Hello Sandy and Friends,

I'm completely new to this site but very excited about it! Since starting graduate school 1.5 years ago, I have put on 20 lbs. I was never skinny but could always eat a lot (i.e. whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted) and maintain a healthy weight because I was very active. Not so anymore. My knees and feet ache for the first time in my life. I have also quit smoking which adds to the need to munch. It's time to finally apply some discipline to my diet and start thinking about what I eat.

Please count me in for the Halloween challenge! I think a 15-lb weight loss goal is doable for 2 months. I am 149 now, so my goal by Halloween would be 134!! Ultimate goal is 125...but I won't think of that right now. Since I'm new, could someone tell me how to customize my weight loss ticker? Those are so cute! Good luck guys!

Go, TheLindsy, hit that gym hard tomorrow!

And welcome marie42382! You can add a ticker and customize it in the signature section of your profile.

I'm doing good. I tried a Barre workout on exercise TV last night, and got through 20 minutes before crying uncle. It was tough, but I know I got a good workout, so I'm glad I tried it. This might be the change-up I need to get out of my exercise funk. I'll let you know if I can get through the whole dang thing at some point.

I just started to get that itch to start coming up with Halloween costume ideas. Exciting! Right now I'm swaying toward a Dalek (nerd alert!), but if I'm at goal by then (cross fingers), I may do the costume I've been considering, but never choose due to being overweight: Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, like some asymmetrical body suit and a lightening bolt painted on my face. I love Halloween.

What are you guys going to be? What have some of your favorite past costumes been?

Welcome Marie! Glad to have you join us. Good luck in reaching your Halloween goal.

To get a customized ticker, just click on anyone's ticker, and it'll take you to the site to set one up. It's really easy to do and so fun to watch that tickier move downwards.

Lindsy, that is awesome that you stayed the same weight. Now, (here comes the mom in me) is there any reason why you can't workout later today? Just asking. No scolding here.

Tab, I've heard that workout is pretty tough. Good for you for trying it.

I like your Halloween costume idea. I really hope you do it. I usually just wear a Halloween shirt or put some grusome scar or put on a pencil sticking out of my head from a kit. Yeah, I like being a little scary. I go all out for my girls, though, this year my 20-year-old daughter wants to be Tim Curry from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My 17-year-old daughter wants to be Barbie, complete with dying my miniature poodle's hair pink and bringing her along to Trick-or-Treat. Yeah, my girls still go out for candy. I've told them they're too old to do that now, but they love it so much. We do get comments from people about it, so it's a little embarrassing.

I did my Leslie Sansone 4-Mile Walk DVD today. Boy, it's tough walking 4 miles at home and gets a little boring, but I thought I'd shake things up from my normal 3-Mile Walk dvd. Once I get my weight down lower and can handle more intense exercise, I'll add back in T-Tapp and The Firm.

Thank God it's Friday, right ladies?

I hope you all have a hair-raising weekend...but be good!!

Where is every-boo-dy?

I hope you are all out enjoying your Labor Day weekend. But let's all stick to our diets as best we can, okay?

My girls are having their friends over for a bad-movie day. They purposely watch bad movies so they can make fun of them. So my husband and I decided that we'd have a date day: lunch, movies and shopping for clothes...for him! My husband is only 5 pounds away from his goal weight. He looks so great! We've been married for a little over 11 years, and he's 30 pounds lighter than when we got married. His pants are now so huge that they fall off when he's walking. So we figured it's about time for a new wardrobe. My sister told me that he looks 10-15 years younger now. I can remember when we were first married people thinking that I was his daughter (he's only 8 years older than me, but his salt and pepper hair and slight beer belly made him look older). He hated that, but I thought it was funny. Now, with his weight loss, and me gaining weight, we look closer in age. As proud as I am of his weight loss, I still want to look younger than him, dabnabit! Am I selfish or what?!?

On weekends I do only protein and veggies with a little healthy fat (sorry if I've already mentioned this before...I can't remember what I post on here or my blog or both...lol) to shake up my metabolism. Today he decided to do the protein and veggies with me because he is 170 and is so desperate to get under there. He weighs himself like 3-4 times a day. He's so girl-like sometimes it scares me. I just know a day or two of doing the protein and veggies will get him there.

So for lunch we are going to have a beef and veggie bowl at the Hawaiian BBQ near our house. My hubby is worried about the salt on the beef. I told him to just drink a ton of water to flush any salt out. And we are going to see Shark Night 3-D. We're getting an early start on the Halloween fun!

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone. Stay spooky!

Just for funsies, I thought I'd post a picture of some ghosts I made playing ring-around-the-rosie around my crepe myrtle tree last year. I got the idea from a magazine. They were so easy to make and the neighbors got a kick out of it. I can't wait to put them up again this year.

Sandy you are such a dork! . My mom did the same thing around one of our cactus in the front yard. It was so cute.

I can't hit the gym up after work cause they are closed. I work 1-9 usually. By the time I get home it's 10, and I'm already exhausted from being on my feet for 8 hours.

I didn't go to the gym today Boooo. I'm slacking. But I have a good excuse!! hahaha. I was out late with the guy friend.. Watched movies and such till 4 am. But I did get some exercise in. hahaha

I got home at the scale was at 166.2 I freaked out. But I also only had Kashi cereal and a chocolate bar yesterday. I Just didn't feel hungry. I woke up today 168.2 I'm fine with that. It's lower than it has been in a while! Hopefully I'll get that 166.2 tomorrow morning!

Have a splendid day y'all!

Hey everyone I've been lurking for a bit and decided to join you on the Halloween challenge! I've been calorie counting and doing some cardio daily with the weekends off.

My weight at the moment is 180lbs (since last Tuesday) and my Halloween goal weight is 165lbs! So 15lbs

I hope everyone is able to reach their Halloween goal and then eat some yumyums for a day!

Welcome Kyaire! I love that, yumyums haha Good luck in the challenge girl!!

I just finished Jillians 30 day shred. 20 minute and she kicked my butt! That makes up for me not going to the gym, right? :P
The worst part is, I woke up took a shower, decided to the shred, now I'm sweaty.. Time for another shower. I wish I would think things through a little better some times haha.

Kyaire, welcome to our Halloween challenge. I hope you reach you goal for that day, too. It's totally doable.

Lindsy, you little scamp you. As fun as those "extra activities" are, I'm not sure if I'd count it as a workout. LMAO Oh, okay...go ahead!

Good for you, tough, getting that Shred workout in. And way to go on the loss!!!

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone. Hope you are all staying on track. Overall, I have been successful this weekend. I went to a birthday party yesterday, and had wine last night, but I stayed within my (slightly higher weekend) calories for the day. And I was down half a pound today from yesterday. I was sure I was going to have some water weight gain from the wine yesterday, but I guess not.

So far, so good.

Any fun plans for tomorrow?

I would love to join this challenge as well!! This is my first day here at 3FC and this sounds like a great way to kick off my journey!!! My goal is 15 lbs by Halloween. I think I can... I think I can.....

P.S.- How do we get the ticker thingy on our posts????

Hi finallyfedup! Welcome to our challenge!!!

To get a ticker on your signature just click on anyone's ticker, and it'll take you to the site to make one. You have to copy and paste your ticker URL onto your signature page here and save it. Each time you lose weight you have to go back and do it again with your updated weight.

Losing4life, great job on losing that half pound. Glad you're enjoying your Labor Day weekend so far. We are just going to be at my mom's for a BBQ tomorrow. Our whole family eats pretty healthy, so there'll be plenty of allowed foods there that I can eat. I just have to watch portion control.

My husband is now down under 170. As proud as I am of him for being so close to goal (he's now lowered his goal weight to 160), it puts a lot of pressure on me because I'm so much heavier than him. He is just looking so great, and I still feel like the matronly wife and mom. I have to stop thinking like that because I am doing well on my diet, but I get upset that I gained it all back to begin with. I really don't want to do that again once I hit goal this time. For me, it's always been the easy part to lose the weight. The challenge is to keep it off.

Well, along with it being Labor Day tomorrow, it's also weigh in day for me, too. I always get so nervious about that. I'm hoping to be able to move my ticker under 210. Wish me luck everyone!

Woooooo-freakin'-hoooooo!!! I lost 3.5 pounds! I am through-the-roof happy, girls.

All I did different was loosely follow the diet in the book Eat Right 4 Your Type. I can't even remember if I posted about it in this challenge, but I did on another board here. The diet claims that we should be eating and not eat certain food for our blood type. I just got the book a few days ago, but just from searching the web I found out some of the main foods I can't have for my B+ blood type: Chicken (turkey is okay), peanuts, pork, avacado, corn, wheat and tomatoes to name a few. The list of the foods I can have is pretty extensive, so I don't feel deprived in the least (okay, maybe I miss chicken...),

I just took the diet I've been following since July 25th and tweaked it to take out the forbidden foods and substituted with similar foods I could have. Let me tell you guys...I've never lost more than 3 pounds after my 3rd week on any diet I've ever been on. And here I am on week 6 with this loss. And I don't feel hungry at all. I'm finishing this book today and following it to the T from now on. Who knows what next week will bring?

Now, before I go out and preach to the world about the miracles of this diet, I need to give it a few more weeks. There were a couple of skeptics on my other thread who thought it was too ridiculous to work because it wasn't backed up by science. Ummm...I think the hundreds of 5-star reviews on amazon and all the people on the author's website who rave about it is all the "scientific" evidence I need. Not to mention the results I am gettin thus far.

Okay, I must use this excitement to go and kick some butt (mine!) in my workout.

Happy Labor Day to all!

Congrats on your loss, Sandy! That's great! I'll have to figure out my blood type and check out that book.

I love the ghosts you made and to hear how into Halloween your kids are. I may no longer trick or treat, but some might say I'm a little old at 33 to still be so into costumes.

I went over my plan in calories this weekend due to a keg at a BBQ on Sunday, but I knew this would happen and I'm not beating myself up for it. I'm just getting right back on plan, and maybe at the next party, I'll force myself to drink a glass of water between refills like I considered this year.

I plan to walk with a friend after work, and then I'm going to see if I can get past the 20 minute mark in that Barre video.

Good luck to everyone staying on spooky plan!

Hey Everyone! I love hearing about everyone's progress. I didn't do wonderfully eating-wise this past weekend, but I did exercise a lot and am down 1 lb. Better than nothing! I climbed Mt. Chocorua on Saturday and then did an hour of walking with a friend yesterday. It felt really good. I'm also doing the Couch to 5K Plan and started Week 4 on Sunday. So slowly getting some jogging in there...to whomever did Jillian's 30-day Shred--way to go! That is a DIFFICULT twenty minutes. Even when I was lighter, I would randomly try that tape and would be sore for DAYS. Right now, I am going to just focus on walking an hour a day like I used to. I like it because it doesn't feel too painful, but it makes me feel good, mentally as well as physically.

The BF took me to Texas Roadhouse last night, which is pretty much diet-suicide. I still ate the bread, but took a suggestion I read online, and asked them not to put butter on my meal. The steak was just as delicious without the butter! Nice fresh sweet potato and mixed veggies too, plus one glass of Pinot Grigio....oops, as you all can tell, I really love food!! But I am slowly trying to learn moderation and substituting healthier items.

- Marie