Pass the coffee! I think every soul in Pittsburgh was glued to the Super Bowl last night. What a game! And now it's Groundhog's Day? I'm worried that Punxsutawney Phil stayed up late partying and won't see his shadow, so it will be six more weeks of winter.

I managed not to get into any Super Bowl food last night and am off to the gym when it opens. Wonder if my usual 5:30 am buddies will be there today? The city of Pittsburgh schools actually called a two-hour delay in hopes that more kids will show up for class after being up late for the Steelers.

The other front desk person at the spa where I work is quitting as of Saturday, so I'll be working her shifts and mine until we can someone hired and trained on our horrible software. So I may be scarce for a while! Because I don't get breaks at work (aside from a mad dash to the bathroom), food takes planning. It would be so easy to grab the Hershey's kisses and Dove chocolate hearts that are 12 inches in front of my face! I need to pack baggies of food that can be eaten discretely while I'm working, lke cheese sticks, cut up apples, cut up veggie burgers, etc. As we always say, planning, planning, planning is the key!

Thankfully, even on early days I should be able to get in an hour at the gym, if I eat breakfast in the car. It's a lot more hours than I ever planned to work, but the spa is my friend's business and this is a very tough time for a small business to survive, so I'm glad to help.

Enough blabbing about me! How are all of you doing this morning?

It's a new month and time to renew my commitment to reaching goal and maintaining once I get there.

I have another couple of weeks of real stress - this week will be the worst - and then I'm going to back off a little on accepting new extra work commitments.

I jsut read an interesting article at my email home page about maintaining after dieting. I haven't seen many things like this in the popular press until now.

It's so sensible, what we're doing here. Yet so many people have the diet and then . . . nothing.

Oops, got to go to work.

Dagmar

Hello ladies. I'd like to post here, if you don't mind. I'm far from maintaining my weight but I'd rather maintain then go up. I need to work this in steps because my all or nothing attitude has harmed me in the long rung. Loss, gain, loss gain. You know the drill. So today, I'm working on 1)not weighing 2) conscious eating...eating when hungry, stopping when full, choosing good food choices. I'm not going to worry about quantity or calories today. I am cutting out sugar, and white stuff. 3) more water...I don't usually have a problem with this..I love water 4) walk daily....I make a lot of excuses as to why I don't have time...and I have a treadmill in my basement in front of a tv so I can't even use the 25 degree weather as an excuse. My goal is to get in at least 4 days of walking for now with hopes of daily. So my eating plan is to have more fruits and veggies and protein and no white stuff. Smaller portions at dinner, too. Okay...this is good. Thanks for letting me be accountable.

Hey kristen!

Sounds like a good plan! You have some specific goals in mind.

Meg, what a cliff-hanger, eh?

Dagmar, if you get back to us, give us a link to the article?

I'm going to step class this morning at 10:30. Other than that, it's a work day as usual!

Cheers, everyone!

Jay

Good Monday morning! I didn't make good choices over the week-end, but it's over now. As soon as I get my son ready for school I am off to do a double at the gym. (That's two classes, back to back.) Have a great day!

Welcome Kristen! We're happy to have you join us! Posting is a great way to be accountable, so post away and let us get to know you.

Morning everyone!

Kids drove me up the wall last night, so I went running instead of watching the game. Definitely a better use of my time.

I'm all planned for today. Things go south when the planning doesn't work.

Anne

Meg - Congratulations on your mind boggling win. Big time drama in the game last night. Wishing my office had a two hour delay to accomodate watching the game and post game and post, post game.

Watched the game at my house so there was no traditional Superbowl Sunday food. Yay for breaking traditions that need to die.

Okay, so I ate a lot of crap this weekend. I worked overtime all last week and all day Saturday. Too much stress led to stress-eating and drinking.

Today is a new day, the work for my deadline is done, and while I still have a lot of stress going on at work, I think my boss has finally figured out that threatening to fire people is not a good way to motivate us to do more work.

Hi everyone!

I haven't posted here in a while, mostly because I've been ashamed of my lack of effort to get the pregnancy weight off and have therefore avoided every area except General Chatter! I've been trying for a little over a week now and the scale is finally moving down, I'm happy to report. I've joined Anne in the Beck thread, and I'm currently trying to figure out the best calorie level to lose weight slowly and still keep up my milk supply. Breastfeeding, you may remember, was very difficult for me at first, but it soon became much easier and I've done quite a bit of reading about the benefits of exclusive BFing the first six months and extended nursing throughout the first year or two at least. It's become very important to me! (Of course, I may be less enthusiastic when the baby's teeth come in )

Anyway, I'm back (again) and hope to be posting more.

New week and new month...
How did it get to be February already?

Meg-- sounds like you will be busy! It was a great game. We had two Arizona and one Pittsburgh fan at my house. There was a lot of yelling..... there was slightly healthier food than normal, but still some bad stuff. My family is slowly learning.

Welcome Kristen!
Hello to everyone else. I don't have much time this morning as I need to get to work.

I worked both Saturday and Sunday for WW. I don't have regular shifts yet but fill in when people can't work. I love it so far. I am exhausted though and off to my regular job. I hope I don't collapse by the end of the week. Dh is going out of town today, I have a major project due for the class I am taking, dd is starting track so I'll be doing extra chauffeur time......
My weight was fine this morning which is always a win after the weekend. I did get to the gym Sunday but not Saturday but I suspect the extra hours working with no time to eat helped! I've been going Monday nights to a Boxing Boot Camp class. It kicks my you-know-what, but what a great workout! Combination of boxing, running, jump rope, etc.--- you don't stop moving for over an hour-- if anyone stops moving-- we have to drop and do push-ups! I've been twice and both times I wonder why the heck I went about halfway through-- but afterwards I know I've had an amazing workout-- so I'll go again today....

Good morning everybody!

I didn't make the best choices last night either.. Today is a new day. Hopefully I'll be released by the doctor today to start exercising again at my appointment this afternoon...

Gosh, Lisa, don't be ashamed! At least you have a valid EXCUSE for gaining the weight. Me? No excuse...gotta go post on the no excuses thread.

Lisa,
Glad to see you are back! I joke that it took me 17 years to lose my pregnancy weight. I'm sure you will be much faster than I was!!

Don't worry about the baby's teeth. They don't bite when nursing....

Hi everyone,

My weekend in Boston was a lot of fun. My friend's wedding was beautiful, fun, and it's always so good for me to see my best girlfriends (I like to say it's good for my soul). I did actually go to the gym twice and ate well the first two days. Food deteriorated Saturday night at the wedding reception and Sunday's travel was all downhill. Right back on the wagon this morning. Other than a 3-day business trip (I already checked - the hotel has a gym) February is a lot less hectic than last month for me, so I'm hoping I can focus more on my health than last month.

I was flying and driving home through the Superbowl yesterday but our pilot kept giving us score updates on the intercom. I thought is was funny, but I hope he was flying and not watching the game!

Lisa, it's so good to see you! I'm happy to hear that you & the babe are doing well.

Michele, you sound very busy! Your boxing boot camp class sounds like an awesome workout.

Jessica, I'm sorry that it sounds like your job has been so busy and stressful lately. Hang in there!

Kristen, glad you joined us! Maintaining healthy habits you've developed and weight you've lost is very important, even if your body is where you want it to be yet. I look forward to your posts!

Ward, JayEl, have fun at your gym classes too! Classes are quite the theme around here.

My gym has started to offer classes again this month, yay! Kickboxing, pilates, and some kind of strength/body sculpt. I'm sad b/c I really want to try kickboxing, but the evening class is on the same night and almost the same time as my chorus rehearsals. I'm going to introduce myself to the teacher, though, and hopefully will be able to start going in the next month or two after chorus rehearsals end.

Off to do work. Our office is fairly crazy lately too, between the new boss and budget cuts on top of budget cuts on top of... yeah, not fun for anyone. Have a great week everyone!