1. kiwi - Yes, God bless Advil / Aleve! TOM is here today and I don't know how I would be functioning without it

2. That is awesome SG! Canan - I would like to add that 4 months in for me and almost 50 #'s gone, I have been on a number of outings, including birthday parties, concerts, a camping trip, and a 5 day vacation. IP is easy in that is is structured (eat x,y,z, period), but it really comes down to the choices you want to make. My motto has been #sober2015 lol I am not a *foodie* per se, but I do enjoy my craft beers At the end of the day though, looking in the mirror and seeing the changes (& having others notice as well) and being happier with myself - not just outwardly, but also knowing my HEALTH is improving, keeps me motivated.

Mnt / asmuir - congrats on the losses

MiWi - I know you just returned from vacation / phase off too - are you still "detoxing" and that could also be contributing? Don't get me wrong, stress is a huge motivating factor when it comes to cravings and hunger - so just something to keep in mind

These threads are quickly becoming a lifeline for me to stay OP. I'm going to WI 5 now and hoping for another drop. I know I can't expect a big drop every week but I have about 100 lbs in total to lose. Reading these posts really help a lot. I'm wondering if anyone finds the weight loss to be evenly distributed. I'm asking because I can see already a big difference in my face, neck, chest but not as much as I would like to see in my thighs. Anyone else like this?

My loss is not where I'd prefer it!!! Yes my face is skinnier but I've lost my A-cup boobs and it shows there the most. I would love the weight to peel of my waist and torso but instead it falls off my upper arms that weren't bad to begin with. I walk all the time so the butt loss has gone from big and firm to smaller and firm - same with my thighs.

OOOO! Me too! I have lost 5 inches in the boob area...but wish it was 5 in the hips area!!

Having lost and regained my whole life, my observation is that I gain weight from the bottom-up... it shows in my hips and waist before it shows in my face and neck, and then I lose from the top-down. It shows in my face and neck soonest, and that's what draws the attention of well meaning friends who think I am getting too thin before I am anywhere near my goal....

Over the years this has given me a bit more girth in the lower half of my body... I was a pretty even distributed hour glass growing up. And today, after losing 80 lbs on IP, I am still too think in the midriff to be able to zip up my wedding dress, although I weigh 5 lbs less now than I did on the day of my wedding. I am trying to do some workouts focused on the abs and core area, but age may prevail unless I get REALLY serious about the crunches, etc.

To my dismay - just losing the excess pounds is not going to give me the toned body I would like to have - that requires another journey that's all about exercise and strength training. We may need a thread here on 3FC for maintainers who are focused on that along with P4......

I just started P3 today. I would still like to lose another 5lbs but I'm in a great place. So happy to start Phase 3! Yay! Now I need to get back into the gym. I have gotten so lazy not working out OP.

Like some of you I'm excited to get back to the gym for some serious toning. My hips are stupid small to match the flat butt now but the mid section has not caught up by any measure and the inner thighs are a disaster. I'm hoping to get onto P2 tomorrow after weigh-in, then P3 in two weeks and the gym too!

Yes, my weight loss seemed slower in the most heavy/dense areas which for me was my tummy, and always has been.

oneUh and others…. There is an exercise thread, it hasn’t been so active but I’ll bump it up.

For me in Maintenance/P4 exercise has become much more significant (I did exercise during P1 but not as intensely), and when I miss it I really notice it.

Congrats Nola on getting to P3. I hope you love your breakfasts. I still eat the P3 breakfasts most of the time and love them.
Also congrats andreabmva - glad P2 is in your headlights.

Welcome to blueskiesahead and everyone else… So nice to read all of your updates. Hope you have a great upcoming weekend!

Stay the course I have (had) 100 to lose also and I am so much closer to the end then the beginning...I did not lose evenly at all. And I am rather well endowed in the chest area and my cup size has not budged! My band size however has gone from 44 to 38... I also tend to lose quickly in my waist. Which makes finding a size to go over my hips and still look good hard.. I am in 14's now (started in tight 22/24's). These threads still are my lifeline all these months in.....Keep reading and keep on track!

I think I lost pretty evenly proportion wise. And while I did lose in the chest area, I am still a good size, just not as firm

Yay for Friday, and it's a half day for me!! I am going on an overnight shopping trip with my mom and we are leaving at noon, as it's a 6-7hr drive so we hope to get a bit of shopping in tonight and then a bit tomorrow before heading home again.

I hope everyone has a great OP weekend with better weather than us. At least the grass is starting to turn green and I saw buds on the trees!!!

These threads were a lifeline for me, as well.
Weight will come off where it comes off.
Are you being measured? You might be surprised that the inches are coming off the thighs but maybe making them more flabby at first so it appears as if you're not losing there. This is because a lot of water stores with fat. As we lost "weight", the water comes off first. It was actually making us puffier but less flabby.

I had to accept the damage I did to my body will probably never allow me to have a "beach" body (bikini). But I'm okay with that. My weight loss was for MANY reasons but aesthetics is only a small percentage of the reasons. Pain management, health, and longevity top the list.

I figure the body I'm left with, including stretch marks and sagging skin are the war wounds...from the war on obesity.

Additionally, some firming/changing occurs after you've been actively maintaining 6-12 months.

My suggestion is to focus on the task at hand and let your body respond as it will. If you're not exercising, you may want to look into yoga or Essentrics. Both of those programs are not cardio but work on strengthening/stretching.

Just saw this article online and thought I would share - about body image... here it the link to the whole article
https://www.yahoo.com/style/playing-...844954597.html
but below are the few paragraphs that struck me the most....

"Then there was the process of pulling off the skintight look that was prominent during Hollywood’s early era when Monroe’s personal costume designer, William Travilla, used to actually sew the actress into her gowns. “Gersha kept things really, really tight,” says Garner, who mentions that her body didn’t always cooperate on set. “When you shoot over a course of two months, as a woman your body fluctuates. And sometimes Gersha would take something in so tight and be like, This would be great for Friday, and it would be Wednesday. Then come Friday, I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t get anywhere in it,” she says. “It was just a dance of, is it gonna fit? Is it gonna zip up? Are we going to have to only shoot it from the front?”

Though she faced her share of pressure associated with portraying Monroe, one thing Garner was relaxed about was getting her body into shape prior to shooting. “I didn’t diet for Marilyn,” she says. “I was afraid to be too skinny, because they were filming for that kind of 1940s/’50s figure. I was trying to stay soft to get that body type.” As a result of the experience, Garner found that portraying Monroe armed her with a new outlook on her own body image. “I would see Marilyn in a little bathing suit or jeans, and she would be laughing and she’d have a full belly coming over her jeans, which is so beautiful,” she says. “If that is something that happened to me, Kelli, I’d be mortified. With our standards of beauty now, it’s like, ‘Oh you can’t have those rolls there.’ But I think Marilyn is one of the most stunning women who has every been around, and she was never in perfect shape.” One of the things that really drove this home for Garner was discovering an advertisement for weight enhancement pills while flipping through 1950s magazines that were lying around the set. “These ads said, ‘Are your legs too skinny? Are you not filling out that dress?” she says. “Beauty was such a different and more natural thing back then. I was shocked. Like, wow — they are actually selling pills to women if they want to have a little more volume,” says Garner.

Garner’s post-Monroe self is now angered by the stick-thin models that grace mainstream advertisements. “I just want girls to love food and love eating and be OK with who they are. Playing Marilyn taught me that as well. Superskinny is not attractive,” she says. The recent revelation has inspired Garner to shed light on magazine images of actresses. “So much of the glamour is smoke and mirrors," she explains. “I see a photo of me in a magazine, and they’ve changed the shape of my nose a little bit to be more straight or changed the shape of my teeth so they could all be aligned better. On one hand, you’re happy with the photograph because you’re like, well it’s a beautiful photograph because you sat for two hours in hair and makeup and it’s the right lighting and the perfect clothes and the perfect color on your complexion, and it’s airbrushed and you’ve got hair extensions in. It’s like this thing where it’s so beautiful, but I think I fight myself about that whole process because it’s kind of a lie that we tell ourselves as women,” says Garner, who admits that the glitz goes away after she steps off of a movie set. “When I peel my eyelashes off and wash my face, I don’t look anything like that.” And though becoming her most glamorous self comes with the territory of making it in her entertainment-based career, Garner is prepared to take a stance one day against the façade of beauty. “If I get a little more momentum, maybe I can subtly make a stand, and maybe that’ll be seen,” she says. For now, though, Garner strives to make a point of flaunting her “normal” looks and pledges to refrain from letting the industry force her to become overly skeletal. “Let me know if I get too skinny!” she demands."

Thanks for sharing the link, Amber -- very thoughtful piece for many of us as we deal with our very changed bodies and our recalcitrant perspectives on our body image.

I went for the okey doke and has some volume replacement in my face today... I won't know how happy I am with it for another week, but I am hoping that it will soften the 'old lady look' that seemed to be getting more prominent with every additional 10 lbs of weight loss. I'll let y'all know when the fillers and botox settle out.

It's not something I've done yet but interested to see how yours goes... I'm a little bit granola so might not go that direction, but still seriously considering a tummy tuck in the next year. Not sure.

Yes and as far as that article... I liked how an actress that is considered slender or possibly underweight noticed that she had weekly fluctuations that made a dress not fit 5 days later. That helped me somehow.... weird the little things that shake up our perceptions in a positive way. I get pretty hard on myself when my tightest clothes aren't fitting right for a week. I'll be happy to look back a year from now and see some of this stress reduced after longer term successes and experimentation.

Friday Weekend Warm-up

Have you ever told yourself, “I’ll start my diet tomorrow”? If so, remember that today is yesterday’s tomorrow. So don’t wait until tomorrow to start working on healthy eating, don’t wait until Monday, start right now! If you do, it's guaranteed that Monday morning you’ll be SO HAPPY you did.