical and love hearing everyone playing. I LOVE my iPod too...

Pam

Pam

Ooh Stephanie: scary!! I'm so glad you caught the problem before something terrible happened.

Pam, I get it done at the Y and she uses the 3 point caliper test. I figure these things are always estimates at a certain level, and the important thing (as with scales) is consistency. I'd be shocked if yours really was 30% though. at 5'7 and 139 lb with weight training, it must certainly be lower, no?

Oh my goodness Pam, my first thought when I saw your before and after picture is that you accidentally put a picture of your mom up for your before picture. I swear you dropped 20 years when you lost weight. You look great!

Pam, I love your before and after pictures. You're a pretty lady :) And I second Tammy's opinion - you look SO much younger without the weight!

As for what type of work I would be doing, the title I'm applying for is "senior staff assistant" - this means that I would be researching and responding to inquiries and complaints, preparing and monitoring the city budget, composing informational and promotional material, processing accounts payable, and the job description continues. I'm currently a temporary staff assistant, though the thing I do most here is technical writing and editing of the city's progression through training program (it's a program that offers job-specific classes to employees and offers them bonus incentives). The job I'm trying to get will have me doing some of the same things I'm already doing, except with more responsibilities (which I don't mind) and a MUCH better salary :D

Pacergal - EEEEK! Glad to hear everything is ok! That must have been quite creepy to KNOW there was something burning and have the fire department tell you otherwise. What really surprises me, though, is that they did not check the furnace! That is one of the first places I would look.

baffled, DAMN, 16% body fat? Now, um, a part of me is asking, "How did you DO IT?" Pam wants to know, too! Spil spill spill!

Allison - your daughter is beautiful with well-shaped eyebrows and pretty eyes. :)

Pat - ooh, out of curiousity, what do you do for your city? And yeah - city jobs are very secure. You'll never get rich working for a city, but you will get a great pension, have the option of retiring after 20 years, and amazing benefits all across the board.

As for snow, I used to live up in Virginia (near DC) where it snowed all the time. I don't miss the snow very much. It's pretty to look at, but a pain to deal with (ESPECIALLY when you're trying to get out for work! All that shoveling and bad driving conditions = EUGH!)
CONGRATS on your NSV, by the way. :)

Shane -- I'm crossing my fingers for you. That sounds like an awesome opportunity, I hope you'll get that job! :)

LisaMarie -- Okay, and I was wondering what you were talking about. :lol: I was almost afraid I had posted something weird without remembering it.

Stephanie -- Now that was some luck. It's really a good thing you were home and managed to catch that one before it became really dangerous.

And yeah, so often people ask, but actually don't want to know. It's just so weird. They prefer starve themselves drinking nothing but shakes all day long, or silly things like that, but eating less, more healthily and moving more doesn't sound appealing. This is mind-boggling. (I once tasted some Slim Fast stuff. Boy, was that awful. I don't think anyone deserve to inflict THAT on their bodies!)

Thanks, Shane. and that sounds like a great job, one you would be good at. You seem so articulate and are a smart cookie. I can tell!

Lisa, thanks for the compliments. I defintely feel a lot younger. I have completely gutted my closet and love shopping for hipper styles, not too hip though. I have a 16yo dd and a 22yo son! :)

I don't know about the body fat, Baff. I feel like I still have quite a bit of chub around my belly and above my bra strap. I hate that stuff and wish I could get it to come off. I'll just keep on keeping on, I guess. I'll be working with a new trainer soon and I'll get another test with the calipers done. I know they can vary depending on who does the test but I figure this will be my new baseline starting point. Maybe I'm not training hard enough. I do 45-50 minutes of what I feel is pretty high intensity cardio a day, and about 20 minutes of weight training (one day upper body, the next day lower body, the third day core, rinse and repeat with one day of rest a week). Maybe I should do less cardio and spend more time on weights...

Pam

Only got a second and only skimmed a bit.

I get 2 kinds of people with the "how did you do it" The one type who know I run hope its just exercise and no diet. That if you just work out enough you can skip dieting. Then there are the other ones who see me around town eating out and marvel at the concept that anyone could still lose weight while eating pizza and icecream. Because the only weight loss they know is starve until you cant take it any more and then give up.

Made a slight mistake this morning. I went to the gym at 9 after dropping dd of at school and was planning on weights then cardio. Well about halfway through the weights they started feeling REALLY heavy. Oh yeah, I FORGOT to eat carbs this morning. I had my normal omelet, but forgot to make the carbs to go with it :lol3: ooops. By the time I got to cardio I was toast. Or in this case NO toast.

Pam your before and afters are amazing! Job Well Done!

Shane I agree about the fire department not checking the furnace, scary. Now that I have had time to digest it all it only makes sense since the smell was throughout the house and not in an isolated spot, but at 3 am there were some serious cobwebs in the brain. BTW good luck with the job, my fingers are crossed for you!

Shane, I am the library director here, and will soon also be managing the ice arena and the airport (well, managing the people who actually run said facilities). But, I'm old enough to be your grandmother! :eek: In any case, that job sounds great, and a place where you'd get to shine. :crossed:

Hi everyone, We are having a big cookout tomorrow for DH's birthday (that was last week while he was at work). Expecting 25 people. I am making him a cake and brownies, but I feel I'll be strong enough to resist it. I made sure I planned for plenty of healthy foods for me to eat. Since I'm doing strict SB induction now, my cravings are gone and I don't want to screw this up.

I did find recipes for SF pies at foodnetwork.com. So thanksgiving dessert will be SF.

We had fun at Karoke last night. I've really came out of my shyness, LOL.

Today was spent cleaning house and doing yardwork for upcoming cookout. Now, I'm gonna go hit my treadmill.

I get that a lot too. They say "Oh, well she runs all the time," as if that's the only thing that made me lose weight and if you're not a runner you can just forget it or something. :lol: What do they think I did in the beginning, when I couldn't run two feet without stopping?

I wore a new pair of size 10 jeans tonight and I just bought them the other day -- they were actually baggy, kind of falling off. So I'm wearing my other new jeans tomorrow - size 8. :) They were too small when I bought them.

Cross country state meet tomorrow -- woohoo!! I hope my boys do well!

Lily - I hope you do well with the temptation -- I ate two brownies tonight!