Today has been a good day - 60 minutes of cardio, my PT exercises, some pilates. And I didn't overdo it at PF Chang's at lunch. I had a mini lemon dream dessert for a mere 190 calories. It was dee-lish!

Penguin, I always think how awful it must be for the people who live near hoarders. Most of them live in such awful squalor, it makes my skin crawl, and I'm not an obsessive cleaner by any means!

GettinFit, I've been counting calories since I started this thing last summer. I found Lose It about a month in and have been using it ever since. It's got a good database and the forums are pretty civilized. It has been enormously helpful for me.

Thanks Steph, I'll take a look at Lose It.

Today has been very successful for me. The Beck workbook has been very helpful. I ate OP and I did a Firm DVD tonigt.

Have a great evening everyone.

My parents are taking me to lunch today. Some sort of weights for later.

I haven't been doing very well this week, my eating hasn't been consistent and I've gained a few lbs back.

Steph, fortunately the hoarder moved out, but he left the mess for his Dad to clean up.

Gettin, glad to hear you had a great day.

Good morning ladies,

Penguin - Sorry to hear that you've been having a rough week. Hopefully you can turn it around today.

Getting back into the Beck Workbook was a good idea for me. This time I plan on finishing it to the end. Over the past few days I've gotten up to week 3 where I left off before. The dieting starts and now and I will do one step at a time from this point. A point that I read on day 15 really hit home for me. It basically says that it's not your diet plan itself (as long as it's healthy and nutritious) that will make you successfully lose weight but it's your ability to stick to this plan that determines success. This has always been my problem; I usually follow my eating plan for a month or two and then I revert back to binging & get slack with my exercise. This program promises to teach you "stick-to-it-iveness" which is what I need. I really want this to work for me because I am so tired of going back & forth with my weight loss.

Hello Steph & Maria - I hope you ladies are doing okay

Steph - I downloaded the Lose It app today and I like it better than My Plate. Thanks for sharing! If I stick with my plan, I should reach my goal of 160 by next May. My aim is to average a 1.5 pound loss each week and it says I should consume 1602 calories to do this. Now if I can just work the Beck Solution and stay on my plan over the next year I'll be a happy girl

GettinFit, feel free to add me as a friend on Lose It. I'm Steph363 VS (the team initials for a little team I'm on) or you can email me at my hotmail address: sef7409 at hotmail dot com (go away, spammers!).

1600 calories seems like a good plan. I did 1200-1300 a day for 6 months and then just couldn't do it anymore because I was too hungry. Now I aim for 1500 but, honestly, rarely make it. I figure 1600-1700 calories in and a few hundred burned off with exercise should get me a small loss every week. If I stick to the plan, as you said.

Here's a new goal for me: a problem I have at work is that, whenever I hit a little obstacle (I work with numbers, so it happens a lot), I reach for a snack while I mull it over. This must stop! Or, the snack has to be gum or one of my 10-calorie sugar fee hard candies. NOT chocolate.

Well, I went off the deep end the last few days, so I'm doing all that I can to muster up enough strength to get back on track. Stress really got to me. What a bummer! Six weeks straight of being so good, and ruining all my progress in a couple of days! Back to the drawing board.

Good morning everyone,

Tyla - Just take it one meal at a time and you will get back on track. Don't beat yourself up over the past few days but just try and learn something from it. I hope you can report a 100% OP day today. You can do it

I had a great OP day yesterday and I'm hoping for another one today. I stuck to my eating plan except I eliminated one snack that was planned because I wasn't hungry and I didn't want to eat it. I'm continuing to work my Beck Workbook.

Have a great OP day everyone.

I felt like I had a good day yesterday, food-wise, and did my usual cardio/strength routine. But the scale showed me up a pound, so I'm irritated. I bounce around a lot, just a pound or two, but...grrrr. This is when I start thinking that I just don't have the resolve it would take to eat as little as I'd need to if I want to lose another 15 pounds.

Ah well, nothing to do but keep on working the plan as well as I can.

Steph - I'm sorry the scale disappointed you today. I signed up to receive the Beck Diet Solution Newsletter and this point from a success story was in it today. It's regarding their exercise/tool of weighing yourself daily. It really hit home for me because I have always let the fluctuations on the scale affect my sticking or not sticking to my diet plan.

Today's Journal

B: Greek yogurt, coffee
L: Salad w/1/2 C chicken salad, feta & RF dressing, Yoplait parfait
S: blueberries, 1 Pk 100 Cal popcorn, string cheese
D: Healthy Choice beef tenderloin & broccolli dinner, 1 pcs dark choc
Exercise 20 min walk & Ab work

I had lunch with a friend, then did 50min of cardio/abs. I Need to shower before Hubby gets home, off to Knit Night tonight!

I was super hungry today, but managed to say no to birthday cake at the office (and it was my favorite kind, too!). I did okay otherwise, and did 60 minutes of cardio.

GettingFit, I totally agree that weighing every day takes some of the emotion out of the scale results. I've been doing it for a year and have gotten used to the fluctuations. I still get disappointed but I try hard not to let it affect my mood (and thus my eating) for the day.

Good morning everyone and Happy Friday!

Steph - Great job on resisting the cake and on all the cardio you did yesterday.

I had another totally OP day yesterday. I am planning to be OP over the weekend too!

I hope you all have a great OP day

GettinFit, thanks for your encouraging words. I'm proud to say that I got my strength back and have started calculating cals. and exercising again. I feel so much better. Wow, when I fall I fall hard. So glad to be acting normal again!

Have a great weekend, everyone!