TakingCharge - First of all, congrats on the number and on the cocktail party NSV. I think the question is why did you consume so many calories after 7 pm? Was it because you were hungry, because the food was there, emotional eating, something else? Any connection that you felt like you were having a 'fat day'? (and yes, we totally know what you mean) My recommendation to you (and to myself and to us all) is to be gentle with ourselves - try upping the calories a bit if you feel you need to in order to feel satisfied, and see what happens. You've made great progress!

Dancer - I've done all kinds of dance. Past few years have mostly done nia. The classes I'm looking at include zumba, belly dance, modern, hip hop, african. They offer a ton of stuff on a drop in basis so it's a chance to try something new.

My NSV yesterday was that I met up with a friend in Cambridge but didn't get anything to eat or drink, even though I wanted to have a cocktail. It helps that I am trying to try to watch my budget as well as my waistline - a double motivator!

Takingcharge - sorry you had a tough day - hope today is better and that it was just a blip. What did you decide to do about taking a maintenance break or not?

Blueridge - What is nia? I don't recognize that term at all and am curious. Sounds like you are doing great out of your normal environment - way to go!

ya'll i'm kind of tired and my knee feels a litle sore but i haven't worked out in 2 days. i haven't gained anything but i will if i don't work out today. hope ya'll are having a good day.

Thanks for the words of encouragement! Blueridge - great nsvs! I've decided to up my calories a bit for a week and see how it goes. I'm gonna try to cycle but have an average of about 1500 instead of 1300, so we'll see how that goes. I know for sure that the next few nights will involve a few cocktails (atleast 200-300 cals even for vodka sodas!) so it'll be a lot easier to be able to consume 1200 cals of food and 300 of drinks, as opposed to only 1000 of food! I just hope that the scale won't go up, but even if it does, I'll fix it and move on with my life. I'll be crossing my fingers!

Hey ladies, just checking in before the weekend. Fridays are my official weigh in days...loss this week has been slow!

SW: 185
CW: 177.4
GW: 165

I thought after being off plan for a week and getting back into dieting and exercise would give me a big drop, but not so much.. less than half a pound. I noticed I've been very dehydrated lately so maybe that has something to do with it... not sure. Oh well. No other choice but to keep at it!

Today is a 3 mile run and tomorrow a 7-mile hike, up to 13,000 ft! I'm pretty excited. TGIF!!!

Fatpants - Great job getting back on plan! I'm sure your body is happy and the scale will catch up with you once everything has readjusted.

As you guys know, I've been having weird food issues lately and I was thinking that even though I'm willing to up my calories for a little, I'd really like to challenge myself to get rid of a bad habit that has been slowly coming back to me. And what better place to do that than in our challenge thread!

Here goes: no more than 2 servings of fruit after dinner...PERIOD. Ideally, I'd like to stick to one, but I always have some fruit with dinner and then usually have an orange about an hour later, so I'm not sure what else I would eat as a snack instead. Any ideas? Regardless, I'll be happy sticking to 1-2 pieces of fruit, but closing down the kitchen after that.

Anyone else want to add another level to our challenge by either getting rid of a bad habit or trying to instill a good one for the next few weeks?

Seriously, thanks so much for listening everyone. I'm not sure what I would do without you all and I really appreciate you being here for me! Ok, sappy time is over...haha. Happy Friday!!!

Takingcharge - good for you on adding a new dimension to your challenge! I gotta say - sticking to my exercise plan and calorie cycling plan is about all I can handle at the moment and the idea of trying to, say, cut back on diet sodas or something in addition to the above kind of makes me weak at the knees : ) Maybe once I've made a bit more progress and have internalized some of this stuff, I can join you and branch out a little but for now I kind of mono-focused. Let us know how it goes on the habit changing though!

Fatpants - Keep up the good work! I'm sure you'll see it on the scale soon!!

Onestar - did you do your workout? How's the knee? I've been struggling with mine too this week and have been doing elliptical instead of running to give it a break.

So, little happy dance for me, I'm at goal for Monday a few days early this week instead of my usual couple of days (or more) late. Woohoo! Now if I can just keep it this way over the weekend : )

Happy almost weekend...

This has been a good week, so I'm hoping to post at least a small loss on Monday. My weight actually went up in the middle of the week, but I'm gonna chalk it up to hormones and muscle, and hope for the best. the staff picnic was fun, and I managed to make good choices. This morning I did a 30-minute dance workout, and a 30-minute brisk walk (past monuments, museums and tourists) on my way to work. This evening I have a session with the personal trainer. I've signed up for 5 half-hour sessions, which should be enough for me to continue the strength training on my own.

I've been having knee issues, too. I don't have much cartilage left, so when I'm fierce about working out (as I am now ) I have to balance pushing my self enough with babying my arthritic knees. My long cardio machine sessions are at least 20 mins on the bike, 10 mins on the elliptical, and the rest on the treadmill until I've reach at leat 60 mins total. I tried the Cybex cross-trainer thing at the gym, but in a few seconds I could tell that my knees would not be happy!

Have a great weekend--judy

denver- i did my workout but still gained 1.2 lbs. could have been the cheesecake i had earlier in the day though ha! ha! oh well....it'll come off by the weekend. i have yard work to do and i'm gonna try and stay busy this weekend so i wont be so tempted to eat. my workout was not that great either cause my knee was hurting even with my brace. they're better today, but i'm sleepy right now. i have to wait till my daughter goes to bed at 8 to exercise.

happy friday all!

May25-294
June22-282.2
July6-275.4
July12-272

Tracy - way to go! That's great progress!!
Onestar - Boy do I feel for you on the knee situation!! Am icing mine right now after a 5 hr hike in Boulder - ouch!

Good morning ladies,

Congrats Tracy on your weigh-in! I hope everyone else has a great week, too.

Checking with a bit of a mixed report -- I weighed in at 168.8 this morning. So while I'm pleased to see the scale moving downward I'm a bit bummed that it wasn't another 1/2 or pound or so. Especially because I did a 6 MILE run on Saturday morning. I actually had to take some walk breaks this time, but I realized at the end of my run that I was really running a bit fast for my pace for that distance, so I'll consider the whole thing a success.

So I'll celebrate that NSV and know that things will catch up in time. I actually find that Mondays are kind of my worst days compared to the scattered times at other points in the week that I step on the scale. Funny, eh?

Another reason for my mediocre weigh-in this week is that I was otherwise really busy this weekend down in CT for my sister's bridal shower. Which leads me to my horrifying story that I hope you will all find motivation in. One of the other bridesmaids and I were greeting guests, and one woman comes up the ramp, I start to introduce myself to her, and she asks, "When are you due?" To which I responded, "I'm sorry, I'm not pregnant." OH MY GOD - I wanted to die. I really wanted to say, "Look b**ch, I know I've got some extra weight to lose but I've actually been busting my butt in the gym for the entire summer and have just about lost all the weight I packed on during my first year of law school, so just lay off, OK???"

Thankfully, the bridesmaid who was with me is practically my body-double and she said that a similar thing had happened to her a few months ago. Those damn summer sundresses with their waistlines. I told my story to my friend who really is 8 month pregnant and she said that all the dresses this year are made for maternity people; she's barely had to buy maternity sizes!

Another consolation was that when my sister opened the gift from this woman, the dish had broken in the packaging. hah! The woman honestly wanted to die. I took some solace in the fact that she had to spend 4 hours in the room with me and will also have to face me at the wedding. How rude!!! She made me feel like crap on a day when I was already busting my butt to host a party for 50 people and ready to murder my mother for driving me crazy!

So I thought the girls on this thread would enjoy this little story. I hope that you all find motivation in it -- I know that I will be thinking of it when I hit the weight lifting class tonight after work!

Happy Monday!

Good morning ladies! I'm pleased to say I can report a loss this week and its TOM so really the loss is probably bigger than it appears right!? LOL. The sad thing is that it could have been a much larger loss but....I had a long and emotional weekend. I'm going through fertility treatments right now and I'm sorta an emotional basketcase, and I tend to feed my emotions. I really over ate this weekend, and I'm hoping I can find the determination to let my emotions out through working out vs. through eating. Sorry for the whining but I knew you ladies would understand, I think we've all been there at some point.

SW:187
Goal by Labor Day: 165


June 29:183.6
July 6: 183.6 should be 182.0 dang it
July 13:182.4 TOM...so maybe more?
July 20:
July 27:
Aug 3:
Aug 10:
Aug 17:
Aug 24:
Aug 31:

LABOR DAY Sept 7:

Morning, gals! Doing well this week, actually a little ahead of schedule. Hope the good news keeps on coming!

June 8:190: 190
June 15:188: 189
June 22:188: 188
June 29:186: 187
July 6:184: 184
July 13:182: 181
July 20:182
July 27:180
Aug 3:178
Aug 10:176
Aug 17:176
Aug 24:174
Aug 31:172

LABOR DAY Sept 7: 170

Hi everyone! Nice to see you all again.

Kpme - Any loss is a good loss! And damn girl, 6 miles??? That's freakin awesome! I bet that woman who oh so rudely asked you when you were due would be put to shame knowing that.

Tracy and Dancer - Way to go on the great losses!

Wannabe - Congrats on the loss. I'm sorry to hear you're having a hard time right now. Just keep up the good work and keep taking such great care of yourself.

As for me, I'm sad to report that I'm stuck at the exact same weight. I've been bobbling around 137 for almost 2 weeks now, for a few reasons I think. First, my body seems pretty happy here. I feel strong and healthy and finally feel good about myself! Obviously, I wanna lose 10ish more pounds, but I'm not sure my body does. Also, you all know I upped my calories last week to about 1500 average, and the past few days were vacation calories, so full of restaurant meals (healthy, but still lots of sodium) and alcohol.

The good news is that I'm feeling really motivated again to work out hard (signed up for my first 10K in October...so excited!) and am going to drop my calories back down to 1300 because I finally feel full again. So I'll keep on truckin and hope I break through to 136 sometime soon.

Have a great week everyone!

5/21/09(SW): 147.4
5/25/09: 145.8
5/31/09: 144.6
6/8/09: 143.6
6/15/09: 140.8
6/22/09: 140.4
6/29/09: 138.8
7/6/09: 137.4
7/13/09: 137.4