Congratulations! we have the International Film fest this weekend and just watched Empty Hand: The Real Karate Kids - true story about 4 young competitors - awesome focus and working hard to achieve success. very cool!!!

my opinion would be to do number one and keep exercising because that is when you are the happiest - the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn naturally. i'd probably do a cross between Metabalance and Metaslim but make sure you have enough food for energy so you can continue your exercise program. Maintain at the weight you are now so you won't be a slave to the scale and disappointed when you don't see a weight loss. to me, looking good and being strong and healthy is the most important thing. i bet you will prob continue to lose but just try not to focus on just that. losing inches is so much more important although Weight loss centers measure our success w/ the scales.

Hello Ladies!!

WI today and I had lost 3lbs! I nearly cried. I was struggling so much. Incredible!! Thank for the assistance. I picked up the cookbook today and hope to start cooking soon!

So I have an issue. My husband has had diabetes since he was 7 years old. So we have always, always done carb counting. My issue is that he cannot have near as much protein as I can. He was already spilling protein in his urine at the last doctor visit. (he's only 28 and falling apart!) Do you have any issues like this when it comes to shopping and feeding the family?? How do you make everyone happy??

I feel like I have completely failed today. It's been rough. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Praying for strength.

I know exactly how you feel. I've had the same day. When this happens I try to take it meal by meal, minute by minute if I have to. Good luck!

Hello JenB72, I would love to get the PDF file that you were sharing w/ reguards to info & menus for MRC. I have tried to PM you but I have to have been here 20 days and made a certian amout of posts. Can you PM me so I can share my contact info to you? Thank you so much...~CCC

Hang in there, Y.

Big Dog...
My opinion and I am not only talking for myself, am relating this to three other friends who joined MRC and are on maintenance now..
If you have a goal, make that your priority. If it is 150 or whatever, go there for your goal. That will also give you some wiggle room for maintenance.. If you recall I went 5 pounds under goal, so if I gained 2 pounds, like I may do this week due to eating out so much for the Daytona 500 races, and I mean all races, I don't have to freak out if I gain . I would do my exercise as my regular daily schedule, and keep that a steady for your challenge. I do not think it is a good thing to push stabilization and goal, as I know some that did and were not successful. Now, that is my own personal opinion, and may not be good for you, only you can make that choice, but it worked for me and my friends, so thought I would share. Remember , Big Dog, this is for a lifetime, so breathe and be easy on yourself, you will get to where you want to be in no time, as you are doing so well...

Ynapier... Never feel you have failed. It is just something that happened, and go back to your challenge and say today is another day and forget about it.. If you gained due to it, it will come off, just go back to basics, but never feel you have failed.

brandilew84 Congrats on a great weight loss.

Baby Doll.. Great weight loss.. Congratulations on your new challenge.

I was going thru recipes looking for something, and it is so sad so many of the people that were on here and a great contribution to this forum are no longer with us.. I hope they made maintenance and that is why.. But sure miss hearing from them, as some were doing so well..

I did not have a change to weigh in Friday but will do so Tuesday, and I have to hope for the best. Have not been OP , as I always go back to green menu when I have weeks like this, but eating out can be a problem at times. Whatever it is, I will handle it and lose it. Everyone is different. My friend made maintenance at 120 and just stays there. She eats out, maybe gains .2 not 2 like me. She is a lucky one, but that just goes to show we are all different..

Wishing y'all a great weekend and think thin and OP. Remember if you work the program it is your road to maintenance.



Patzi

I am sabotaging my diet every weekend and I need the break the cycle! I feel like I have my diet angel on my shoulder Sunday thru Friday keeping me on track and then on Saturday my diet devil shows up and wins the battle. My couselor told me last week if I was going to continue this pattern then I was wasting my money. It kinda pissed me off at first, but then I took it as a challenge. I had a 2.5 loss yesterday at weigh in and SWORE that I would not sabotage my loss with a binge and gain, but my diet devil won out Any thoughts on how to win the battle with my diet devil? I do eat before going grocery shopping - I think it's just a mental issue!

I've been "posting" since December but might not be up the the number to get responses. I too would like the pdf file. 9 lbs. from goal but having rough end of week might prove I have more to go. Enjoy the day

patzi & bigdog-thanks for the advice. Definitely doing a lot of thinking today. I think the first big questions is "Is 150 my real goal?"...I mean I set it not really knowing what I would look/feel like anywhere below 172. Once I answer that question...if it is 150, I need to stick with it, if I decide its more like 155, then that will be my goal. My counselor even said "you may get to 153 and decide that's actually what you want". So whatever number I decide for sure I want to get to, then to decide if I want to cut back exercise and do the green menu (going back to it today to see if I can survive on it...) or stay on metabalance until I hit my goal. Hmmmm...

faerychic-sounds like your counselor was giving you good tough love. We all make occasional mistakes and set backs, but if you are consistently blowing it on a weekly basis you need to make some serious changes to your weekend. I decided I'm the only one who put stuff in my mouth, so only I could make the changes. I do a couple of things. One is we keep no junk food that I like in the house. If there is something I really think I'll want on maintenance (like the fannie mae's I got for Christmas)i throw them in the deep freeze. I also have purposely only gone to restaurants or social events where I can control what I eat (see below).

Yesterday I had a baby shower (not for me). Usually I would look forward to such an occasion just for the food. More recently I've stayed away from some events because of the temptation of food. This was the first time I went not being afraid that I would overeat, but also didn't spend all the time thinkign about food. I had a few strawberries (they had ice cream sundaes). Also today was a church potluck. We have them once a month and I have not went to one since starting MRC because I knew I'd be tempted or be miserable seeing all the good food. Today I bravely took a spinach salad and planned on eating my salad and a bar...then right after church had a kid get sick so no potluck for me. Hopefully there's some of my salad left when DH gets home. But I'm learning I'm at the point now that I don't need to avoid situations but also have control and don't need to overeat.

i really like WebMD and subscribe to the email blast so gives me advice every day via email. i need the daily motivation! :-) i really like their BMI info http://www.webmd.com/diet/calc-bmi-plus
which gives you more detailed info re: your healthy weight based on weight, age, pant's size to determine body type. i'm totally in favor of staying on plan but when i read your posts, i know you are happier when you keep your exercise level higher and if 155 or 153 is where you can maintain and look and feel great, why try to get to that made up number of 150? but of course that is my opinion only. to me this is a lifestyle change and i do love the extra protein and less carbs that the MRC plan has - i feel better, not stuffed, more muscle, more energy - hormone levels are good but i do know that w/ additional exercise and More Muscle, i will eventually not have to count every calorie or worry so much about having occasional treats or cocktails because my super hot muscular body will be burning more fat naturally! that's why i would keep up the exercise even though the scale may not register as much weight loss...loss of inches would be more important to me. anyway, you and the other athletes on this board motivate me to push myself more so please keep sharing your successes -
you will know what works better for you...

when i used to be a member of a gym, the trainer would tell me i did great 5 days a week, then undo everything on the weekend! i think he called me a weekend warrior? or something like that. i have to make sure i have no junk food in the house or i will get bored and eat it. my DH lately has been buying chips, dip, butter popcorn, doritoes, cookies and i feel like smacking him! i did get into the oreos but had one or two not half the bag! - i'm putting everything in the pantry instead of keeping on top of microwave in full sight. he told me today WE need to get back on our diet - i looked at him and said i am still doing this diet and haven't gone off even though we have been out to eat tons of times in the past month (going back and forth to take care of inlaws) anyway, that was kind of an insult but anyway...i haven't lost any but haven't gained back. so guess this is a push to keep going and start tomorrow seriously to get the rest of my weight off and to my goal :-) chug a lug on the water for sure!

I survived Disney World! LOL We went there over the weekend for my nephew's 2nd birthday. This had been a long planned event. Even my MRC center knew about it and we came up with a plan. The only time I went off plan was Saturday morning. We did "Chef Mickey" breakfast at the Contemporary Resort. What fun! I took my F&C Blockers and didn't over do it. The rest of the weekend, I ate according to plan. Yes, you can stay on plan at Disney if you want to. All in all, I think I maintained for this weekend. So, I'm happy for not registering a gain and know where MANY of the bathrooms are at the parks.

I noticed there were a couple of requests for the pdf files. My apologies, but as I stated before, I will not be mailing them out anymore. I got burned last time I did it and quit posting for a while because of it. Sorry, but I have to stick to my guns on this one.

Thanks, bigdog. I am really leaning toward 155 is where I want to stabilize...like you said, at this point the activity is so much more important to me (as I'm sitting here with strep or some massive head cold or something that is making me miserable and definitely not exercising today). When I really think about what I want to change yet, it's mainly just a little bit off my waist, which will happen as I continue to be more active. I'm pretty happy with the rest of me. And I've been able to run and feel really good. Since it looks like I may be spending most of this week not doing much exercise (whatever sickness this is just started and is getting worse), I may switch to green. One week on green and I may be at my 155 mark. I'm going to decide for sure later today when I talk to my consultant...