Two mugs of coffee down and I'm heading out the door for the gym. Cardio and a back workout (pullups!) on the menu for today. I'll plan the day when I'm having breakfast.

New week = fresh start! Let's make it a good one.

Thank god it's a new week because I need a fresh start! There's just something about summer that always derails me. All the food, barbecues, beer, skipped exercises, and vacations, and I'm starting to feel really crummy about it.

No more! This week I am going to be on plan!

Hi everyone! Thanks for the get well wishes. I am feeling 100% better and ready to get back to eating right and working out!

Edit: I posted my "Chat" post in the planning thread!! oops!!

Oh my. Oh my. Yes indeed-y. New starts. Just what the pants-o-meter ordered. Sheesh, do I NEED one today. What an awful, awful weekend. I am SO disgusted with myself.

I went away with friends and we just ate our way through the weekend. I had a great weekend otherwise, lots of sun, surf and swimming. But the eating was just ridiculous. Oh and I'm going away for the next 2 weekends as well. Yikes. So jelly, like you, I find the summer EXTREMELY difficult.

Can't think of that right now. I'm glad the weekend is over so I can get back to my wonderful, healthy eating and the comfort of my "plan". Of course I COULD have eaten healthy over the weekend, as difficult as it would have been, but I chose not to. So funny to me, that this is where I get my comfort from now. The heatlhy eating. Sooo looking forward to it.

My home is empty though of everything. That's one of the bad things about being away for the weekend. I've got no produce in the house. Waiting for the stores to fill up a bit so that I can re-stock.

Have a great day everyone.

Hi all, thanks for the positive thoughts about my grandmother passing. I left early Thursday and got back late Saturday from Hilton Head. The whole family, aunts, uncles, cousins, were there, and it was really hard on everyone. Neighbors and friends kept sending food, too. I stayed OP for the first day only, the rest was not pretty. I'm just ignoring those 2 days and getting back to plan today. Food does not help grief, right?

Amanda (and Sarah), sending more your way.

Today's plan:
B - 1 c. Kashi H2H cereal, 1 c. sk milk, coffee w/ 1 T. h&h
S - 1 c. blueberries
L - Chinese Chicken salad (Ellie Krieger recipe)
S - 6 oz. lf yogurt, 1 c. cherries, 1/2 oz. nuts if needed
gym - NRLW workout, elliptical (I have the new Oxygen mag abs special edition to keep me busy!)
post-gym snack - h.m. protein muffin if needed
D - ? leftover Black Bean stoup

Tomorrow's plan (I won't be on the computer tomorrow, probably, so I'm posting ahead!):
B - 1 c. Kashi H2H cereal, 1 c. sk milk, coffee w/ 1 T. h&h
S - 1 c. blueberries
L - Chinese Chicken salad (Ellie Krieger recipe)
S - 6 oz. lf yogurt, 1 c. cherries, 1/2 oz. nuts if needed
gym - running day
post-gym snack - h.m. protein muffin if needed
D - either Turkey Meatballs with pasta or WW recipe Meat & Veg Cheese Casserole

DGA, glad you're feeling better. A new haircut always feels so good, too.

A fresh start indeed.

The scale is unkind this morning and I know I deserve it. All of my time this summer to focus on losing the rest of the weight is going to be gone and I'm going to be the same size. ARGGGGG! So frustrating!

But I know how I lost weight before and it's just time to do it again. No excuses. No exceptions to the plan. End of discussion.

Breakfast - Fiber one bar, orange
Snack - yogurt
Lunch - big salad, wasa with cheese
Snack - cherries
Supper - chicken, veggies
Snack - pudding cup

Walk and lift.

Traci, don't smack me please but being the same weight at the end of the summer as at the beginning is an achievement worth celebrating. Especially considering how much you've already lost! Sure, you may wish you had lost more -- but never, ever forget that you haven't backslide back to where you started. Think of this as your maintenance summer and you'll be on the losing side again come fall.

Ah, it's Monday morning! Meg gets her gym workout in....it will be a good week for us all! Seriously, I get a lot of comfort and inspiration from your consistency, Meg. Thanks so much!

Traci, ain't nothing wrong with maintaining, girl! That is more than 95% of weight losers do.


Speaking of maintaining, I think that I am. And I think that I will be okay with that. I stick to my nutrition plan about 90% of the time. If I did 100%, I could probably shake a few more pounds, but I am actually pretty content right now. The scale bops around 156-158, and I think my red line will be 160. At 5'8" and 18% body fat, I think I will just hang out for awhile here. I am happy with what I have been eating. I like my workouts. So right now I am going to eat and exercise for health and watch the scale to make sure it doesn't go up necessarily....but if it doesn't go down, that is okay too. Maybe in a few months I'll attack a few more pounds if I feel like I need to. I have a feeling my body will kind of settle in to this weight for awhile. I'm a medium on top and a loose size 10 on the bottoms. Further weight-lifting and running will shrink my body, but I might not see it on the scale. And that is okay!

Exercise today will consist of an hour with my personal trainer. DD and I are going to ride our bikes this afternoon. Food will be 90% on plan, lots of protein, fruits & veggies. Some beans too. I'd say my 10% leeway today was that I did not measure my beans exactly, but they were about 1/2 cup.

Hi everyone! I munched a lot this weekend, and had some dessert Saturday, but overall didn't do too terribly. DH and I took the dog for a really long walk yesterday (about 3 hours) so that was some good exercise, plus the dog was exhausted!

Today's plan:
B - raisin bran, milk
S - peach
L - broccoli mac & cheese casserole (cl)
S - banana, yogurt w/blueberries
D - probably my pinto bean skillet and rice, otherwise beet greens and pasta
Exercise - UBWO + 30 min walk with dog?

I know it's not the end of the world to maintain, but I really wanted the rest of this weight to come off this summer and it's just not happening. Too many "reasons" to be off plan and none of them are really that good.

Today has been a good re-start. Walked for 1.5 hours this morning with youngest daughter and haven't eaten one thing I shouldn't have. I just need to get my mind squared around to where it should be and all will be well. I feel better when I eat "my way" instead of everyone else's way, it's just so easy to let it slide when it's nice outside and there's better things to do.

The good news is that the scale finally finally moved in the right directly. I'm not back down to my pre-Chicago weight. I'd like to lose another lb or two, but may change my mind about that in the next couple of weeks. Losing weight is hard.

The bad news is that I have two off-plan meals this week, on two different days, so it's going to be a lot harder to stick to the plan this week. Yet another reason why I may be looking at maintenance instead of trying to lose more.

I have had two fabulous meals in the past two days. For lunch on Sunday, I dug out a recipe for Lemony Scallops and Cucumbers that I have been saving for 20 years and never got around to making. I'm glad I finally did because it was really good; very light and summery. Then today I had to use up some extra cooked pasta, so I threw together a bunch of stuff I found in the fridge and cupboards and came up with a great Tuna and Pasta Salad.

My calories came in low on Saturday and right on target on Sunday. I'm about 100 calories over today, but that still counts as on plan in my book. The dishes are done, the light is off, and the kitchen is closed for the night, so there'll be no more eating until tomorrow. I swear, every night before I go to bed, my last thought is that I'll get to eat breakfast in the morning.

Here's how today worked out:
B: FF plain Greek yogurt with High Fiber Cereal and blueberries (I'm mixing it up this week and taking a break from raspberries. I am such a wild woman ).
S: Decaf coffee with FF half and half and SF Torani
L: Tuna and Pasta Salad, pickles, marinated mushrooms, pickled asparagus, two (count 'em, that's two) multigrain tortilla chips
S: donut peach and oat bran cereal with cardamom, FF cream cheese, and SF Torani
S: Fiber One cereal, 1/2 wrap with TJ's spicy ranchero egg-white salad, Fiber One Muffin with FF cream cheese
D: Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad
S: Almond-Apricot Piskota with cream cheese lemon sauce, decaf coffee with FF half and half and SF Torani

All of that came in at around 1500 calories. Exercise was one hour with my trainer. More agility stuff this week. I really am not very agile, I feel like a big lumbering elephant.

Traci -

I gotta say when I am "off" plan, I feel so awful. I don't even know how to describe it. Jittery, nervous, anxious, panicky, like I could have/should have done better. It's just an uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling. Maybe it's the out-of-contolness that I don't like. I feel like I wasted my time. Being on plan makes me so much happier. Why oh why then can't I remember this? It's like a sickness or something. I think I am going to start keeping a daily check in for myself. I'll copy and paste and fill it in daily.

Monday - Food: POP . I was even a tad under my calories
Exercise: Good, very, though not excellent

Tuesday -
Wednesday -
Thursday -
Friday -
Saturday -
Sunday -

Have a great day everyone.

Well, yesterday was my first day getting back on track after being sick. Meal-wise, I did just fine. But I've been so snacky lately!! I really must cut it out. I need to pick up a few things at the store...I was desperate for payday this week and had to do a bare bones store run.

Exercise was well. I went ahead and moved on to week 3 of Couch to 5K because Week 2 wasn't a challenge and I could barely make it through because of boredom. Week 3 provides just enough challenge.

Today!

B- Kashi Cinnamon harvest cereal, strawberries
S-this is why I need to go to the store!
L- Spinach salad w/tuna, bell peppers, sunflower seeds
S-again, store!!
D-Boy is cooking...

Exercise--45 minutes cardio.I'm thinking 15 elliptical, 15 treadmill, 15 bike and doing my leg workouts in between. I like to mix it up!

This weekend(which starts Thursday) will be TOUGH. My old roommate from college is coming to visit and we're literally eating out everyday. I plan on picking restaurants I know I can find fairly healthy meals...and only BBQ once!!

Have a great day!

When I don't eat right I feel fat and sluggish and my stomach is upset. I feel soooooooooooo much better when I eat clean. Yesterday was a great day - except my fiber intake was so much higher than it's been for the past few weeks I ended up with stomach cramps. Oops! Had a glass of milk and a Phazyme and all is well.

It's like a switch in my head has to be flipped the right way. I'm either "on" and make good choices in almost all situations or I'm "off" and pick the wrong thing five times a day. I feel better when I'm "on" and - as an added bonus - the weight comes off. It's just frustrating when I can't seem to keep the switch on, you know?

So yesterday was good and one good day leads to another.

Shopping today with my daughters. Lots of walking, lots of food choices to make. My reward for good choices all day is a stop at the Whole Foods Market. YUM! I'll bet they have good cherries!

Yup. Me too. EXACTLY.