Good morning! I'd usually put the coffee cup smilie here but ... my coffeemaker broke this morning! Horrors! Life as we know it has ended. I have a little 2 cup coffee press that I used as a poor substitute but am tapping my foot impatiently until my local Starbucks opens at 6:30 AM. 6:30! How is that? People NEED coffee before 6:30 AM!

Anyone besides me feeling assaulted by all the pink and red heart-shaped boxes of chocolates in all the stores? It seems like there's chocolate of every variety, everywhere. Ever notice how all our holidays are becoming completely food-oriented, often centered on candy? My grocery store has two aisles that are always set aside for 'seasonal merchandise', which is ... V-Day candy, Easter candy, a lull into picnic supplies, Halloween candy, and Christmas candy. I avoid those two aisles like the plague. But it's just everywhere, all the time.

I watched 'Fat Chance' on CNN last night and would highly recommend it. It's airing again on February 12 at 6 AM, 8 and 11 PM. I'm going to try to post a little bit about it in the thread that Suzanne started yesterday.

So how's everyone doing these days? Surviving February? How's the nonsmoking, Susan? - we're proud of you! And the chicken pox, Karyn? You know, we have a LOT of lurkers here ... it would be great if people popped in and said hi ... as Ilene always says - 'we luvs newbies!'

Hi Meg and other maintainers,

AArrrggghhh!!! The scale went UP instead of down !!! Last week I put myself back on track, lifting again, did 1.5 hour cardio 6 out of 7 days and the scale went UP !!!!. I hope this is the famous muscle building in me. I'll just try again this week.
So far did LBW today and cardio 20 mins rowing, 15 mins jog, 15 mins bike.

As for the chocolate... I finally finished the rol of chocolates in the house so I won't be tempted again.

Have a great week,
rabbit

Hi group:

Nice weather is helping my spirits. V-day candy is out of control. Meg I agree that its one chocolate holiday after another. The worst for me is halloween, I guess childhood memories of a chocolate feast. V-day I can handle, however we have a flowers only rule in my house that helps.
Rabbit I share your scale fustrations, I am trying my best to get the scale to move downward but it is being very stubborn. It has gone up 1 or two pounds then back down to base" which is 7 pounds over my goal". I am trying my best to be patient but I hate scale math. Up 7 pounds in a month, down 7 pounds in 6 months. Keep on keeping on.
My contact have lead to a full blown, make-over. Now that I don't have my glasses on 24/7 I am noticing wrinkles that I had chosen to ingnore. Today is the eye doctor, I hope when he adjust my vision I don't find any more wrinkles.

Hi everybody,

I've been trying to think of what I should say with no success! Everything is going OK, but I'm feeling very spacey, distracted. I've been eating pretty well, and getting my exercise. Gained about a pound so far, but that is within my usual bouncing around range. But my pants are not fitting very well anymore! Yikes! Still no morning sickness to speak of, thank goodness, but I am very tired. May have to sneak out to my car to get a nap today at work.

SusanB, how goes the non-smoking and the C25K plan? Such a great thing you're doing!

Sorry bout the coffee Meg. Very disappointing!

Rabbit, you're probably just a bit swollen from all that lifting--it'll come off soon! Are you sore? I'm always up a couple pounds when I'm sore, just from the water retention.

Anne

G'Mornin' Everyone !!

Meg ~~ NO COFFEE!! Oh my, oh my! Thank goodness our Tim Horton's are 24hrs with a drive-thru... so if you go out in the wee hours of the morning wear a baseball cap and sunglasses, no one ( at least I HOPE no one) will recognise you!

Rabbit ~~ If you are doing everything right the scale will go down...eventually.... Now my guess would be that it's the chocolate roll that has made you retain water to show the gain on your scale... also remember that muscles retain water too after a workout, this is why I never weigh myself the day after a leg workout! It's too disheartening...

As for me I didn't DARE weigh-in this morning after the awful 3 days with food I've had, even if I did run and exercise a lot!! So today I am back on track and going for some leg work at the gym in a few minutes....

TTFN .....

Let's be careful out there!!

P.S.: Yes, Lurkin' Newbies, come out, come out wherever you are!! WE do LUVS newbies !!

Anne -- didn't see you there girl!! You will be tired for the first trimester, the second you will have energy to spare, the third you will be tired again.... About the pants not fitting!! Did you think your pants were gonna fit ?!?! Mine didn't fit very very soon after I knew I was pregnant , what can I say it comes with the territory ...
Morning sickness won't necessarly happen to you, I didn't get any morning sickness for my two pregnancies at all... BUT I was super tired for the first 3 months...

Morning Ilene! I thought I'd at least have a trimester down before I was into maternity clothes. Ack. I'm mostly just in the more relaxed part of my wardrobe now, but I have a couple of sized-up stretchy pants on the way.

Anne

I'm one of the few that doesn't get tempted by Valentines Day candy as I am not a chocolate girl. It's the month of October taunts me every time I go to the grocery or drug store. Mmmmmmm.....Candy corn.


I'm very lucky there's not a holiday celebrated with the giving of french fries. I'd be in big trouble.

Good Morning all,

Yep, I'm one of the newbies! I live in Washington state, near Seattle. I have 3 grown kids, 5 grandkids and a dear hubby.

I've been struggling to get back to my goal of between 115-120. I had a relapse since Xmas. Why then, I have yet to figure out. I did well over Xmas...Gained 3# above my high goal and panicked. I've been low carbing for about 2 years and been maintaining since May of 2003. It's been easy and then one day....it wasn't!! Started counting calories this last week and guess some of it was water as I'm back down to 120. I've been at 118 for so long and that is a good weight for me. I will work to get it back down there but I've been so discouraged. Today the scale gave me hope.

It will take me awhile to get to know you but Meg and Mel have been very kind to me and welcomed me already.

One question I'd like to ask and I could put it up as a new post but I'll ask first here. How do you stop the eating after dinner? This is my problem. If I could just stop this bad habit I always say I wouldn't have a weight problem. I've tried reading, staying on the computer etc. but in the back of my mind I'm always thinking of what I can eat.

Thanks for being here and hope to be a part of your bb. Have a good day.

Golden Girl -- WELCOME -- We LUVS newbies .... To answer your after supper question here is what works for me... I sometimes literally run from the kitchen with a large cup of hot water to the computer and log into Fitday... Poor DH has to do the dishes, he's never complained though... He'd rather see me happy I guess... I drink tea during the evening... If I must eat, my favorite after supper snack is a large grapefruit....

Hope this helps... and again WELCOME, don't be shy....

Good evening you fabulous women!

It's cold and clear weather here on the Swedish west coast, and the little sunshine we do get is sorely needed indeed. I think I'll try and get out for a short walk on my lunch hour (well, lunch half hour really) so that I get some air and sun.

The scales showed a nice result, 1.3 lbs/0.6 kg down, despite some high calorie days last week but I think it was my fabulous gym that saved me. What would I do without my strength training eh?

I did some thinking this past weekend and decided to set my goal weight a little bit higher, because I realised that I am heavier but slimmer now due to my frequent sessions at the gym and I don't want to blindly stare (how can you stare blindly btw?) at a number that I got into my head 5-10 years ago. So I set my goal weight to 152 lbs/69 kilos instead of 145 lbs/66 kilos. Not a huge difference but I think it will be good to cut myself some slack. Mind you, I'm still several kilos away from goal but since finding this excellent forum I started thinking about tackling maintenance. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? Looking at photos from when I weighed 152 lbs I realise that I looked great at that weight and that I am actually 10 years older now. Yikes, time marches on. A bonus with upping my goal weight a little bit is that I have now lost more than half of my extra weight and I am (of course) closer to my goal, yay!

And on I ramble.. After the 2 semi-binge events of last week I've planned out my entire week (food and exercise) now and did the appropriate grocery shopping so that I won't be caught off guard. I upped my calorie allowance from 1300 to 1600 and what a difference! I feel so much better! Time will tell what my body thinks.

Have a good evening and a great week! Oh, and congratulations Anne on your being a mum and all, I'm sure you'll do great!

Hugs,
Ann-Charlotte

Hi,
Today is my oldest daughter's birthday. it is a very special day to me as it was my first child - I guess B-days of other kids are not so important for mother as the first one.

I was not doing fine yesterday. It was freezing cold and windy and I craved sweets. Of course, baking 24 cinnamon buns for my family did not help - I guess at least 8 ended up inside me. never mind, at least I know they were home made and low fat and low sugar. Scale did not go up (yet?) or it is because after 8 Cinnamon buns there was no space for anything else, I do not know. We did "dessert lunch" for kids yesterday - my big daughter bought Tim Bits and they ate it before I could fix some lunch - so I thought, I am not going to give them any food till dinner. Fat chance - he-he - they were asking for the dinner at 3 PM. So we had it at 3PM and that was it. Snacks at dinner time - hehe!

About eating after dinner. Drinking water and hot tea helps. Like rules - do not open fridge from after dinner till morning? I do not know - in my family there was a rule - no food after 7 PM and it still works for me, even though I am giving my kids snacks before bed.

Hope everybody has a good start!

Thanks Ilene and Sashenka for the suggestions. I do drink tons of water, hot now with a little DaVinci's sf syrup in it. Kind of like dessert. I think I get hungry becasue we eat dinner at 6:00 and I'm a night owl am up til midnight or 1:00 evert night. I plan a snack around 9:00 but.......sometimes I'm in there at 7:00 for no reason. Bored? Habit I think! I keep plenty busy but think I just need to make up my mind not to eat anything except my planned snack. I say that right now but hope I can stick to it.

Sashenka, rabbit, Gina where do you live? Hope I didn't miss anyone. Just a curious mind here.

Meg, No Coffee???? Poor thing. I have a variety of coffee devices in my house so if one goes out I can substitute with something else, but my favorite is my little 2 cup Mr. Coffee.

It was a long hard weekend for me too and there is no partaicular reason why, so I am with Ilene ... drinking LOTS of water today and not facing the scale for a couple of days. So far so good today but normally Monday's are my best day. I'm typcially very focused at work but when I get home and I'm tired I get into trouble. I've already cleaned anything that could get me into trouble out of the house (not that there was anything much left after yesterday) but it's a new day and a fresh week.

TTFN,

Julie, another "Golden Girl" here (60 last month), and one who has lived in Seattle twice, about a year each time. Eating after dinner is certainly easier if you eat later. We usually don't eat til about 7, spending the time between work and dinner at the gym several nights a week. I don't often feel the need to eat after dinner but when I do, I find that a cup of tea will usually defuse the craving. Sounds like yours is mostly habit. Wonder how long it takes to break a habit? I've heard 3 weeks to make a new one. . .