It's 1 AM on Aug 13, so I'm officially starting the new thread.

Well, everyone, what's the plan for this week? Seems like most you have been doing well lately and losing weight . How are you exercising in the heat (although no problems with that here in frigid northern CA)? What's on the menu for this week? Will you be on plan or off ?

The theme for me this week is eggplant (and probably next week too), since that's about all I'm getting from the garden right now. Maybe also some beans and tomatoes. I already have all my lunches prepared: Summer Rice Salad with Eggplant and Tuna for two days and Sesame Shrimp and Eggplant Salad for three days. I have one off-plan meal scheduled (girls' night dinner and pedicures and boy do my toes need it--the pedicure, not the off-plan meal ) but everything else should be on plan, even the two baseball games I am going to (go A's!).

Morning Barbara!
This week I'm rethinking the roll around my middle. There's some interesting muscle not very deep under there. I 'may' try fooling with a little more fat loss.
Let me see ... good abs are made in the kitchen ... cardio for fat loss ... right?

I'm up a pound but I suspect that's just a bit of "cheating" on the weekend - didn't write everything down and we went out to dinner and a movie last night. Back to the journal and writing everything down for the next 6 weeks, including weekends!

I've mixed up two containers of the Knudsen juices - one cranberry and the other blueberry - and I'm going to substitute one of those for 2 cans of the diet Pepsi every day. It's adding 45 - 50 calories a day for the juice, but subtracting the caffeine and carbonic acid and god knows what else from the Pepsi.

Dagmar

I hear ya Dagmar! We went to two potlucks ... I gave up trying to enter that in fitday.

My plan for this week is to get back on plan, NO MATTER WHAT. Ugh, I've totally blown the past week and I'm not impressed. When I'm behaving myself everything I'm doing works great for me so I don't feel the need to change anything. I'm also one that doesn't mind eating the same things everyday as there isn't really much real food that I like. It's just getting my butt back on program that's been hard. I've been trying unsuccessfully for 4 days now. *sigh* BUT, today I will do better. I really want to lose the rolls I have around my middle, I want a 24" waist and chocolate cake, ice cream and lobster rolls just aren't going to me there, no matter how hard I try. If I want my calves to fit into my boots, MacDonald's is not my friend.

Now, what I'm finding really interesting is for the first time in my life, I'm actually keeping up with the exercising...even when I fall off the wagon with my eating, I'm still working hard on the running and my DVD's. Yay me! Gotta find some positive somewhere.

Oh ya, and I'm up a pound and a half from what my ticker says but I REFUSE to change it in that direction b/c I WILL be 113 again this week!!

Anyway, that's my week, clawing my way back onto that wagon and working my butt off exercising. Good times.

Morning everyone. Not much going on around here which is a good thing.

I've had some extra time off work the last week. My husband went out of town on some family business so I wanted to be closer to home at night, not leave my 16 yr. old home alone all night all week (although he probably thinks I'm dumb for doing that!).

I got sooooo much laundry and cleaning done. It feels great.

Eating and exercising have been the same. I think I'm going to have to amp up the exercise if I want to lose any more weight. I guess I'm fine with where I am but I wouldn't mind another 10 lbs. as a cushion so to speak. I usually exercise 30 minutes a day 6 days a week. I am going to up that to 1 hour on any days off so how that goes.

Have a great week. Talk to you later. Jane

Hey everyone,
My husband and I were up till 4 am last night, so I'm pretty brain dead right now. We have gotten used to staying up late this summer (NOT 4am though!!!), which is going to put a hurting on us in a week! Saturday night we stayed up till 3am deliberately to watch meteor shower, and I think that played into our late night last night. We just were not tired - at all. I read a lot of my book, but I would rather have been SLEEPING. So we got up around 10 and had 6 hours or so. I feel like a total slug.

I finally chose paint, and today through Wed are painting days. It's called "Outback" by Behr -- it's a light greenish/khaki-ish color - very neutral, and I think pretty hip. It looks greener on the swatch, but on the wall it looks more khaki. I think it'll work well with our colors - lots of eclectic stuff, so we don't have a 'set' color scheme of say browns and blues. It also looks good with our exposed wood trim. The second color (also Behr) is between "Lunar Light" and "Belvedere Cream" - these are light cream colors.... the next thing to white, I know, but I think it will look good with the wood and allow us to be more flexible with colors. We have pretty much decided to do the 3 middle rooms in the cream - foyer, office, dining room ... these 3 rooms flow one into the other. The outer rooms will be "outback," those being the den/living room and kitchen. Of course the bedrooms are another story.

We also finally decided, 'hey, we need to paint our kitchen cabinets' - had we decided that two or three weeks ago, we could have been done, but I think it's too close to school starting for us to start that project. If we wait till next summer, we can think, plan, and save for new counter tops and maybe have a little re-do in there. Exciting thought.

Jane - sounds like you have been on a roll. Keep up the excellent work. 133 is where I'd love to be!!

Susan - good luck with those abs. I've never had too much of a big belly until last 2-3 years. I would love to have that flat stomach again. Five more pounds would certainly help me. Seems to me at your tiny weight, doing crunches regularly would whip your abs into great shape.

Barbara - I hear ya on the eggplant week. We are making ratatouille tonight - one of the main reasons is to use the eggplant (well, all of them). Allrecipes.com has some phenomenal recipes for eggplant. My dad made some killer eggplant sandwiches using a recipe from there - I believe he lightly roasted the eggplant and I know it called for goat cheese. Mom and Dad raved about it, saying it was something they'd order in a restaurant. We may try those these week too - I could go open faced on the bread.

Dagmar - that juice sounds great - all those antioxidants are a great replacement for pepsi! Your urinary tract will love you.

Well, everyone, have a terrific day. It's time for me to be productive. Since I had such a fantastic (and intense) bike ride yesterday, today will be a walk... after painting that is. Be healthy!

Well, I got on the scale today and was 151--but I'm not holding my breath. I had a couple drinks last night (rum, diet coke and lime) and I know that it's more due to dehydration than anything else. When I get more water into myself today, I'll pop back up to 153, I'm sure.

I haven't been exercising, really--though I did go kayaking yesterday for the first time ever (super fun, but I don't think it's much of a workout ). All of my exercise ambitions start in September, when I'm back to where my gym is (at college).

My diet has been 100% on plan for the last five days--and I fully intend to be good through the end of August. I have a "cheat" day planned for the night I move back to school--I'm going to order a pizza. But that's the only badness I have in sight for the foreseeable future.

I've got a VERY busy week this week. It's my last week of summer courses at the local State College--so I've got all sorts of things due before Friday. I've got to get on that!

Hope everyone has the best week possible!

Good morning! I took DS to the YMCA this morning to drop him off for a week at Surf Camp. He ran into a friend from school, so I'm sure the two of them will be buddies all week.

We went to see Hairspray yesterday. That was very cute and funny, and IMO better than the original. John Travolta does a better woman than Divine--who'd have thought that?

Not much else going on here. My weight is up again to 147 and it is really starting to bother me. I've got a muffin top on my undies! That is just wrong! I've not had any wine for 9 days and my calories are from good sources. I just don't know what else I can tweak at this point. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back down again and the running should help tomorrow, also.

Hi everyone. This week I have a couple of challenges with staying OP. Tomorrow is our building breakfast at work. On the 2nd Tues. of every month the company provides breakfast for everyone. There are some healthy choices and there are some not-so-healthy choices. I usually get a plain bagel with a little bit of butter. I'll have to resist the giant muffins and the breakfast pizza.

This weekend I’m going to the Finger Lakes (Keuka) with a couple of friends. Who knows what we’ll eat or where we’ll eat……

I’ve been exercising at the gym and going for walks during my lunch break. The walks are really to get out of the air conditioning that’s too high. And to get away from phone calls, e-mails, and people constantly coming up to my desk.

Back up a pound and a half nearly - 146 is not a number I wanted to see again. But. Well I have to be honest with myself. The reason I haven't seen any significant loss for a few months is because I haven't done anything to try to lose it. I always do this - get down to around 144 and relax. I look "ok" at 144 - I'm a regular English size 12 but I want to be 130 lbs and a 10.

So, I woke up this morning and had a bit of a chat with myself which went along the lines of "er, only you can lose it". I've stopped footering around and I've recommitted today. I will be less than 146 next week.

Hello!

Well it seems that a lot of people are having similar issues to me right now...floundering in the face of comfort and having problems getting back on track!

After having several ALC days while camping over the weekend (oh, and I had planned on being good!). I woke up this morning with renewed resolve, and I'm starting a new diet. I'm going to try the g.i diet...I have a friend who is heading up a research project working with diabetes patients for her thesis, and she has learned SO MUCH about healthy eating, and healthy carbs etc...she's lost 13 pounds since May, just by making small changes in her eating habits. Anyways, so she was up camping with us this weekend, and she inspired me to get my but back in gear...and also to be a little more sparing with the carbs (hence the g.i diet). So today has gone well so far...I'm a little hungrier than usual, but I think its because I've had so many ALC days recently.

M1: bran bites cereal, apple
M2: 1/2 luna bar
M3: large salad with chickpeas, all kinds of veggies, and a bit of tuna and chicken topped with a bit of honey balsamic dressing. 1 cup skim milk.
M4: 1/2 luna bar, 1 tsp natural peanut butter
M5: baked salmon, salad, broccoli and 3/4 cup brown rice.

Well good luck to all....work hard, find motivation...we can do this!

I am a Pepsi addict it seems - probably the aspartame and caffeine. I cut out the 2 cans today and had a raging headache (which I never get) by the last dog walk . Fortunately they are good beasts and I was able to give them a good workout despite being ready to fall over.

Then I had to visit some cats and I found I kept thinking about nipping round the corner to the store to get "just one" diet Pepsi . I had a bottle of water instead and another when I got home and that seemed to help. It was ferociously hot out there today too so that didn't help.

Now unfortunately I have "Little Mr. Sunshine" coming home. Things did not go at all well in his meeting with his boss. He is going to be one miserable SOB for the next year unless something changes.

I'm going to hide in my office with the cats this evening I think. Probably post again if things really go south with DH. Or maybe I will just yell my head off at him and then go sulk in the shed. All activities that don't involve eating.

Dagmar (not so cool)

Ugh, the week isn't off to a good start. Rotten day again. Though I did a lot of exercise, thank goodness, it's teh only thing that's saving me at this point. I'm starting to wonder if it's time to try maintainance for awhile. *sigh* But I need to get back to 113 at least first. ARGH.

You can do it gold!!!!!! You have come so far already, and you're so close to goal! Just hang in there...try going back to basics, and changing a few things about how you're eating at a time, rather than overhauling everything that you're doing wrong.