Have just few minutes before I pass out.

Went to the doctor today and they confirmed my suspision that I had strep throat instead of the flu. So now I'm taking antibotics and some numbing stuff for my throat.

To top it all off I started my period today...

If I was weighed on a doctors scale with a long sleeve shirt, a pair of jeans and my nike tennis shoes on.... how much should I subtract for all of that?

I'd say take 3 off Chelle, 4 if you had anything to eat before going. SOrry to hear you have strep, but glad to hear you were able to get in and get started on meds - nasty stuff that strep.

Came back from the pool and didn't give in to the protest for Quiznos. Came home and dh started spaghetti. Had an early dinner. Success!

Chelle - Thats no good! Rest and let the antibotics do their trick!

I went to visit my dad several times this weekend - he is moving hospitals again tomorrow - he will have a triple heart bypass later this week dependent upon his platelet levels. Please prayer for him or keep him in your thoughts he is very down lately and is going stircrazy being in hospital for 2 weeks.

This weekend I cooked up a feast of frozen meals... since my dad will be further away from home -I thought this would be the best option instead of take out and it will be soooo convenient to reheat. I probably have enough meals for two weeks.

I am down 2 pounds from last week and I hope the frozen homecooked meals will help with the weightloss plan this week.

Good luck everyone!!!!

Sorry about all the sicknesses.

I'm down 3 pounds this week.

Still in the middle of a busy weekend here, so sorry no personals!

Good morning, Bluesers! Hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

Nori - Congratulations on your 3 pound loss!
Vanessa - Congratulations on your 2 pound loss! I will continue to pray for you Dad.
Anna - How is your baby today? Hope she is feeling better.
Chellez- Hope you kick that streps butt and feel better soon!
Fran - Congrats on your success over the evil Quiznos!

Its accountability time. I didn't do very well with staying on-plan yesterday. We had planned on eating dinner at Applebees so Hubby and I could stay on-plan. Part of me was thinking that I really shouldn't eat dinner as I was going to the Ladies night and wanted to enjoy some eating there. But, I knew that Hubby and my youngest DD were hungry, so I went along. Instead of eating something from the Weight Watchers portion of the menu, I caved and had a burger and fries. Once I started looking at the pictures and other options, my willpower caved. I didn't eat the whole burger and all of the fries....had about half of each. But, I have no idea how many calories I ate. Then, I drank the last 1/4 of DDs shake. At ladies night, I had a piece of birthday cake....not the whole thing, but no idea how many calories there. Tomorrow is my official weigh-in and the scales are up about 1 1/2 pounds from where they were yesterday. I know this is probably water weight, but I'm very aggravated and disappointed with myself. I'm not looking for sympathy from anyone as non is due. I'm just coming clean with everyone and making a committment to stay on-plan today and to plan ahead a little better in the future. I should have known what I was ordering before I even stepped one foot into that restaurant. So, today is a 1200 calorie day for me and I'll be drinking tons of water. Hopefully, I'll still register a good loss on the scales for my official weigh-in tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a great on-plan day! GO BLUE!!

Rhonda--I made a list of all the restaraunts in our area, and I take it with me at all times. I looked them all up online and typed out the best options, calories and fat grams, so when we end up eating out I can look at my list before entering and know what I will order. Maybe not looking at the pictures next time for you? A list or just knowing your best options and don't even take a menu.

mom2 3 lb is awesome!

mum the frozen meals is a really good idea. Hopes are up for your father. Hang in there.

sportmom--good job on your eating success!

Chellez--lots of rest, the drugs should do their job pretty quick.

DD had a really good birthday party yesterday. I was on my feet the entire day and was completely worn out by the time we got home. She said it was the best birthday party ever, so I'd say it was a success. I don't think we'll have it at that skating rink again because our hostess kept disappearing, most of the games were broken and kept taking the kids tokens which were part of what I paid for, and it was incredibly crowded it was hard to gather everyone to do cake, pizza, etc. Plus, I felt like I didn't see or talk to anyone really in the end, they were all so scattered out with so many other people there. But, Allie had fun so I will call it a success.

today is house cleaning, it looks like Christmas in here all over again! Laundry is top of the list as well...and exercise, since I took my day of yesterday I have to get it all in through Friday.

Speaking of Friday...I'm going to take my final WI for the month that morning, and since we're halfway through the challenge I'll be taking pictures and measurements again...anyone else going to update for the halway point?

Just popping in to say hi everyone. I've gotten in considerably more treadmill time this week than in the past. That is a good thing. I am VERY excited about learning how to run. It isn't often that I am excited about exercise.

The bad news for me is my calories have been way high this week. I don't know what has been going on with my eating. Some I know is stress. The rest I think is cycle related. I think I ovulated this week and looking back it seems I always eat a bit more then. I am one of the few women I know who can usually lose weight the week of their periods. The good news about the calories is that even with all the extras it seems as all the running on the treadmill so far is keeping my weight even. My 10 day weight loss trend for the week is down, even if only by 1.0 pounds. It isn't much but it pleases me.

This calorie counting is really teaching me far more than I ever expected about myself and my body cycles.

Chellez - Hope your throat starts feeling better soon. I can deal with the head colds or the flu much better than I can with a sore throat. They make me grumpy!

Rhonda - Does Applebee's list their whole menu on their website? Or just the Weight Watcher items? Can you at least get a rough estimate on your calories?

Nori - Congrats on the 3 pounds. That is great!

Vanessa - A to you and your family.

Sportmom - Great job on resisting Quiznos. Spaghetti used to be one of my favorite foods growing up for the last year or so it gives me horrible heartburn. Blech!

Kudos to all you working moms. I don't know how you do it juggling kids, work, meals, after school activities. I am very fortunate to be able to stay home. I'll admit though that even though I am home to cook if we lived closer to town (It's 22 miles to the nearest restaurant!!!) I am sure I would cave and we would eat a lot more takeout type product.

I also need to send a big thanks to all that helped me change my way of thinking about fast food. It is product and that is the only way I refer to it now. People look at me funny and I just laugh to myself and then explain it to them. Off to log my treadmill minutes.

Purple - Glad your party was a success. We are moving to a slightly larger town in the next few months. Hopefully I can find someplace fun to have the twins birthday party in September. I'll have to go look at my starting pictures before I decide to update. I know I am only down 2 pounds since the start of challenge but I think I lost a dress size and my face looks a little thinner to me.

Hi Blue team! Just jumping in to say I hope everyone has a wonderful, healthy, and blessing-filled week! We all deserve nutritional foods and the opportunity to move our bodies toward great health!

Although I've been up and down in this challenge, it's awesome to be in such great company. I'm not the most consistent poster, but I check in and catch up. Good luck to us all!

HI Ladies!
I weighed in with a loss of 1.8, go me, it was so awesome it motivated me to work out! I did 2 sample sessions with Carmen Electra--striptease.

Hi everyone,
Good job to everyone who is having great weight loss!
Rhonda - sorry you had a tough time with the restaurant/ladies night.
Chellez - sorry you are sick.
mumtoliam- hang in there. You must be feeling a lot of stress....

My overall feeling today is one of frustration. Today is weigh day and I stayed the same. I just don't understand why the scale is not moving. I am working out 6 days a week, approximately an hour a day, doing a combo of cardio (HIIT), strength and lap swimming. I am tracking (accurately) my food with fitday and keeping to 1600 cals per day average.

This week I plan to decrease cals to 1500 and add 10-20 more minutes of cardio to each session. Yes, I'm losing inches. Yes, I'm feeling so much better. Yes, I know that slow and steady is good and the 30 pounds I've released over the last year is fab. But, I need and want to lose POUNDS. More pounds. I want to be at 100kg by the end of April when I go back to the doctor. I want to be off of one of my blood pressure medications.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I'm not giving up - maybe I'm just feeling a bit sorry for myself because it all seems so hard right now. Like I'm making more effort toward change than I've ever made, I have more commitment than I've ever had, and I seem to be having the least success than I've ever had. I feel like Nancy Kerrigan....."why me? why me? why me?". (Ok, that made me laugh. I'll be ok now!)

Hi team. Tomorrow begins my new personal challenge to stop binge eating. I went almost nine months only binging a handful of times (seriously like 5 times), and now I have binged 6 of the last 7 days. I don't know what my problem is and I don't know how to fix it. I do great until like 3 in the afternoon then go haywire. Part of it is that I am developing new trigger foods. Things like oatmeal and fiber one cereal have sent me into binges the last few days. I know I can't live forever eating foods that taste bad, but anything that tastes decent seems to trigger a binge as of late. I've reverted fully to the complete psycho who is hiding food and eating in weird places at weird times, eating until I am physically sick. I just don't know, I thought I was better, I thought it wasn't a problem anymore. Each day I start with the attitude that I am right back on plan and then I fail. I'm sorry if I effect our teams weigh-ins in the upcoming weeks. I'm really trying, I don't want to give up and I certainly don't want to gain all this weight back. Sorry for the whiney post.

Hey guys, there is a book some of you may want to check out, it's the index-card sized Calorie King booklet, and it has calorie counts for all the restaurants too. I found mine at the library, but it's not too expensive to buy your own copy from the bookstore since it's so small.


I did 1/2 hr on the treadmill yesterday and tried something new to accomplish my goal of interval training. I did a 5 min warmup and then did 1 minute running sprints combined with 3-4 min recovery, however long I needed depending on what speed I sprinted. I started my runs at 4.0, then got to 4.5, and 5.0. Then I caved with a blister forming on my rt foot, had dd run and get me a bandaid, kept on with my walk, but on the next run portion died in pain from the bandaid having moved from position. But I did get about 23 minutes and 3 solid mins of running in!! lol I took today off for my blister but tomorrow will be re-banding it and trying againw ith differeent shoes. The ones I wore yesterday were my super-good Saucony Triumphs 4's, a nice price shoe that I had custom fitted to me in a running store. I couldn't figure out where I went wrong until I realized I did that last year in my big running craze, and, ahem, it was also 35 lbs ago. Do ya think an extra 35 pds on your frame and feet could make your shoes not fit??? Umm, yeah. So I will go back to running in my walking shoes until I re-lose this weight. Another good reason to stay on plan, girls and guys!! I hate having to be reminded of these things!!!!

sportmom - I bought that exact same book yesterday -it cost me $9, and I will carry it round in my handbag.

Thank you for every one's well wishes. Dad might end up having the triple heart bypass now on Wednesday his platelet count is looking better.

I feel disgusted in myself tonight but I have identified an eating trigger. ANGER!!!!! My ex husband and I argued last night about telling my son about money - I think my 4 year old son should understand the value of things and he thinks children shouldnt be concerned with money,know how much things cost, etc. Our phone conversation ended with him telling me I will hear from his solictor....both sides are to blame for last night's argument.

Tonight my son has swimming lessons and I invite my ex to watch him, anyway he walks in to the swimming centre and sits away from me - which I think sends a bad message to our son and then keeps distracting him in his lesson by poking his tongue out, making silly faces etc. I start silent fuming. Basically I ignored him all night... but because I didnt let out my frustrations in a more sensible manner - I overate dinner!!!!!!

I served myself out the right size portion, and then twenty minutes I grabbed another... I ate two yogurts as well... to stop me from binging the night away I grabbed a quilting project and started on the centre medallion. Please help me redirect this anger in the future.

At least I have identified a trigger and now I can be more proactive but all I feel now is bloated and too full!!!! BLAH!

I think Aunt Flo has wreaked havoc on many of us and sickness on the rest.. to quote my 4 year old. I am DONE with WINTER.. it's been cold, gray and everyone looks blah and fed up!
So todayI'm going to start a new positive week with all my TOM cravings and insatiable appetites behind me.. and give this bloated body a kick in the...