Happy Saturday, Everyone!

Yesterday started out as such a good day for me - I did some light weights in the morning, had homemade veggie soup for lunch, and did an hour on the treadmill in the afternoon. I was thinking hubby and I would sit by the fire tonight and split a bottle of wine, so I was saving my calories. Somewhere around the time the kids got home from school, I just went crazy - I ate 2 leftover cinnamon rolls, and half a bag of chips! Ugh - I hate doing that. But I added it up and figured if I did leftover veggie soup for dinner, I'd still be ok. Instead, I went to pick up my daughter at the teen center around 5:30, and while I was gone my husband ordered pizza. So I come home and walk in, and there's steaming hot, delicious pizza - my weakness. He was so proud of himself for handling dinner - I couldn't not eat it! Well, I could have, but I sure didn't. So to punish myself, no wine by the fire. And now I'm sure there's no chance the 4 pounds I was up will be gone today Why do I sabotage myself like that? I think if I could figure that one out, I would have this weight issue licked.

Zumba - I hear your frustration on the Atkins diet. Years ago, the first time I tried Atkins I dropped 30 pounds in nothing flat. I never cheated and the weight just fell off. Everytime I've tried to recreate that time, I've never been successful. I don't know why that is - but it's frustrating, that's for sure!

Here's to all of us having a good day today, and being successful in our goals!

Hello Everyone!

Olehcat - Hope you get yourself recalibrated this weekend! I'm having a hard time with water myself. I use to have no problem drinking it but for some reason I'm finding it a lot harder this time around. One thing is I'm starting too late in the morning. I've got to start earlier if I want to get it all in and not be up all night trekking to the bathroom!

Newleaf - sorry to hear about the gain but you'll probably have those pounds gone in no time.

Zumba - sorry to hear about your post. That must have been frustrating! I hope you start seeing some success with your plan and breaking through that plateau. Enjoy your kids and dinner out. It sounds fun!

Linda - HUGS! Congrats on logging everything and finding that you hadn't completely blown it after all! I'm not sure I could pass up fresh pizza either. Friday night is our pizza night and I make it from scratch but last night I went back back to Portobello Pizza's. If you like mushrooms just scrape out the gills and stuff them with whatever you want. I use spinach, sliced tomato, green pepper (and onion for DH). Top with sauce and cheese and bake. All the flavors of pizza and none of the guilt!

Gorgeous day here today but I spent all morning/early afternoon prepping veggies and reorganizing the fridge. It was so stuffed I couldn't get anything out without unloading half the contents. It's still stuffed but at least manageable. Didn't sleep well last night and thankfully I had a simple dinner planned. Big huge Greek Salad, homemade dressing, leftover roasted chicken and crusty bread. I peeked at the scale today and I was down another 2 but I don't count it. I only count what Wednesday says but I was happy to see that I'm still on the right track.

Oh, and for those of you in the north (I'm in Florida)...I'd bet that Spring isn't too far off. The Robins are starting to move. Not in giant swarms yet but twice I've seen packs of at least a dozen or more. When they really gather they gather in packs of hundreds if not thousands. Them and the Starlings. Haven't seen the Starlings yet but the Robins are always first anyway.

Congrats to those doing well and hugs to those who are struggling! Hope you all enjoyed your day!

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to use my one free day on my exercise today. I couldn't get out of bed this AM. Too cold, didn't get to bed til waaay late last night & had to be in early. HATE THAT COMBINATION!!!
Who knows, I may just go to the mall or something & walk. I love my walks, but I know if I don't get at least 6-1/2 -7 hours sleep...I'm basically garbage at work. I'm cranky, I also find myself not eating healthy & drinking WAAAAY too much coffee. Who said that?!!! No such thing as too much coffee!!!!
I keep rationalizing that I'm "keeping my resolution" if I take a day off, but I also kinda want to be better than what I've planned for me. Does that make sense?

Hope all of you are doing well for this Saturday! BE GOOD TO YOURSELF! BE HEALTHY! TAKE THIS ALL ONE STEP AT A TIME...THIS IS A JOURNEY NOT A RACE! CYBER-HUGS TO YOU ALL!!!

I'll try & catch up with everyone this evening after I get off work.

Wasn't it nice of November to step in and give January a little break? I can tell the rest did her good. She's resumed her post and is at work again with renewed vigor. But the surprise visit with November was so nice! (I hope she visits again in August!) I enjoyed the atomized droplets of almost fog she spritzed on my face during the warm walk to my car after work. And the smells that November brings! Autumn smells that evoke longing and memory...harvest and dying fields, new school year, homecoming games, secret crushes...Those feelings that arose from the smell of new mist on dry grass...what memories were they? Playing in the hayloft? Changing the bedding in the rabbit hutch? So long ago... my, how everyday habits and routines change over the years. And how powerful smells are. Small wonder the Sensa folks came up with the idea of connecting smells with satiation and weight loss. This gives me an idea. I am several days tardy with my promise of chocolate oatmeal cookies for my family; I also have a weakness for them. I will try cooking them with an onion slice strapped under my nose.

Sigh. Yesterday was my two month birthday. I am one of those people for whom the advertising approach of appealing to Fresh Starts/New Day--those approaches common in cereal commercials--finds resonance. (And those advertising strategies always bring memories of college and hearing the King's Singer's sing 'You are the New Day'.) Anyway, I am compelled to pause, reflect, analyze....I have this compunction to write out all the good things I've done and all the bad things I've avoided. But I've already bored myself with that, and I'm not feeling a particular need for either a butt kick or a back pat (plenty-o-that going on in my head). Instead, in celebration of this anniversary, I will post the data that has been hypnotizing me for the past two months.

I plot my morning weigh ins (each day gets a different colored dot) and a weekly average (black dots). The blue dotted line is a predicted weight loss of 1%. Calorie counting was my first approach, then I switched to Atkins on a Tuesday (big blue dot). To me, it looks like similar results for both approaches. Final conclusion, find an approach and stick with it, ignore the daily fluctuations, find some way to be patient, and watch the numbers go down. I have to confess (maybe I should put this in guac's other thread), I'm not happy with the rate of weight loss. I know I am being unreasonable, but I want MORE off FASTER. Can't help it; that's just what I want. And it's motivating me, so don't try talking me out of it!

Well we did treat lunch, McD's hadn't been there in months, then we went shopping for furniture, no plans to buy just yet, but had fun sitting in different chairs and couches, then we went to the rail trail and walked 4 miles in 62 minutes! So, we were just going to get milkshakes for after workout treat, but decided to get ice cream for home instead since it was getting late..

probably no need to tell you, half gallon of ice cream is gone between the two of us...yeeps...I weigh everyday, so not looking forward to what tomorrow's going to look like....after looking at my old calendars and seeing I haven't been this weight since the end of 2008 and all proud of myself...oh well, should have seen that coming from a mile away, but it's gone so won't be tempting from the freezer.

SeeMyFeet~you made me laugh with the onion strapped to your nose image you are inspiring me with your weight chart, I got my '08 weights logged into excel, even tho' it kind of depressed me looking at '09 and how many times I quit weighing myself and then weighed in 10 or more lbs. up. I'm looking forward to logging in this year and seeing the progress in the right direction.

And tomorrow will be a better day for sure!
best to all

So I ended up taking my "free day". Had to get some groceries...old mother hubbard's cupboard was bare. Can't eat healthy if there's nothing to eat. So stocked up on veggies, fruit & high grain bread/cereals. YUM! YUM! YUM!
Only bad thing was that while I was shopping H had a really ugly dizzy spell. He looked like he was on the verge of blacking out. Thankfully there was this awesome store employee got him a chair. He was able to sit for about 10 mins. & then felt fine enough to finish up with me. Thank goodness I didn't have to take him to the hospital or that he didn't black out.

kelijpa: WOW! Great walk! Yup, that is why H & I get only enough for ONE serving each. So we aren't tempted. Ice cream...actually ANY sweets...are just too tempting AND BOOM! WE EAT TIL GONE!!

PotScrubber: We seem to have robins here in no. CA year round. Just the other day I saw a whole mess of them. They like to hang out in this one area near our place. Good ole rockin' robins! I'm with you on the simple dinner. The simpler the dinner, the better I like it! I have a hearty breakfast, decent lunch & then light/simple dinner. Yup, on Tues., my day off...I'm scrubbing the fridge, reorganizing it & going to basically make a schematic of WHERE everything should go so we don't run out of stuff or buy duplicates of things we won't eat soon enough.

I gotta scoot. I got work again in the AM. Good night all! Have a sunny Sunday, even if there may not be any shining where you are....it's been gray, frosty & even foggy around here. BE HEALTHY! You are cared about! Don't forget that!!!

Hello Everyone!

I've been AWOL - WORK. But it's the WEEKEND!! Yesterday I cleaned out my dresser drawers - felt great - today - CLOSET. And I ran 5K yesterday, did 100 crunches and hula hooped for a song. Today I'm taking the day off of running (I've ran 4 days straight) - - so housework will be my exercise.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Hello Lovely Ladies,

I am happy today that I get to change my ticker....I lost a little over a lb...not much...but happy to see the scale finally go down a bit....I was stuck! Went out to d inner last night and made some smart choices so I'm pretty proud of myself for that....still doing the low carb thing and will for probably another week and then i'll switch to belly fat cure kind of eating which is much healthier than atkins in my opinion.

Plan on doing one of my workout DVDs today.....and taking out my Rules of Weightlifting for Women book to try and get an idea of what i'm doing when i get to the gym....up until now i've been pretty much winging it, but i've worked with so many trainers in the past I pretty much know what i'm doing....

Should be a quiet Sunday with my kids......

SHEILA: oh my goodness!! Your posts are like speed....I want to clean out drawers now...LOL....you are just a ball of energy...

MRSTRYING: so glad your husband is okay..that is scary...

KELIJPA: okay the ice crfeam is gone, nothing you can do about it now..drink a lot of water today....

SEEMYFEET: the onion idea is brilliant!!! LOL....probaby would work a lot better than Sensa...bahahhahahahahahahah

oh, everyone..here comes a bit of a whine!

I gained weight. I weighed myself this morning and I was 148.6!!!! I don't even have the heart to change it on my ticker, but I really should. The only reason I didn't change things before was that I was sure that holiday bloat would drop right off in a few weeks. Now I really need to start over from scratch. Anyway, it's no mystery WHY I gained weight. Yesterday and Friday were like a free-for-all for me. I have no idea why I do that to myself.

So I talked about recalibrating. I don't know what all is causing the bloat or weight gain as far as actual food I'm eating, so I went grocery shopping yesterday and got a lot of healthy food and arranged it so that it's easily accessible to me (like buying already cut up broccoli/cauliflower (I like them raw, not cooked), apples and oranges outside the refrigerator in a bowl, kale already cut up, cut up green and red peppers, etc.

I decided that while I like IFing and it feels good, I need to focus only on weight loss right now and that I need to go back to what I was doing when I was being so successful back in November -- running was my exercise and I ate a big, big salad for lunch with a hard boiled egg, 1/2 of a chicken breast, 1/4 of an avocado, all kinds of veggies, homemade vinaigrette that also had olive oil in it. So plenty of healthy fat and protein and LOTS of veggies, plus some kind of fruit. For dinner I would have some sort of lentil soup or vegetarian chili or a stir fry with chicken or shrimp without the rice. For breakfast I would have some sort of omelette. If I needed a snack, I'd have a piece of fruit or some almonds.

So I would do that faithfully during the week and then on the weekends, I'd let loose a little. I didn't mean I'd go to town and eat out at McDonalds at every meal or anything, but it would allow some flexibility for when I go to my parents' house for dinner or if I had some sort of social event. I lost weight every week I did that and didn't go crazy on the weekend. I even had some social events during the week that I was a little "off plan" on (like Halloween). That's how I got down to 141 from 151 (mostly). Plus, I ran 30-40 minutes.

Now I think strength/resistance training is super super important and should be part of my life, but I'm going to temporarily drop it until I get closer to my goal weight. The reason is, I don't want to be thrown off by not losing weight because of the water retention and building muscles until I'm at a point where I know for sure that I am losing weight steadily doing what I'm doing. Otherwise if I hit a stall I won't know whether I'm not losing because of muscle/water weight or because of how I'm eating.

And for REAL, I'm dropping the wine during the week. I want to go to having it only on Fridays and Sundays. *pinkie swears with Sheila, LOL*

@seemyfeet = your graph looks fantastic! I need to look at it more closely. How did you do that? Is that through excel? Go you! You are absolutely right about finding something that works for you and then sticking to it and not worrying about fluctuations. That's my problem in a nutshell.

@zumba - yay!!! You went down! ) (I just fixed my ticker to GO UP to reflect current travesty of weight).

@MrsTrying - yikes! That must have been scary! My dad is on so many medications that he has dizzy spells and has had some bad falls in the last year. It's really scary!

@kellijpa - yay! It's a good feeling to feel like you're the lowest weight you've been in a while. I'm determined to get there myself! My big "number" to beat my angst from the last few years is to get under 133. Then I'll be the lowest weight in almost 7 years for myself.

It's amazing how fast this thread moves when you can't check in 20 times a day!

Beware the Girl Scouts are out! I'm sure some of you have already seen the scouts about, but here, presales are just beginning and we're looking at inventory coming in next month! Last year wasn't an issue for me, having so many cookies around. This year, I feel like I'm struggling to stay on track.

So far, I'm failing miserably at achieving my goal. I know we're only 2 weeks in to the year, but seriously..... Bear with me while I gripe away and feel free to skip to more positive posts.

I'm not losing. I'm gaining. I'm doing well getting out there and exercising, but I'm failing at maintaining my calories. I'm hungry! But it goes beyond that tummy grumbling hunger. It's a craving for something. Not necessarily sweets. Just for food, for something good, to replenish the lost glycogen stores perhaps? So I want to feed my body rather than let it burn the fuel supply that exists primarily in the middle, all that fat? Is that it? I feel like I have lost control and I justify eating by telling myself I've earned it or that I can have it because I burned so many calories exercising. Trouble is, I'm still eating way more than I've burned.

So I'm not going for cookies, necessarily, but I'm eating the anything else that's not nailed down that looks good. Maybe I need to reintroduce the junk policy. If I want it, and if I like it, keep it out of my sight or it goes in the trash. My husband and my kids have plenty of junk to choose from so I would not be depriving them to ask them to eat BBQ chips and Chips Ahoy instead of sour cream and onion chips and powdered gem donuts. Yesterday I ate fairly healthy, and then we went out for ice cream. Not a bad thing, but I could have chosen the "sinless" small instead of the "sinful" large....

I guess it's time for a new gimmick, but I don't know what that is. I don't want to spend a lot of money. I don't want to do Yoli right now. Maybe I need to join Weight Watchers again and count points for 3 months. That worked last time. I lost 10 pounds really fast. Payday. My Bodybugg subscription is about to expire, and I wonder how useful this tool is to me anymore. Besides, I've been wearing this thing strapped to my arm for the last year and a half, and I'm ready to give it up. I had hoped to wear it for a few more months in maintenance, but I'm not sure I'm going to renew my subscription. Not unless they send me a coupon. I can always renew again in a couple of months if I change my mind.

The insanity ends right now. New resolve. New commitment! I'm going to keep my calories under control. I'm going to choose good quality calories like fruits and vegetables. Even when I'm hungry, I will drink some hot tea or water and remind myself about the journey and the goal.

Linda- you and me, Girlfriend, we have to sew our mouths shut or something! Or follow SeeMyFeets lead and strap unions below our noses! The worst is when you know you're doing it, you keep telling yourself to stop, and then you reach in to the bag again!

PotScrubber- that mushroom cap pizza sounds so good! There are so many yummy and healthy alternatives to the unhealthy foods out there. Why do we struggle so much? I guess partially because it's easy. Watching the migration of the birds must be amazing! We just don't see much of that here.

SeeMyFeet- Share!! Bragging, it is not. Motivating, it is. To read other's success in this forum is such a positive influence, and makes me think I can do it too!

Zumba- WTG making healthy choices!

To everyone who's lost or stayed on track, CONGRATS!

Beware the Girl Scouts are out! Thank you for the warning. I won't answer the door.

I dropped a whole bag of skinless chicken breasts in the crockpot a bit ago, looks like a chicken week for me and I bought 3 cans of different beans, forgot how much I like beans...black beans, kidney, and butter beans.

Linda thanks for that pizza idea with the portabello mushrooms, wow that sounds good.

I did my living room march or walk while watching t.v. this morning only 25 min. (while hubby was in the shower)....I can't workout with him watching, or distracting me. I should do some more he just fell asleep in his chair.

God Help Me!
Today I am officially the parent of two teenage boys!

Thanks for the support everyone, had a good day today. Back on the wagon.
Didn't go for the big walk, haven't taken a day off this week, so today is it.
Did do a little shoveling, the big thaw is happening, yay, so we had to move some chunks around so the walkways will melt off.

Olehcat~sounds like you have a good plan, I made a sort of turkey pot pie, no crust just some panko and regular bread crumbs on the top, had a small bowl of that and a nice salad for supper. I always feel better when I eat more veg.

Twinie~do you think you're lacking some vitamin or mineral? I smiled at your sinful ice cream, reminded me of mine...

Zumba~congrats on the loss, I always say I can't lose 10 lbs. if I don't lose 1!

SeeMyFeet~sounds interesting!

best to all, let's have a good week!

BRRRR!!! It's cold outside!!! Went for a walk at 7:45 this morning so I could be to work on time. DANG!!! Everything was frozen over. H kept grumping at me for taking him out...I told him, "Hey, get this out of the way & you can stay inside ALL DAY if you want! Turn on the heater. Cuddle up with the cat. Drink coffee. Besides, this is good for both of us!!" I didn't have that luxury! Had to go to work. UGH! Oh, well at least I have a job...
H is feeling fine. Tomorrow I have to be a butt kicker! He is nearly out of insulin. Called the nurse on Tues., Wed., (went in on) Thurs., Friday. No prescription had been called into our pharmacy!! He'll be out on Tues AM. I'm furious! His dr. is awesome, but his support staff (I'll be nice here) leaves A LOT to be desired!!! The nurse assured him on Wed. that she would fax over the needed documentation...nothing. I swear that she's not the brightest lightbulb on the string!!! I guess I need to tie a ribbon very snuggly around her neck as a reminder!!!

SeeMyFeet: Kids...gotta love 'em cause no one else will! Yeah, I often wonder how the heck my mom raised 4 boys & 3 girls. I swear I'd be either in prison or a mental institution if I tried the same thing!!!

suzysd: I'll be right over! What time's dinner! Maybe on my day off I'll toss some chicken in our crock pot. I'm kinda waiting for my hubby's new cookbook (he is an awesome cook) it is diabetic crockpot recipes. Crockpots are awesome! Toss whatever in, set it & go about your day...and makes the whole house smell YUMMY!

Zumba: EVery little bit counts! Take it! Claim it as yours!! Go girl!

Gotta run back to work. UGH! Cyber-hugs to you all!

BE GOOD! BE HEALTHY! REACH FOR YOUR GOALS! YOU CAN DO IT!