I have been walking at home and walking around with and playing with my granddaughter. The scale was at 224.5 this morning!!!!!! One of my mini-goals has been reached. 1/3 of my total goal is lost now! I am on my way to the 1/2 way mark!!

yesterday's food was:

coffe, black
water
gluten free snack bar

2 cups spaghetti with meat sauce and cheese
one slice garlic bread
1/2 cup peaches in light syrup
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup green beans

large salad with 2 tbsp reduced fat ranch
1 0z gluten free crackers
herbal tea
water

Hydra, Congrats on reaching your first mini goal! You're doing awesome!

Hydra - that's AWESOME!! Way to gooo!!! Here's a dancing carrot for your efforts:

My day:

Breffix - 1 cup skim milk + 1 tbsp cocoa powder, instant oatmeal

Lunch - 2 thin pizza slices, 1 cup rotini pasta with brussel sprouts and mushrooms. 1/2 cup raspberry sorbet.

Snack - 1 cups grapes

Dinner - seafood subway. YUM! It's been forever since I've had this. Only going to get the 6" sub. I realized that in the past I would 2 6" subs (one turkey, 1 chicken), but I would be full after 6". So, I'm going to stop at 6" and eat grapes or have some more delicious sorbet if I feel hungry.

Exercise: Um. We all know what's going to go here. (Nothing) EDIT: OMG! Mr. Sunni forced me to play tennis with him so I ended up playing for 45 minutes. Woohoo!! Seriously, I'm one day away from assimilating with the couch.

thats AWESOME! congratulations!!! thats really great. i'm so proud of you. you have been working so consistently, well done.

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thats awesome! good for you!! and good for Mr Sunni!! for draging your butt to tennis.

LOL at you being 1 day away from assimilating with the couch. you are SO FUNNY!!! you crack me up

feeling abit better today. so i did some exercise ! yeh! ~ 34 minutes - burned 400 calories
----------------

breakfast - 600ml of water with benefiber - 15 calories

lunch
cheddar cheese - 44g - 181 cal
toast x2 - 222 cal
olive magarine spread - 30 cal
lentils daal - 132g - 135 cal
cottage cheese - 38g - 14 cal
tea and honey - 7 cal
gum x 2 - 10 cal

total lunch - 599 calories.

snack - 1 packet of crisps - 151 cal. 2 kit kat fingers - 107 cal

snack calories = 258 calorries.

snack 2 - 1 banana - 105 calories

dinner
stir fried cauliflower with oyster sauce - 88g - 56 cal
34 g baked mushrooms - 5 cal
136 g low fat yoghurt - 85 cal
104 g mixed chopped salad - 21 cal
250g brown daal (lentils) - 256 cal

cinamon toast crunch - 25g and semi sk milk >> 154 cal

peppermint tea and honey - 10 cal

total dinner calories >> 587 calories

total calories eaten today >> 1564 calories.

water intake = 3.7 litres

calories eaten = 1564

calories burned = 700

calorie deficient = -936

predicted loss = 0.26 lbs

My confessions for today:

B: 1 cup special k red berries with 1 cup plain soy milk

S: Tall skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks

L: 1 morningstar chicken patty with 1 tbsp ketchup, 10 baby carrots, 5 almonds, 5 savory thins with 1 wedge laughing cow light cheese

S: 2/3 cup cheerios mix

D: 1.5 cups whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce (1 tbsp olive oil, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and fresh basil), 1/2 cup zucchini

I'm a little high on sodium for the day (boo!) and will probably have a 100 calorie bag of popcorn tonight - tonight's the night I stay up to write my Top Chef column, so I'm always a little snacky.

E: I'm hoping to hit the treadmill for 30 minutes at 9 - I'll edit the post to let you know if I did!
EDITED: I did go to the gym. 1 16 minute mile on the elliptical and 15 minutes on the treadmill.

Thanks emilydreaming, sunni, echo, cape breton chick!!!!! This thread is one way I keep myself accountable. I look forward to posting here daily (i dreaded it at first haha).

I am going to make some chicken salad tonight. I am going to put diced apple, celery, onion and bit of carrot in it. I have really enjoy trying new recipes or coming up with new ones on my own. I am not a very good cook but I am interested in becoming better. The recipe section here is great.

today I ate:

coffee, black
herbal tea

water
2 cups homemade crab and veggie pasta salad
apple
gluten free snack bar
coffee, black

water
herbal tea, green tea today

herbal tea
water
2 eggs, scrambled in Pam with 1 cup mushrooms and 1 oz fat free mozzarella cheese
1 cup applesauce with 2 tsp cinnamon and sugar

herbal tea

I still have a few hundred calories left and I will have some of the chicken salad after I figure out the calories.

Awww, I love putting a smile on people's faces so yay! It's true. Ever since I got addicted to Facebook programs I've just been a lump I guess is the nicest way to put it. Sigh.

Echo - glad to hear you're feeling better! You know, I haven't gotten sick since I moved here and started eating healthier and exercising. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it since there are articles out there saying this exact same thing. I used to have the sniffles every 2-3 weeks like clockwork so I'm glad I don't have that anymore. Now I'm just dealing with drastic weather changes. It's Summer --> Fall and that means warm days, then super cold days and that also means my immune system waves a white flag. Other than that, I can't remember the last time I went this long without falling sick. Good for you for getting back to exercise!

So I had my beloved seafood subway. It gave me a bout of indigestion. I won't go into the gory details, but oh man. Must've been all that mayo in the seafood salad. I'm not used to eating that much grease? or whatever and it must've thrown my guts for a loop. Bah. Next time it's a turkey sub. That's never given me probs.

Alright chickies, it's getting late for me so I'll be shuffling off to bed now. Night all, see you tomorrow!

chit chat time as Sunni puts it

Emily. great job!

Hydra, i joined your halloween challenge! love it! love halloween! and scary movies i'm gonna try to convince my friends to go to the cinema to watch a scary movie on halloween with me. my goal for halloween is to be 155lbs! aww i'm so glad you like posting on this thread now
mm chicken salad yum.

i get so motivated by you all eating healthy. makes me want to do the same too!

i once heard jillian talk about how you should surround yourself with people who are into fitness and healthy eating, as you get influenced. so true!

Angela - aww thanks I appreciate that.

well done on losing 11lbs! that's awesome!! and congrats on the POP day!

yoovie - i hear ya about the fries! they are my kryptonite!! great job on your meal though.

Sunni. aww thanks so much! :hug
you're right, eating healthy and exercising is key!

ahh sorry to hear about your indigestion. you know that happens. when you eat clean and healthy , your body gets used to it perhaps.
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my aims for today are:

going for a run in the park today. i havent been outside for 3 days, so i'm thinking the fresh air will do me good. but will wrap up warm!! plus its beautiful - blue sky and sunny day. although COLD brrrr.

i wanna do my C25K. jillian always talks about RUNNING = SKINNY

and then maybe will do some yoga. that p90x yoga X is 1 and half hours and its tough!! but to keep moving onto the next stage - i have to do it. i got a check list before i can move onto the next phase.

i'm gonna drink my water today. aiming for 2.4 litres. and then more when i exercise.

catch ya girls later! have a great day!

To me, this is proof that nature is cruel. I have the exact same kind of day here and I WAS excited about taking a walk and maybe getting a jog in only to step outside (to water my basil plants) and run back in cause it was so cold. Bah! I'm going to go anyway.

So this morning I gained 0.6 lbs from yesterday even though I ate on plan. I then remembered I played tennis yesterday and I felt a teensy bit sore in the legs after so I'm guessing there's water retention. Oh well. It'll come off sooner or later (hopefully sooner!).

Planned food confession:

Breffix - 1 cup skim milk + 1 tbsp cocoa powder. 3 Dosas and bhajji. That's not my pic, but I did make the batter myself! It's the simplest one and I'm trying to learn all my cultural foods from my mom.

Snack - Skipped

Lunch - Tomato soup. Was too stuffed from breffix to even contemplate eating anything else. SO odd for me because I used to plow through 4-5 dosas a few months ago and be hungry 2 hours later!

Snack - apple

Dinner - Took an afternoon nap so didn't get around to making pizza dough which needs 2 hours to rise. Going out to dinner. Thinking chinese but will get their "diet" entrees. The stuff with white sauce, chicken and chinese veggies. Don't feel like eating much else.

Dessert - Grapes

Exercise: Tennis in a little bit. Aiming for 45 mins, but will be happy with 30...

Have fun with your whole day full of exercise, Echo! (God I wish I was going for a run in London.)

Sunni, I'm picturing the food in your plan today and it all sounds like something you'd eat alongside a reflecting pool in ancient Greece, palm fronds and all. (Either that or now I'm mentally stuck on grapes)- It all sounds really delicious.

I've found lately that i have started seriously 'Top Chef'ing my food. I arrange it all gourmet-ish on a white plate, adding healthy stuff like carrot curls or almonds or herby-garnishes. My friends recently had a BBQ and I took the smallest unwanted runt of the burgers and put it in the middle of my plate, arranged a couple of purple onions on it, a cherry tomato, a square of sharp cheddar and then made like 6 little dots of mustard around it on the plate. It was a miniature version of a deconstructed cheeseburger @ about 1/3 of the calories and fat- and it was so fun that I ended up taking a picture of it.

Anyway, I think that making my food beautiful is a big part of how I am staying on the eating healthy wagon. Healthy food, fruits, vegetables, fish, lean meat, nuts, etc- all look great when prettied up on a white plate. And when I made the portions small, I pretend I'm eating in some fancy shmancy gourmet kitchen. It helps, shrug. My imagination is a powerful tool.

I'm also single with kids so I have time to fart around like that.

Good luck today Hydra!

Congratulations, Cape Breton Chick!

I'm headed out for a very long walk through Central Park, since I was stupid and broke my calves yesterday and can't run, sob. and then a Pilates video and 30 minutes of free weights and sit ups/push ups.

Breakfast - veggie omelette with red, yellow and green peppers and black olives, coffee, orange juice, a banana and a tangerine.

Right? It's one of my grand vacay plans to take a trip to Europe and see some of the major cities with Mr. Sunni.

Well, hey now, I guess my theme for today is Mediterranean, huh? To think I used to avoid grapes because I hated popping one in and tasting sweet and then popping the next one in and puckering cause it was so sour. This is what happens when you buy grapes on sale. We get ours from costco and while it's a few cents more expensive (per pound), man it's so sweet and crisp! To me, it's worth the price. It's just the two of us and we buy grapes in 4 lb packages and it's gone in 4-5 days, that's how good they are.

I read about your traumatic run yesterday. I wanted to chime in and say that it sounded like shin splints because I remember in high school lots of chicas would be grounded just because their shins hurt so bad. They would ice it for about 20 - 30 minutes if you're looking for a quick fix? I have no idea what they did for the long term. Poor you!

I'm with you on creating pretty food. I do the same with mine. I arrange it artfully and take the time to place a garnish on top too. You know, the Japanese (I think) are very into making pretty food. They might have been the ones who came up with the phrase "You eat with your eyes first, then your mouth." Apparently, if it looks pretty, you will take time to appreciate the meal in front of you before digging in and take time eating it to truly taste every flavor.

I did 150 crunches, 50 random other dont-know-what-they-are-called core strength exercises and then 150 waist-twisty things in the back yard.

I did an hour walk, stretched at the top of Mount Skinnichik (which I lovingly renamed my favorite giant hill in the park- where I pretend to be Rocky Balboa) which I stubbornly finished with a 3 minute jog (which I regretted immediately but I'm a rock-noggened redhead, whaddya gonna do?) and stopped at the fruit stand on the way back, got 2 lbs of strawberries & a honeydew melon (for $4 total -can ya blame me?)

For lunch I had a turkey and tomato sandwich on double cracked wheat bread (whatever that means), a banana, a bottle of water and about 15 large strawberries.

Now I am laying on the couch like a blob watching Top Chef and icing down my calves. I don't even care that I only have one shoe on.

blehhhhhhhhhhhhhh