Beverlyjoy, I think we live very close to one another. I eat at the first watch a lot with my friends from our kids elementary. I have a friend that loves it there. The nice thing is they do have healthy options. Although before I started counting cals, I ordered the eggs benedict. OMG it was soo dang good. It had turkey lunch meat and guacamole on it .... yummy

Way to go on losing the weight...Angel, chele, and cdiem!!!!

Today so far so good, I am having shish kabob for dinner, had a decent breakfast and lunch. I made my menu up for the week some....I need to complete that. Tom I am roasting a chicken so maybe we can do something with the left overs on that....

I even walked this morning and plan on going tom as well. I will workout at the gym M,w, and F and walk on the weekends. So I hope the weight falls off.

Thanks for the support.. Barb

Angel, that is awesome about the 4 lbs! Enjoy your rest day!

FB, figure competition, huh? That would be awesome! I think you should go for it! Speaking of ramping up the cardio, I'm starting to ramp up my running. Hopefully that will help with the fat burning, but my main reason is that I want to be able to run that 12K next spring. I missed it last time around when I had that gimp knee. I've never been fast, but this one is about the challenge: killer hills, and the distance (a challenge for me). If I can at least jog the whole thing, without having to walk, that will be a big accomplishment for me. WTG on the 3 lbs already for this challenge!

Isabella, probably just your body taking a breather. Next week, I bet!

Chele, congrats on the weight loss! I used to have swollen ankles all the time, but for me it was from high sodium. Since I cut way, way back on the sodium in my diet, my ankles have "skinny days" every day, which I love. Don't you love that elliptical? That think makes me sweat like crazy, too.

Cdiem, 2 lbs already, you are not messing around! WTG!

Jenny, sorry to hear about your hard day. Hope things go smoother today!

Beverly, have fun at the family reunion dinner!

DJM, I don't weigh my food any more, but I've used a postal scale in the past, that worked well for that.

Hi to everybody else!

I have a 1972 postal scale that I picked up at a yard scale. It's very accurate but it only weighs in ounces and pounds and in Canada everything is in grams and kilos. The postage was very low in 1972!!

I think I have a couple of reasons why I didn't lose. This past week I was eating under calories and maybe I went into starvation mode and the other reason might be that as I stated before my body is just regulating itself. My DH figured 2.5 pounds last week was good enough for both weeks. Ha, ha.

Congratulations to everyone who lost this week, you're doing great.

Good weigh in today -1.8. almost to my halfway mark.
Busy day today working outside...feels good!!
hugs to all

Hey everyone. Looks like you are all doing well. I did ok for the rest of the week with eating and exercising, but being stuck on this plateau is slowly making me lose my motivation. I feel like, what is the point of not eating the doughnuts brought into the office if I'm going to weigh the same regardless.
I set my goals too high I feel for the Canada Day Challenge and was disappointed when I didn't make it, so set an extremely low Labour Day Challenge which I was able to do, but the scale didn't move at all, so I have set my goals higher again for Halloween and hopefully have struck the right balance.
I don't even know what my clothes feel like. The only thing keeping me going was people telling me I am looking great at a wedding I was at two weeks ago, but I credit it to the spanks I was wearing. Oh man, guess I'm just having a rough time with this

It can be so frustrating when you put a lot of hard work into something and then you don't get to see the results!!! Definitely can play with your mind and your motivation. Hopefully, this coming week, you'll finally break through it and see a great loss!!!

Hi challenge chicks -

I made it thru my food filled family day and I did very, very well with my choices. I was around 1500 calories at the most - I am so, so grateful.

My mom is so funny - she knows I don't keep cookies in the house -so she brought over a box of Oreos for our cousin staying with us (and DH, too). She figured there just had to be something sweet for him. Also, my cousin went to the store and brought in a gallon of Graeter's raspberry chocolate ice cream...my favorite. Despite all this - I stayed out of the cookies and measured out 1/4 cup of the ice cream (a whopping 190 calories!) so I wouldn't feel deprived. So, the Oreos go back to mom's today and ice cream in the back of the freezer. I think we'll have some neighbors over to finish it off - so it's gone!

I did well at First Watch and ate the Tri-Athelite breakfast- around 300 calories or so.

Now - our family style Italian dinner at Boca de Bepo worked out fine. I had some chicken marsala, a bite of garlic bread, a tiny portion of spaghetti, some salad and a bite of birthday cake.

It was wonderful to see family/cousins (and their children) - some of which I hadn't seen in 30 years! It was so joyful.

I must concentrate today in having a good healthy food day because often when I stay on my plan for something big - the next day is a 'let down' day where I get into the food. I am feeling optimistic though.

jamsk8r - thanks for the shout out!

Djmommy - I live near Columbus. Check out the Tri-Athelite Omlette (that's what I had yesterday) or the Lean Machine at First Watch. I love to go there too -because there's something healthy and delicious for me. Here's a link to the calories, etc.


http://calorielab.com/restaurants/first-watch/328

(my old favorite was the Greek Fetish Omlette and fried potatos.)

Folks - keep planning and trying and pushing thru!!

Quote of the day: Leigh Hunt
"The groundwork of happiness is health."

Have a great on plan day, everyone. Gotta run!

For most of the week, my weight was dithering and I wasn't sure I'd have any loss to report. Then, yesterday and today they showed up (or rather, disappeared) -- and I'm down over two pounds !

The only bad news is that I'm so close to my current goal that it's clear I will have to reset it lower. It's not just me being unsatisfied -- my daughter (just a kid) is not shy about telling me that I still need to lose weight. Hubby is more tactful, but he also clearly thinks there's still room for improvement.

Bev -- big congrats on overcoming those food situations, and still having fun! It's easy to let those events throw you off track.

Sgirl -- I feel your pain. I'll bet you are making progress, but it just isn't showing up on the scale for one reason or another. Times like these are the toughest test. Keep at it -- and sooner or later the scale will follow!

Isabella -- sorry for your stall too. I hope next week more than makes up for it. What a difference a day can make!

FB -- I think it is a good idea to change your focus to fitness goals. Scale weight is just a tool to judge progress of one kind. I have a friend whose BMI is in obese territory, but I would trade physiques with her any day.

Dgramie, Angel, Chele, and Cdiem -- congrats on your weight loss and progress towards goal!

Waves to everyone!

Good day yesterday got alot of things done outside that needed to be done. It felt good to have time outside. TOday is church and then housework and getting ready for the week ahead. I am pumped still about being under 240 and cant wait to see if i can make my halloween goal, only 14lbs to go. I know in order to make it i am going to have to bump up my exercise and really watch my calories and get the most for my choices.
hugs to all

Thanks Bev for that info!!! How did you find that???? I have the chick quesa alot. Wow 900 cals.... No more.. I live really close to the restaurant, about 10 min if that away. So we do go there for breakfasts and lunches a lot with my mom friends. Good info you gave me...

Well I did great until last night. Argh... I bought those dang harvest candies...the candy corn.. MY fav, do not ask me why I have always loved them...Anyway, I had about 300 cal of those and than I had a ice cream cone. I only filled it level to the top of the white cone ..Man that was good ..I should have stopped but than I grabbed a bag of Frito's before bed another 160 cals. I went over a bit, but I am more mad that I did not make GOOD and Healthy choices. I Had zip will power. Today my lunch consisted of 3 chick nuggets, a few tostidas with humus, fiber 1 bar and a few more candy corn. Oh and some fat free wheat thins. Yikes, I was hungry and we came back from church and I of course I feed the kids 1ST and so I ate whatever,. This is what got me here in the first place and I can not , will not continue with his behavior. Oh well move on...

Dinner will be better, roasted chick on the grill ... My dh is putting a beer in the bottom, but I am sure it will not add a huge amount of cals. Plus you only do 1/2 of a beer.

I did walk to day and tom I have a workout class with weights. So I am getting the exercise just need towatch the food.

Thanks for letting me complain, I usually am not like this just not happy with my self. It will take time to get in the swing of things

I have not posted in awhile but I'm still working on my goal of getting into the 170s by Halloween. I really started kicking up my exercise this week and have managed to exercise 5 days for 45mins-1hr each day. No major changes on the scale though

Hi challenge chicks - yesterday I did pretty well. DH ended up inviting the neighbors for a cookout. One brought 4 (yes 4) different kinds of ice cream and some brownies. I did have a very small amount of desert - and it took me 65 calories over my range. I am not going to worry about that at all. Today - no company, parties and outside influences - just the regular ones.

Djmommy - I found out the calories for the food at First Watch by googling " First Watch - calories". I always check for a website of the restaurant where I am going to see if they provide that info. Often, if it's not at their website" it's listed at the Daily Plate, CalorieKing or others. It's worth a try for me trying to find out if I can.

Yoyoma - thanks for the shout out! GREAT job on 2 pounds down!

I hope you all have a GREAT on plan day.

Quote of the Day: "The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places."

I love that quote....I have it in my signature

Chele615 - hey, how about that! I found it on the internet and loved it too.

Here I am! I'm settled down nicely in my plan. The nice thing is, I know this is temporary and I'll have to struggle again one of these days, but I'm greatful for phases like this.

I think I finally out the best way to handle my Saturday lunch treat. In addition to eating sensibly, I cut back by a couple hundred calories on Friday and Sunday both. The average of all three days is about normal.

I also have a suggestion for anyone. I got a sodamaker about a year ago. It makes carbonated water than you can add flavors to it. I usually just drink water, but yesterday I was wanting to snack and trying hard not to, so I added some rasberry syrup (from the grocery store) than cut it with a bit of lemon juice. Delicious!