Hello Girls, here I am sunburn and all, where is everyone else?

We had an excellent time at the boat launching. It was a wonderful fun party with lots of family and friends.

Talk to you all later.....

PEEK

Hi Ladies.

Mind if I jump in? I've been reading the posts here for a while but was a bit reluctant to jump in. I feel like I am intruding that's why I have mainly jumped on some new threads. Actually just three, one of which has had better days, one which is a Labor day challenge, and another is an exercise thread which has helpd me tremendously, with the exercise part anyway! Now if I can get the eating part down. I'm following WW and have about 50 pounds to lose. Looking forward to getting to know everyone. Take care.

Welcome to the thread Cristi.....jump on in. It's kind of quiet on the weekends here, but during the week we seem to be chatter bugs.

Hey everyone! Welcome to the newbies... (I'm waving to myself as well, being a newbie) How are things?

I am feeling very powerful here lately. This is my 8th day back OP and going strong. I have never been a health food nut, but I read a really interesting article in last weeks Women's World about flax and soy cereal, so I went out and bought some....and so far, so good! I am also proud that I have exercised 6 out of the last 7 days. I'm also learning to "listen" to my body. Instead of giving in to my wants, I'm trying to pay closer attention to my needs. Hope you're all having a lovely Sunday!

Tina: Keep up the awesome work!!!! You are doing great!!!

Faye: I know your not back yet, but will be in the house soon and I wanted to be the first one to say.........

WELCOME BACK!!!!!

I hope you had a great time at the wedding!!! Was your good friend really suprised? Did you knock her off her feet? Especially with all the weight you have lost? Bet you looked good in that dress to......probably prettier than the bride....lol

Hugs,
Peek

MONDAY: Today is Mission Monday. Our Mission for Monday this week, GIVE UP THAT ONE FOOD OR DRINK THAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK!

NEWBIES: PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING SO EVERYONE IS ON THE SAME PAGE SO TO SPEAK!
I want to welcome all you new ladies and give my little speech! This is not meant to offend, ostracize or hurt feelings, but it is just the way it is! I started this thread so there was a place for people to come that was totally POSITIVE in the way it dealt with weight loss and its trials. Everyone is welcome and will be glad they are here. Our little kernal of women we started with is spectacular! Now the sticky part. Though we are here to help everyone out and get people over the rough spots, you may not come here and COMPLAIN day after day. What I consider complaining is NOT coming here saying something like, "Man, I blew it today. I ate 6 pieces of fried chicken, etc" or "Wow, I am really having trouble not eating Snickers bars." Complaining to me is day after day coming here and griping about how you have fallen off the wagon so to speak and you continually do nothing to help yourself. You wallow in self pity, expecting people here to always try and pick you up. In other words, you want our sympathy basically, but you are not committed to losing weight. I didn't start this thread for that purpose. I want you to come here and be able to say you blew it, but then say I am committed to this and I am going to work through it. I am a FIRM believer, as not one of us is perfect, that a day, week, month of crappy eating can be expected of us. SO WHAT? It is gonna happen, so don't let it disrupt your life by letting it take you away from your goals. If you do that, give it up for awhile until you can work in your mind the fact you are ready to commit to it. That is NOT a sin and doesn't make you less of a person. NOW HERE IS THE GOOD PART! We have WEDNESDAYS WOES. *****, gripe, complain, whine, cry anything goes on this day! Get it ALL out of your system! I know that each and every one of you has it inside of you to make this a huge success in your life. I applaud you for the courage you are taking to try and make your lifestyle better by getting yourself healthy! I feel really privileged to have you ladies come to our thread and share with us all your insights, your lives and your families!

As my grandson would say, TADA! Here I am! We got back last night and my downstairs looks like I had some kind of vacation explosion! We had a wonderful time. Vicki was so shocked and it was wonderful. I was sitting in the bride's room with my back against the wall where she would be coming in. She came in holding a bunch of stuff and I happened to be standing as I had just helped the pianist with her corsage. She looked at me and never said a word, put down a bag she had and stood back up and looked at me again and then it registered and she kind of screamed and started trying to unload the rest of her arms so she could hug me. I cried through the whole wedding (she sat us in one of the family rows, God bless her). At the very end, the minister had pronouced them husband and wife and they were facing the crowd while a quartet sang the Lord's Prayer. I was balling my eyes out and she looked down and saw me and mouthed "I love you" and I blew her a kiss and just boohooed all the more. We really are like sisters. She had dh and I and her and Bob in a picture together. Oh, the outfit went over great and I looked HOT if I do say so myself. That tanning stuff for us real white bread body girls works fantastic (at least the stuff I used did). We also had dinner one night and Sunday breakfast with my son and his girlfriend (who are back together and we are thrilled) and Sat morning breakfast with my older sister and Sat evening dinner with friends so all in all the trip was great. There was only one snag. We left here around 3:00 pm and got into Chicago around 11 pm and about 5 miles before our exit off 80/94 there were signs saying there was construction. WELL, we sat for 2 1/2 hours in traffic, sometimes for 30 minutes at a time at a dead standstill. Instead of being at the hotel at midnight, we trudged in there at 3 AM. (Peek: my audio book came in REAL handy during this!) Thank goodness neither of us had an attack of needing to go to the bathroom.

I have read all the posts but am not going to try and answer them individually as I have a ton of work to do to get the house back in order.

I do want to tell Jana, I will be praying for you and hope your back heals up soon!

AGAIN: BIG welcome to all you new gals, Tina, Grace, Cristi, Angie. Can't wait to get to know you!

Faye

Good morning everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Faye I knew that you would go to the wedding and stun everyone! Glad to hear that your trip was such a success. Gotta run tell everyone more about this later.

sandy

Hope you all are having a fantastic Monday! I am a little sore this morning, but nothing too dramatic. I use my WATP tapes when I don't want to walk outside, but I try to mix it up a little instead of doing the same old tapes over and over. I really like the one mile for the abs, so yesterday....I did it, took a five minute break (it was rewinding) did it again, (took a five minute break) and then did it again for a total of 3 miles!

Faye: I completely understand what you are saying and there is no hurt feelings here. I think negativity breeds negativity and let's be honest....who wants to hear someone complain all the time? I also think the Wednesday Woes is perfect, so at least when our dh is driving us crazy, we're ready to hide from our kids or we had such a bad day we consumed a whole bag of yogurt raisins (my "bad" food) we have somewhere to go. Thanks for the welcome and sounds like you had an awesome time at the wedding.

Ok guys....I am off from work today and I have a ton of laundry to do and sitting in this chair is not getting it done, so I will say my goodbyes for now and see you soon!

Hey gals!

I am taking a 2 minute breather while dh goes and gets some steaks at the store. I did my 45 minutes in the pool and it was so nice as I did Friday's but the hotel pool was really shallow so my knees hurt too much to do it Sat and Sun. I also did 3 loads of laundry and cleaned the downstairs. Tomorrow morning it will be the upstairs and go and get my babies in the afternoon.

My dd brought my grandson over and had lunch with us today. They took him to Disneyworld for his birthday and it was his first time, so he came back with lots to tell. He has been going around telling everyone his dad sold his soul to the devil because dopey dd said that to sil when they were riding one of those water rafting rides. I guess sil never ever seems to get wet on one so dh told him he must have sold his soul to the devil! Now she is trying to get him to quit telling people that!

Tina: Today is mission monday so work on getting rid of those yogurt raisins if they are a stumbling block to you. Sometimes, though we might love something and THINK we can control eating or drinking something, we have to give it up because we find we can't. I had a huge soft drink problem and had to give those up. I did work on the psychological part of it for several months and now have one OCCASIONALLY, but never more than one! I even have learned to drink diet, which was a huge step for me. I still drink water as my main source of drink though. Welcome to our happy little group!

We bought the Harry Potter audio tapes to take to Indiana and we are still listening to them. Very addictive and VERY long. 17 tapes and 26 1/2 hours of listening. We are on tape number 16 now so we are close to the end. I am continually amazed at how she has been able to write something to appeal greatly to adults as well as children. They are not childlike in their writing and really very interesting.

Well, dh should be home anytime and I have one more load of clothes to fold and I am DONE with vacation clothes so I am going to go! Remember, tomorrow is Target Tues so look to see what we will be targeting this week!

TTFN

Faye

OK I know I promised that I would be better in my posting but work was HECTIC as anything yesterday. So...I'm here today and that's all that matters. Looks like I am the first person too. Without Faye, what will Tuesday be??? HELP US FAYE! LOL And speaking of you Faye, I've already read Harry Potter book 5...let me say, it was quite sad and I actually cried at the death of the "main" character. I've started reading them all over again. So that will keep me busy.

So what's going on with me you ask? Not too much. Had a VERY uneventful weekend. I went to dinner with my parents and sis, bro-in-llaw and nephews on Saturday and that is pretty much it. I stuck to the break policy with my #2 man I'm trying to ween myself from (OK, I saw him on Sundy, but we ONLY went to a movie!) So it was my psychological slip...not my eating slip.

But, eating and exercise was less than desireable. It was...a BAD week. But it's cool. I'm remotivated. I went biking last nite (for the first time in a LONG time...and it's NOT as easy as they say) and I'm looking into joining a gym with a co-worker. So that should be good.

The highlight of my week will be Thursday, I'm going on happy hour for the first time with some girls from work. So YAY!

Welcome to all the new people. I'm lazy and don't feel like scrolling back to look up names, but I love you gals none the less and I'm sure that I will come to know you very soon.

Anyway...I'm trying to develop a diet and exercise routine still, it's not going well.

One positive change I've made is oatmeal. I eat it every morning for breakfast with some fruit in it and no sugar! So that's good. But that was on the advice of my doctor, so we'll see soon enough!

OK I'm out for now...

Missy

TUESDAY: Today is Target Tuesday and our target this week is our SKIN!

Our skin takes a normal beating with summer here and many of you being sun bunnies, but gaining and losing and gaining and losing is very difficult on our skin. When we are not taking in enough water, our skin REALLY REALLY suffers. So, make it a priority this week to take care of your skin, ALL of it not just your face. Cleanse it well, moisturize your whole body with lotion daily including those very important feet which usually take the biggest beating. Hands, don't forget your hands either and really drink that water this week!

Hope you all are doing well today. I did my 45 minutes in the pool (we are having a lot of trouble with vandals though. They ripped out one of the lights in the pool and threw lawn chairs into the pool yesterday) Little creeps live in a nearby apartment complex and don't like the fact they can't swim here so they try and destroy it. I also got the upstairs cleaned and tomorrow is UGH grocery shopping day! I have to buy just about everything so it will take lots of time. I am one of those people who are not very patient about things like grocery shopping so I dread it, but really can't wait until Saturday for dh to go with me and since the only evening the commissary it open is Thurs, I try not to subject him to going shopping right after getting off work, though bless him he is more than willing.

Missy: You were posting while I was so I had to come back in and edit so I could talk with you. We finished up the audio book last night and I boo hooed too! Not when he died, but poor Harry having to deal with it. Good for you and oatmeal! It will really help you out a lot with your cholesteral. I hate milk so I eat it "sticky" so to speak, but I enjoy it. I even eat the higher calorie stuff sometimes. I like brown sugar and cinnamon in it. I also like bananas in it quite a bit. Sorry I didn't get in to post for you to see Tuesday's target before you posted. I have been checking back and forth since the site was off line this morning and just got in! Have a great day today!

Does anyone have a suggestion either of an exercise or a place to look for facial and neck exercises to firm up skin? I do stretching with my neck and those like chewing exercise type things and try and exercise the skin when I am moisturizing it, but my neck still looks awful I think. It may not have any elasticity left though so I may be stuck as I certainly can't afford cosmetic surgery even for saggy tummy skin etc. Thanks for your input!

Well, I am going to get a shower, dress (I clean in the buff ) and take out the garbage and grab a bite of something for lunch.

Have a great day ladies and get in that water and exercise today!

Faye

Hi to everyone first off...

Faye - thanks for the message on another thread, you invited me to come here and check this out, so I did !

Everyone else - I am 29 year old female, married no kids... I currently weigh 228 and at my highest was 246...I want to get to a goal weight of about 135 or so, although right now 160 sounds wonderful ... I am currently watching my fat grams and calories and getting on the treadmill at home every other day ( for now )...
I really like all of your positive energy and it sounds like you have made some good friends on this thread...hope to get to know you guys better on this crazy journey...I know we all can do it!!!

Love to hear from all of you...

Satine

I wanted to say thanks to Faye for inviting me over from another thread! This thread looks like a really positive place to talk to others with the same goals, and get motivation and support!

I am a 26 year old single mom. I weigh about 275! The other day I decided enough is enough I need to lose weight! So I came on line looking for some sort of support.... And now here I am!

Well every one have a great evening! Hope to get to know you all real soon

Rochelle

We are getting quite a group now and I hope everyone enjoys being here! I want you to all have positive and not negative experiences with weight loss and all that comes with it. Accepting yourself is the first step. No matter what you have been told, there is NOTHING wrong with you. You are not a pig, glutton, lazy, ugly, or stupid. You are all beautiful, vibrant, charming, intelligent women with something to give to the world. Remember that everytime someone makes fun of you or puts you down. They are the ones lacking not you!

Tomorrow is Wednesday's woes the day you can spew out anything that is bugging you, hurting you or making you mad. If you are having trouble with some aspect of your program or exercise, tomorrow is the day to make it known. We will concentrate tomorrow on how we can help each other with problems that have come up.

Welcome to Rochelle and Satine! Glad you decided to join us and have fun with us!

See everyone tomorrow!

Faye

WEDNESDAY: Today is Wednesday's woes! Time to bring out all the gripes and complaints and troubles and stick them right here with us. We will give you encouragement and sympathy!

Good morning! My woes today involve getting our cat to use his new hooded litter box. I sure hope he takes to it. We had to do something as our dog gets in it. YCK! We have done trial runs putting him in and encouraging him to come out by himself, but it is going to take time I guess and I don't want him spraying on the furniture etc not using it. I am also pretty distressed over some things going on with my dd involving my grandson. I don't feel I can go into it, just suffice it to say that things are not good and we are not getting to interact with him as we should nor buy him things as we would like. We are given "orders" regarding him. Just keep us in your thoughts that we can one day work this all out.

Hope you all have a good day. We are supposed to get rain again, but hope it holds off until later in the day so I can get in the pool.

Please keep Jana in your prayers. She is having a lot of back problems and pain.

I will check in later with you all when you have your sleepy heads out of bed!

Faye