Morning ladies....

What a GREAT weekend. Spent Thursday down in San Diego with a friend from high school and then had family over for dinner and games. My eating wasn't good and I'm up a couple #'s.

Need to leave early to take DSS to school, seems we have wind (gust up to 60) and rain in the pass.

I'll post personals when I get home.

Good Morning and Happy Monday Everyone!

A quick post before heading to school. DD is off again today and I'm just a little bitter about having to go to work. We have yet another new student starting today, it's not going to be an easy day

Had a great weekend, got a lot of stuff accomplished, ate within calories all weekend and avoided any Easter candy! Last year I bought my kids all stuff that was individually packaged. Did the same this year. No opportunities to sneak a handful here and there that way. Cost a little more but well worth the savings on my hips!

DH and I walked together last night. He has a quicker pace than I do so I had to work a bit harder. It felt good!

I feel like I am finally back to my "losing self". I'm in my zone where good choices come easier, I'm seeing some positive results on the scale, I feel like I can truly take off these last 16 pounds. It's a great feeling!

I'll catch up on personals later!

Quick pop in to say hello. I spent the weekend "unplugged" and visited my sister in MA. We had a wonderful and active time, so that was great. Back to business today.

Good morning. Happy day after Easter. No candy eaten here either. Had a piece of "diet" cake for dessert, but it was right on plan. Did the video walking, warm-up and a mile each weekend day since we had cold, wind, and snow flurries...BRRRR! Looks like a couple more days of unsettled weather then maybe bicycling weather later this week. Fingers crossed. I have a TON of work to do today....ugh!

OMW-Glad you are feeling back on track.

Barb

Saying I had the weekend from **** would be an understatement but its over now! I'm no longer on call at least for a week. I also promised that there would be no more Easter candy after yesterday even if there is still some around the hospital. Easter is over and I'm done with it.

Marie-I think you misunderstood. We are normally paralyzed during REM sleep which is where we do most of our dreaming. REM is actually a very light stage of sleep just below wakefulness. Almost everyone has had the experience of waking up in REM and feeling paralyzed. If you have never had this happen to you-you are a very lucky individual. In deep stages of sleep-where nightterrors and sleep walking occur we are not paralyzed which is why people can do those things.

Kathi-if you had a sleep study and were not having any periods of REM, something was definately wrong. Did they suggest any meds or other changes? People usually don't do very well without REM. We apparently need it to consolidate memory and various other mental functions. I'm not an expert on sleep medicine but we did get a little overdosed on it in med school.

CAT-glad you checked in. Thought about you with the earthquake last night.

I have another long awful day ahead of me so I better get to it. Talk to you guys later. I promise my attitude will get better soon.

Just a quickie before heading to work. I went running right after I put the girl on the schoolbus...Week 3, Day 1. A big 3 minute run..woo-hoo! Still, even though I'm laughing at myself, it felt good. I have a little pain in one knee but the rest of me is really liking this so far. I haven't been in the mood to eat well but did enough damage control that I only put on two pounds which were gone after today's run. This is the week where I get out of the two hundred's, never to return!!!

More later...happy Monday, everyone!

Hey, I had an NSV over the weekend. I brought a pair of capris to my sister's house that I have lived in for the last 2 summers, even last summer after I had gotten down to 166. Well... they need to go to Goodwill. They were so huge that they made me look fat, sloppy, and terrible. Yay! Unfortunately, I went with only my backpack for luggage so I didn't have a choice but to wear them... oh, well.

Hello friends!! Well, I didn't even get online this weekend, and it was nice. I hope you all had a lovely and joyous Easter.

I did okay on my plan, though I did eat a few things that really aren't included....but that is actually a part of my plan. I have gone into this with the idea that if I completely deny myself everything that is "bad", it isn't realistic for me (at least for me, everyone is different) to think I can stick to eating in a healthy manner. So.....here's the biggest "bad" thing of the weekend...I made a Saturday supper for fiance and his neighbors (our friend who was just diagnosed with lung cancer requested meatloaf). I had planned on making a full-blown Easter dinner on Sunday, so I just replaced that meal with this one. Saturday's supper included the meatloaf (a favorite of all the single men on my fiance's street ), homemade scalloped potatoes (there is a thread in Foods about that) and some steamed mixed vegetables. I had seconds of everything , but again I didn't feel too guilty about it. For Easter dinner, fiance and I had grilled fish, roasted asparagus and roasted garlic artisan bread w/ butter.

Note: In the past, I have bought the little individual prebaked pies at Wal Mart (LOVE the blueberry!). This weekend, while we were shopping, I checked out the sugar free ones they have with the regular ones. Well.....the regular ones have 380 calories each and the sugar free ones have 330 each. So, I am again reminded that sugar free does not always indicate DIET food. I passed them by very easily.

On the Easter candy front: I did pretty well this season. My favorite is the Cadbury cream eggs, and I didn't have one this year. My other favorite is marshmallow Peeps....I know, you either love them or you hate them. I had one small package (140 cal.) at the beginning of the season and one small package on Friday. Yesterday as I was filling mini-baskets for my sons, I ate 4 Reese's peanut butter eggs (not the big ones, the bite-sized ones)....they were the worst on calories. I'm glad I stopped at four!! So I feel like I did pretty well.

Exercise-wise, I did no formal exercise over the weekend, but went for a long walk/hike around fiance's property yesterday. It was so warm, almost hot, so I broke a good sweat. It felt so nice to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. This morning, I did the entire () Weight Loss Boot Camp DVD (WATP)....it is total 3 miles and includes toning!! I was so excited I got through it all!! I was really sweating, too. That could have been because it was so warm in my house this morning. It only got down to about 68 degrees overnight. But it was such a great feeling to get that done!!

That leads me to this.....I am not posting responses to everyone's posts (I loved catching up on everyone's weekend)....but I had to make note of this...

AngelsKeep said: "I was thnking I should at least try the warmup from the video, so I did. And then I did the whole mile. I'm amazed and thrilled...never thought I could just do it already. We'll see how it treats my back. Crossing fingers."

That is awesome!! Just work your way up, sister and you will notice a big difference on how you feel very soon!! I was so excited to read this!!

I also wanted to say how impressed I am with those of you that are running. That's awesome, too.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

I wanted to chime in on the sleep study subject. I think I can talk about this confidentially here. My younger son is 13 years old. Only recently has he conquered (I hope and pray) a bedwetting issue that we have dealt with all of his life. From what I understand, bedwetters go quickly into deep sleep and never (or rarely, he sometimes remembered a dream he has had) "come up" to REM sleep. We had tried different things, including prescription drugs from one of the urologists that I work for, with little to no success. I finally purchased an alarm. He wore it nightly (or as close to nightly as possible....his Dad was not very diligent about having him wear it when he was over there) and it would wake him if even a drop of urine came out. He got to the point to where he would finally stop the urination process until I could come in and wake him to go finish in the bathroom. It takes a while, but since New Years, he has only had 3 accidents that I am aware of. It is such a relief to know that we are past the worst of it. It is a very stressful situation for a child to have that type of problem at such an advanced age.

The reason I mentioned all of this was because I had looked into having him go for a sleep study, but never had to resort to that. I had even looked into hypnosis....which is desperate for me, as I tend to avoid all but "traditional" treatments for everything.

Anyway, just thought it was an interesting topic.

Good morning all!

It was easy for me to have a good Easter eating weekend. I was by myself most of the day. My hubby and son were driving back from visiting family in MS, so I got to continue as if it wasn't a holiday. I got just enough candy to fill my son's Easter basket and no more. Everyone in my immediate area at work is watching calories so there are no bad influences to be had. Not so in the breakroom so I just steer clear of that.

Angel- Good deal on the "diet" cake. I did have a small piece of angel food cake myself yesterday. That was about as wild as I got.

Heidi - Yay! on the NSV I'm about to have to buy new jeans myself. It looks like an elephant moved out of the rear end of the pair I have on today.

RedHook - Do you have knee problems in general or is it just from running?

Petra - Didn't know your were paralyzed during REM. Learn something new every day! Glad your weekend from **** is over. Here's hoping today is a better day.

OMW - Yay! for finding your "losing self" There definitely is a difference when you get in that zone.

Cat- Yikes! Lots of wind. Glad the earthquake didn't affect you.

OMW - You are doing GREAT, I so need to get it together for more than 3-5 days. I need to get honest with myself about where I'm at. Since November I've gained 10+ lbs. I was so close to hitting the 130's and then I went on vacation and haven't been able to commit since. I'm thinking a little "Freedom" challenge. I would love to get at or close to goal by July 4th.

Anyone want to join me? I remember when I first joined 3FC doing the BL challenges was a great motivator.

Heidi - WTG on the NSV. I remember when I had to donate my favorite pair of pants, it was a bitter sweet moment.

Petra - Sure hope things settle soon. I'm not sure I could keep the schedule you do. As for the earthquake it was no big deal for us here 300+ miles away. The light swung a bit and you could feel the "roll" beneath your feet for about 10 seconds but nothing more. I still get an adrenaline dump when they first start. I've never been in a big one but the 4 & 5's that you can literally feel roll I hate to admit I find kind of cool.

RHM - Sending positive vibes your way for hitting onederland.

Angel - I didn't have any candy but I too had cake, a BIG piece of my light and fluffy peach cake. Other than that the loaded mash potatoes were the worse thing I ate. For the most part it was quantity that got the getter of me.

Annie - WTG on getting the entire workout in.

I'm off to change my tickers AGAIN and then get on the treadmill.

Have a GREAT day everyone.

Annie - I'm so glad you brought this up. My DS is almost 8 and has bedwetting issues. I've been wondering if that alarm would really work for him or not. How long did it take before he had a dry night?

Thanks again for bringing it up. Truly.

Wizzie-I feel your pain and your son's pain. I can't remember how long it took for him to have a dry night specifically, because he did have dry nights. It was hit and miss; didn't matter if he drank fluids or not...or if I woke him during the night. In fact, it is recommended NOT to limit fluids or wake them during the night. Limiting fluids only restricts the bladder from learning to become accustomed to being full. Waking during the night rarely works because the child doesn't remember waking up to go to the bathroom. My son rarely remembered.

I think it may have taken my son a bit longer to have results from the alarm because, again, I don't think his Dad was onboard totally. In fact, he forgot it sometimes when he went over there. But after several months, I noticed that when he did wet, it was just a small amount. Even if he didn't physically wake up, the alarm stopped the flow of urine. Of course I sleep nearby so it would wake me, I would wake him and he would go. Usually didn't even have to change the sheets or anything by that point. Now, except for the three accidents I have known about, he has awoken on his own a couple of times. If it is a weekend, and we are sleeping in, I still wake him at the time he would normally get up during the school week.

The alarm we used was this one....

http://bedwettingstore.com/Bedwettin...ting_alarm.htm

...I would recommend looking at their site and reading all about bedwetting. It is very informative and there are several to choose from.

Good luck with this. If you have any more questions that I might be able to answer, feel free to ask.

I wouldn't be surprised if Petra might be helpful on this subject, too. More so than myself even.

OMW - Yay for you getting back into the groove! Happy place!

Heidi - glad you had a great weekend! And the capri NSV is a big one.

Barb - wow, I don't think I could handle seeing a snowflake at this point!

Petra - I think you've got a remarkable attitude given what you're doing; and if they don't appreciate you, please know that WE do!

RHM - I'm having one of those days where I suspect that LIFE is damage control. Great job on the running! And "onederland" is on your near-horizon!

Annie- does sound like you maintained your willpower over the weekend - and fabulous job with the exercise!

Kim - Funny, I am at my WORST on the food when left alone. I need witnesses to good behavior, apparently!

CAT- hear ya with the 3-5 good days. I'm in the same pattern at the moment. I could live with it if the distance between those 3-5 good days decreased down to a meal or a day instead of a week. Live 'n learn - the work continues!

Bought my airline tix for Atlanta today - almost hyperventilated while doing it, but it's done. I am going.

I'll get back on track tonight. I'm flushing with water, and I have a wonderful light beef/barley soup on the stove. I'll finish the evening with a good swim, and that will set things up for making the rest of the week all right. Phew. There's the "groove", and then there's "the other times".

Petra-I'm sorry that you had a rough weekend. BUT...you are still skinnier than I am! I weighed yesterday, and had only lost one lousy pound...again.

Heidi-throw away those fat girl capris and buy ya some skinny jeans!

Annie-Thanks so much! I get to go for a ride in a little while (the weather is better than the forecast indicated it would be) so I won't be walking, but I'm really glad I have that to fall back on. I think pretty soon I will try the walking in the morning and then a ride later the same day. My butt is a little sore today...using different muscles...which is great.

Wizzie-Congrats on your weekend. Sounds peaceful!

KAT-my initial goal for July 4th was Onederland. I could probably still go for that, though I think I may be ahead. It kind of depends on hopw much exercise I can do each week. I'll join you for an Independence Day challenge.

ICU-Beef barley soup? YUM! Share the recipe?

Okay, time to go change into the cycling pants and get ready for a ride when Robert gets home from work.

Barb