Fatpants - interesting - love the french onion soup at panera! Will have to notice if I have that pattern too : )

Girls - thanks again for all the interval coaching. I gave it a shot this morning and did it the very non scientific way of two blocks at normal pace, one block at faster pace and only ran for a half hour. Definitely felt like a serious workout! Will keep trying..

Dancer - I'm so glad you enjoyed the intervals! I'm actually planning to start incorporating them into my runs soon so that I can speed up a bit before my 10K! It's always fun to change things up. Also, if you girls are interested, there's a Happy August Runners thread in the exercise forum and the girls there are so experienced and willing to share their knowledge, so you should check it out!

About the sodium, your body will undoubtedly retain water when you take in a lot of sodium. That being said, I'm sure people's sodium tolerances vary a lot, so that one person can swell up after having a bag of popcorn and another won't notice a thing! Your kidneys and brain will be making some changes, but that may not necessary translate into a noticeable gain on the scale or swollen hands/feet/etc. It also depends a lot on your water intake, so if you're really hydrated, your body won't freak out quite as much from a lot of salt.

As for me, I've been stressed Balancing long class hours, studying, working out every day, cooking all of my healthy meals and being social has been really tough and I'm feeling a little worn down. I know it takes time to adjust to being back at school and to a different routine but I just want to be adjusted already! I've definitely been stress eating, which for me means overeating healthy stuff like larabars (officially banned from my apartment!) and fruit, but I've kept up with running and spinning so my weight hasn't changed luckily.

I guess this is the ultimate test for me, not just weight wise, but to keep this healthy mentality throughout all of the stress and long days when all I wanna do is sit around and eat the house! I'm so happy with the person that I am now and I want to keep her around forever, so I'm gonna do all I can to make that happen! With you girls as my support system, I can't go wrong!

Takingcharge - you've done so well and are such an inspiration! I know this is a stressful time but you'll make it work, I just know it! How many days a week do you exercise right now?

Yessss it's Friday!

Dancer - glad the intervals worked out... I agree they give you a major workout!

TC - I think learning to incorporate this into our every day lives is the biggest lesson we have to learn with this weight loss journey, you know? Life is going to constantly be throwing curve balls our way so I think it's about learning to make a healthy lifestyle work with whatever's on our plate at the moment (no pun intended!) I think you're doing a great job and give it another week or so.. you'll get things figured out!

ok weigh in day for me...

SW: 185
CW: 170.2
GW: 165

Gah! I am so close to the 160s! That's pretty big motivation for me to keep sticking to the diet this weekend.

woohoo, fatpants! the 60s are so close - you can do it! Can't wait to be there myself!

Dancer and fatpants - Thank you so much for the words of encouragement. I've been working out 6x/week, getting up at 5:30 2x/week so I have more time to study later in the day. I know I can probably scale it down a little bit, but I really don't want to and I really don't wanna have to eat less. Especially when I'm awake from 5:30am-11pm, I get really hungry! That's just too many hours in the day, haha. You're right though, I'll settle in and this will become just part of my daily routine. I feel like we've all worked too hard to turn it around at this point.

Go 160's! Almost there!

Happy Friday everyone!

I hear ya. I'm up at 5:15 to work from 6-3:00 most days... by the time I'm home from work, I'm trying to fit in running, dinner, the usual stuff. Before I know it, it's 10pm and time for bed! It's going to get harder, too, when I start really increasing my mileage/time. I mean 1 hr is doable but 2 hr runs? holy crap. I guess those are definitely going to have to be on Saturdays!

Hi everyone,

Wanted to share my exciting news - with all the talk about running on this thread, I decided to give it a try. I was at the gym yesterday (yay me!) and spent half an hour on the elliptical (3 miles) and then thought, "hey, I'm going to try this running thing" and headed over to the treadmill. I ran a mile in twelve minutes with no breaks. I think it may be the first time I've run a mile in my life without stopping. And I didn't even feel like I was going to die by the end! Today I can feel it some in my legs and glutes but not bad at all. I lifted weights too (upper body) - first time in over a month so I actually feel that more than I feel the running. I'm going to try to do it again tomorrow - the combo of the treadmill/elliptical seems like a good one.

So - thanks for the inspiration ladies! Because of you all I tried something new. Who knows what the scale will say Monday but this feels like an accomplishment.

Oh, and yes, french onion soup (from Panera or wherever) is uber-salty. Definitely could lead to retention, IMHO.

Blueridge - congrats!!! That's such a great accomplishment. Thanks for sharing that with us! Trying something new is always fun and can be more satisfying than the numbers on the scale. It's also good training for maintanence when the numbers aren't moving anymore so you have to look for gratification elsewhere, like exercise!

Fatpants - wow 515 every day. That sucks! But it seemsnlike you've been able to find a balance and fit everything in so that gives me hope. And welcome back to the runners thread

Morning, girls!

Blueridge - congrats on the run! Pretty soon you'll be addicted : )

Fatpants - that sounds like a really tough schedule! Hey - we're going to be down in Co Spgs next weekend - do you have any opinons on the Stanley Canyon and the Section 16-Palmer Red Rock trails?

Takingcharge - how are you doing? Swamped as usual?

I'm a little ahead of schedule this week and quite happy about it:

June 8:190: 190
June 15:188: 189
June 22:188: 188
June 29:186: 187
July 6:184: 184
July 13:182: 181
July 20:182: 179
July 27:180: 178
Aug 3:178: 178
Aug 10:176: 176
Aug 17:176: 174
Aug 24:174
Aug 31:172

LABOR DAY Sept 7: 170

Dancer - Way to be ahead of schedule! That's crazy awesome, seriously. You're doing so well and you have the proof to show it! And I'm doing pretty well, thanks for asking!

My week has been completely swamped and crazy, yes, but on the bright side, I think I'm finally settling in and readjusting to this new schedule. Everything moves faster and I really have to make use of every minute of the day, which can be exhausting, but now that I basically know what every day is going to be like, I've just come to accept it. I even went to a party Friday night, carried around a warm coors light without having to drink at all (so weird, I used to love drinking! now it's just nice wine that's really worth it to me!), and got into bed by 12:30 to wake up for a morning run on saturday. So it's definitely about prioritizing and making time for what's truly important, but balancing the others things in as well.

I'm not sure if it's all the exercise catching up with me or my body just settling into maintenance, but I've actually had a "whoosh" this week! It's odd since I've basically been around 137 since the beginning of July, but it was amaaaazing to see a lower number on the scale! I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and hope I can stay at this low or even drop a few more to actually get to goal! Ok, off to class, but hope everyone is doing really well and I can't wait to hear from all of you!

5/21/09(SW): 147.4
5/25/09: 145.8
5/31/09: 144.6
6/8/09: 143.6
6/15/09: 140.8
6/22/09: 140.4
6/29/09: 138.8
7/6/09: 137.4
7/13/09: 137.4
7/20/09: 138.4
7/27/09: 137.6
8/3/09: 139.0
8/10/09: 138.4
8/11/09: 134.8 (have NEVER seen 134 on the scale!!)

Good morning, everyone!

TC - 134!!!! Oh my goodness! How great to see that number! Sounds like what you're doing is working...great job!

dancer- I've never done Stanley, but my husband has - really pretty with the waterfalls. This is what my husband says about it: "it's a really nice hike, but it gets a little rocky in places. There's a lake at the top and you have to start from the Academy." Ahh, man of many words.

Oh by the way, I had Panera french onion soup for lunch yesterday and was up a pound this morning... LOL true to form... now I'm chugging water all day! Unfortunately we are having dinner with friends at CHIPOTLE tonight.. double salt!

blueridgegirl - Wow!!! Way to go on the running! Haha you are so far ahead of me when I started... I don't think I could have run an entire mile.. you are awesome!!

Have a great start to the week, everyone!

Takingcharge - girl, you are a weight-loss rock star! Way to go!!

Fatpants - please thank your hubby for me for the hike info - helpful to know!

Dancer - You're so sweet. Thank you for the encouragement!!

Fat pants - Don't worry about the sodium. You know what to do, just chug your water and keep up with the healthy habits and you'll be great! I should take my own advice since I just had a 100 cal pack of popcorn with extra salt!! Haha. Just gotta go with the flow!

I'm a pound behind in my goals, but have done really well this week and have everything in place to continue to do well. I know I will make this Labor Day Challenge (positive self-talk here, ladies!)

Black is goal, red is actual. I'm "skipping" the intermittent weigh-ins because I don't know what I weighed.

June 1:....260....260
June 8:....259....257
June 15:..257... 256
June 22:..255... 255
June 29:..254
July 6:....253
July 13:..251
July 20:..250 ... 250
July 27:..249 ... 247(class reunion July 31st goal)
Aug 3:....248
Aug 10:..246 ... 247
Aug 17:..245 ... 246
Aug 24:..243
Aug 31:..241

LABOR DAY Sept 7:....239