Brrr! Good chilly morning! It's 0 here, with a wind chill of -16 ... the coldest it's been for the past ten years. I'm probably crazy but am still planning on the gym in a half hour. And I'm sure all the regulars will be there!

How did the Super Bowl parties go? It was a non-event here ... DH watched a bit but I'm not much of a football fan. So no food booby traps to deal with.

Speaking of food, I roasted a turkey breast last night so that will be good for the week. I'm going to roast sweet potatoes and green beans today so should have the frig stocked with good stuff.

Back after the gym ... Stay warm!

Hi H

It's dark. It's freezing. And I have a cohd in by nose .... some Monday's just aren't worth the trouble. I think I shuda stood in bed. Eating hasn't been exactly clean, but it hasn't been too bad either. What hasn't been very good is exercise. It's a funny thing: I feel too crummy to climb up on the treadmill, but now that I haven't done so since Friday, I can feel my hips and butt beginning to ache. I hope I feel better tomorrow for water aerobics.
Hope y'all have a great week. If you live anywhere in this deep freeze, bundle up!

I ate too much SuperBowl food, but at least it was all of the healthy variety and not a lot of junk. I'm feeling well enough to exercise again, and did a yoga class yesterday and an easy bike ride on Saturday. I have a cold coming on now. DH has a major work project to deal with so it is just me and DD for most of this week. Hope I'm up to it.

Anne

I just thought it was cold here, 12 degrees.

I am doing exceptionally well right now with exercising. Changing my food plan, I decided to be vigilant again on getting in my exercise. My weight is doing great. Have lost a few lbs. and hope to see my ticker weight again by next week. I'm 1 lb. above it this morning. Even after my 2 hrs. in mall yesterday and an hr. in Walmart, I still came home and did both my treadmill walking and my elliptical.

Thanks everyone for the kind words about my sister. She is having the surgery today. I'm waiting at home for word of how it goes. (The surgery will be done in Dallas, TX. Her 3 kids, their families, her DH and all his family will be there with her.

Fun shopping trip at the mall yesterday. There are so many end of winter sales. It was fun. I'm glad I bought some new things for next winter and got them on sale. I am gaining confidence that I can and will stay the same size, so shopping ahead of time is a new experience for me.

My SD and SGD taunted me with junk food at Bingo on Saturday night. I had to hold my tongue. They ate a large bag of cheetos and 4 large tootsie rolls in front of me. I had taken a Kashi bar with me. I didn't want their junk, it just made me mad that she laughed and said "we can have all the calories we want". I wanted badly to say that is "why you are wearing my old fat clothes and I have a new small wardrobe". Grrrrrrrrrr. I actually have almost all her old wardrobe that she is now to big for.

Superbowl wasn't a problem here. We were gone shopping. So, I didn't even see it.

Airregrl, I'm having a little trouble too with pain in my hips. I thought maybe it was just the increase in exercise now that I'm over that nasty flu that I had. Also I think the elliptical works my hips harder now than the treadmill ever did.

Hi everyone! I ate too much this weekend (NOT the healthy variety) so this week will be one of recovery. First, I have to get rid of this food hangover!

Robin, hope you feel better soon!

When planning meals and counting calories do you ladies try to follow the food pyramid? I have decided to use this as a general guide with my calorie counting to try to get the appropriate amt. of each food group. I have a little trouble getting that many servings of veggies a day. So, I'm drinking a bottle of V8 each day that is 70 calories and counts as 3 veggie servings. Is this a viable alternative to the fresh veggies? Any thoughts?

Lily, the Food Pyramid is too high in carbs and too low in protein for me personally. I find it easier to just count calories and keep track of the protein-carb-fat ratios in Fitday (I like 40P-30C-30F). The easiest way I check myself is to be sure my protein grams are higher than my carb grams in a day. Fat never seems to be a problem since everything I eat is low-fat. But that's just me - I may be aiming for something totally different than you are.

If you're concerned about your veggie servings, don't forget that the serving size used by the Food Pyramid is really small - 1/2 cup of cooked or raw veggies or 1 cup of leafy raw veggies. You may be eating much more than one serving at a time using those definitions! My salads are at least four servings of veggies.

I think V8 is OK as an alternative as long as you don't have a problem with all the sodium in it. Even the low-sodium version is pretty high.

Karynlee ... water! water! water!!!

You should have gone ahead and said it!!! Oh well, you'll have the last laugh for sure.

Thanks Meg, I went back and checked yesterday's Fitday. I had 1724 calories with 30%fat, 49% carbs, 21% protein. It does seem like I'm eating a huge amt. of carbs (esp. after doing Low Carb for so long). But, what I'm getting is healthy. Whole wheat pancakes, whole wheat rice, whole wheat bread and Oats plus 3-4 servings of fruit a day. I am eating more veggies than I thought according to what you described. I have raw carrots and cauliflower with my turkey or tuna sandwich at lunch, plus 2 cups of salad at dinner with my chicken, fish or turkey usually and a green veggie with this. BTW, how many grams of sodium should we have per day? I'm using low-sodium V8.

Mainly what I've been doing is checking my fitday every evening before I have my evening snack. If I am lacking a little in my fiber count, I eat a high fiber snack which in turn usually ups my carb count. But, to me having plenty of fiber is the number one benefit of counting my calories and using Fitday. No more tummy problems, Yippee.

Superbowl! OMG. The town is going crazy. It was actually kind of anticlimactic since the game against the Patriots was so down-to-the-wire exciting, and this time we ("we" = "the Colts") were ahead for most of the game. Apparently the Colts do better when they get walloped in the first quarter. The funniest thing is that the Indianapolis public schools are canceled today because too many bus drivers called in "sick!"

I ate a lot of junk. But! It was planned junk, at least somewhat. We skipped our cheat meal and had some extra low-cal days in preparation. I made brownies (a Martha Stewart recipe, many more calories than Cooking Light but delicious) and an Irish Cream bundt cake, plus someone else brought cupcakes (they said "Go Colts" in blue M&M's!). I had one cupcake, about four brownies (we cut them to about 2 inches by 1 inch), and one slice of cake, plus whatever I ate licking the bowls after putting them in the oven. And a burger melt on sourdough. And some chips and dip. But I also ate a nice big salad and most of my "appetizers" were veggies and hummus.

But the good news is we managed to escape my future in-laws' house leaving all the leftovers there. Phew! What a relief. We are planning to hit the gym every day starting this week instead of just 3x/week. What I *didn't* plan for is that everyone else has brought their junk food leftovers in to work, and there is a big tray of cupcakes and marshmallow fudge brownies sitting around. I think I can resist this time!

Lily, I use the food pyramid as the base for my calorie counting. I have never been on a low-carb diet, I instead usually go low-fat since it is easier to cut more calories that way. According to the USDA 49% carbs is just fine.

It's freezing here too -- it was -5 when we left this morning, not counting wind chill. Ugh! I am now sitting at my desk at work, wearing long underwear (pants and a shirt), my jeans, and two sweaters, and drinking a big mug of herbal tea. I even ordered a pair of fingerless gloves that have heating pads, and you plug them into the USB port of your computer for power! The worst part about the cold is that I am spending so much time near heaters (and not near humidifiers) that my lips are super chapped and my nose has gotten so dry that it's bleeding. A combo of being on nasal allergy medicine for a long time and the dry air of the heaters is not a good thing -- I laid off the medicine and have been squirting saline up my nose multiple times a day.

We went to the new gym on Friday. It was really nice! I just wish they had towel service, since it's kind of annoying to bring my own and then take a wet towel home after showering. Other than that it was great. I did a ten minute warmup on the treadmill from 2.5-4.0 mph, then used the "total body crossramp" for 30 minutes (resistance set mostly around 4-6) plus a 5 minute cool-down. I added in crunches with a medicine ball for added weight and some lower back work.

Since we're planning on going every day instead of just MWF, I'm planning on mostly cardio MWF and strengthening TTh. Once my arm is out of a splint I'll be trying out the group classes too. I think the knee problems I was having were at least somewhat related to not having enough arch support in my shoes. I've been wearing sneakers every day and they are feeling better.

lily~when I started my lifestyle change last year, I did try to do the food pyramid thing, but found that I couldn't get that many grains in. I do still try for the 5-8 servings of fruits and vegetables, though.

I did pretty well with the super bowl eating. I made my lower calorie dip and it went over quite well. I also made homemade turkey soup that was quite good. I have leftovers for one night this week.

I spent an hour printing recipes off of the Cooking Light website. I have a couple dozen new things to try over the next few weeks. Got to mix it up a bit! I was getting bored with the chicken breast, brown rice and broccoli thing!

Everyone have a great day and stay warm! I confess, it's much warmer here--I even sat outside and read for an hour both Saturday and Sunday and had to come in because it was too hot in the sun.

Morning all! Well, I pathetically laid on the couch and watched the Colts (yeah!). I ate some ice cream but that was it for food. Paperclippy-I'm having the dryness problem too. I'm having a hard time keeping liquids down too which doesn't help. My lips are cracking. I've taken up what seems like permanent residence in my LL Bean jammies and slippers to stay warm. Come on spring!

Thanks ladies for the thoughts and letting me know how you are judging the eating.

paperclippy, sounds like the new gym is going great. I think my lips have been chapped all winter. I am constantly wearing DH's thermal underwear under my jeans to stay warm.

Allison, I'm envious of that warm weather. I'm anxious for spring so I can get outside and do my flower beds and plant hedges. I also am excited for crappie fishing weather. Me and DH get a lot of enjoyment from going fishing of the evenings. I hope to put in a small garden this year for veggies. My MIL always has a garden so she can help me with knowing when to plant different items. For some reason, I like to dig in the dirt.

I just entered my calories for yesterday into Fitday. 2800 calories in one day. I knew it was going to be a lot but not THAT much! The biggest culprit was the patty melt from a fast food place. Little did I know that that one sandwich was 1175 calories. I didn't quite eat the whole thing but still. The scariest part is that I used to eat like that (more than that) on a regular basis.

Calories for the week still work out to maintenance range, about 1900/day, so my planning in advance was effective. Still, I will be hitting the gym extra hard tonight!

Good morning everyone,

I'll start off by 'fessing up about all the bad chips and dip I ate yesterday. I even brought a big, healthy salad to the superbowl party. I ate that...and then moved on to chips, dip, and wings. *sigh* Fitday estimates 2500 for the day. I had tried to go for a bike ride earlier yesterday but cut it down to 4 miles b/c of the cold, and the gym is closed Sundays.

I am trying to remain positive because:
1. I ate very clean and healthily the rest of the weekend.
2. Today is another day and I can't do anything about the past.
3. I have an entire day to get rid of this bloat before my weigh-in tomorrow, including aerobics class at the gym tonight.

paperclippy, have you tried a humidifier? When I lived in the north I had to have one and it was so great. I don't know what your budget is but there are some small portable ones for around $30 and replacement filters cost about $10. I wish I had it now but it's somewhere in my parent's attic in Pennsylvania.

Lily, your sister is in my thoughts.

Hi to everybody else.

Megan