Happy Monday!
It's a holiday here in Alberta today. So I'm going to enjoy the day doing absolutely nothing .
Hope everyone has a great start to the week.

It's a holiday in my town today as well but not throughout the province. Newfoundland doesn't have an official holiday in August but many towns have their special day celebrations on the first Monday in August. DH and I just got back from the parade but it has continued throughout the town and I can hear the sirens and horns blowing really loudly as the parade is just beyond our house visiting the local nursing home. There will be festivities all day long and lots of food sold. We have what is called the Flying Boat Festival because of the aviation history of the town. http://botwood.tripod.com/aviation.html
Below is a picture of the old airbase filled with people celebrating and eating.



Well, this weekend was a total wash-out. I ate way too much and then ate more. . . sigh. . . Oh, well, must dig myself out and get back on track. Hope this week is much better.

Hi everyone! Today I ran 0.4 miles on the office treadmill. I've never done that before. I was totally whipped by the end and was hanging on to the treadmill but made it! It's slow but it's progress.

retiredone, I've been to the flying boat museum in Ireland. What a way to fly - NOTHING like coach today! I must admit, my favorite part of the tour was the Irish coffee demonstration and tasting.

I'm up again this week. Grrrrrrrrr. I'm wondering if my couch to 5K training is throwing me into starvation mode. I've asked the personal trainers on the Medifast site for advice, and they give conflicting information. They said in other posts to add 2-3 ounces of extra lean protein on running days, but when I specifically asked if that meant 2 or 3 cheese sticks or eggs, they said "a few" ounces of protein or 1 egg. I've been eating a cheese stick before I run, I think I'll add an egg and see what happens.

Sounds like the weekend was hard on all of us. Mine was because I wasn’t eating balanced, was busy running errands and not planning my meals. I didn't go over in calories but I don't think I ever even saw a veggie all weekend. Sunday was DH's b'day so I made him a pineapple upside down cake. My granddaughters helped and it sure smelled good but I held firm and didn't have any because I knew the carbs would just throw me into a craving frenzy and I didn't want to put myself through that. So when I checked my weight this morning I was holding my own, nothing wonderful but nothing real damaging either. I’ll take it.

Healthyme – good job on the run that is a major milestone. Next time it should be slightly easier, or at least you will know you have it in you to do it again.
Riddy – Sometimes your body just wants you to switch up the routine a little. If you look at it as a science experiment it might help keep you from getting discouraged. It’s not an exact science so you’ve tested with string cheese, didn’t give you the result you wanted so now the egg to see if it makes a different and if that doesn’t do it then maybe your body is telling you to take a protein drink and split it up between starting your workout and part way through your work out or something similar. I know with my diabetes, I test my sugar levels 1 and 2 hours after meals that I have introduced something new to see how my levels are affected. If I do well then I add it to my “ok that is good” list and if it spikes to high then I cross it off and know that it can only be consumed on a very limited basis list. The important thing is not to get discouraged, just keep testing and moving things around until you figure it out.
Well our stairwell walking challenge concluded at work and I was the top hiker. I walked up 267 flights of stairs. Really good, accept the second runner up was only a couple of flights behind me and did his in 2 weeks (he was on vacation the first 2 weeks of the challenge). Darned whipper snappers, these guys 1/3 my age can take those steps two at a time. LOL But I gave them a run for the money. I gave out these really cool collapsible water bottles to the participants so everyone was a winner.

Evangeline, WTG on the stairwell walking challenge. That's a lot of steps.

Riddy, we have a flying boat museum that was opened a few years ago. We are partners with the one in Ireland. There were people from the Irish museum present at the opening of the one in Botwood.

My weight is up a few pounds but it's not because I'm in starvation mode. Far from starvation, I'm afraid. I ate too much today but I didn't stuff myself. I ate a large bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats and 3 pancakes for breakfast which really piled on more calories than usual but didn't make me feel overly full. I had pasta at dinner (lunch) and when we got to DS's place they had macaroni and cheese ready for supper. I had planned on having a little fruit for supper but supper was ready when we arrived. We're at DS#2's place for a couple of days so I'm at the mercy of their cupboards, ha ha. I guess I need the discipline of the BL challenge to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Healthyme, gotta start somewhere. Great job for doing it at work - I'm always worried about coming back from lunch sweaty.

EofAZ, that's a lot of stairs! Nice job!

retiredone, now I want to go to Newfoundland! My folks drove from here up to Nova Scotia a couple years ago. It was all good til they missed the ferry. That became a LONG day of driving.

I'm not as aggravated by the gain this week as I was the week the challenge was still on. I KNOW I'm not eating enough for it to be fat gain; I just have to figure out what my body wants so it will keep losing. To further muddy the waters, I just had bloodwork and my Synthroid dose needs to go down. Normal people lose weight when their thyroid hormone levels are high. I AM NOT NORMAL. When I was raging with Graves' disease, I lost no weight at all - the palpitations would wake me up at night, and the hunger would keep me awake until I ate something. Then I had the radioactive iodine treatment and gained 20 pounds in a month. So yes, I'm experimenting and only letting it get to me a little bit.

Today I tried something even more different - I ran after work, before dinner.

And I bought a Groupon for a yoga studio about 1/2 mile from my house, and the classes are all drop-in - no signing up. I can't wait to take a real yoga class - I've been doing videos since January.

Oops, I just realized I'm going to miss 2 weigh-ins for the fall challenge when I'm in Ireland. I'll have to make sure I don't miss any other weigh ins. 'Course, I'll probably want to skip a weigh in after that trip.

Hi everyone it's just going to be a quick post for me I'll try to catch up on personals tomorrow.
I've been up and down .6lbs for a week now. And the down is still where I ended the last challenge. My body did not want to lose last week. I sure hope I lose some this week of it will get discouraging again. I did gave 4 good weeks of losses though so that could be why.
Have to go to bed I'll catch up later. Night

EofAZ - Thanks!

Riddy - Thankfully the office gym has showers so I can shower before going back to work. I definitely get sweaty but no one knows since I can grab a quick shower.

I ran 0.43 miles yesterday. Today I am aiming for 0.45 miles. I can do it!

I am really looking forward to starting this challenge. It's going to be fun and helpful at the same time! Come on August 22!

I am becoming more and more disillusioned with restaurant food. DH and I took DS and DIL out for supper tonight and I was less than pleased with our food. We ordered pizza, garlic cheese fingers, fettuccine alfredo, and a couple of salads (between us all). I've eaten at this particular chain several times and I never noticed how salty everything was until tonight. Maybe it is just this particular restaurant but I'm going to be drinking water all night. DH and I had the pizza and a garden salad and even the salad was not as nice as it could have been. The red onions were so thickly cut you could have used them as skis. The pizza was actually burning my mouth with the salt. I'm not one to skip the salt so it's not as if I haven't been eating salt and then got a great salt shock. I know it wasn't fine dining but it should be better than what I tasted. I had a taste of the fettuccine and that was also very salty. The grilled bread was salty. Everything was salty. I guess I'm used to the fine dining I get at home: my own cooking! No tip tonight either. We had to wait for our cutlery and the water was almost lukewarm with only about 2 little ice cubes and I couldn't get the server's attention. She did come around near the end of the meal to ask if everything was alright but it was too late for the ice by then. Next time I want to treat the kids to a supper out I'll cook it and serve it on the veranda, lol.

I saved up most of my calories for tonight's supper so I didn't really do too much damage. We had a veggie pizza and had the salad dressing on the side instead of tossed with the salad. I should have probably stopped at 1 slice of grilled bread but I was hungry and supper had not come yet and the bread was all you could eat.

OK, that rant is over. Anyhoo, I'm not hungry and should be full until breakfast.

I don't have access to a bike here but I painted for about an hour this afternoon. DH is staining DS's back veranda and I helped for about an hour. I don't know if that constitutes exercise but it was activity.

Well, have a good unsalty evening.

Retiredone -- That is such a disappointment to splurge on eating out and then not have it a good experience. I remember when I was growing up hearing my Dad offer to take Mom out to dinner and she would say she was to tired and would rather just fix something there at the house. I couldn't imagine WHY she would want to stay home. Now I can, she was a great lady and I don't mind getting more and more like my mother, actually, wish I were a little more like her.

Do you feel any new muscles from painting? I would say that was exercise ... literally "working out".

Yes, Evangeline, we could have stocked the cupboards for half the week on what we spent on that supper. I was painting again this morning and boy was it hot with the sun reflecting off the white house. I had to give up on the back deck and went to the front to do the front steps. The sun hadn't come around that side of the house yet. I guess I was at it about an hour and a half. Now I'm exercising my fingers, lol.

Everyone is late coming home for dinner (lunch) today so I'm getting a bit nippish and will presently start looking for something to eat so I'll say so long for now.

Sorry that dinner wasn't what you were hoping for, retiredone.

I reached a nice NSV yesterday and ran a half of a mile! Woo hoo!

Hey, hey, hey HealthyMe, running half a mile is wonderful. A few years ago I started out jogging/walking and eventually I was able to run/jog 5k on a regular basis. Alas, I am not able to even walk any distance now because of a delicate foot. But there was something exhilarating about the running and I'd do it again if I was able. No wonder you feel so good.

Last night I made quesadillas for supper and a wonderful watermelon/blueberry/raspberry salad. (We also had oven French fries. ) I saw a recipe for a watermelon salad on the Kraft website (http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipe...ad-135662.aspx) and it looked really good with lettuce, red onions, cucumber, watermelon and raspberry vinaigrette. I added the raspberries and blueberries as we had them on hand. My DS loved it and ate almost all the salad. I had to make another small one for DH. The supper I made was miles ahead of that one at the restaurant.

We're back home again so I'm hoping for a little more stability eating and exercising.

Have a great weekend.

Hi everyone,
Just another quick check in as I'm heading to work in a bit and still need to hop on the shower.
I've been reading all the posts though and everyone sounds like your doing great.
Kudos on the running.....I'm back into it too but haven't actually measured how far I go at a time. Must do that next time it's a treadmill day instead of outside day.
Well my body did decide to let go of some weight this week after all 2.2lbs from last Sunday. So happy with that.
I may decide to go down more from what my dr and I have as my goal weight but if not or until I decide when I'm there I am now 9.4lbs away. This still leaves me a bit higher than the high range for me but I'm okay with that if I can maintain. I wold maybe shoot for 10lbs less once I'm maintaining for a bit.....we'll see.
Have a great day everyone.