Welcome Redhookmom! I am a newbie, too.

I LOVE the image of you walking your puppy in heels!! Sure you were the talk of the neighborhood....lookin' all hot in your heels!

Well so much for my plan to post early and keep up with the rest of you guys. It has been a busy week filled with multiple days of bringing baked goods into the office…fortunately I remained strong and stuck to my diet and spent lots of time running up and down the stairs setting things up in different locations of the building.

I think I may have caved in and cheated if 1. I hadn’t announced to my boss and several co-workers that I had started a diet and was working on 30lbs. My boss I discovered is also working on losing weight and suggested a contest for the department, but at the moment I think he and I are the only two that are taking it seriously. 2. Joining 3FC and wanting to be able to post a good update this week with a loss is keeping me inline.

I got my blood results back and my iron is improving by leaps and bounds…I still need to work on exercising, I am seriously considering getting a Wii.

Thanks ladies for the vacation rental info. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet but I am looking forward to seeing what I can find.

I haven’t heard from my parents in CA this week hopefully they are not underwater from all the comments I am hearing from different sources.

Onmyway – Glad your floors are done and the new furnace is in!

AZ Manatee – Sorry you are feeling poorly, hope you feel better soon. I have been weighing everyday right now since I am only into my second week. I am doing a lo carb diet and the first two weeks of induction you lose pretty quickly so it is hard not to want to check each day…it has help me to stay motivated since I have gone down every day except one. I keep debating if I should wait and do it once a week so I will be surprised, but it sure is hard!

WLW – Good for you and your good report at the doctor. Keep up the good work! I just moved from Fort Mill, SC not long ago. All of my friends are talking about the nice weather they are having on FB, until the last few days, I guess it dropped again.

CruiseCat – Sorry to hear about the trouble with your grandkids being sick and not having a washer to clean up with. Not to mention things being crazy back at home. My sister and parents are in the high desert. I haven’t heard from them about any flooding this week, I will have to give them a call tomorrow and make sure all is well.

Well I started writing this post several days ago to try to cover everyone, but I am even more behind now, so I better just post mine and so you don’t think I dropped my diet and baled on all of you! It looks like everyone is doing really great this week! Yay Us!

I am down about 8 lbs total since I started. I am pretty excited and really need to get exorcising so I can be toning and keep up the weight loss.

Welcome Redhook Mom! We're always happy to have newbies join us : ) I hope everyone has had a great week and that your weekend goes well. Took the day off to take care of the car business, only to find out my accident has caused me some serious issues I didn't know about. They didn't have my apartment number listed and I never got any of the notices from the dmv. So it's going to cause me some big money and dealing with a bunch of red tape to get things taken care of. I now have a car that I can't register or drive : ( Looks like I'll be walking and bus hopping for a good while longer. Needless to say I'm rather depressed and discouraged right now, and gave up the idea of going in for a half day. All it would take is one rude customer to make me start bawling. I don't normally resort to food when I'm upset, but might just crawl into bed and sulk for a few hours!

Kathi - Sorry to hear about your DMV woes. I never enjoy having to deal with them and all the red tape and money involved in the process. Hope you are able to get it resolved soon and drive your new car.

Annie - (about Crocs) another comapny (a boat shoe company) bought them I think - I bought 6 back up pair of Athens Flip/flops when they went buy 1/get 1 JUST IN CASE! haaaa, and 2 back up pair of the ugly squishy clog ones...

Hi Red, welcome - haaa..the image of walking the dog in heels

Marie- enjoy your chairs. We adore our rocker/recliners - not sure if you have a Target near you, but their fitness gear is marked down (now that the spring stuff is coming in) - got a pair for $6 bucks on clearance yesterday

TRC - nice pic! good job staying inline. Glad your iron is gettnib better, and I know most love their Wii

Kathi - oh no! I hope they can straighten it out quickly

Kathi-I think I would have a total meltdown if that happened to me. Hope it gets resolved quickly.

Marie-yes, I put good quality protein powder in my smothies but if that's the only protein I'm eating all day its not enough. I aim for 100 grams a day today I'm only hitting 57 but today is unusually low.

Redhook-Welcome. I have 2 dogs so I can imagine walking dogs in heels. Just the idea is hysterical.

We have a new therapist at the outpatient program I work at on Mondays. She is married to a Palestinian (a true Mediterranean eater) so I got some advice on how to cook my goat today. I was thinking a goat and lentil stew and he said that would work well so that's the plan. I have a recipe for a lamb and lentil stew and I'm going to use the goat instead.

Hey ladies! I'm still major bummed out, need to win the lottery to get the car issue resolved : ( Meantime some friends posted this link on twitter and while I was browsing it made me think of several of you. http://foodoro.com/ The heirloom grains look interesting as do some of the meats. Not to mention the tea selection which a number of us seem to enjoy : ) The cost of shipping is quite steep but they do have a selection of items you can get with free shipping. The other thing that caught my interest was that you can click on the name of their source and go to the website to see what else that farm or company offers. Since my grocery shopping options are limited I was interested in the idea of on online site. If anybody knows of other online sites, especially for organic foods, please share : )

Hi Everyone. Sorry I've been a bit AWOL - very stressful past couple of days with my son, and both of us have been having disrupted sleep.

I've managed to stay on ok on eating, but no workouts for today and the past couple of days. I'm soooooo looking forward to the weekend to try start catching up with those, and with everyone here!

WLW-I know they are not crazy about us adding links to a bunch of other sites but here are some that I have used-actually bought their products and can recommend: www.homegrownharvest.com (grains)-shipping can be expensive so if you are going to order from them, make sure to buy enough to justify the shipping costs, www.fossilfarms.com (every kind of exotic meat you can imagine) However they have limited cuts which can be annoying and its not cheap. This is where I get my rabbits and pigeons (squabs), www.thehealthypantry.com They make convenience foods that are made from organic products. I have made several of their food kits and some of them are very good-like the salmon patties and the mediterranean pasta is my favorite. However I have tried to get away from processed food of any kind and make my own but if you are going to do processed food, this is probably about as clean as it gets. And www.eatwild.com This will show you where there are organic farms in your local area. That's where I found the farm that sent me the beef. They will send me chickens and pork products later when they are available. I have not found a good source for lamb which is probably my favorite meat. Still working on that. Hope I like the goat because that is probably the easiest thing for me to get. And one more www.nuts4u.com Nuts of every variety, roasted, raw, salted, unsalted, nut flours, etc. Happy shopping.

Marie-my dogs need their nails cut. I can't imagine cutting the nails of 4 dogs. 2 is bad enough how do you do that stuff? Clean 4 sets of ears? give 4 baths? Do you brush their teeth? I've never been able to do that.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Forgot something else. This is where I get my coffee: www.deansbeans.com I think they have green beans too if Marie is interested. You can also make your own specialty blends.

Goat is in the slowcooker. It smelled great while I was browning it in the pan. I think this is going to be a success.

ooh, can't wait to hear about the goat...

got a 3 mile run in this morning - happy to be back on track - need to increase my mileage this week...not too much at once, but have time to catch up on. I did work on my pace today - (short runs/work on speed --- longer runs/works endurance)

The goat is good! At least cooked this way. It makes me want to experiment with cooking it other ways too. I think goat will make it as a regular part of the menu. May be a reasonable substitute for lamb if I can't find a good organic source for lamb.