I decided to bump up my calorie goals to 1500 a day. I've been having trouble with 1400. I should be able to eat up to 1700 a day and still lose anyways.

Yesterday's Calories:1679
Today's Weight: 178.2

Finally dropped back down again. I don't know if its water retention or what. I have plans of washing my car and doing C25K W1D3 today, so I'll be burning quite a few calories.

Hi everyone

Magical, I am having a very much needed... and long wanted... breast reduction. Cannot WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT to be rid of these things LOL

Good Morning Everyone,

My weight is moving up again. It might be the exercise or illness, we'll have to wait and see on that. Yesterday a new ailment hit that hasn't happened for three years, so now I have one more thing to worry about. Hopefully it'll pass without causing too much problems. My body is fighting me tooth and nail right now. But I refuse to give up and roll over.

I upped my walk yesterday. 75 mins and 470 calories (if I remember correctly). Like a dummy, I walked out wearing my normal sneaks (my brain is still confused half the time). I even got dressed specifically for the walk with my walking shoes right out for me to see, nope didn't even look when putting them on (or in this case not putting them on). I have the biggest blister beneath my big toe. It doesn't hurt, but it feels awkward to bend

Today's exercise is cleaning the rats' cages. Warm months are here, we must keep them clean! That'll be enough for me.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Weighed myself this morning: 180.6! (last weigh-in was 183.2) Yesss! 22 lbs GONE! And almost into the 170s...only 10 lbs to go before I am officially at a healthy weight (according to the CDC)!

A bit of a rest today as my wife insists I have to go to not one but two birthday parties with the kids. Sigh. That is overkill and I'd much rather mow the lawn and do just one. But hey. Down another 0.6lb today.

Anyway, food for today:

Breakfast: 1 coffee, milk no sugar.
2 open raw mushroom sandwichs with mayo lite.

Lunch: Small salad - blue cheese, greens, walnuts, cranberries, corn, mushrooms plus 4oz cockles.

Dinner: Will drink beer (Green Flash Palate Wrecker 9.5% abv, 100+IBUs) when I finally get home from the second kids party of the day. Sigh.

Don't count calories. Can't count.

Exercise: Lifting kids about all day. Sigh.

Going to be quick today, long day at work! Hope everyone is having a great day!

I was -0.5lbs which put me at 268.5 for a total of -16.5lbs so far!!!

Daily Calorie Range Goal: 1200-1500
Yesterdays Calories totaled: 1400

Misti, good luck again! Do show before and after pics please (erm.. not trying to be rude here, lol!).

Loving everyone's posts especially IanG's one about lifting kids about all day. Incidental exercise is the way to go

LOL Magical

I worked out late last night. I went running then swimming, and this morning I measured my legs and it went down over half an inch!!!

looks like I'm gonna keep this up then


Lunch
California Roll

approximated cal: 250

Dinner
Small bowl of watermelon
homemade milkshake
1 small potato ball
1 small chicken ball
1 small portion of angel food cake (whipped cream and strawberries)

approximated cal: 550


will work out later tonight too!
I hope to see good results ^^

B - steel-cut oatmeal with a splash of rice milk and small spoonful each of cocoa powder&stevia
L - cilantro chickpea salad (chickpeas, black beans, corn, extra virgin olive oil, lime juice, cilantro, garlic clove) on spinach leaf bed
D - 1 hamburger patty, ~10 jalapeno tortilla chips, fresh salsa
+ whole red bell pepper with hummus and paprika
+ small serving "chocolate pudding" (greek yogurt, rice milk, ground flax seed, cocoa powder, stevia)
+ 1 piece of dried mango
+ 1 ginger chew candy

As planned, I took younger siblings to play basketball (there's a hoop outside of a church about 1/2 mile from here)...but I let 6 of them come along, which was a bad idea. Bring any more than 2 at a time and you're in for trouble. Even so, it was still fun to get totally wiped out after 3 nonstop rounds of "first one to make 10 baskets wins."

Wishing you the best of luck on Monday, I'm so excited for you! You have waited a long time for this and I'm so happy the day is almost here. Take care recovering and post here as often as you can as we will be thinking of you! And take all the help you can get from your friends, it seems you have a strong circle supporting you which will mean so much in your recovery. I just know you are a good friend to all of them so now it's your turn to accept their assistance. Even have them type up messages to us if you have to!!!! Your strength and perseverance through your weightloss mission is an inspiration to us all, I don't know if I could have been as patient as you with the scale not moving. Now is your payback time!!

I have a brand new laptop!! The last time I had a laptop was 17 years ago when mom and dad sent me off to college with a laptop. It's still stored in my garage lol. My computer that died was over 6 years old at least, if not much much older than that.

This laptop has Windows 8 which is SO FUN to play around with! The screen is big enough for me to still read 200-year-old genealogy archive images from Europe, which was important to me. I can even connect to the WiFi in the house! I've never had wireless-anything before lol. I had my iPhone for over a year before I figured out how to connect it to the WiFi in the house...and I figured that out last week LOL.

And the laptop has a trackpad(?) Is that the right word? The little pad that you move the cursor with your finger? I've never in my life had one of those. It's so very strange!

Hi Everyone!

I posted this at my other check in. I mentioned last week about the real estate agent/Mom's house. The real estate agent recommended that I contact an auction house about getting rid of odds and ends, the furniture and some stuff in my Dad's garage.

I had a busy day today. I met with one of the auctioneers that in the area of where my Mom's house is. I think the meeting went well and I have an understanding of what will take place. I haven't made any decisions yet. I wanted to make sure that he thought there was some potential there. I will contact the people in my area to see what they say. The house is full of furniture and the garage is full of odds and ends from my Dad, equipment, old wagon wheels, etc. Yes, wagon wheels from back in the day. My options are to load everything up myself and donate, place a craigs list ad, have a garage sale, etc. I don't want to deal with craigs list or a garage sale. I would rather the auction people deal with it than me have to load it up, etc. I feel weird about doing an auction. It seems this is common now and not a big deal. It's an easy way of moving things out of the house. People seems to love to go to estate auctions.

I am happy with how I felt emotionally today. My anxiety and stress level was tolerable. I seem to get highly stressed because I am always worried about having to deal with:
a crazy family member
a person that knows a crazy family member
a person that treated me badly in high school
the stalker ex-boyfriend
my Mom's friend Debbie

This list pretty much covers the whole town/area. The auctioneer guy graduated from the same school as the stalker ex-boyfriend, but a couple years later. I asked about a couple people that went to school with stalker and he knew them. Of course I didn't mention stalker. But if he knows friends of stalker, he knows stalker. Anyways, I felt better today than I did the other day. When I got married, I pretty much left town and didn't go back. My parents always came to see us. This was also due to convenience of me cooking and/or us going out to eat. So I need to resolve the fact, until I am done with the house I will have contact with someone from that list. In fact, the guy that does the yard work was a year ahead of me in school and I graduated with his wife. They didn't necessarily treat me badly but they were in the groups that did. I thought I was going to die when I realized that I was going to have to deal with him. He has taken care of my Mom's yard for a couple years. We have gotten along just fine since I have been dealing with him. We are all adults now, so I guess that changes everything.

I felt so good after all of that, that I decided to go shopping. Me? shopping? Yep! The last couple of weeks I have been looking for a couple nice Spring/Summer outfits. I hadn't found anything that I liked. I found something at Dillards. The same place I was able to find clothes before. A personal shopper helped me again. I wanted to step outside my comfort zone with colors. These colors look very good on me, but they are different than I normally wear. I tried the outfit on for DH and he thought it was gorgeous on me. Here are the pants http://www.dillards.com/product/West...zi_bright_teal The shirt covers the top band of the pants. Here is the top. I don't like the way it looks in this picture. It is very flattering on, though. There are little jewels along the neck. http://images.search.yahoo.com/image...MRMR&fr=mcafee

ETA: I couldn't get the right shirt to link. My shirt is similar to the one I linked, but there is not as much royal blue. The green stands out more to match with the pants.

So, I had a busy day and I am trying to get to bed. I will catch up with everyone tomorrow. Have a good evening and rest well.

Total Approx 1280 Calories +
I was away from the house and busy all day. I didn't very hungry since I had a lot going on. There you go! The perfect diet! Stay busy, don't get hungry. Anyways, it looks like I had a lower calorie day than normal. I'm not sure how my weigh in will be since I ate smoked sausage and we ate late. If there is a gain, it's from water weight.

Breakfast (395 Calories + coffee)
spritz oil in pan
egg 70 cal
egg whites from carton 60 calories
Vegetable of choice
1/8 cup feta cheese 40 calories
Rudi's Whole Wheat English muffin 130 calories
1 teaspoon jam 20 calories
juice 75 calories
coffee w/sugar and cream

Lunch (370 Calories)
Wendy's Smoky Honey Mustard Chicken Flatbread thingy 370 Calories

Dinner (515 Calories)
Green Cabbage 125 calories
smoked sausage 240 calories
toasted cinnamon raisin bread topped w/ricotta 150 calories

Exercise:
LM Sports Attack

Hello everyone!

What an encouragement all of you have been and continue to be during this weight loss journey. It helps so much to have others to share with who are in the same boat and understand.

Elvislover, thank you for your kind words. Yes, I do have a wonderful, loving church family who not only are willing to help out but are all really happy that they are able to do so. We really do try to take care of one another, and I love them all very dearly. And yes, it HAS been hard during the scale stalling, but it has helped that my doctor, chiropractor and surgeon have ALL said I am doing great and they are proud of me... and my surgeon specifically told me NOT to change my eating plan but just keep on doing what I am doing. I think after the surgery it will be easier, too, as I really do have a lot of pain and inability to do anything because of being so big on top.

Mamakat, I hope you are feeling better. Hang in there.

Alaskan, congrats on your new laptop! I had to get a new one last weekend too, so am learning Windows 8 also. I love being able to pop around on it using the Windows key and being able to pin sites and stuff to the Start screen! For easy shut down and to avoid all those steps, I set mine up so that when I close the lid it puts it to sleep and when I push the button it shuts down. But I HATE HATE HATE that charms bar and there is apparently no way to disable it short of rewriting code which I am not about to do. One of my FB friends works for Microsoft and volunteered to give me a lesson when I am able. What do you think of Windows 8? It seems people either love it or hate it.

Diana, your new outfit is gorgeous! I love the bright colors and that outfit looks so nice and cheery for spring and summer!

Welcome to the newbies!!! Glad to have you here.

LOL I've been working like a machine since 3:00 AM so even though it is not quite 9:00 PM I am going to call it an early night and get some sleep; I don't want to get too exhausted before the surgery. And you can bet I will have my laptop set up very close to my recliner, although I'll have to have someone put it up onto my lap for me (can't lift more than five pounds) and I'll check in as soon as I can afterward.

Everyone have a great weekend.

Wow, Diana--you're coping well!! As someone who shops estate sales, here is what I would suggest: Advertise an estate sale, don't do anything but open the house @ the advertised time, and hire someone from one of the services to man the door, and negotiate prices, on the way out. The best of all worlds!

Chrono & Ian--what a nice loss!! Good job!!

Misti--I wasn't sure exactly what you were having done, but nice!! I'd always wanted a breast reduction myself!! The advice I've heard is don't skimp on the pain meds, and get some nice new lingerie! ;-)