Lisa -- Happy Birthday! :balloons:

I had my first ultrasound today and everything looked great. I could see the baby quite well, and I found out I'm farther along than I thought (12 weeks). Very exciting for me and my husband! We decided to tell EVERYone now, and we immediately met up with a bunch of fellow teachers and told them the news, then went to his parents' place to show them the u/s pictures. Fun! :)

Good morning/afternoon maintainers. :)

Lisa (joyofsix) -- A belated happy birthday! :) And I don't know if cake is calorie-free on your birthday ;), but really enjoying one slice can only be better than resisting the cake altogether and feeling abnormal to do so on your own birthday. Or something like this.

Allison -- Thanks for sharing! That was a pretty interesting site. All in a nutshell, simple, no useless things. When I have more time, I may try and fully translate it for my mother, I'm sure she would find it useful too.

Random thing of the day: part of my hair is now blue. I guess feeling prettier and more confident really gives you some incentive to try different things. :lol: I may or may not dye it completely blue later on, I'll see. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. That, or shaving my head, but first I want to find if there's a local "locks for love" here (might as well make it a useful gesture).

Other thought: I'm starting to wonder if I'm not able to "naturally eat normally", as long as I remain within my batch of non-processed foods (or as little processed as possible). Did/does this happen to others here as well? I mean, it's like when I'm counting calories, I want to "get my money's worth" of foods, when in fact I could do without the added yogurt at breakfast and eat it as snack instead, and so on. (Can you tell I've been analyzing my past food logs and trying to find what works best for me?) Anyway, it's weird. Maybe the more I was trying to be 'normal', the more I was steering away from becoming normal? *ponders*

Ah well. Have a nice day everyone. :)

Kery~You'll have to post a pic of your new hairdo!

I've been robbed. Sometime during the night (I think) someone came and dug up two of my Madagascar Palm Trees in my front yard. They took one and they must have been interrupted as they left the other leaning precariously. They left a chunk of one in the street (along with several of the leaves). This is a pretty daring theft--Madagascar palms are covered in spikes as long as 4 inches. I personally don't like to do any gardening around them as I always get stuck by them and bleed. Here are some photos so if you aren't familiar with what they look like you'll know:

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:...es/pach_23.jpg
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:.../05/9/9021.jpg

The first one shows the spikes pretty well, the other one shows more of what mine looked like. They're both about 6 or 7 feet tall. I had to call in a police report and when I was talking to the deputy she asked if I knew someone. Of course, I said yes, they are my neighbors--both Riverside county deputies and both my neighbors. I thought I lived in a pretty safe neighborhood. I need to tell all my neighbors what happened and see if anyone saw anything--obviously something spooked them and made them leave with only one tree.

Anyway, so much for the bad news. The good news, I'm down another half pound. So far, since the first, I've lost 5 pounds!!!

Oh, and those of you who commented on the other thread about DD not being able to fit into her dress and my concern--well, concerns are over! DD at dinner last night brought up the subject herself by thanking me for buying salads for her for lunch. She said she has lost 2 pounds! I congratulated her and mentioned that she should try on the dress at the beginning of March so that if it needs alteration, we'll have plenty of time.

I am back home after a 9 day vacation, I am happy to say I maintained my weight loss.......I am soooooo happy. I just tried to eat like a "normal" person would, watched portion sizes and tried to rein in the sweets, desserts, etc.I have been concerned about maintaining as this is where I have failed in the past.

Welcome home bargoo! Congrats on maintaining!!!

Allison, that is hilarious and bizarre! Someone stole your trees?!?! I can't even imagine!

Kery, blue hair sounds cool! I have a similar compulsion with my calories: I always want to eat them all, even when I'm not hungry. It's a bit strange and kind of annoying. When I'm maintaining, I tend to have my Nutridiary log set at a 125cal deficit each day, because on weekends and social occasions, I go over. I figure the permanent deficit in my log is the only way to stop myself from eating all of my calories every single day.

Bf & I went out for a fancy belated-birthday dinner last night. It was lovely. We had kobe beef cheeks, wild boar lasagna, duck with nuts and olives and dates in a clay pot (I forget what that's called) and chocolatey dessert, plus a really excellent bottle of red wine. Yum! I consumed quite a few calories, but it was a celebration and a treat. Unfortunately I didn't eat all my duck so there's a big container of leftovers in the fridge. I think I'll let bf eat them.

Hope everyone has a nice Saturday. I'm going to the gym and then doing work all day. Not very exciting.

Lisa, how exciting that you are further along than you thought and can now start telling people!

Bargoo, big congrat's on maintaining your weight while on vacation.

Allison, that is crazy. I never thought plants were possible theft items. I hope they catch the thieves.

I made it to the gym today for my Lower Body workout. Also did 30 min's continuous on stairstepper and 10 min' on treadmill. After my UBWO yesterday, I seem to be sore all over. My son's GF, Laura, joined my gym. She met me today and worked out with me. I no longer feel like such a weakling. She is 10 lbs. lighter and 26 yrs. younger than me and was only able to do 2 min's on the stairstepper and had to lower the weights on all the machines after following me. But, I did notice a woman next to me that was 20 yrs. older than me that was lifting twice as much as I could on all the leg stuff. I guess she's been doing it awhile cause she is Buff!

I had mentioned that my gym is at the larger medical center about 20 min's from my home. Funny thing today, an old Dr. of mine was on the stairstepper next to mine. He said Hi and mentioned what a tough workout I was doing on the stairstepper. I badly wanted to say "do you remember that you used to always tell me how Fat I was" . But, I just smiled and said "thanks". LOL

I found today that my gym has BP machines for all to use. I took my BP just after finishing my workout. It was a great NSV to see that even with a hard workout my BP was 120/83. This is such a far cry from the 250/160 readings that I used to get when OBESE! It really makes me so happy to have not only lost weight but to have drastically improved my health. Sometimes I just have to remind myself of these nonscale victories.

Lily - my eyes popped out of my head when I read your old BP of 250/160. I didn't know it could go so high. Mine's usually 110/60, and sometimes as low as 90/60.

Kery - blue hair sounds cool. If I were 25 years younger, I'd have a streak of shocking pink hair right now.

Alison - that's terrible that your trees were dug up. Do you think it might have been a teenage prank?

Happy Belated B-Day to Lisa. Hope those 2 with fevers are better and they didn't spread it to the other 5 kids.

Guess what we did Friday night? Went dancing of course. Up in NYC. I danced one dance with my friend/dance instructor who has learned how to lead. She told me my dancing has really improved since I danced with her 6 weeks ago. DH is picking up some more moves and trying to come up with a few of his own. He always tries them out on me first and when they down work, I end up all twisted. But it's fun.

We went to Fuddruckers for the greezy burgers DH has been craving for a while. I'm sure the scale will go up tomorrow.

Carolyn, yes, I used to walk around with stroke level BP all the time and was on 8 BP pills a day. Now I take 1/2 of a BP pill daily and my BP is very normal.

So today was my official WI day. I started not to get on the scale cause I was afraid to. I'm bloated and constipated. I went ahead and weighed and am very frustrated to be up 1 lb. I'm trying to tell myself that it couldn't possibly be a lb. of fat. I worked out hard 5 days this past week and stuck very much to my eating program, never over 1500 cal's daily or more than 35 carbs daily. But, still so very disgusted this morning. I would head to the gym, but I'm so sore it hurts to even lift my arms and legs to get dressed! It's just so hard when you feel like you had a great OP week and the scale goes up.

I had planned on baking home-made cinnamon rolls for my family this morning and me just eating a small bowl of Oats. (DH begged for the sweets). Now, I'm afraid I won't have the resolve to not touch them myself.

LILY!!! (yes, I'm yelling at you but giving you a a big hug too :hug: )

:coach: Stop beating yourself up! You did not gain a pound of fat this week! Just like you said, you're bloated and constipated. Yes, you should have stayed off the scale because it's not giving you any kind of useful feedback. Don't give the stupid scale so much power over you that it ruins your day.

You still had a great week! :carrot: You did everything right and it WILL show up on the scale -- so long as you don't give into temptation. You've been at this weight loss business long enough to know that scales aren't always accurate reflections of fat loss. Stay strong and ignore the scales. You're doing great! :cheer:

Meg, thanks! I started not to weigh myself but felt like that would have been a copout since it was my official WI day. It does seem like this 6 lbs that I had gained is dreadful to take back off.

You are right, I won't touch the cinnamon rolls. I'll have a small bowl of Oats like I had planned.

I'm sure everyone has had weeks where they felt like they did everything right and was not rewarded by the scale. But, it sure sucks when it happens.

Christmas Weight Gain FINALLY lost! YIPPEE!
 

Greetings, all! How's the weather where you are? I live in Northern MN and it is freezing cold here--18 below this morning for temp and let's not even discuss the wind chill! Though I'd hope to snowshoe yesterday, it was just wicked cold out, so I went to the fitness center and worked out instead.

For once, it seems, I won't be whining about my lack of weight loss. If you remember, I gained 6 lbs (gulp!) in Sedona over Christmas week thanks, mostly, to restaurant food. After working for the past 3 weeks to get that 6 lbs off (I lost 3 of it over 2 weeks), I gave my weight loss plan one last ditch effort and did a LA Weight Loss take off plan for two days. I forced myself to stay off the scale and went last Friday to the center to weigh in. I was really, really hoping that all my careful watching for the preceding 4 days had helped. I got on the scale and was almost afraid to open my eyes. I knew if I had stayed close to the same weight, I was going to burst into tears of frustration. I was totally amazed to see that I had lost 6.6 lbs in the past week. WOW! I am now thrilled. :carrot:

But, I also knew that I needed to take stock of what I'd done to make this weight gain and weight loss happen. Perhaps my mistakes can help someone else here? I think my first mistake was to come back home and immediately return to my weight loss plan rather than realizing that perhaps just returning to my usual eating plan might have been enough to shed those holiday pounds. I think my body wasn't losing weight for those first two weeks because it thought I was starving it. So, one lesson I wrote down and will remember--don't freak out and make dramatic changes unless you want to pay for them for a long time. I also made a written list of what changes I made in the 4 days of this past week to get this weight loss--drank tons of water, drank hot lemon water, went walking at work throughout the day for 15-30 minutes at least one time each day but sometimes 2, hired a personal trainer who taught me about doing cardio on my heart range (not the right term, but maybe you understand), went back to work after a 3 week break from my usual 30 hr work week, ate chicken, fish, and eggs for protein, stayed away from eating out and difficult starches--potatoes, rice, etc.

Anyway, then on Saturday morning, I awoke to a 3 lb gain. Ok, I knew it could happen because I decided to go to Wendy's Friday night and had 1/2 a double stack and 1/2 a large chili. There I was with that restaurant stuff with high sodium. Today, my weight is back down to Friday's weight again. Sodium really does a number of me.

Now, I start the climb back to my normal eating routine. I'll add back in one food each week and watch my weight. Since I chose to make dramatic changes to get the weight off three weeks ago, my repayment is being without foods I could have enjoyed if I had thought it through more. I have to wait each week to get a new food back to make sure I don't regain weight. UGH! On the up side, I am thrilled that my weight is back down.

Just wanted to say that I appreciated all the support and ideas from you all. I hope that I can return the support throughout the weeks and years to come.

That's so funny! Hope your kitty does well on the beta blockers. How is she at taking all those pills? Our old cat was terrible at them. We'd have to double team her and do all kinds of crazy things to get them down her throat. She was very good at spitting them back out otherwise. I always felt like the kitty protective services would be breaking down our door at any minute.

Goalsuccess - congrats on getting rid of those holiday pounds. I'm doing it by eating 'normally' and cutting out sweets.

As I guessed I'm up another pound after last night's Fuddruckers. That brings it to 3 pounds above goal.

Tonight's lesson 2 of a 5 session West Coast Swing dance lessons. After a year of dancing this dance, I'm going over the basics and really working on my form.

Lily - hang in there!
I am really getting annoyed with my scale too.
Today is my last day of P1 on SB. I was almost saintly throughout the whole time.
Have also been xcountry skiing 3x/week.
Very tough workouts as the snow has been deep/heavy.

Scale's feedback....haha try again.
:(

These lbs are sticking like GLUE.

-S

Ain't weather crazy!! We had your temps/windchill about 10 days ago. This past week was perfect winter weather, in the high teens/low 20's. I get up this morning to 45 degrees and high winds! What's up with that??? The snow is melting very quickly with that combination and as soon as it gets cold again - and it will - things will be an icy mess. :lol:

Had a good workout yesterday. Then I hit a couple of stores, looking - sigh - for some new bras. No one had the ones I like, so I guess I'll go online and try to find them. I did manage, however, to find 2 pairs of pants and a dark green top (marked down) so it was not a total loss. :) Then to the grocery store for some basics. We had salmon cakes with cabbage. I've had this recipe for Company Cabbage for years, and finally tried it. Very tasty. Just cabbage, carrots, green onions steamed with 1/4 cup of water with beef bullion in it. When it's done, you mix in a TBSP of butter/marg and a tsp of mustard and 1/3 cups pecans. I used almonds, and olive oil (and not a full TBSP) but very tasty, and DH had seconds.

TOday is "organize your tax stuff" here. I'm debating going to church. Roads should be okay as long as it stays warm. It's tomorrow morning that could be fun....

Lily, the scale is not in charge of your life!! It's a measure of one thing at one point in time. Stick your tongue out at it and go on doing what you've been doing. And if you're that sore, stay out of the gym today. If you have to go, go swimming. :)

It is 20 degrees here today and I'm sure the wind chill is less than that.

I did make the cinnamon rolls for everyone else. I stuck to my Oats as I had planned, and was full after only half of my bowl. So, scraped the rest out instead of eating them.

goalsuccess, maybe I too should have went back to maintenace mode to lose my 6 lbs. instead of restarting Induction.

sznn, I felt like I had been almost saintly too. Plus, got way more exercise than I usually do. Right now my thighs feel tight as bricks! Even my jeans felt snugger than usual . Good news is, my tummy straightened out now so maybe by next Sunday I will see a little weight loss.

Pat, I'm staying away from the gym til tomorrow. I need to let my muscles rest a bit. If I do anything at all, it will just be a short walk on my treadmill this evening. Oh, that cabbage recipe sounds good and I may just have to try that after I get groceries.

I'm gonna try to force myself to drink some water this evening. I really do think I'm probably retaining some fluid. It seems all I ever want to drink is coffee!