Patti - way to go! That's fantastic!!!

Suite - I contemplated throwing some spinach in my oatmeal this morning, just for you.

clburchett - Of course you can join us! Welcome!

I'm glad everyone loves the little Leo We sure do! I'll get to see him on March 22 and I am so excited! I miss my horses and my cats as much as I miss my mom!

I posted a very excited-sounding post on the weigh in board because I was shocked at the number on the scale this morning, but this week all I changed is that I ate my activity points AND my flex points. How is it possible my body managed to catch up with me and lose nearly three and half pounds? (Some of it was TOM water weight, if not all of it!). Do you guys think that by changing it up a bit (since I don't usually eat my activity points) that I tricked my body into letting go of more fat? I can't believe that. I know some nights when I ate my usual 23 points and didn't eat any flex or activity points, I was a little hungry, but I would have thought eating extra points every day, even if I earned them on my stepper, would be a bit much. I want to do what's best for my weight loss and for my body, so maybe I'll keep trying this method? As it's been said on the other thread, the more you can eat and still lose the better, right? I only have a month before my cruise, so I do want to keep seeing losses of 1-2lbs a week if possible (obviously, who doesn't?) and I don't know if I should risk doing the same thing next week in case those 3 pounds were just water weight and I actually lost it all last week doing what I usually do!

Anyway, enough about that. February is almost over and I have a terrible cold, so I don't think I'm going to get 9000 more steps in on my stepper as is the goal on my ticker. I'd be happy to reach 30,000 though. We'll see!

Have a good Tuesday everyone!

Goooood Tuesday Mornin' Flexers ^^

Free - If you were a tad hungry the week before, and now using your activity/flex you weren't hungry aaaand you lost a grand amount of weight, why mess with success? By switching it up a bit you may have had your body say "What's going on here? Better make some adjustments!" That and, yes of course, if you can eat a little more and still lose a similar amount of weight, wouldn't you rather eat the more? ^^ I'd suggest doing the same for one more week. If it doesn't give you good results again, cut back on a few points the following.//Also, you're right. The more daily we make it, the more daily it will become. Heck, I'm a poster regardless of whether or not people reply, so that doesn't stop me.

Suite - I had to laugh at the spinachness. "Yes, spinach-flavored coffee is the secret to weight loss!" Were that true, I don't think I'd ever get weight off Love the two... wouldn't love the two together. I guess it goes to show that even skinnier people don't always know how to stay healthy. Skinny, maybe, but healthy...

Kelijpa - I've heard Mandalinn & others say that a good number of times. And it's SO true. We use the scale, because it's the easiest way, not the most accurate. //And what you said to your husband was also true. It's the continuing that is keeping the weight off. All of us have some days & months that are better than others. (February didn't happen to be one of my better months! )

___

Well, I've got a ton of work to do, so I should probably... oh I dunno... work. Blah... But it's so much more fun to type and chat!

I'm excited about eating out last night. It wasn't a planned outing, but my roommate offered, so I took her up on it. We went to Bertucci's and since I've been there often, I know the better things to choose. I ended up getting the Grilled Balsamic Chicken platter with extra broccoli instead of the mashed potatoes. Don't get me wrong, I love mashed potatoes, but I wanted to stay within my points more. The dinner ended up "costing" me about 10 points. (This is based on my BEST estimates of a dinner roll (3 pts), the tiniest bit of oil (1 pt), salad w/FF dressing (1 pt for dressing), roasted tuscan vegetables (1 pt for any possible oils, though I didn't taste any, it's really just some roasted veg), balsamic chicken (4 pts, the piece was slightly bigger than a deck of cards), and broccoli with lemon (0 pts.)) And I usually get the mashed potates, so the dinner tends to end up "costing" me 15+. Since I used only 10, I was able to go home and have a Smart Ones dessert. This wonderful Cookie Dough thingy... don't remember the name, but it was REALLY tasty. Unfortunately, Bertucci's is one of those places that doesn't have nutritional info, and it's not on dwlz.com or anything. Anyway, I think the estimate is fairly close. Unless they've cooked everything in lard, I don't think I'm too far off.

Anyway Off to earn my paycheck >_>

Boy, have you been a chatty bunch since yesterday afternoon.

Faerie - WTG on that dinner out! I always feel awesome for making good choices at restaurants, since it's generally a hard thing to when it's easier to say "I'll have the fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy" than "I'll have the balsamic chicken, extra veggies, er, do you cook those in oil? OKay, just lemon for me please, and, uh, can I get some broccoli instead of potatoes? Thanks." So hurray for restaurant victories!! And your estimates sound about right to me, it's good to throw in a couple "maybe extra oil" points in there just in case.

freedom - hey, congrats on the loss! That's fantastic news! Sometimes our bodies can surprise us and it's a wonderful thing. But yeah, I agree with Faerie -- try the same strategy at least for another week and see what happens, and if you don't keep losing at a good rate then you can go back to what you were doing and every now and again switch it up.

Patti - WTG on that first loss! 7lbs is incredible, keep up the good work!!

clburchett - Welcome!

keli - I feel like I'm falling victim to the post-new year's slowdown too... But, like you, I'm determined and not going to quit. That's a great attitude. I've noticed my meetings have thinned out significantly since January... I know there are a lot of ex-WWers wandering around town, wondering why they haven't lost their weight yet.



As of last night I've already used at least 25 of my FPs (probably a couple more, I think I underestimated on a few things). I've been... well, I don't want to say bingeing, because I know what a binge for me looks like and it usually involves, oh, I don't know, entire sheet cakes and whole pizzas and stuff. But I've made a few mistakes in what I've bought while grocery shopping and I apparently have no willpower in the evenings. If it's there, I will eat it. Not only will I eat it, I will find creative ways of making it worse for me.

So FPs are effectively gone for the rest of the week. I'm okay with that, I know I can feed myself well at my target level. Anybody have any opinions on eating your FPs in a short period of time vs spreading them out evenly? I usually spread them out so I'm wondering what having eaten them all in 3 days is gonna do. Oh well, it's not like I'm going to throw in the towel if I see a gain this week. I'll chalk it up to life and keep moving forward.

So in a couple days it'll be time to start up the March WI thread -- anyone have thoughts on what our goal should be? Looks like we just about hit 80lbs for Feb -- do we want a "safe" goal that we know we can hit, or a hard one above 80? Or we can just see if we can plain ol' surpass our previous goal. Discuss.

Suite - That sounds like me with a few Trader Joe's items that I used to keep on hand. Sure they're only 3 points a serving... why don't I eat the whole bag and there go 12 points.... Oh I know! I'll drink a root beer with it as well!

About your FP question, for me, I've found that spreading them out I see less "damage". If I eat them all in a short period of time, my progress is slower for that week. Oh well, that's just my body, though.

I haven't posted my total loss for Februrary, yet. (I'll be posting it after meeting this Thursday.) But, I'd love to see simply trying to meet or surpass the amount lost of February.

Thanks for the advice ladies I think this week I will try to spread my points out a bit more, as I attempted to last week (it didn't go so well) and eat my activity points again before I touch my FPs. I'm crossing my fingers that it will work just as well! I am also hoping that my scale at "home" home doesn't read different than my scale at "away" home. I'd be pretty disappointed if in three weeks I show up back in Canada and find out I'm five pounds heavier or something. lol

Suite - I usually eat 15-16 in one go, and 15 or so more in another, on nights out or dinner out or when I'm really stressed out with school. Don't lose heart - I have been doing this for almost every week since I started WW and lost most weeks! I've had weeks where I've eaten all 35 in the course of 3 days due to multiple get-togethers with friends that involved food, and taking it easy for the rest of the week still resulted in a loss, though not always much of one. Maybe since your body might be missing your usual spread-out FPs, eat your APs instead? Do you usually eat them? You have a great mind set for it, as I know when I attempted WW last summer, if I had a bad day, it turned into a bad week, and I eventually gave up because I just hadn't reached that point where I could "get right back on the horse". I have no problem taking a bad spill and getting back on an actual horse, as I have a few times in the last couple of years, but getting back on the diet horse is a whole lot harder!!! I'm sure you'll be fine

As for the WI thread, I think maybe trying to meet or surpass whatever we have for the end of February would be great! There's going to have to be a really big ugly fish involved I think!!

Congrats on that 7 pound loss patti!

Hi,

Thank you for the good thoughts for my sweetie. He was scheduled for surgery tomorrow, but they found that he has other complications, so surgery has been postponed. I'll check back when I can, and again, thank you so much for the kind words.

i think surpassing our Feb goal is a great idea.
been good so far today, and I was good yesterday...hope I can keep it up!
S

I agree with trying to meet/surpass our Feb. goal, wherever we end up, I just posted it's close to 85, so it'll be a challenge to meet/surpass I think, I'll be happy if I can lose another 4 in March, that'd put me in the 150's, haven't seen them in many a moon

DH had that good kind of shock where he thought he was going to be up after being "bad" this past week, he lost 3, I said our "bad" is nothing compared to what we used to do!

(Suite, I'm right with you with the sheet cake, pizza, ice cream, we rarely have leftover pizza and there's just two of us eating it...even Friday, we got a takeout one from the local grocery and ended up devouring the whole thing!)

I'm amazed we still have candy leftover from Valentine's, he bought these individually wrapped little things, I keep boxing them back up and shoving in the cupboard, so they're not too accessible.

Anyhow, challenge tomorrow night, Gramma's 90th birthday party, pizza, wings, cake and ice cream. TG WI was today!! DH says he's not going to pig out, I'm looking at it as one night and move on. It'll be a nice visit. His aunt and uncle's coming in from Western PA and the nephews and sis-in-law will be there and MIL and FIL. I'll try and talk more and chew less

Free how long have you been away? You'll be looking great when you get home, sorry to hear you're sick, I'm fighting off a sore throat, I have to fly Sun. so I'm hoping nothing comes of it. Nothing worse than flying with a stuffy head.

Going to FL for a couple days for work, yippee!! Sun!! We had a wet sloppy snow tonight on the way home, yick.

Faerie I post in a Tues. WI thread and half the time I'm the only poster like you it doesn't stop me though, I just can't give it up.

I love this Flex board, I saved it 'til last tonight, like it was dessert! ok, I'll shut up for now...

Happy Wednesday (Hump-day!) Morning Flexers

Kelijpa - I sometimes stop to think about how my old "bad" compares to my new idea of the word. I shudder to think about how many calories I could put away in a day. I remember going out to purposely buy a TON of cookies, milk and chocolates... just to eat while I was watching TV. Sleeves of cookies... piles of candy wrapper leftovers... I can't imagine myself doing that again. It's good to see how the "bad" has changed ^^

Shrinking - You totally CAN keep it up!

Freedom - I wouldn't fret about the scales too much. As long as you're keeping things in check, the results will be worth it!

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Not too much going on at the moment, ladies and gents.

I had another on-track day, yesterday. I've found the Points Challenge (the points aren't anything to do with ww) stickied up in the 100lb club area to REALLY keep me on target as of late. (You can even see that in the beginning I had a few poor choice days! Eek!) But having to type them in the board... humbling... Since those poor choice days, I've made a huge effort to keep everything in line. There's a difference for me when I just say "Oh, I had three poor days" and when I see "Oh... I've had three poor days..." It's like, when everyone here can see it, I feel responsible. I feel OBLIGATED to do better. Like I'd be letting everyone at 3FC down if I didn't try my little heart out! <3 And honestly, I think I would be.

Anyway, back to work!

Patti - usually things like that would show up on the Food & Point Issues board.

kelijpa - I've been away since January 11. I hope you feel better before you fly! It's a loooong flight home (average of about 9 hours) and I've done that with a cold before. I think it's probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had while traveling. Also, I've been seated next to a guy with a cold... that wasn't very nice either! lol I was so worried about getting home and getting sick! Man, I wish I was going to Florida! I bet it's far warmer there than it is in Canada right now!!

Faerie - That sounds like a great way to keep yourself in line! I'm glad it's working for you!

There's a meeting at school tonight for alumni from my university, so I am going to go and hear what they have to say about how helpful their degree (same one as mine, obviously) was in getting them to where they are now. There's supposed to be 'light refreshments' afterwards, so I am guessing that probably means cookies and little tea cakes or something. I will allow myself one if they look good, and use some flex points for it (am in a new week today since I start on Wednesday), but if there's nothing I really want, I won't. I would get out of there and come home as quickly as possible so as not to be too tempted, but I am getting a ride with a friend, so it probably isn't. Oh well. I am trying to spread my points out a bit more equally this week as last week's plan of doing that went down the drain quite quickly, so perhaps this week will go a little better! Maybe I'll just have a cup of coffee or something. That might be the clever thing to do!

Free - Sounds like you've got a solid plan. Will you be eating within a reasonable amount of time before the meeting? I'm sure if you do, you'll be slightly less tempted by things that don't even look very good. Also, that cup of coffee will keep your hands busy, and people will probably be less tempted to tell you to "go get something" because, clearly, you already have something!

Guess what! I didn't eat ANYTHING at that reception thing tonight, and I was very proud of myself. They didn't have much of a selection, some bowls of pringles and cookies and stuff, and I figured that these were things I could always eat, so I backed away and found someone to talk to instead. I am very proud of myself. Baby steps! I was worried that I would scarf the whole table's worth of goodies because I hadn't eaten since quarter to 3 and this was at 7, but I knew I was coming home to dinner so that was enough for me!

Wednesday is almost over for me, so have a good Thursday everyone!

Yay Freedom!!! What a great NSV!!!!