Welcome to Monday friends! No huge exclamations of positivity or anything too extreme at the beginning of this week from me - but feel free to exclaim things if you like!

I'm trying to remember what I wanted to say from the end of the last thread, so I'm sorry if I forget things!

Risssa Go you for taking those photos! It takes courage to take them and even more so to post them on your blog. I took some at the beginning but accidentally deleted them all but one and then I took another on Friday to compare and maybe it was the lighting or my bad photography skills, but I couldn't see any change in the photos so I got frustrated and deleted them all. I think it's about taking them from the exact same perspective which is really hard when you're using self timer. Congrats also on feeling awesomely strong in your workout! It's an awesome feeling knowing you're doing good things - and you seem to be doing great things! My boyfriend is a boob man, sadly, but I'm sure he won't mind my boobs shrinking if it's because I'm getting healthier and slimmer - I will be sad if they go completely though! And thanks for the advice on the run/walk programs. I think I might start one when October starts. I'm currently unable to run for longer than 1 or 2 minutes, it's probably closer to 1. And then it takes me another 4-5 of walking to recover.

cata The girl and the night, I am now over it. I found out she got kicked out of the bar shortly after me and my boyfriend left for being too drunk and messy - I guess she got what was coming to her haha! I hope you get some decent sleep soon - I get really tired but I know that for me it's just something I've come to expect and I don't have the problems you do with actually getting sleep so I feel for you. That bok choy recipe looks really good! It's actually fairly easy to get bok choy in my city as there are a lot of Asian grocery/vegetable shops around - I might have to try it!

~~

How I have new things to add in the last few hours, I know not, but clearly work is not that entertaining. Actually I'm slightly worried because the owner of the store has been away for a couple of months and when she's in the country, she tends to ocasionally look at the security cameras in store to check that we're not just sitting here on the computer or that we don't ignore customers - and I have been doing a lot of the first and a bit of the second thing - I'm kind of worried she'll come back and look through the footage and see how lazy I've become at work since she's been away! Eep, it's even worrying typing that...ah well.

I am trying to psych myself up to exercise after work. I have this stupid headache today that is going into my throat and neck - kind of feels like I swallowed a big chunk of apple or something without swallowing. It could be a bit of dehydration as well however, I know I haven't been drinking as much water.

I'm also trying to psych myself to go to my studio and maybe start painting again - but I'm kind of terrified and I don't even know why. In my mind, I'm almost 100% sure that this week will past like the last dozen or so and I won't even get close to going to my studio...but I know it shouldn't be like that. I can't worry too much about it though - I guess if I really want to create and paint then I will?

My parents are going to America on Friday this week, as is my boyfriend's mum (his dad left to go today) so we'll be fending completely for ourselves for 2 - 3 weeks - which is awesome, I love being in control of every meal and it will be a nice break for us both to not have his parents around all the time and have their house to ourselves. I'm kind of looking forward to it even though I am jealous everyone is going to America! My parents promised to buy me stuff which is awesome. I don't know what I want though other than (probably bad for me) sugarfree Jello/Jello puddings. I think if I came to the country that most of you chickies live in, I would go crazy spending money. I think I would also have more of a problem saying no to junk food since there are so many more options over there!

I feel like I need to apologise every time I write an essay but I'm sure it's not that bad....it's just that I have too much time on my hands sometimes! Hope the weekend ended well for you all and that this week starts out well!

Rissa~ A sugar glider is a marsupial. They love sweet things, and they glide around sorta like a flying squirrel. Plus, they don't smell like food to cats, which is a plus if you have cats, LoL! You're so brave to post those pictures. I don't think I could ever have the courage to do that. Maybe one day..

Rainbow~ She smells fruity because she LOVE fruit!!! She doesn't really eat anything else besides fruit. She has her food pellets..and she could eat bugs if we had any around..but that's really gross, lol!! Plus, they are really really clean. They are really good little animals. She loves to run in her wheel. AND it's extra awesome because she doesn't smell like food to our cats. They have zero interest in eating her. It's really funny that she barks at the cats, lol!! She sounds like a chihuahua, lol! I hate it when people try to ruin it for other people as well. Like seriously, what is the point of that? We're all there for one reason, why be snotty about it?

cataclysmic~ Sugar gliders are probably freaky to people because they are small and weird looking, lol!! But they are sweet. My hubs loves her. It's very sweet when they bond to you. She has gotten excited when the hubs comes home, which he likes. She is basically his pet..since all the cats love only me, lol!! This chick that was helping me at Sephora, told me she only took the job because she was going broke shopping there. She uses her discount all the time. Maybe I should do that. That is great that you're out of debt. We're slowly working on that. Did you go somewhere to help with that?


So we're back home and it sucks, lol!! We're already making plans to go back to Atlantic City for our 6th anniversary. We want to visit the spa!! That will be soooo nice. Thankfully, our anniversary is in December, so maybe I'll weigh a little less and can buy a pretty dress in a smaller size.

My diet starts tomorrow (well..today..). I hope the food tastes good. If not, then I'll just cancel my plan. I need to join a gym!! For now I'll just use the workout dvds I have and my ellipitcal. I also need to buy a scale. I guess I should've done that first. Oh well.

Okay..going to go to bed.

Btw..I dunno why, but ever since I woke up from my nap..I've been feeling really shaky. I hate this feeling!!

EEK! y'all won't go make me play with the 30's group after this week will you? this month just flew by for me way too fast.
i'm still not going to step on a scale or the wii fit for now i know i've blown every bit of weightloss lately but i made an amazing discovery... Spanx i'm in love with them now i know what i can wear under my sleazy anniversary dress now if it only had an attached bra lol.
oh well
hope y'all have a good monday

Hey ladies! I hope everyone has a good start to the week. I am so proud of myself! I didn't hesitate once to eat good yesterday. Imeasured everything I ate without hesitation and today has started out great too. Can't wait to see the scale at the end of the week! Just a question does everyoneon here weigh once a week?

Amanda: Thank You for rooting for Arkansas!

Cata: Yay! I will have to let Randall know I converted another fan, I'm such a good and faithful follower. Haha.. I know what you mean about the music scene. We moved here a little over a year ago and the music scene is my favorite part about living here. I can see how it would be very easy to fall into their life style, ESPECIALLY if you worked at one of the venues. We will close the place down on the weekends but if it is a week day show we usually get out of their pretty early so we can go to bed, since we both work 8-4.
I don't know how you function without sleep! I would not have went to class AND I would have called into work if I had only got 1.5 hours of sleep. And on top of that you went to the gym? You are like super woman! I hope you have been sleeping better since then! And congrats on your mini goal

Rainbow: You might want to start at least making it look like you are doing something on the camera. lol... I would be the same way. Kind of hard to make yourself do something at work when you don't have anyone looking over your shoulder. I have a headache today as well...I hope you feel better before the gym!

Shop: Good luck with the new diet. I hope it's tasty.. are you doing nutri system?

Lissa: You don't have to go to 30 somethings.. it will be our little secret

JL: Good Job! I wish I could say the same for myself this weekend


So ladies... my weekend hasn't been spectacular. Did I have a good time? Yes. Did I stay on plan? No. I guess it happens, but I'm disappointed in myself. It seems like it's all or nothing with me.. either I'm on the straight and narrow or I'm completely off track... which makes me kind of nervous about maintaining in the future.
So here is a recap of my weekend. Friday night was FUN.. I had a big delicious salad for dinner and one gin and tonic. I stayed in my calories and had a good night. Randall Shreve was amazing as always!
Saturday, the Razorbacks about gave me a nervous breakdown.. but we beat Georgia on the road and I am a happy girl I had a nice breakfast.. an egg and whole wheat toast. Then my boyfriend made burritos. God knows what goes into these things (I know velveta is involved) but they are amazing. I had a few tortilla chips with the burrito mix and low fat cheese and lettuce and tomato sprinkled on top. It was good and I didn't feel too bad about it. It 's not something I would normally eat but I didn't go over board with it and stuff myself. Later on we went to a friends house. Since I decided Saturday would be my cheat day I stopped at Chik-fil-A on the way and got a spicy chicken sandwich mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It was the first time in a looong time I ate fast food but I was craving them, so I got one and it was delicious. I didn't count, but I would say I was still in my calorie range that night, and I planned on stopping there. We got to the friends house and they were frying fish Oh dear. We all sat around the fryer. I told them I wasn't hungry but there the fish and hushpuppies were... staring me right in the face. I wound up having 3 hush puppies and 2 pieces of fish. It could have been waaaay worse I know. But I felt bloated and I payed for it physically yesterday.
And then yesterday, I did very well all day. Until last night I ate a bunch of chips...? Why?! I don't know what came over me. But I had to take a tums in the middle of the night so hopefully I learned my lesson!

I'm sorry about such the long post about everything I ate this weekend. I guess it doesn't sound so bad after I read back over it. But it's not things I would normally eat and my stomach was a mess. I definitely do not have that nice clean feeling that I enjoy so much. The important thing is getting back on track.

So today I am not at work. I woke up with an unforgettable migraine. Probably the worst one I've had in my life. The usual caffeine and excedrine mix did not help. Usually when I wake up with them I can do that mixture and be into work by 10. However, I just texted my boss and told him I'm not coming in at all because I had to take a Hydrocodone. That will probably definitely knock it out, but I won't be able to function for the rest of the day! Blah, I really wanted to go for a run this afternoon. Maybe I can get this all taken care of and ride my bike this evening.

I can tell you one thing I am going to do. That's eat my veggies and stay within my calories!!

I'm sorry this post was ridiculously long but I had a lot to catch up on since Friday.

No problem, Casey! It was a good game! Well for me, I didn't particularly have any emotional attachment so it didn't stress me out much, haha

My weekend was another one of those fun ones, which unfortunately resulted in much off plann-ness. Fortunately it ended up being mostly liquid calories, which I feel less guilty about than fatty food calories, haha. I woke up with the mother of all hangovers yesterday, but the husband was making brunch <3 Fresh cantaloupe, scrambled eggs and bacon. Not terribly healthy, but I shared it with my dogs so I don't feel too bad, haha.

I'm starting off today right, with half of a whole wheat bagel, with reduced fat cream cheese. Lunch if leftover curry and a tossed salad with FF raspberry vinaigrette. We also have lots of fresh fruits for snack options today. Now let's see if this motivation carries through to tonight.. I intend to either work out or put a dent in my seriously out of control house. Times like this I'm totally thankful we didn't build a 2 story.. just more area to clean! Today is being a typical Monday at work though, so I'm crossing my fingers I'll make it through alive, lol.

Mondays are rough any way you slice it, so I don't get all crazy with a happy Monday, but Happy New Week, ladies! We're gonna rock this!

Hi all!! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

My weekend was nice. Little one and I went on a date on Saturday to our town's Harvest Festival. The 90 degree weather didn't make it feel very "harvesty" though. Then we out to eat at Cracker Barrel. I had a Chef Salad with a teeny bit of oil and vinegar. So good! Little one fell in love with the Chicken and Dumplings.

I made Bean and Cheese Tostadas on Saturday. http://www.southbeachrecipes.com/die...heese-tostadas Super yummy!!! I think I will double the recipe next time because there is JUST enough mix to make 4 tostadas and my hubby is an eater. I accidently bought 12 inch tortillas so I cut off the edges and then cut those pieces up, brushed a little olive oil on them, a little salt and then broiled them for a few minutes. They turned out kind of like Wheat Thins. Pretty good! I used Whole Grain Tortillas.

Last night I made a Milk Braised Pork Chop recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen. They were ok. Kind of bland.

I also made Oatmeal Raisin cookies for the hubs. I did eat some of the dough. It was so good!!

I was down to 160.6 this morning. SO CLOSE to the 150's!!! Maybe by my BL weigh in on Friday???

~*Rainbow*~ oooo what kind of painting do you do. (or Right now I guess avoid doing) I've been trying to get back into my gouache stuff, but mostly do digital stuff.
I always carry a sketch book around with me- that way if I'm feeling even the smallest bit creative I can doodle something. If I'm away from art for a week or two it's hard to get back into. Kinda like exercise


~*JLNichols*~ I weigh every day and mark it on a calendar right above the scale. I'm a bit of a control freak though.

~*Casey & Amanda*~ I totally went off plan too went out with a friend I haven't seen in a while and we (As always ) went and got food (pizza! yikes) I did kinda pre-plan for it and ate fewer calories early in the day but still went over my daily budget by about 500.
The next morning I felt like a piece of jerky! It took a gallon of water for me to feel like a person!
Back on track now though- and I warned her that now that she's back in town she'll have to put up with my lettuce eating

~*Jenn*~ you go girl! a powerful fit of sneezing should get you into the 150's !

Lots of sketching this weekend, little too much food! Not to bad all -in-all.
I went for a run this morning and felt like I was going to die! (worse then normal) does anyone else find PMS turns their muscles into useless tag-a-longs? I kept on going thinking I'd push through it (most times I can) but it just felt like burning from about 3 minuets on and I gained 3 minuets on my time.
Hopefully tomorrow's will be better!

Happy Monday all!!

shopaholic Your sugar glider sounds so incredibly cute. I want another pet quite a lot but I'm not in a living situation where I can get one at the moment. My cat lives at my parents house so I have to make sure I stay at home one or two nights a week to visit him (and my parents haha). Yay for your planned anniversary holiday in December! Fun! And I hope the food on your diet plan is good, and that your shaky feeling goes away - I know I've felt like that sometimes after a nap if I haven't eaten much during the day.

lissa Of course you're welcome to stay here! If I were you I'd just hop on the scales - the truth might not be as bad as you think it is, and if it is, it's just a number and you can get onto working towards making it a smaller number again.

JLNichols Congratulations on eating well and the measuring! You're calorie counting right? I love measuring things and knowing as exactly as I can what I'm actually eating, it's a great feeling to be in control. As for your question, I usually weigh a few times per week but only take my Friday weight as my "official" weigh in for the week.

casey Yeah I probably should do something to make it look like I'm actually doing something! I used to do some dusting and cleaning of shelves every day I worked but rencently it's more like..once a week if that. I think it's also because its so quiet here at the moment - sales are definitely down in the last few weeks and there is a definite lack in people actually walking into the shops haha. Your weekend sounds fun! Isn't it strange how our bodies start reacting differently to foods that aren't necessarily so good for us? I find it so weird. I swear that when I used to eat McDonald's and Wendy's sometimes a few times per week, I would never notice feeling bad after it - but I guess now my body is used to better foods! I hope your migraine goes away and you're able to exercise if you feel like it!

Amanda Your weekend sounds like fun! I hope your Monday wasn't too long or bad and that you manage to get some time to yourself to tidy or workout or whatever you feel like doing in the evening!

jenn Everything you cook sounds so good, even the recipe titles have me salivating - although that could be because I'm super hungry today. Good luck on making it into the 150's, I'm sure you can do it!

Number8 I do (or avoid doing at the moment haha) paintings with acrylic mainly... I also sew small creatures, and sometimes combine the two - ie sewn creatures sewn onto paintings. I guess they're kind of abstract landscapes but I'm wanting to branch out a bit - I kind of don't like having a "thing" - I want to be more... varied with what I paint. It's frustrating. Gouache is fun! I used to paint with gouache when I was younger and didn't take art to seriously - I need to get back to that state of mind! I am horrible at sketching, even if it's just for fun. I have a small sketchbook but it turns into basically a book of lists. I make lists too often. I hope your next run is not as bad! I hate feeling bad/too tired in the wrong way after a workout. Good tired is good, bad tired/feeling sick is bad.

~~

Not much from me today. I'm going from one extreme to another - feeling a little sick and then feeling super hungry. I'm not sure which it is, but I think I'm going to eat lunch and find out...if I feel better I guess I'll know! I have a headache too, I'm getting annoyed with them but they're not intensely horrible, more of a dull ache that won't go away.
My lunch is higher calorie than I'd like as it's leftovers from dinner on Sunday so I'm going to have to carefully calculate dinner at my parents place tonight.
I'm sure I had something else I wanted to talk to you all about/share with you but I can't remember what it was - maybe just as well, I type too much!

oo ya know what i will get on the wii fit tomorrow! we're 2 less kids during the day so my big butt is gonna get on it

lissa Way to go!

Number8 - LOL! Anyone have any pepper?

Back at work today. I was afraid I would be overwhelmed with catching up. But nothing too bad.

I feel like I got all of the crappy food flushed out of my system. I'm wondering if maybe my weekend of bad food choices contributed to that migraine yesterday. Hmm.. something to think about.

Amanda: I'm glad we are both back on track

Jenn: I am very jealous of your cooking skills. I know I've mentioned it before. I just can't find the motivation to cook like you do. That requires making a list and going to the grocery story. UGH

Number: I'm not a fan of anyone going off plan, but sometimes it's kind of refreshing to see that I'm not the only one struggling on the weekends. Weekends have always been my challenge. However, this weekend I'm going to remember how crappy I felt Sunday and Monday!

Rainbow: I hope you are feeling better!

Lissa: Yay! I love Wii Fit!

Good point, Casey! That's my motivation today.. thinking about how crappy the crap makes me feel. And the drinking.. oy.. I don't go on benders often, but it was definitely a reminder that a few hours of fun for one night isn't worth practically 48 hours of recovery.

Oddly enough the easiest thing for me to give up right now is my social life. I have a pretty low tolerance for people anyway, heh, so it isn't asking much of myself to avoid them for a bit. I have toooo much homework, and my priorities consist of that, my house, and my family (hubby and dogs). Oh, and me, obvs.. If I have the spare time, it should be spent at the gym, or doing something for myself.

I read a tip on Glamour.com or something that suggested setting a reminder to drink a glass of water every hour and a half or so.. just got my first ding, seems helpful so far because I'd usually be toiling away at my desk for another couple of hours before getting thirsty enough to grab a glass. Drinking earlier just means drinking more, right?

I have found that it does. I keep a reusable water bottle at my desk at all times. I drink tea first thing in the morning. And I try to remember to fill up that water bottle as soon as I am finished with my tea. The earlier I fill it up, the more I drink for the day. I make sure I have this water bottle with me at all times, I even take it to friends houses. It just seems easier, and less refills.