Wow...lots of chatter since I was on here last.

Dorian: So sorry to hear about the damage. I'm assuming you and your family are (physically) OK??

Manders: yes, congrats on the 100 lbs lost milestone! And let me know how the shrinking bat wings go

Dogs: congrats on a new decade!!

K15: Oh, I totally feel you! Same exact thing for me (I also work at a school). Though I think some of those girls would rather freeze than wear something warm as long as they look good, lol.

Thanks to everyone for their encouragement on my *hopefully* reaching the 170s! And I am in total agreement that we need to make this last week count!!

I've stuck to my weekend plan pretty well. I allow for 2 higher calorie days per week and I've kept both of them (yesterday and today) right around 1800, including a few drinks last night--BIL's band was playing in town. Didn't exercise Friday but kept under my usual 1600 cals. Did about 20 minutes of cardio yesterday and 20 minutes of weight lifting today. So kind of a "laid back" exercise routine, but I REALLY had to work to get off the couch this afternoon! Was not motivated to do anything, but at least I did SOMETHING, right?!

Back to my regular weekday calories and exercise tomorrow and hope to finish strong with the rest of you!

Lori (and everyone): what are you guys thinking for the next challenge? Memorial day? Other thoughts?

How about Canada day? July 1.....10 weeks away

Memorial day sounds good to me. My husband comes home sometime in June so I am trying to get in shape by then.

Hi ladies, it's been a few days since I've posted. I was having trouble getting 3fc to load here but it appears to be working now - I even updated my ticker! Crisis averted! I've been good, staying on plan, even a bit under my 1600 daily calories, usually in the 1430-1580 range. Yesterday I REALLY had to drag my arse off the couch to exercise - I just was not feeling it at all! I made three miles with my buddy Leslie though so I felt pretty proud of myself for that! I want to finish strong and have set myself another goal of being at a 5% loss by my b-day in May, shortly after the challenge is over! Wish me luck!!!

Dorian So sorry to hear about the tornado!!! I hope you and yours are alright!

Manders Thanks for the info! It's definitely helpful - though I am "lucky" because I am fair but the hair on my chin definitely isn't! Maybe that means I'm a decent candidate for laser? Anyway, I plan to have the consultation when I get back - can't wait! And I think you are being too hard on yourself!!! 100 lbs is AMAZING!!!! So what if it took you a bit longer or you faltered a bit along the way? We're only human! At least you got off ur arse and did something to change your life!

Northern Which WATP videos do you do? I use them as well and think they're pretty good, though I do get a little bit bored with the same steps. Also, if you work out how to make a binding agreement with your body, please let me know - I need to make a similar one myself!

OhMyDogs Congrats on the next decade! I just figured out what that meant as some people told me that when I dropped into the 240s! lol

Jiggle I was just curious if you had your own treadmill or do you use one at the gym? In my home I have an elliptical machine but it's in storage while I'm overseas. I miss it because I could really get a good workout even if I didn't make it to the gym!

MissJessica Don't be too hard on yourself, you've been working really hard! It's great that you are watching sodium. Do you have any tips or tricks? I'm trying to cut down on my consumption but am not monitoring it too closely.

k15g15 WTG on your loss!

Fit Girl you cracked me up with the wolf brows thing!!! I totally hear you on that - I let mine get so overgrown and everything was just a bit too out of control! The last time I went home in January, the lady that waxes them for me was like, um, do you want your upper lip, too? lol And look at it this way, you maintained, you didn't gain, so that's good, too!!!

Good Morning Everyone

I haven't done my workout for today and on lunch I have to run an errand. I have an extremely low calorie day ahead to compensate for not working out.

P H A T - Congrats on making goal. You are doing a great job and this is only the beginning of more happy moments.
Pochamma - I do have a treadmill at the house. I found it at a garage sale for $50 and it works great. I think the person bought it with good intentions but those intentions didn't pan out so they got rid of it...great for me!!
Northern - Memorial Day sounds good to me. I do better with shorter challenges. Looking forward to your WI so we can celebrate!!!
Fruitlady - You have time to get back to your last summer weight so feel better. Thankfully you aren't where you were when you started.
Dorian - Sorry to hear about all that and hopefully things get better sooner rather than later. We will be praying for you. Is your power back on yet? Anywho, as long as you have to go to the fast food joints just make the best possible choice and it will not result in too much damage.

i can't stay and chat i have to do alot at work today...but fyi...

146.2...FML! really? I guess i really have to change a few things and I'm way beyond my limit and i never ever thought i'd be back to this, i'm almost in tears and I feel like I will never be back down again!

So my week-long binge finally revealed itself: I was 240.4 lbs today, up 1.6 from last week. I know it's really because I ate a million milligrams of sodium yesterday and had like, 2 cups of water...sooooo, yea. I'm totally free for spring break so for the next 5 days it's twice daily workouts and calorie cycling to the max!!! I now have to lose like 3 lbs to make my Easter goal next Sunday... yea.

manders01 Congratulations on NOT binging and you know what? At lease your friends care about your new eating habits; my friends know I am trying to change my life and insist on making food the main focus of our get-togethers, oh and drinking. And lots of it. lol.

Dorian5 So sorry about the tornadoes, you and your family are in my prayers...and diet by damned! You have bigger things to deal with right now

NorthernExposure Awesome weekend, please send me some of that weekend I NEED IT LOL...I'm sure you will burst through this last week and I think Memorial Day is too close...let's do an obscure Holiday, lol...IDK which one

pochamma10 LOL...if you could see my brows the wolf-thing wouldn't be funny it would be...true.

P H A T YOU DID IT GIRL!!! WTG!!!

jigglefree you got it girl...you can do it!

jdonato Aww... sorry to hear that, I am in the midst of shaking it up this week too, we can do it!!!

Hi ladies, I got tired of seeing the same weight on my digital scale so I brought my analog scale. Apparently, the analog scale says that I weigh at least 2lbs less than the digital scale. I think my digital scale needs new batteries. I can step on my digital scale 3 times in 3 minutes and I get 3 different answers. What do you all think? Do you trust Analog scales? If so, then I'm 117 and not 119. I've been everything from 119.4- 120.2 all while naked without eating this morning.

Thank you!

LOL Very true! Good luck on your 5% goal!!!

Congratulations!!!

You can do this! Review your eating, water drinking and exercise for the past couple of weeks and use that information to move forward. You will be back down, I know it!

Thank you! Since I've been having such a problem with binges in the past few months, avoiding one is a huge deal to me. I can't help but be proud of myself when I avoid them.

I think I'm the friend that plans things around food and drink!

Congratulations!!!

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So I still haven't gotten my spaghetti squash! LOL My veggies stuffed me up for lunch and I knew big dinner wasn't a good idea. So I just had the bruschetta with some pretzels & hummus and some vanilla yogurt. I'm going to go to the baseball game either tonight or Wednesday after so if it's tonight, it will have to wait till tomorrow night. I bet it's the best tasting spaghetti squash I ever eat!

Only made it 2 laps yesterday. Although windy, it wasn't terribly unpleasant but once I started walking, I realized I had no desire to be doing so. But since my calorie intake was a little low yesterday, I could afford a few less laps.

Still trying to decide if I go to the game if I will bring my dinner or get something at the park. I know what I want - mmmmmmmmmm, ballpark food - but for financial and caloric reasons I know I should bring. It will be a game time decision. So without dinner, I'm planning for 1025 calories with weights and cardio at 598.

Ahh, the benefits of being self-employed...my office is on the back porch today. No reason not to soak up some sun while looking for some floor tile! Have a great Monday all!

Not sure what's happening with 3FC lately? Wrote a post at work and somehow most of it got deleted? Anyway, I will try again later!

Edit: Ok, let's try this again!

Pochamma: I have an old VHS 2 mile WATP that also has a hand weight component. I also have a 3 mile "boot camp" DVD with reistance bands. I'm starting to get a little bored with it too, but it's easy to follow and easy to pop in during the winter when I can't exercise outside. Which ones do you do?

Phat: congrats on getting to your goal, and a week early to boot!!!

Ekicna: I weigh on my wii fit. I think it's actually pretty accurate. It was only a couple lbs off from the Dr's scale, where I had all my clothes on. I don't want to buy a bathroom scale yet as I don't want to get too obsessed with weighing. When I get to goal I will probably get one when I can handle daily weighing so I can make sure I'm staying in whatever I decide is my maintenance range.

Fit: sorry about the sodium gain. Darn salt!!

MJ: congrats on the loss!

So...anyone else have any thoughts on what our next challenge "holiday" should be? Ultimately it's Lori who sets these up (Thanks LORI!) but it seems she's pretty busy lately, so I thought we could try to help her out by coming to some sort of consensus before the end of this challenge.

I personally like Memorial day as, like Jiggle, I seem to do better with shorter challenges. Memorial day would be about a 5 week challenge. I also heard Canada Day and "some obscure" holiday, lol. The only things I can think of in June would be Father's Day (June 19) or the first day of summer (June 21st). If anyone else has other ideas, please throw them out there! I know we also have posters from the UK and New Zealand (Rainbow, are you still with us??) so if you guys have some other holiday ideas that's cool too

As for me: I was a wee bit over in calories (1619) and did kind of a half-@$$ed 2 mile WATP work out today. I think I'm just anxious to get through this week! We have Friday and Monday off for Easter and DH and I are taking a little mini vaca Friday-Saturday and doing the family thing Sunday. Need to stay focused!!

phat- Conrads on the loss! I agree, let's get 'er done!
jiggle- Thanks!
jdonato- I almost gave up when the scale was going to high, I felt hopeless. Please keep going, don't give up, you lost it before, you can do it again!
Northern- Memorial Day challenge sounds great!


Did good with my eating again and didn't go over my limit, had 1376 calories. That scale scared the sh** out of me a few days ago, my weight was crazy high. I'm glad it did scare me, it got me back on track right away. I'm back to my old dieting tricks that gave me great results before, already lost 1.7lbs. Did 63min of exercise, and I'm feeling more energetic already, not sluggish! If I make it through the week without messing it up, I am eating candy on Easter!! ( as long as my weight is low enough) lol

Northern - I like Memorial Day as well.

FruitLady - Congrats on getting back on track!

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So I am about the only girl that lifts weights when I do. And I appear to be the only one that socializes with the guys when lifting. Well today one of the guys that I've chit chatted with a few times decided to give me pointers. I am sure he was just trying to be helpful and only a little bit trying to be a macho beefcake but it was still soooooooooo annoying. He actually told me that I would gain weight as I put on muscle! Well duh! I'm sure there are people, both women and men, who don't know that but if someone has been lifting regularly for several weeks and following a typed out routine, they probably know. It was just a little irritating because although I'm sure he means well, I didn't ask for the tips. Sorry...end rant.

PS I was SOOOOOO good at the ballgame tonight!!!