That is so Susan, Congrats on your winning!

2F -- What is marmite? I hope it's healthy ...

Today has been a good day food and exercise wise ....

Thanks everyone. I don't win things very often. We're in the process of negotiating what we're gonna get. I'm rootin' for chicken breasts

I've got my hipster yoga pants on gals. And this horrid flob of loose empty skin is hanging out. Ya know? ... I call it my birthday suit getting too big. I know it's a good sign but ewww!

Poor suze

Marmite is extract of yeast - you can spread it on toast and it's lovely bitter/salty/meaty taste The aussies have Vegemite which isn't as strong.

Feeling slightly better, still have a temperature and horrid tummy pains, but I don't hurt as much - at least not yet! I have to get up and go out for a wedding dress fitting so I hope I don't fall over! I'm going to take some food and some Pepsi with me, to keep me upright!

Will post pictures later

2F -- Extract of yeast on toast ... is all I can say ...

I had a very good food and exercise day yesterday and it's showing up on the scale this morning... Not to worry though it's the same 2# I've lost and found a zillion times in the last year ... Time for a clean weekend

If marmite is anything like vegimite, I'll pass! I had that stuff in Australia and likened it to tar spread on toast. I suppose you must acquire a taste for it, but I still think I'll pass, thanks!

Good luck with the wedding dress 2Frus, I hope you are feeling better. Please get those pics up here as soon as possible. I'd love to see them.

Frus, where is that pic of your wedding dress? I can't seem to locate it could you please direct me to it?

Congratulations to all of you who have had such wonderful weeks! I am still avoiding the scale but I have been on plan so I feel rather postive about things. I do need more exercise though. I should search all of my old posts because I've told people a million times that exercise is one of those things that you just do - whether you want to or not. Maybe I'd feel like such a hypocrite that it would guilt me into working out harder.

I have always been a calorie counter. I am a firm beliver that weight loss boils down to calories in vs. calories out. I've been thinking about switching gears though, just for the sake of doing something different. I'm not looking for a quick fix or a crazy crash diet, just a change of pace - something that would require more attention on my part than calorie counting does at this point. Someone suggested South Beach but I haven't looked into that yet. No matter what I decide I'll still be tracking calories, I just want another focus. Of course, this whole idea could be my way of avoiding the fact that a new exercise routine would require more attention and serve the same purpose. I really do LOVE to workout. What is wrong with me these days?!?

I'm taking advantage of this thread to blog a little. It helps so much when I'm ruminating on something, to have imput from others.

A couple of little incidents are sticking in my head lately. And of course, I'm sooo close that I'm hunting for 'the thing', 'the key' blah blah blah ...

I was reading the site of one of my favourite fitness competitors/models. She describes how she eats and says that before a competition she uses a thermogenic pill.
There's ever so many ads on TV for thermogenic this and thermgenic that.
I bike in the cold.
On LWL, we were teasing Ilene about swimming in cold water.
Whales, seals and other animals who live in cold water have a resistant layer of fat for insulation.
I live in a big old farm house that is not warm most days.
And the notion that a calorie is really a unit of heat

So agoogling I went.

thermogenic:Relating to heat, or to the production of heat; producing heat

caffeine and anything that makes your heart go faster can do this ... ephedra

there are claims that hot peppers etc can do this ... vitamin B complexes

there is a diet out there that claims if you eat all cold food, your body uses calories warming the food up to digest it

I though pft! so is it hot or cold that works? ... make up your mind quacks!

I also found lists of foods that use more calories to digest than are in 'em

As I googled deeper into fitness sites, I found some common sense.
Any food is thermogenic. You need energy to digest anything.
The more complex the food, the more your body has to work to digest it. For example meat is more thermogenic than fruit juice.
Exercise, activity is thermogenic duh! That'd be why they call it a 'warm up' and 'cool down'

Why is it our tendancy to want to complicate the principles of weight loss? I've done the same thing you have, Susan. Digging for the key WHEN I ALREADY HAVE IT! I don't know if I'll ever accept that it is as simple as eating less and moving more. I know that eating less and moving more WORKS but I still find myself searching for something that will make it work BETTER.

Lucky ... how funny is it that we're both thinking this way today!

I've been "thinking" quick fix lately too, must be the Spring time and Summer bathing suit season coming up... But I KNOW those quick fixes in the long run don't work. Do hotflashes count as thermogenic? I know that when I get a HF while exercising I feel like I'm going to pass out from heat exhaustion..

Wedding dress piccies are in UK chicks thread - one is called Blushing Bride - I think it might be on page 2 or 3 by now, that's some pictures of me in some random dresses from a department store a couple of weeks ago. There are some pictures in a thread called "More Dresses" that have just gone up tonight. The quality is pretty poor on most of them, I have re-done one so that you can see the detail!

Marmite - you either love it or hate it

I'll post more when I'm in a more "diet" mood. Wedding dresses gets me eatings Better tomorrow

Don't eat, you won't fit in the dress ... I love the high collared one

frus, I think the high collared one looks great. My favorite, though, is the strapless on with the full skirt you have posted in the blushing bride thread. I also really, really like the straight dress that has the criss cross straps on the back with the little flowers on the front of the shoulders. You've got great shoulders and collar bones - any dress that accentuates them is going to look smashing!

Argh no! Not the STRAPLESS MERINGUE! I have that straight dress - I bought it on ebay for £20!!! I think I'll dye it and wear it a different time! It's ankle length though, so not quite wedding dress length. Maybe I should get my legs shortened!

Oh and there wasn't a picture of this, but my back looks fairly ripped in the high collared one *SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

I'm back on track with my eating today - high protein breakfast of bacon and egg after lifting on an empty stomach first thing!