Flickety_switch - Both those dresses look fantastic! I've never had the body to pull off the form fitted stuff, but I do love those types of dresses! Can't wait to see you in it too!

MrsD - Definitely look into them! There are tons of different brands now. I usually stick to a generic brand cause it's cheaper.. but there's also Mio, Kool Aid Liquid, 4C, Crystal Light.. just off the top of my head. I haven't tried all them, but so far they've all been fairly similar in taste. Anyway, congrats on your loss! I haven't tried special k cereal. As far as when I feel sick, I tend to give myself some slack. Of course, I also tend to not be hungry nearly as much when I'm sick. So I go for what I crave and nibble on whatever it is. Usually that ends up being stuff like crackers and toast. I don't worry about getting points up though.

SoMuchFattitude - Pretty much Thanksgiving till Christmas I hung around 228-230ish. It was very frustrating.. Christmas I ate a bunch of bad stuff and went up to 232 and then dropped back down again after getting back on plan.. but no whoosh, just normal losses. It could have been the increased calories for the week surrounding Christmas that did it, or it could have been that I added strength training, not sure, but I didn't get stuck at that weight this go. Hopefully you find what works for you.

Jelma - Glad to hear your weekend didn't do much damage! I'm actually trying a variation of Chicken Pot Pie tonight. It's from skinny kitchen http://www.skinnykitchen.com/recipes...-pie-italiano/ I haven't calculated the points yet with my ingredients, but the recipe looks good at least!

Blackboxed - Welcome, and congrats! Hitting a new decade always feels awesome. I think for the same reason that saying I'm 30 now feels weird. Saying "I'm in my 30's" feels a lot older than "I'm in my 20's." Likewise it feels awesome to say you've gone down the 10lbs.

Munchy - Sorry to hear your week has been rough. I'm super happy to hear you're making a therapist appointment. Big hugs your way. My sister's wedding was super stressful and I was just a bridesmaid, I can't imagine the stress of being the bride. It is your day though, so I truly hope you can break through the funk and everything will be happy and perfect for you. I think a lot of the worry will disappear once the ceremony starts, until then, definitely get yourself a good support network and use it!

I'm having a bit of trouble getting back into the swing of things after a week of not exercising. Meal plans have been good, but I've been slacking on my exercise. I missed my strength day on Monday, managed to get in some Zumba yesterday.. still haven't done my strength training today and it's past when I'd normally do it as routine. Need to just get off my butt and get it over with!

FINALLY - a swoosh!!! 244.5 is the lowest I've seen this year, so I'll take it. Hoping this swoosh sticks tomorrow morning for my WW Weigh In!

It's been brutally cold here, but I've been walking inside my house - just pacing or walking in place while watching TV.

Looks like we're going to get some snow and ice today - so I might bail on work a little early and work from home to beat the traffic.

We are going to MidiEval Times AGAIN! LOL. The nephew turns 10 and he wanted to go with the family, so we're all going. I'm so glad I have the points all figured out already! WOOHOO!!! Aside from that, I've got a 9 mile run planned (hopefully the weather cooperates) and a lot of relaxing to do.

What's everyone else doing this weekend?
_______

Jelma - I don't do SF, but I eat mostly SF foods, if that makes sense. My bigger issue is portion control, so I do better when I have to reign in the amount I eat. I like the SF concept because it focuses on whole, real foods - with the exception of all the fat free dairy( which I don't believe in).

Blackboxed - Welcome!

Flick - I drink enough water to be a fish. LOL. But seriously, I drink over 100oz a day. Regarding the point cycling, I usually eat all my weeklies over the weekend (my WI day is Saturday AM, so I eat everything after Sat AM through Sunday) and then bounce up and down a few points throughout the week. I have eaten more this week than last week and now, on Friday, I'm getting my swoosh. Maybe I wasn't eating enough? Seems awfully wrong to say that.

Munchy - SO glad you're going to see someone. :hugs:

MRSD - I always take to Panera when I don't feel well and have chicken soup and their bread. That bread always adds some points to my day. Hope you feel better!

Sun - it always takes me a couple of days to get back into the groove of it all, but trust me, since it's become a lifestyle change for you, your body is going to start begging you for more movement. Since I've started running again and it's been super nasty here, my body is screaming at me to work out, so yesterday I did 15k steps INSIDE MY HOUSE just walking, running stairs, pacing, etc.

Hi guys, I just joined and am heading to my first WW meeting this afternoon. I joined and started counting points on Monday. I am really hopeful that this is going to work for me - I believe I weigh about 245 (I avoid scales at all costs, but saw my doctor recently and couldn't hide it). I've never tried WW but I think the points logging app is going to satisfy my OCD - it's been kind of fun this week. Wish me luck - you all seem like a wonderfully supportive group!

SoMuchFattitude- Portion control is definitely a big issue for me, diet wise I am pretty much just eating SF foods as well except for the dairy. I don't believe in fat free dairy either, though I will do some low fat dairy like sour cream just because I love it so much.

Hi elaineindc!! Welcome!!

It is currently -8 degrees and we are expecting 3-6 inches of snow this evening into tomorrow. So. over. it. Since I will be stuck indoors it will be a good time to work on the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge I'm doing. Basically it is a 40 day, during Lent (or whenever!), decluttering challenge. Here's the link http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.c...-40-days-2015/
Last night was my nightstand and the kitchen junk drawer. It's amazing how much stuff 2 people can amass over the years!

SoMuchFattitude - Yay for the whoosh! I kinda wish I'd get a whoosh.. but guess that's just not for me. Slow and steady. On the plus side that also means most days are usually a drop of some sort on the scale, even if it is only .2lbs, hah. Cold here too! 32F, which is pretty dang cold for South Carolina. Son has had two school delays in a row now due to wind chill. Apparently no one around here buys winter coats!

Elaine - Welcome! I'm definitely a log-a-holic. I track my points on a spreadsheet (since I'm not doing official WW, just using free online tools I've found), plus track my calories on MyFitnessPal, and track my meals on these forums in another thread. All the places to record stuff! Hope you like the program

Jelma - Ooo, decluttering is something I should probably do. We've been in our place for under a year, so it's not too bad. All our stuff had to fit in a Honda civic for the drive up here, so we started out with tons of space. Now though, the closets are a little full and finding storage for new stuff is getting iffy.

For this weekend I don't have anything really planned. We need to grocery shop, but that's about it. My student loan consolidation went through (can't remember if I posted that here or not), so I'm now waiting 45 days for my credit report to update as that gets my student loans out of default.. and then I can finally go back to school... with the help of more loans, just in a lesser quantity this time.

Back from my meeting - it was great and there were a few people who were just starting as well. Their scale read 238, compared to my doctor's scale at 244 on Monday. Doubtful to have lost that much weight in five days, but that was my starting number and I'm sticking with it. The computers were down due to the weather we're having, so she couldn't enter my weight into the system yet. I wonder if my points allowance will go down?

Yay for the woosh So Much Fattitude! That's awesome, I love it when that happens. I wish I drank that much every day, I'm really hopeless about remembering to hydrate, which is probably why I got a kidney stone at 29. I really like water (besides Diet Coke, I don't drink anything else) but I just don't drink enough. Going to try and make a concerted effort this week to guzzle it, especially as I'm going to a different city for work and it will be HOT (104 degrees farenheit or so)

Elaineindc- I think WW is particularly good for people who like data feedback. I too log everything- both calories on MFP and points on WW as well as calories burned and steps taken through my Fitbit. I like having all the info!

Sunarie- I totally know what you mean about exercising. I find that once I'm in the swing of an exercise routine, I find it very easy to make myself do it and the more exercise I do, the easier I find it. But as soon as I've had any kind of break, even a small one, it's like moving heaven and earth to try and make myself go back!

I'm having a bit of a "meh" week. I'm really overworked and despite that, have been really good this week with both exercise and eating. Under 1200 calories every day but yesterday, when we went out for dinner, but was still only 1400 for the day. I saw 79.2 on the scale earlier this week but I seemed to put on 0.5kg at some point overnight and I've seen 79.7 for the last three days.

Nights like last night were a bit hard. Went out for dinner with my fiance and his mum and went for a walk afterwards. They really wanted to go get something sweet and I suggested this famous little cake place in our town and my fiance had already told his mum he didn't want to go because he didn't want to make me feel bad. But I made them go but it was quite lame watching them eat cheesecake while I just sipped my tea. But I'd already had hot chips with my dinner and I didn't want to eat both.

Anyway, I'm just having a bad week so feeling a bit crap. I did buy a size 12 dress this week (two sizes down) which was a definite NSV!

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

I was tested somewhat a few days ago when my boyfriend suggested a movie. I almost said no because I didn't want to deal with the temptation of the food, but then remembered that I have plenty of purses. I popped some popcorn in a paper bag in the microwave, put two plumbs into a bag, and packed a large bottle of water to replace my standard cola, butter popcorn, and candy. And strangely, my home popped popcorn lasted much longer than movie popcorn does.

MrsD2008: I wouldn't force yourself to eat/drink just to gain point values that could make your sicker. Make sure that what goes into your body is good, nourishing food. Gatorade has electrolytes so I'd have one or two just to sip on (per day), but water is still much better. I'm sensitive to banana smells too, even when not sick. You can probably put your bananas in the refrigerator so you won't have to smell them.

elaineindc: Welcome to the forum! For some reason I never trusted doctor scales because they always seem old and worn out. lol

I believe that for every 10lbs you lose you also lose a point or every time the number in the ten's place changes, your points allowance does as well. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, though.

sunarie: It really is hard to jump back on the train when you've gotten off it for a while. My area got slammed with back to back blizzards. During that time, I wasn't able to walk to the gym/aquatic center so my pass ran out. I'm hesitant to renew it for fear that I'll get another blizzard and the same thing will happen. I've done a few low-impact workouts inside my apartment, but it's just not the same as swimming where I can just get in a zone.

SoMuchFattitude: Ahhh lucky you. I haven't gone to medieval times since I was a kid and that was quite a few years ago. lol I hope you have an awesome time!

I honestly didn't register that it was the weekend until I saw this post. I guess when you live with a shift worker and you're unemployed you tend to lose track of time. I'll probably stick to cleaning and pre-preparing a few crockpot meals to freeze (and maybe get in some quality gaming time).

Yay! WI day today and I was 78.9. I worked really hard this week and it's so nice to be rewarded! Officially, I'm down 1.7kg on last week (3.7lbs) but I very much doubt my reading last week was correct (TOM) as it's probably more like 1kg but very happy to be well into the 70s now!

Goals this week: eat well while I'm away for work (flying to the other side of the country tonight and on a Sunday, ick), 10,000 steps at least three days this week.

Going to Thailand in two and a half weeks and although I'm not going to make my original goal of 75kg by the time we go, I might get close!

You should be able to enter your weight on your app and it will tell you if your points have gone down! I would say yes, from my experience, but it may not.

Hope everyone's having a good week! I'm at the airport waiting to fly home from a business trip. I really tried but my eating has been fairly disastrous while I've been away. It's just impossible trying to keep to 1200 calories when you're not at home. I'm not going to get on the scales when I get home, it'll just depress me. I've still got four days to WI so I'm just going to try and have a good week for the rest of the week and hope for the best.

elainedc - Congrats on the loss! It is possible to lose that much in 5 days, especially so when you're first starting out. A lot of times once we start getting adequate water and whatnot weight sort of falls off initially, and then the losses become more gradual. As other's have mentioned, your points go down about every 10 lbs or so. Only by a single point though, not by a big chunk at once.

Flickety - Congrats on the NSV and the week of hard work paying off. Hopefully the past three days since your weigh in haven't held you up too much. Still be proud of your new dress size!

Blackboxed - Way to go with the movies! I love little victories like that

Weekend went well, I was back down to 226 for my weigh in yesterday. So my total loss for Feb so far is only 1lb down, seeing as I lost the pound, then went back up the second week, and now lost it again. Oh well! This week has been better for exercise so far.. or at least Monday was. I did my strength workout on time and all.

Today is a pass day, unfortunately. We woke up to the maintenance guy pounding on the door of our apartment. Turns out our water heater broke sometime during the night and flooded our downstairs and part of our neighbor's downstairs. So I've been dealing with that for the past 5 hours or so. Got a new water heater put in, shop vac'd up all the water on the linoleum in the kitchen, and then had a guy come suck water out of the carpet and put down this no mold/mildew stuff which stinks. Luckily the only thing to get damaged was some boxes of breakfast drink mix I had stashed in the closet.

On a positive note.. yesterday I was thinking about how I had wanted to rearrange that closet and get rid of some of the boxes.. so now I had to do pretty much that, lol. On the down side I lost my area to exercise as everything is in my living room while the carpet dries (which is suppose to take pretty much all day I guess.. guy is coming back for the fan tomorrow). Weather is super crappy out today. Freezing rain and all that.. so I'm not heading down to the fitness center either. Maybe we'll just count moving all the crap around as my exercise for today. Hah!

Thanks for all the support, everyone! I made it through two big stresses in the last two days: hosting a potluck at our house and dinner/drinks with girlfriends last night. I made it through both thanks to the weeklies - amazing! I am suspicious about how I'm going to lose weight if I use them all, but fingers are crossed. Today I'm at work, so I had to plan all my meals and snacks, which took a lot more time than I thought it would. I hope I make it through my whole day without screwing up my chances for a decent dinner tonight

Hi Everyone!

I'm new. I just went to my first meeting Monday. Not quite sure yet what I'm doing. I downloaded a third-party app today for tracking because I didn't subscribe to etools, and found it easier than trying to figure out the blue paper she gave me.

Can someone tell me what a swoosh is? I saw you all talking about it.

I've got a lot to learn.

elaineindc - When I first started I actually ignored my weeklies altogether and still lost.. now that I've been at it for a few months I've started eating them and my activity points. What I've noticed for myself is that if I use weeklies for junk food consistently, I don't lose weight. Consistently in this case meaning something like "well I have 5 extra points a day, so I can have this sugar packed ice cream". However if I keep the crappier eating to a day or two on the weekend, basically using all of the points at once but not going over, or if I use the points daily for healthy snacks, I will still lose. Not exactly sure why that is, but definitely find what works for you! Congrats on getting through the stresses!

iSpoons - Welcome! I'm using online tools as well. I have a points calculator that isn't from WW, and I record my stuff in an excel sheet. Plus I calorie/activity track on MFP, and record my meal plans in a different thread of this forum. All the places to track! A swoosh, or a woosh, is usually when a person is losing really slow, not at all, or even gaining a little for a while and then get a sudden weight loss that's fairly large.

New hot water heater seems to be working okay. Big fan is finally off! I think I lost some of my sanity having to sit near it to do my work from home stuff yesterday. It was so loud! Carpet is dry so I can move stuff back into the closet today. Another early day, but went to bed early last night so not feeling nearly as run down. Plenty of time to get my scheduled exercise in today too.

Found out boyfriend took off Friday for our anniversary (3rd year together). So we're going to Firehouse Subs on Friday, which is my favorite sub shop. I can get something on plan there. Then we're going out to a bar to celebrate with some friends. Gonna save my weeklies for Friday night and plan ahead so as not to go over. I don't want to gain the lb I lost this month back again. I would like an overall loss for February.

Editing to add: SoMuchFattitude. Just saw your most recent blog post. That outfit is awesome (I'm hoping I'll develop some fashion sense sometime along this weight loss journey) and I love those glasses. I have never done the thick frames myself but I always want to. My prescription is just so damn expensive that I'm afraid I can't pull off the look, and then I'll be stuck with them!