Good morning! Back to reality day for most of us.

Hopefully all the goodies are out of the house and you've got your gym bags packed. It doesn't matter if any of us are up a few pounds from the holidays - that's part of maintenance. What's important is stopping any weight gain right NOW and getting back to the Things That Work. It's a lot easier to deal with five pounds than 25 pounds.

I'm headed out for the gym right now - kind of dreading the January invasion. Then we'll take the tree down and DD wants to go shopping with the gift cards that she got for Christmas. Groceries, laundry, the usual.

Here's to a wonderful week to start off the New Year!

Mornin' Megster and to everyone Maintaining!!

YES!! New Day, New Year, New Start!!

I'm off to the gym too... Menu is planned and written out!

Gotta go to the gym...TTFN

Hi everyone,

So far I'm 50/50 for 2005. One on plan day, one off. Notice I didn't say good day and bad day. 50/50 on the flossing too, for that matter.

This week is busy. Shopping today, 3 Christmas presents left to buy! Then back to work tomorrow, with its food temptations. Tues night is tri club board meeting, Wed business travel, Thursday parents arrive, Saturday travel to Phoenix, and Sunday run marathon. Tapering my exercise this week--nothing more than 40 min, and all easy, except the marathon itself of course. Trying to hyrdate and eat adequately.

Hope 2005 is treating everyone well!

Anne

Back to reality day for me as well. Have been enjoying a vacation last week.
One of my goals this year is to advance from a beginner exerciser to the next level.
I have been at beginner for the last 46 years so I think its time to move forward.

Good day to all,

Ds is off school until next Tuesday, so it doesn't quite feel back to normal for us yet. We un-decorated the tree yesterday and need to take its needle shedding carcass outside so I can finish cleaning up the needles.

I've already got a run in this am, although I'm still slowed down by the cold/cough I had between Christmas and New Years.

Goals for today: get the tree outside and needles cleaned up. Go shopping for running clothes with my birthday $ from my mom. Take the kids to the skating rink today before the weather turns super cold again.

Good morning to you, too! Today's a big day - taking some fun steps toward my goals. I'll be enjoying a step class with my workout bud at noon and then I'll attend my first WW meeting tonight with a couple of friends.

Started reading my revised version of TFL yesterday. I'd forgotten how great that book is and it made me look forward to our discussion even more.

Have a great day, everyone!

Good afternoon all! And here we go again ....

We spent the morning moving back into our offices, which were recarpeted over the Christmas break. Boxes everywhere; didn't find the phones until nearly 10 a.m. But all is nearly ship shape now, and the new carpet looks terrific.

I'm quite certain I've lost a couple of the pounds I'd picked before the holidays. I haven't been on a scale in weeks, and I don't intend to climb on until later this week, after last night's Japanese dinner (and all that soy sauce) has moved moved on. But my pants are all loose, and I feel good in my skin. For the most part, I ate pretty much as I pleased over the holidays -- the difference is the foods that please me these days are far different from what used to do so. Fruits and veggies are calling out to me, and smaller portions are totally satisfying. We'll see how it goes now that I'm back in the work routine again.

My quest for this year is to find a workout routine that I can stick with and do on a regular basis ... some combination of cardio, yoga and weights at a level that keeps me fit and out of pain. I think I'm seeing that at this point, I may not be able to lift very heavy, and what I need to do is come up with a routine that is challenging but not injurious. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm working on it. Oh Mel, I wish you were closer!

I've also realized that solid treadmill time is crucial to my good health; 35-45 minutes as close to daily as I can make it. I don't have to get fancy and do sprints, although I do program my treadmill to up and down hills. I've experimented some, but nothing feels as good to me as that solid block of time in movement.

I took our tree down yesterday, and put Christmas 2004 away. The clutter was driving me nuts.

Anne, good luck getting ready for that race! Karyn, hope you enjoyed your step class -- I used to adore step. Loved that rhythm (is that spelled right?).

Greetings Meg, Ilene, OnlyMe and Reg 42, and everyone else yet to post.

Hi gang

OH MY GAWD but it feels good to be back to a normal routine !!!! Kids were gone by 8AM, I was at the gym by 9 o'clock ... I didn't think my workout was going to be that great because I didn't have a good night sleep, must be the junk food, but once I got going I felt really good and strong ...

I had lunch with a g/f today had only poached salmon on a large bed of salad with about a tablespoon of olive oil it was delicious !! Funny how good real healthy food can be after the food fest of the last few weeks ...

Meg -- I read somewhere that you want to get your PT papers to you girl !! You and Mel must move closer and start a SuperWomanGym ... Then I'd move closer to get some personal attention of my own...Oh I could be your receptionist or admin assistant !! Wouldn't that be fun? Oh well, one can dream !

OnlyMe -- Did I miss your birthday? If I did HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Robin -- Good for you for losing those # during the festive season!! It must be nice, although you've worked hard, to come in to a fresh new office for 2005... Fresh starts all around are a good thing... I've discovered the , or outside running now, as a great destressor also, this coming from the gal who rarely if ever did cardio before, who wouda thunk ??!! Yep I love my cardio time now...

KarynLee -- Enjoy your step class, but just watch your step, literaly!!

Hi all, as several of you mentioned, it is soooooo gooooood to be settling back into the daily routine again. Only 354 days left before next Christmas. :sball2:

Its been raining most of the past two weeks in So. calif, including today. But I decided to take a nice walk in and about some shopping areas today. If it rained, I went inside and looked. One of the places I spent time during the largest rain was my favorite thrift store. They have really reduced prices getting ready for places to put the year-end tax-deduction bounty. I got some very nice things which were extremely inexpensive, 10 and 15 Cents for good brands in excellent shape, which I put in my car and walked on. I guess I am doing laundry tomorrow.

One of the other places I walked past was a restaurant at lunchtime with lots of visible tables covered with misc. lunches. I looked at what was on people's plates and realized how different my eating has become. I used to eat that stuff too and didnt think anything about it. The size of the portions was noteworthy - the plates were absolutely covered with food, and it wer'n't green. Too much for most people if they finished it.

My food and eating have been very good the past few days with only a couple minor ripples. I am earning lots of shiney metallic stars. If I am able to continue over time this well, I will be very pleased. No reason I shouldnt if I remain focused and mindful. Thank you all for the company in this sometimes trying journey.

Jan

This seems an odd question but I'm wondering if anyone has had trouble with STOPPING the weight loss? I weighed in at WW before the holidays and found that I was down almost another pound, now about 8 pounds under my goal. I expressed some concern to the leader weighing me, but she joked that the holidays should take care of my on going losses. Well, I really sort of just went with the flow over the holidays, eating healthy but a lot more 'cooked' food, meat and so on than I normally do and had my share of treats without overdoing. I worked out some, although not nearly as often as I normally do because of the way the holidays fell. I certainly didn't deprive myself of anything although I didn't go crazy.
Problem is, I'm still down about 0.5 pounds since my last weigh in and more telling is that this morning, I had to hike the belt in one more notch.
I eat a pretty balanced diet, I think and have added some extras to help with maintenance (like raisins in my morning oatmeal, 2% yogurt instead of FF, nuts and seeds in my salads, a more liberal hand with the salad dressing, and so on) but my metabolism seems to have ramped up! Weight Watcher's answer to maintenance is to add more "non-core" foods until you stop losing weight but I don't like to eat a lot of processed foods for health reasons. Anyone have any suggestions?

I went through this, Barb, and to be honest I'm not sure what worked. Maybe the holidays I did start coming to the maintainers forum and was thrilled to find people with the same problem. I read here alot!
As for food, I don't like processed either. I'm a little more liberal with the olive oil, nuts, fruit, grains.
Over Christmas I was very liberal with desserts, cheese and peanut butter and have hit my 'ceiling' again. So I'm on my way back down.

How's your body fat % and BMI? I think you'll find some folks here who are pretty comfortable a few pounds below what they thought was goal weight.

Read on the folks here are wonderful.

Thanks for the quick response Susan! My BMI is now between 20 and 21 which I'm happy with but I'm really ready to stop the downward trend here. I already have oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast but maybe I'll try adding some Ezekial toast and peanut butter and see how that does. I really want to maintain my eating and excercising "lifestyle" (my downfall was always too much "take-out") but I'm now weighing less at 44 than I have since before I was pregnant with my 2nd child when I was 20! At the same time, I don't really want to start gaining (maybe a couple of pounds) now that I've finally got clothes that fit! It seems like I keep adding this extra food and then adding that extra food and still the weight keeps slowly creeping down. I think I'm also a little afraid that all of a sudden I'll just start gaining so I'm afraid to add too much all at once. It does rather seem like my metabolism has really sped up. I know that exercise can affect it so maybe thats it?

I hear you, Barb, I really do. I actually had a few moments when I thought I might have some horrible disease and just 'thought' I'd lost the weight on my own It's actually encouraging to gain a couple of pounds, in an odd sort of way.
Yup, I agree exercise is good.
You already know what to do. You just need to tweak things "Barb's Way".

Barb -- You say you may add Ezekial toast and peanut butter to your breakfast. This is just a thought but maybe you should add eggwhites with an egg in there for some protein, instead of more carbs? Do you weight train? And train heavy enough to failure? Maybe more muscle would slow down the scale a bit... Muscles weighs more than skinny fat... Just some thoughts I'm putting out there for you... otherwise I really don't know, I've NEVER EVER had such a wonderful problem ....

I think Ilene and Susan both had good advice: rather than adding "non-core" (junk) foods, add protein and healthy fats. A sprinkle of ground almonds on your oatmeal or an egg or egg whites on the side?

What kind of exercise are you doing? Do you do any weight training or a lot of cardio? If you are doing only cardio, you are burning up muscle tissue along with whatever body fat you have left at this point. Add in some resistance training. You may need to up your calories (what a pity!) and protein, but you won't be losing muscle and lowering that stoked metabolism!

Congratulations!