Rise and shine, folks! It's Monday! Let's make it a fantastic week!

Donna, that's great! A nice deficit and a good long bike ride. Good for you!

As for me, yesterday's deficit was 434, right about where I expected it to be.

Good morning! Hope everyone is ready for another fantastic week. I'm so proud, everyone sounds like they're doing so well.

I had a crazy weekend, which wasn't at all good for weight loss Got very little sleep, and had no time to exercise or plan good food to eat. I really need to find a way to improve on the weekends, I think it's what's holding me back. On a more positive note, I think I've lost a few more pounds. I wanted to wait to weigh in for a couple of days until the water weight I know is there is gone lol

Tori, try eating a banana immediately after working out, and then do some light stretching. The potassium in the banana is supposed to keep your muscles from hurting.

Tammy, that's Bam Bam. I have 3 black cats - they're different sizes but otherwise look identical.

Dgpebbles, that was a fantastic day. I'd be tired after all that, too It's nice to see how the deficits change in response to the exercise, isn't it?

Way to go, Angie. I'm hoping I'm right there with you! 2 LBs would be good.

Hope I didn't miss anyone. Where, oh where, has our SusanB gone?

Have a great day, everyone.

I keep checking in for Susuan too??? I hope everything is OK. It's not like her at all to be off 3FC's so long. Hopefully just computer issues.

For the last 2 days I didn't have calorie deficits. Back on track today.

This weekend was Baton Rouge's big Mardi Gras weekend. New Orleans has parades through tomorrow night. At any rate, DH and I ride with a krewe (Krewe of Krime) here in Baton Rouge at the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade. Unfortunately, it was a really rainy, cold, gross day on Saturday. So, there wasn't nearly the turn out as expected. But, I still had a great time!

That's the good news. The bad news is the extremely terrible eating/drinking I did. It started out Friday night when I brought little one to his Grammie's for the weekend. Since the evil twins Katrina and Rita have hit, the traffic in Baton Rouge has been absolutely horrible. It took me nearly an hour to go about 5 miles Friday evening. Poor son was starving (I believe the monkey is on a growth spurt) before we even got out of the city limits. So, I stopped at BK for something quick. And, instead of getting a good salad, I ordered a whopper, jr. w/ cheese. And, I received a whopper with cheese. I ate about half of it and some of the fries. You know, it was really unappealing to me. And, I felt really guilty letting small boy have such crap for dinner. Bad Mama!

The next day was quite a day! Started off okay and with decent intentions. I knew there would be drinking so I wasn't going to do a bunch of stressing. At any rate, I had about 40oz of pina colada with much extra rum, a jello shot and after the parade a large about of wine. (Yes, my liver hurts. Thank you very much). As if the drinking wasn't bad enough, I had a huge blueberry muffin, 4 pieces of pizza and ate the rest of some cookies for AJ (he wasn't there!!! - Again, Bad Mama!!). Sunday food was only slightly better but without the drinking! And, today, for some reason, I decided I needed a huge chunk of carrot cake! Don't know why. Rest of the day has been okay, however.

So, now I need to get back on the bus!!! I really want to lose 10 more pounds by my anniversary (May 17). So, help me everyone! Help me remember I can accomplish this and the crappy food isn't really worth being unhealthy and overweight. I'm not angry at myself or feel bad about being so naughty. I had planned for this; so it is okay. Now I just need to get back on track. Sometimes, for some reason, it is soooo hard to get back on when I've let myself slide for a few days.

At any rate, hope everyone has a great rest of the day. Hopefully, I'll be back to my losing ways soon!

Hey ladies,

(Btw, Susan's out of town, should be back soon though!)

Oh where to start...
Deficits:
Friday-250
Saturday- (-510)
Sunday-448
Monday-673

The good news is, I think in some ways I've managed to train my appetite. On Saturday I ate way too much(and kept eating) but then Sunday I ate a little less than normal, and yesterday far less than normal without feeling hungry. Despite having an almost 2,000 calorie day in there I'm still averaging around 1200 for the last week, and the last two weeks. I think it's too soon to see another lb loss, but hopefully if I can stay on track through this week and the weekend I will notice something.

It's been raining here since yesterday and I just love it! I'm not sure it will put me in the work-out mood I need to be tonight (I kind of want to curl up and read) but I am loving it anyways.

It seems like I am not the only one with some weekend problems and I have been thinking...it's as if I just know I will eat poorly over the weekend. I need to plan better and tell my fiance that yes we can go out to dinner Friday night but that both Saturday and Sunday will be meals cooked by me. I know if I tell him he'll listen so there's no use blaming him for my bad eating habits, but when we actually "planned" Sunday I managed to eat pretty well. Oh, and I found these little 90 calorie chopped up apples with caramel packs and they are pretty tasty! I know just a chopped up apple (there isn't a whole one in the pack) would be healthier for me, but I need to keep introducing new things in order to get my fruit/veggies in. Hope everyones doing really well, at least it's not Monday anymore!

Happy Pancake Day! Yum yum, it's Paczki Day!

Oooooooo the calories that are going to be consumed today!!!! Especially where you are, AJsMa! It all changes tomorrow, though, right?

And I agree, Miles, weekends seem to be... different somehow. I've tried to make peace with weekends. If I can manage to keep a reasonable deficit (doesn't have to be as big as a weekday deficit) on Staurdays and Sundays, then I've been "successful".

Yesterday's deficit was 1,068.

I was really proud of myself for yesterday. I felt pretty cruddy. Slow, sluggish, bloated, just overall blah. But I forced myself to work out, lifting and cardio. Can't say I felt great or energized after (actually, I was exhausted), but I felt good that is was done and over with. I guess "relieved" would be a better term .

Have a good one, everybody!

Ah - I had pancakes this evening. I bought the ready mix ones and it has all the calories on the side. I ended up with 3 and a little one to use up the mixture, so 3.5 pancakes with chocolate sauce worked out at 760 calories!! Oh, but it was worth it - yummy!!!

Rather than give something up for Lent, as I'm already on a diet I decided to up my exercise instead so I'm aiming to do my DVD 30 times during Lent, which should be 4-5 times a week!

Phew! Busy day so far.

Hi, folks, how's it going?

That's fantastic, Lena. Making yourself start moving when you feel like that is so incredibly difficult. You might have been exhausted afterwards, but I bet you felt good about yourself.

Robsia, that sounds like a great goal. Good luck, I know you can do it.

I had an absolutely terrible dinner last night (I had no idea how many calories brisket has, though I had a feeling about the other stuff) so my deficit wasn't very good - only 601. Today should be much better, though. I made myself go walk for a bit after lunch (until I got too cold), and I have my kickboxing class tonight.

What's Paczki Day?

Have a good day everyone

Hello my dears! Yes, I was vacationing. Too much southern cooking and miller light
I'm still crippled by this computer thing. Hopefully mine will be up and running later today. Then I'll get back in the groove here.
Thanks for thinking of me. I'm very sorry I couldn't leave a little note sayng that I was going to disappear. But it looks like some progress has been made while I was away. Good work gals!

Paczki (pronounced sort of like Poonch-key) is kind of a jelly doughnut treat. It's one of those traditional foods (I believe it's Polish), made to use up fats and oils before Ash Wednesday. Originally, I think it was supposed to be eaten on Fat Thursday (the Thursday before Ash Wednesday), but lots of folks here in the States eat them for Mardi Gras. It's been all over the local news today. Very rich and high in calories .

Go Go Kickboxing!

And welcome back, SusanB! You've been missed!!!

Well, I managed to work off most of those pancakes doing my workout! Yay! Deficit today is 1233!! Not bad for Pancake Day!

I've never heard of Packzi Day. Very interesting!!

I guess I've done okay today. I did have some chocolate - but only about 100 calories worth. Hopefully, my deficit should be around 1000 or so. And, I spent a lot of time today chasing a small monkey all day. La State offices were closed b/c of Mardi Gras. So, little guy and I went to the zoo and played outside a lot today. And, he has been soooo two today! So contrary and stubborn. I was thinking about putting him in the ole closet for a while there! Fortunately, I just put him to bed. Mommy needs a break!

The scale shows 3.5 gain after this past weekend's Mardi Gras'ing. I truly don't believe I put on 3.5 pounds of fat. It is really amazing to me that you can work hard for an entire week, have great calorie deficits and still show no loss. But, if you misbehave for two days, a 3.5 pound gain. Go figure!

I'm annoyed that I've been about this for six weeks and show only a six pound loss. I know it is a loss. And, I know that I have had self-inflicted "setbacks." But, it is hard to stay on target and motivated.

So, I really need to buckle down. There aren't any major goings-on here for quite a while. AJ's b-day is March 18 and there will be some minor celebrating. But, nothing on the order of a Mardi Gras parade. I really want to be at 178 (20 pounds since I started) by my anniversary (May 17). This is a really doable goal. I just have to stay on track and focus. And, I need to commit more time to exercising. So, I plan on challenging myself this month to complete a set amount of exercise. Nothing extreme or crazy. I have to remember that I only have so much time in a day. So, I think I will shoot for doing 700 minutes of exercise this month. Wish me luck!

Sorry this post was so long and blog-ie. I guess I just needed to do some stream of thought writing!

Good luck tomorrow and have a great rest of the week!

P.S. Do we start a new page for next month? How does that work?

AJsMa - I know what you mean by self induced setbacks, I have had many of my own, but really sometimes you just need to keep going and forgive yourself because we have to do this for life and I know even if the scale doesn't behave I feel a lot healthier

Deficit of 565 today, the last day of February

Robsia - great job working off those pancakes..

deficit yesterday was 538 and today was 639

Ajsma - your averaging the same as me...I've only been losing like one lb per week for two months.