Dandelion - Welcome, anytime is a good time!

Shauna - Yellow Cake! Yummm, but oh watch out for jamsk8r's carb police! LOL........

Thanks jamsk8r for the congrates! It does feel good!

Jammy, I know, I know. I do need that kick in the butt!

I'm doing better... today I had steamed spinach & baked tilapia with salsa for brunch. Delish AND healthy!

Thank you for all the advice and encouragement!!!

I will take everything everyone said and really look at my program.

I have tried the calorie up and down thing although my average is probably around 1300. I will figure it out more carefully. I write everything down and still am measuring foods I am not sure of. I exercise for at least 30 min. a day with one day off. Sometimes 2 off. I recently increased this time to 45 min. and tried to throw some extra in at night. I mostly use the treadmill and elliptical. I recently added 5 lb weights and resistant bands. As for the food...I looked back and I am eating Greek yogurt now when I wasn't before. I don't think it is the carbs. I am going to try and eat different foods because I was eating the same things.
A sample of my menu:
Breakfast:
1 c. Cheerios, 1/2 c. 1%milk,1 c. coffee 195c
Snack: Greek plain 0% yogurt 1/2c., single serv, fruit cup (No sugar) 105c
Lunch: 3oz salmon, 1 c. brussel sprouts, 1/2 c.Cottage cheese, tangerine 340c
Dinner: Turkey burger, 1 wheat sandwich thins, 1 tbls mayo, 2 small (cherry) tomatoes, 1 c. broccoli, one single serv. container applesauce (no sugar) 475c
Snack: skinnycow icecream 150c One 100c.popcorn 100c
Total: 1365

Please let me know what you think. I was thinking ...maybe too much dairy?

Thanks again for all your help!!!

Well, I haven't gotten to post much or at all since I joined this challenge but I haven't forgotten about it. I'm working long hours away from home right now and for the next 9 weeks so it's making my home time more precious so it's a lot of time spent with Hubby and kids computer if I have time. I am struggling to stick to my eating plan but I'm still making healthy food choices for the most part. weight hasn't changed since I joined though. I'll try to do better this week. I need to go cut my husbands hair so I'll chat at you when I get a chance. Thanks everyone. I'm sorry!

Sorry for the whining and gritching yesterday. I feel a touch better today. I survived dinner out at PF Changs tonight. DH was certainly trying to test (or sabotage) me this weekend. I did not give in!!!

Time for bed. More later...

I hope everyone's week gets off to a GREAT start!

Hi everyone!

Had my first weigh-in of the easter challenge yesterday and lost 2.6 pounds! so I am on track for my 15 pound loss.

BarbPA-totally get what you're talking about. My fiancee is losing weight with me, but he can still drink alchohol and eat almost as much as he wants and as long as he exercises, he can lose weight. So he doesn't quite get why I am so strict with my eating and drinking. He has stopped bringing home treats though after a bit of a word! Now he brings me japanese rice crackers and walnuts! Still-he can order a big plate of pasta or wings in front of me!

2.6 down 12.4 to go.

Remember: "Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels". My past wonderful weight watchers leader handed me that one.

Forgot to mention-have three birthday parties this week, so really concerned about staying on plan. I am hosting one so serving lots of healthy choice foods.

Hey CC easter bunnies

I am almost too ashamed to post, but then I realized that would totally defeat the purpose of joining this support group.

Yeaaah... soooo........ about today.....

OK, so I totally went... I don't even know what I "went"... awry?.... astray?... well, wherever I went it was NOT a good place to go!

I was doing real good this morning, and this afternoon, and all plans just went haywire when Oscar time rolled around. A friend of mine invited me to watch the Oscars with him, and he bought a WHOLE PIZZA for himself (yes, I did say a whole pizza... for one person... sometimes I just marvel at slim people... they can actually contemplate, let alone actually eat, a whooooole pizza by themselves... a whole pizza... a whole pizza you guys... you can tell that I am shocked and awed... a whooooole pizza).

But I digress... he coerced me (not that it took much coercion) to have a slice. Things just started rolling downhill from there (we need an emoticon for downhill, don't you think...actually its more I need an emoticon for downhill- it seems to be a daily part of my life nowadays...*sigh*)

Then of course one slice of pizza is no meal, so after I left I was like, screw it, I'm already screwed for the day, so I went to the local take-out chinese restaurant and ordered the sesame chicken combination platter... yeah... that's the one where they drown your chicken in flower, deep fry it, douse it with sugar, and THEN, top it off with a deep fried pork egg roll. SMH.

So today's totals are... drumroll please... 1730cals and 183g net carbs. This is BAAAD ladies! Very very bad.

So, tomorrow I start my 10 day POP challenge, and hopefully things will get a little better. Scratch that.... there's no "hopefully." Things WILL get better. I've come too far to make lack of discipline take me down. Love handles, your days are numbered!


Oh, and you know, that whole pizza... sure 'nuff it was a large!

I totally ate too much this weekend. Thankfully I had two great workouts as well. One with my 8-year old daughter on Friday. We went crosscountry skiing at 8 PM in the dark. With lights on our heads we had a wonderful trip. 600 cal burned off.
Saturday we all wnt for a long crosscountryskiingtrip. We took two stops on the way, but were out 5,5 hours. My heart-rate-monitor says I trained away 2000 cal on that trip .

But, I ate too much. Too much candy, cheese and crackers (?) for dinner saturday, and and some sort of national holiday yesterday wtih a norwegian sort of pastries. I really tried to not eat too much, but I defenetly ate a lot more than I should.

Well, back on tha vagon again today.

CC Easter Challenge
Workouts: Goal 301: Spinning 600 cal
2: Spinning 600 cal
3: Crosscounrty skiing, 600 cal
4: Crosscountry skiing, 2000 cal

Weight: Goal 185
02.17: 193

The scale has not moved this week.I wore my pedometer to work,I was surprised that I walked 10,000 steps.I have been eating pretty good maybe I need to lower my calorie intake a little or maybe I have been gaining a little muscle but what ever it is I am not givivng up.

Hiya CC Chickies!!

Wow its hard to keep up with everyone!! So I am just sending a and a to everyone!!!

Just wanted to check in and let everyone know things are going so-so here! I had a birthday party on Saturday. I did good with all the snacks but once the cheesecake came out I caved and had a sliver.

I am not going to be making it to the Y today, we got 20 something inches of snow and it is still snowing so I think that I am stuck in the house today! I am going to do the 30DS dvd and call it good. I will make it there tomorrow if I have to snow shoe there!!

Have a great Monday ladies!!

Goodmorning Everyone!

I hope all of you are doing well and on target for the Easter Challenge Goal!

Hattie looks good for calories, you may want to get it to 1400 for a few days, but see what everyone elses opinion is on that.

I messed a little last night, but not too bad. Today I am doing my walking, and staying on course all week. I realize now I have 23 lbs. to lose in 6 weeks, which is 3.83 per week to reach my goal April 12th. So, I really need to stay focused!

I will check in later!

3 pound loss this weekend! down to 192 again and this time I'm pushing on through.
I usually gain on the weekends (usually gain it ALL BACK on the weekends) but this weekend I stayed below calories. Actually, probably unhealthily under calories because I was with the BF and there wasn't really any food in the house. I took some fruit and a couple of gingerbread cookies and basically lived off that all weekend, which is not good but I got home last night and stayed on plan and am still on plan this morning and doing good so I'll just say hoorah for the loss.
hope everyone's doing great.

I think I was pretty good this weekend. My friend had me and my H over for dinner on Saturday night -- she made lasagna florentine but used reduced fat cheeses just for me! I had a slice of bread with no butter, and a small salad with a dollop (tiny one) of the blue cheese dressing she had, but I really have no idea how many calories I consumed.

I'd been down a pound Saturday but was up a bit Sunday morning, and now this morning I am actually up two pounds from Saturday. I worked out Friday night, Saturday and Sunday and pushed myself each time. I think the weight gain might be from my TOM. At least I hope that's all it is!

Perimenopause is for the birds.

Hattie, the dairy looks fine, but just off the top it looks high sodium/high carb to me. I'd recommend you type that in at thedailyplate(dotcom) and take a look at the totals. A good balance of macros is 40% of cals from carbs, 30% from protein and 30% from fat. It sounds weird, but the daily balance really makes a difference over time. TDP has a pie chart in the upper right section of the page. After typing in all your foods, you can click on that pie chart, it will tell you the percentages you are getting with your macros. You can experiment with adding or deleting certain foods to see what happens to the percentage balance...it's a good learning tool. Overall, your diet looks good, still think it's a little low on the cals, which could set you up for the mutha of all plateaus, besides being hard on your body day to day, but I understand that you've got to do what you feel is right, and I only mean to be helpful for the long haul, not critical!

If you've been doing the same exercise this whole time, upping the time may work, but changing it up with some intervals or doing something completely different would likely give you more bang for your buck there. I'd recommend planning a different workout schedule for the next 2 months: take some classes at your gym, train for a 5K, join the volleyball team, or whatever floats your boat, but just step away from the same old and do something that moves you in different ways at a different intensity. Pick 2 new things to do and use a low intensity easy exercise for "rest" days, like walking or a short run or easy bike ride. After 2 months or so, then you switch back to the elliptical for 2 months, and so on. What happens is we get so efficient at one form of exercise, we start burning fewer cals while doing it. When you switch from say, elliptical to spin class, you're going to be burning all kinds of cals. Do that long enough, though, and spin class isn't going to burn as many cals as before, so you switch back to the elliptical, and wham, again you're getting that good burn like you got before. About 8-9 weeks is a good time to stick with one thing, gives you a chance to see improvement, yet you switch it up before it gets too easy. It's good for recovery, as well, to lay off one sport or activity at least occasionally.

That's all I can think of for you. Overall, your diet looks good, your exercise looks good, but I think you can tweak the nutrition a bit, change up the exercise routine, and IMO that will shake things up and get you back in action with the fat burn.