Mornin' everyone!

Jumping on here while hubby is in the shower for a quick post.

We're going to be leaving here shortly for our drive north. Tomorrow we'll be exploring the local area (I was hoping to wander about the state park, but not sure how that will work out time-wise with our 'tour guide' not getting back to us with a window he'd be willing to squire us about). Sunday, of course, is the preaching, Q&A, and voting time and I'm still a bit freaked out. I got almost no sleep last night. Monday we'll either be driving home thrilled or depressed, then Tuesday we've got dinner plans with a friend.

Obviously I won't be tracking food this weekend, and I'll do my best to track my fast food intake Friday and Monday.

I'll check in here when I can, but If I don't make it borrow hubby's computer too much over the weekend, I'll be back Monday night with a full update.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Mandy - What a HUGE weekend for you. Hope you get to see the state park and do some hiking to burn some of that nervous energy off. We are all rooting for you and your hubby.

Martini - I love having a kindred spirit here, and I am still in awe of you finally completing your multi-year project. So much work! I am excited for your weigh-in tomorrow. And very excited that you have found the "honeymoon" stage of your journey. Nothing better than when it's easy. Great strategy for dealing with your craving as well.

Jessica - Working out makes all the difference to my mood so many times. When I was in a super funk last week, I got myself to the gym, but didn't force myself to actually do more than just start half-heartedly. It sounds like you made yourself succeed. So. Awesome.

Diane - I love your short check-ins. It's a reminder that even when I don't have time to do a full post, I can still avail myself of the support and accountability on this incredible thread.

Jenni - Welcome to non-lurker status! Wow. I, too, have a blended family consisting of five biological children and two step-children, and my 17yo has autism, so I totally relate to how challenging your situation is. My day-to-day situation has become remarkably easier, as my bio children are temporarily living with my ex in Russia, but I know how hard it is to give yourself the time and attention you deserve when so many other needs are there. Glad you are doing that.

Uber - What a great observation. And I, too, get deep-down bone-hungry when I am not eating a lot of protein (hence, my determination that I will only be 90% vegan). Also, can't wait for you to post that you're at 240, and reminiscing about how hard the 260-obstacle was, but how you pushed through it.

Loving the new 90% vegan thing. It may just be a function of mixing it up, which is also fine with me, but I have found compliance to be astonishingly easy. I am going primarily whole foods, plant-based, so the bagels yesterday morning didn't fit in my plan. And I wasn't even slightly tempted. The ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins at the party for my retiring assistant would normally be tempting, but there wasn't a fiber of me that wanted it. At the movie last night, I could smell the popcorn and the chocolate being consumed by my companions, but I was absolutely satisfied with the water. Instead, I ate delicious steel-cut oats, red potatoes, raspberries, blueberries, and some post-work-out protein powder mixed with my oatmeal. And I ate copious quantities of all but the oatmeal (which is too high-cal for me to eat without caution). And I loved every bite, as well as the feeling that I didn't have to restrict quantities or track anything.

And the scale this morning. Oh, the scale. I stepped on it four times, including adjusting its placement on the floor, just to make sure the result would stay the same. It did. 225.0. Also known as, down 3.8 from yesterday morning. Which may be a real number that will stick, given that even when I was struggling, I continued to calorie-restrict, and only had one really off-meal, and the scale gave me no love. And the high fiber yesterday did help to expel some weight, if you KWIM. ;-) And it may not be a real number. We'll see over the next few days. But as of this morning, I had lost 14.8 pounds since the morning after I made my bet with my trainer, and I still have 41 days to build in some insurance losses.

Thank you ALL for the kind welcomes!

Garnet-Great job on the exercise! I haven't started yet but I know I need to so awesome job!

Martini...awesome will power. I think we are challenged everyday. And I have realized that food is an addiction...just as drugs and alcohol food is put in our faces everyday and it is that WILL POWER that gets us through ....great job!

Fera...have fun!!!!

Laura- great job on the weight loss and great job on vegan...is this a new thing? I love meat WAY too much...LOL Blended families are hard His mine and ours I think its been a really hard adjustment at times...still struggle with it most days then you through in autism. But hey that is what makes us us and I have become so much stronger. Russia?? Wow...are you from there?

Well still at 241 so I am hoping to get to the next decade here real soon. I am on the Low Carb day today and looking forward to tomorrow with the high carb day. Hope everyone has a fantastic day

Hi all! Nice activity on this thread!

Well, I am getting a new scale today. Mine at home was up 3 pounds this morning, then I got on again, and it was down a couple, and then it showed "ERR". I can't have that. It must be consistent, especially with my scale obsession. My son was asking me if I could just use a scale at the gym. Um.... no. They have one of those doctor's office types, but I'm not going to wait for that every day and I'm not weighing in front of anyone else. No way. So, when I get off work, I'm heading out to get one. I do NOT have to put up with a bad scale! I'm not excited about getting a new one, since sometimes they weigh you differently than your old one, but I have to have some consistency.

Today was MOI spin class. (mind over intensity, using the heart rate monitor as a guide) That class just kicks my butt. I had shaky legs again. Tomorrow is another MOI class and normally I do that and then head to the Body Flow class. But, I'm thinking that I would like to start working on doing a little running. So, instead of MOI, I might just go to the treadmill and walk/run. I don't know. I am overthinking again, but it might also be time for a little shake up in my routine. I can't decide if I should just concentrate on whatever will help me take off the most pounds, or if I really want to start working on running, since running a 5K next spring/summer is a goal for me. Sheesh... why does this have to be so challenging?

LaurieDawn: So glad that the vegan thing is working out for you! That's great! I don't think I could do it, but if you can make it work for you and you're losing more pounds, that's just fantastic! Awesome job on resisting all of those temptations, too!

Mandy: So excited for you! You'll finally have your answers this weekend and I am so confident that it will be exactly what you are hoping for! Good luck, and enjoy your weekend!

Martini: Good choices again for you! You are rocking it! I hope the scale is a great reward for you now! I like your analogy with the alcoholism issues. It is so true that the only way we'll do this is if we are ready to take it on and make it happen! No one can do it for us.

Garnet: You're having some great workouts too, with Luna. Glad that you enjoyed the good feeling that comes with it! I may have missed it along the way, but who/what is Luna?

Jenni, Donna, Katie: Welcome! Looking forward to getting to know you better! This is a very supportive group!

Uber: Good point about the hunger/craving issue. I totally agree. I'm heading out this weekend to some of the local farmer's stands to get some zucchini and whatever else is available. I actually love it raw!!

Martini: That brought a smile to my face. I'll tell you a story. There were a couple of times leading up to it, when I knew what was coming, that I cried. I completely broke down. There I was, falling apart in bed late one night and I told myself that enough was enough. I told myself I wasn't happy with him, I stopped making excuses for the things he'd done over the last six years, told myself he wasn't worth the pain I was putting myself through. I accepted what I had always known deep down - that he wasn't the type of person I wanted in my life and no matter how much I was afraid of being alone, being alone could never hurt me as bad as being with him. Sniffling, I took off my rings (something neither my father nor my stepmother noticed, by the way) and put them away.

The immediate relief I felt not having them on my finger was incredible. There were times when I first moved in with my brother and his fiance that I did talk about my ex a lot. They didn't know him and there were things that I went through I'd never told anybody. While I didn't have lingering feelings for him, I did have things that needed to be expressed somehow. But, aside from letting go of those things that he did and thoughts directly related to trying to get the divorce done - he still hasn't signed and filed his papers, btw - I haven't thought about him since I took those rings off. It's been liberating. <3

I am so proud of that shift you experienced. It is a wonderful accomplishment and such an awesome feeling when you conquer what used to feel like a mountain. Keep up the good work and I can't wait to see what sort of progress you've made in the last few weeks!

Mandy: Best of luck to both you and your husband this weekend, Mandy. I have no doubt that everything will work out the way it is meant to be. Enjoy your trip and we look forward to hearing about it when you get back.

Laurie: It sounds like something about the 90% vegan thing may be just what your body needed. There is something to be said for finding what works for you and the fact that you're not stressing about whether or not there's going to be a snide comment about the food your eating probably doesn't hurt. Here's to hoping your big drop holds. I know how it is to keep that drop at arm's length, so to speak, until you're sure it is a valid loss.

Jenny: You'll get there. I can't wait to hit the two-teens, myself, but patience and persistence are the key. I always highly recommend that people start adding in some sort of exercise as early as possible in their weight loss journey for several reasons. The exercise really does help with the emotionally and reaching a new level of fitness can help so much when the scale just doesn't want to cooperate. Just start thinking about what you can do, don't force your body to do something it's not ready for yet, don't be afraid of a challenge, and find exercises that you love to do.

Diane: Lol! Luna is my dog. She's a Great Pyrenees x Border Collie mix who will hopefully be done blowing her coat soon so I can stop having to vacuum my room three or four times a week. :P

Do what you really feel like you want to do. Don't limit yourself to "well this works" because it's just like forcing yourself to eat a strict diet. It can sometimes do more harm than good. Walking/running can and will help you burn fat, too. If you want to work up to running a 5k then I say go for it!!


The scale finally moved today. Down by 0.2 lbs. Woohoo. I feel like it's such a minor victory. I was really hoping to see something bigger but part of me didn't even want to step on the scale because I didn't want to see something in the 224.x range again. I decided to do tape checks at my hips, waist, and muffin top to try and console myself with some sort of progress. Hips and muffin top are down 0.5" since Tuesday, so down 1" over all. That will comfort me for the time being.

I've also decided that I'm going to work up to a point where I can run a 5k Color Run next year. That's a whole year to get in shape for it. If I can get to 5k faster, I might look into doing some others before then, but I'm definitely wanting to do a Color Run.

Diane - Just stopping in briefly, post-gym, to tell you that I decided that I was going to see how far I could go with running without walking intervals. I was doing C25K earlier this month before my knee started giving me trouble, so I have been doing alternate cardio instead. Today, I ran for 1 mile. 1 very, very slow mile. 13:01, to be exact. But I did it, and I bet, with all of your spinning, you could do it as well, if not more (and probably a lot more). I then slowed it down to a walk so I could get my heart rate down again, and decided to run for another 3 minutes after walking for a bit. All in all, I walked/ran 1.5 miles. Long way from a 5K, but it feels really good to me.

Laurie, I'm so jealous. I can't even run one full lap around the lake yet and that's only .375 miles.

Diane Just a bit of scale solidarity! I hate switching scales for fear my weight will be different-- but it is way less crazy-making than having one scale that gives you lots of different readings. I definitely find that as the reliability of my scale goes up my worry about it goes down. Good luck!

Laurie: How excellent that you ran a mile!!! Running is awesome! I'm really looking forward to getting back to it!

Mandy I am keeping you and your husband in my thoughts. I have a good feeling about this. Times of upheaval are always hard for weight loss, but think how much easier to tackle all this with 30lbs already gone. Everything will be easier!
Jen You'll be racking up the losses in no time.

Martini I am so glad you are finding that your head is in a good space right now and your alcoholism analogy is spot on. When you REALLY want to do it, nothing can derail you... it's figuring out how to REALLY want it that's hard.

Leaving for vacation on Wednesday. I need to come up with a good food plan before I go. I want to find something that is a happy medium between "anything goes" and deprivation. We will be eating every night in a family-style dining place. We get no choices, and menu is salad, entree, dessert. Portion sizes are moderate. I think my plan will be to stick to coffee and milk for breakfast, like I'm doing now, stick with a simple lunch (I eat yogurt and berries a lot for lunch) and then try to so as the Romans and eat a normal dinner. It may slow down my weight loss a little, but it shouldn't be fatal. Also, it's a great place to walk, and I'm planning on taking a long walk every day, to get back in exercise mode.

Just dropping in very quickly. Harder for me to check in on weekends.

223.0. Something weird is going on here. Even at the start of a weight loss plan, I have never seen these kind of drops, and I am both eating and exercising hard. Who knows? But the scale is down 5.8 pounds from two days ago. Could be a whoosh. But I've never had this level of whoosh before. I have some theories, but I'm not going to worry about them. I'm also not going to trust the numbers any more than I would trust them if they climbed that rapidly. Just going to try to stay on plan, and trust that the laws of thermodynamics will be honored. Also, I'm going to eat pancakes for breakfast (off-plan, of course, but on-plan because I plan to go off-plan), so that might make the scale shoot back up.

Diane- Great job at spin...I LOVE spin but cannot find any classes here I wish they had just spin gyms...LOL Great job!

Garnet- yay for the scale. I have always wanted to do the color 5k looks so much fun...I am striving to do it next year! That is such an awesome goal!

Laurie- great job with the workouts and weightloss! Amazing!

Uber-Have fun on vacation...and you can do it!!!!!

So I went to the river with my sister, some teens, and the little's yesterday. It was so much fun. I was really not wanting to get in a bathing suit but I did and the important thing is my kids saw me having fun no matter what. I am so sore from swimming and playing...LOL I have decided to start the couch to 5k this week! I wanted to start exercise and this is perfect! I was down again to 239 this morning....and best of all today is a high carb day.....I do love the low carb days because I never feel hungry but man I look forward to these days to eat granola and wheat bread Have a great weekend probably won't see you until Monday hubby is home on the weekends and we have all our family time put into the weekends

Uber: Sounds to me like you already have your plan squared away in your head. I think with your determination and willpower, you have nothing to worry about. Have fun this weekend!

Laurie: That's huge! I'd be doing the same thing right about now as you are - acknowledging the drop but not inherently trusting it until it has held for a few days. That way if it manages to climb back up, you don't find yourself feeling depressed.

Jen: I love swimming, too. I sucked up my embarrassment about wearing a swimsuit a long time ago. So what if I can't wear a bikini - I'm usually swimming laps as it is and my boobs are too big for a bikini top to hold securely while doing that... Well, they're too big for most bikinis period. Lol. Have fun with the family this weekend!


Scale was down to 222.8 lbs this morning. I'm glad that it is still moving. I've found myself hungry late at night, during my break at work, all week this week so I decided last night to just take some leftover homemade mac and cheese and eat the extra calories if I was hungry again. It's a good thing I took it because I was. And even after I'd eaten, I still had a dull hunger. I wish I had the money to shell out on a fitbit - or a similar product - so I could get a more accurate picture of just how many calories I burn each day.

My brother, his fiance, and the little girl they're watching all went camping. I know my brother really wanted me to go but I'm really happy just staying home. It's not that I wouldn't have enjoyed it but there's going to be another family camping with them and I was really hesitant about letting their friend watch my dog. Not to mention that if I went, I would have to try and find a way to do all of my planks and other exercises without people staring and even if I did take Luna it could be hit or miss as to whether or not there was a place to walk her. No, no, maybe I'll go camping in the off-season but I'm not particularly good with crowds and I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of people out this weekend. So it's just me and the puppies.

Jessica You are absolutely on a roll! You're doing great. Hope you enjoy your weekend alone. I also like to avoid crowds and take a little time alone whenever I get the chance.

Laurie Look at you go! Those pounds are dropping like flies! Unlike you, I always glom onto a loss as soon as I see it. Then, anything I see higher after that I characterize as "bounce". You are doing so well!

Jenni So glad you went for a swim! I love swimming so much, I would never give it up-- I have a miracle suit.... it's a bathing suit which is basically made out of really strong spanx type stuff. It looks like a regular bathing suit but even with my excessively floppy post 4 kids tummy I'm happy when I wear it. I had one and wore it out, and eventually bought another. They're expensive, but they last 3-4 years even when you swim laps daily. I did C25K in 2010 and it literally changed my life (for a while) I got completely into running-- and when I started, I couldn't run 90 seconds on a treadmill. I mean, I didn't run EVER and hadn't for years. I'm looking forward to doing it again, but I'm going to wait until I get into the 230s. I feel like running at this weight would be too hard on my bones.

I'm having a stressed out day with family issues and this is the exact situation that often triggers my eating issues. Several knotty work-related issues didn't get resolved on Friday, and I've got the family concerns as well.

I hate feeling like this, but unless I learn to manage this feeling WITHOUT food, I'm never going to lose the weight and keep it off. I'm planning a nice long walk on the beach this afternoon. That should help a lot!

Hi all!

Well, I have the new scale and I am so glad I got it. It is much more in line with what I thought I weighed and it is very consistent. I'm much happier. The other one is getting old and it probably just wore out. So, hopefully, I can show a loss at Monday's weigh in.

I went to the gym today and instead of doing the spin class, I got on the treadmill and walked/ran. That is a good thing to do. Even though I think I've been doing well with working out, the running just adds a new dimension. I am a little stiff and slightly sore. I went to Body flow after 40 minutes on the treadmill, and that was challenging, so I'm not sure where the soreness is coming from. But I'm glad I got going with the running. I have a long time to go before I want to do the 5k, but it is probably good to start now. Gives me time to get in better shape and lose more weight.

Uber: Sorry about the family issues. Stay strong! Sounds like you are keeping on track, and that's good news!!

Garnet: Well, I figured Luna was a dog, but I wanted to make sure! Probably a good thing staying home with the dogs than going camping with a bunch of people!!

Jen: Awesome job on the swimming! Good for you!

LaurieDawn: Wow! Great losses for you! Gotta ride that wave while it is there!

Hi all!

Sneaking on really quickly before bed.

Just wanted to drop in and say hello and ask for continued prayers and/or good vibes sent this direction for tomorrow morning.

I keep telling my husband "Epic sermon, sweetie. EPIC."

The vote comes after the service, so we'll know before lunch!

Uber: A nice long walk on the beach sounds like it's just what the doctor ordered. Hope things start to ease up a little in the stress department soon. In the meantime, we're here if you need us.

Diane: You are doing so awesome. Keep it up, cause you're an inspiration!

Martini: Thanks for that. When there are days I need a shoulder to lean on, you'll be on my list of people to turn to. I can imagine how upsetting it might have been to try and squeeze in that weigh-in only to find the scale's out-of-order. With any luck, all the waiting won't start driving you crazy. I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't able to at least track my inches!

Mandy: Sending good thoughts ya'lls way.


Today has be wonderful. I've been cleaning the kitchen and mopping the floors a little. And catching up on Haven. Luna has finally blown most of her winter coat, aside from her tail, hips, and along the back of her legs. Unfortunately, it's so thick that it seems like she's been shedding and rather than the fur falling away from her body, it was getting caught up in all the other fur. In spite of my best efforts, it got to the point that I decided it'd be best to cut out the mats that were starting to form and just trim off the non-matted parts along the back of her legs. She had one huge mat on the underside of her tail that had to come off so the fluffy end looks silly compared to the trimmed part around her butt. :P Of course, the fact that she's still got very thick fur on her hips - which I don't feel comfortable trimming myself - doesn't help either.

In other news, I can't decide if I feel guilty or not about only walking her for 0.375 miles today. Even before we started out on our walk, I really just wasn't feeling it. And then the mosquitoes started eating me alive and so one loop was all she wrote. On the one hand a very small voice, that I can barely hear, is yelling at me for being "lazy". The other, louder voice, though, is pointing out that my body needs a break. My legs, especially. I noticed that just climbing upstairs to go to bed has felt like a chore the last few days because of how tired my legs are. And coming down in the morning, my right knee and left ankle have been achy. It's not as if I didn't do any exercise today. I've done squats, a variety of calf exercises, planks. I did walk some. I am not in the same shape as athletes (yet), even they take a day off to rest their bodies once and a while. I can't expect my body not to need the same downtime.