February done, and managed to maintain my weight (112.4 on Feb 1st and 112.2 this morning) which was less a foregone conclusion than it would seem from my graphs - January was a bit haywire and I had lots of indulgencies but ramped up the exercise and I was happy with my weight but worried that I was starting to crave more and more crap, hence my decision to post here more often in Feb to keep me accountable.

So feeling pretty good at the moment although i'm still doing heaps of exercise which might not be realistically sustainable for a long time. Guess I just need to keep on monitoring and tweak if the creep starts.

When I signed up for the gym back in November the package came with a free 1:1 training session which I never used - til yesterday.... I decided that I wanted to use it to be taught how to balance on my hands, or maybe walk on my hands. So I had an hour of that last night! I can stand on my hands against a wall ok, but have never been able to balance.

Anyway the teacher was a mega-yoga dude, so it was all coming from the approach of technical strength and alignment etc which is good basics. So basically I now have some exercises to work on with wrist strengthening etc and also some techniques to practice for the real thing.

I did a load of cartwheels last night which is something I've not tried for about 40 years!!! It all came back though. The other thing was he was making sure I was ambidextrous and kicking up from both feet, and cartwheeling in different directions etc. Fun. My wrists were hurting by the end though. Now I need to schedule some practice time and decide where I can do it (not much room in our house - I live in an inner-city terrace). I'll let you know if I make any progress!

allinell - no, not heard of those suits before but I've just looked it up! Looks like a great idea. The only thing i'm wondering is whether they actually give you your stats? Or does your side of the ap take the photos, and their side of the software process it and therefore they may not pass that info back to you?? It would be cool to have made-to-measure clothes too!
My friend went to one of those pod things that you get in shopping centres that presumably is similar technology in that you strip off and are photo'd from every angle, but she was quite disappointed because the next time she went back a few months later and the results were completely different in a wonky way - i.e. her shoulders were 5cm wider or something.....

Shannon - aww, sorry you're having a tough time with the food thing. At least you're here checking in, so give yourself some credit. It's definitely THE hardest part of this whole dieting thing is just getting in the groove again and making your head make a start. The actual doing it is much easier.

Granny - wow, spending your life avoiding a neighbour must be some added drama that's totally not needed. I wonder if this woman realises what impact she has on other people's lives?

Me too - I've gone from eating infrequently due to stress, to eating my feelings (which are many and varied -> overeating). And I too know what to do. Honestly, my struggle is caring - I just don't care what I look like right now. But I know I'll care when I'm depressed because I've gained weight.

Hi to Ange and Nancy. Nancy, I'd love to hear more about your dogs - what breeds do you select to train for each specific task?

Hello all!
Busy new thread and I'm too busy at the moment to properly introduce myself. I'll check back in ASAP.
In the meantime, the more pet stuff the better in my world!

And, yes, I've seen the Zozo suit on my peloton threads on facebook. It looks hilarious on but I get the concept!

See y'all soon!

The person who posted it showed what the app gives you and it is all the measurements. I know that it transmits back to the company because they want the measurements to make you custom clothing. For $4 I won't mind the (probably daily) emails asking me to buy clothes from them.

Forgot that I wanted to add to this. Weight is again going down! Yay. And my DD said that she and her DH should come visit as they haven't been home since New Year's Day. So I suggested the weekend of March 16-17 as it is my birthday. Then I reached out to my DS and his BF and they are coming, too! So I'll be cooking up a huge feast for 10 for the 16th (birthday is the 17th). DS is planning on proposing to his BF sometime in the near future (they've been dating almost two years). And DD said she is on track to get her PhD in May and then defend her dissertation in July--events that we'll plan on attending. Sadly, they were not able to procure a home loan early so they'll have to rent for at least six months once they move to Wisconsin.

Such good news, Allison!!

Taking two minutes to stop by again. I miss my daily checkins here and need to find/make the time.

Not sure why I always feel so busy, but I know it's my own doing. Since dh travels so much, I keep myself busy. Then, I'm in the midst of my Read-a-thon at school, and my book fair is in 11 days. I also had an author visit today and I'm trying to schedule another one. I had a sweet teacher this morning see how frantic I was and she arranged for her class and another class to skip library today and let me catch up a bit. I almost burst into tears at her generosity.

Dh came home last night late. He is sick. Ugh. If he makes me sick, I'll kill him.... no time for that! He leaves again Sunday, which is my birthday so we are planning on celebrating Saturday. He found out his year end ranking/raise/etc. today and it was quite good so we have another reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, much of our celebrating will likely revolve around food, but he's here so little, that I want to celebrate with him. I will reign it back once he leaves again. My weight is overall dropping, though slowly, and I'm starting to see my muscles reappear that had been hiding under a layer.

Back to the grindstone! Keep on keeping on!

Ange (is that what we should call you?)--- I can't believe you can do cartwheels! I don't know how old you are but if you haven't done them for 40 years.... I tried one years ago to show my daughters and I think I pulled everything! I will not be doing that again anytime soon.

michele, are you a teacher? or a librarian? a job that involves reading sounds good! Me and dh come and go a bit with our jobs too, so it's definitely nice to make the time to celebrate when you're together - just really enjoy every mouthful of indulgence I say - go for guilt-free quality over quantity

yep, i'm an Ange

Well, I surprised myself with the cartwheels - I don't imagine they were very aesthetic ones! As for age, i'm in good company with the March kids here - my birthday's on 10th. I'll be 51. Seems like a reasonable sort of age to take up cartwheeling and handstands. What could possibly go wrong..... (??!)

great to hear everyone's heading in the right direction with their weights - especially with other life-stuff trying to butt in.

Today was 132.8 - yesterday was crazy with getting up, walking 4 miles with the dogs then working (I telecommute) then taking half a day off to go training with a police department. So I have a cell phone also for work and was answering emails off and on during the training so it was hectic not to mention a 1.5 hour drive each way but it is good networking. The night before after work we were doing building searches with Beau. Life is pretty upside down until our annual re-certification test in April, [which is a 3 day event], summer break with grandkids, and a seminar for water search with Beau. Saturday is a planned search (remains) and then team training after the search. Sunday is time with my DH. Tomorrow evening we meet with DD1 and SIL for dinner - grandkids are doing teen stuff with their friends.

So two dogs. Beau is a human remains detection dog. A German Shepherd and the search team is all volunteer. I have been doing HR searches since 2008 with my first dog, Grim, who passed away in 2013 and with Beau since his first certification test in 2012. ...... Tilly is also a German Shepherd and she is doing trailing. This is a new discipline for me and I inherited her from someone who quit the team. Basically Tilly is a very dominant female (she lifts her leg to pee even) who was bullying the former teammates other dog and Tilly has always respected Beau who is an intact male. So the two get along gangbusters. She had been working offlead doing area search but I put her on lead because (1) Trailing following a ground scent is her strong point and (2) She was too crazy off lead - and liked to chase deer. I did not want to wind up with a dead dog Beau, FWIW is so trustworthy I can work him around wildlife, farm animals, etc. and he is a full of himself crazy male dog out of police dog lines.

I will probably only pop in here about once a week until I get through April! Beau's annual test requires him to search vehicles, buildings, woodland problems, buried remains, rubble piles and submerged hides and do offlead obedience test- out of 12 problems you get one 'miss". So it is pretty harrowing because there are only a few evaluators in the US and we all have to band together to fly someone in to test us and the cost of failure is losing your operational status. Since he is the only human remains dog on the team, failure is not an option. So far he has tested successfully 6 years in a row. But it is still nerve-wracking

Ange - wow I cannot being to imagine cartwheels. It has been like? 1968? LOL. Glad you are doing the one on one. We are working with a personal trainer who is coming to our home and helping us with bodyweight fitness with personalized goals. FWIW my grandfather celebrated his 65th birthday by walking around the yard on his hands. That was funny. He was skinny but strong. I am trying to use my neighbor as a blessing in disguise. my work day starts at 8am anyway so if I am out the door by 6 I can get in 2 miles with each dog, do whatever combing / nail trimming whatever by 730 which is when she leaves to drive her kids to the bus stop, and then during the day she hibernates until it is time to pick them up after school. Such a sad life. Nobody in the neigborhood can stand her. We all realize she has mental health issues. During the day I sneak out for 2-3 other 1 mile walks.

Shannon - definitely one day at a time. I will say that daily journaling has gone a long way to helping me. That and planning my food and committing to stick with my plan for the day. I have to figure that all this maintenance stuff is a new normal and has to be a path we can see ourselves living with -- over time a lot of the changes have become automatic and that helps.....

Allison - that is great news about the weight going down and your birthday plans sound like great fun!

Traveling Michele - since I probably won't have time to post until Sunday - Happy birthday. Congrats for the good job outcome for your DH and hope the birthday and visit go well!

Maintenance talk stuff - so - I have been doing this bright lines which is a pretty structured approach BUT I have also been logging food in Cronometer AND using my Garmin wrist device to track exercise. I am truly amazed that the old calories calculations are coming up crazily accurate for me. If I set my activity level to ZERO in both Cronometer and on the Garmin, then let the Garmin send over activity calories burned.........the balance between calories in and calories out winds up actually being about 3500 calories over = 1 lb gained and 3500 under = 1 lb loss. Who would have ever thought? So the food approach of 3 planned meals a day in the kind of proportions of protein fat carbs etc allowed..........and mainly the plan is high fiber / low glycemic ........with protein and carbs added during maintenance and using the calorie counts and nutrition data to assess WHICH proteins, fruits, etc to eat has been working quite well. It is actually kind of fun in an OCD way.

Nancy Although I've never had a purebred one GSD's (German Shepherd Dogs) have always been my favorite breed. Rin Tin Tin and Littlest Hobo figured big in my early life. My big red mutt girls (current and past) were/are shepherd mixes.

Could you please post a couple of pics of your dogs when you have more time? This is my current shepherd/collie mix Trixie.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...ize=1436%2C972

Dagmar

Mudpie - sure thing. I will have to get some uploaded to photobucket; I don't know any other way to put in pictures.

I went to photos I had uploaded for Fb, copied the link for a Trixie pic, and pasted here using the link icon (in the bar above the message field, 8 icons over from the left). When you click the link icon it gives you a place to paste the copied URL and then it shows up in this message field as a link to your Fb photo.

Dagmar

Ange-- yes, I'm an elementary school librarian-- huge elementary school-- we have 1000 students and my library has over 40,000 books!

And you're in good company, age-wise. I'll be 52 on Friday....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHELE! a day late...

What's up for the weekend? Anything exciting? Here it's mostly outdoor chores for me before it gets hot again.

I'm working starting tomorrow. I'm watching it snow right now. Sigh.

We are going to go out for Vietnamese food tonite and then to the Toronto Light Festival. We've started to get too far into hibernating on the weekend evenings so it's time to go do something in this big city of ours. I've seen pics of this festival (outdoor light sculptures and such) so I'm taking my camera along. Hopefully the snow will have stopped falling but will remain on the sculptures. Should be an interesting shoot.

Dagmar