, Lulu! You're always welcome to our group of Turtles. It sounds like you have a really great, upbeat attitude in spite of your challenges. Jump on in!

Ariana, sounds good! One thing I would suggest is to do your warm up flat--or pick an elevation and stay there. No changes for that 5 minutes, okay? THEN kick it into high gear. I wouldn't worry about the heartrate thing on the machine. Instead, go by this rule: if you can sing, it's really easy. If you can talk but not sing, that's a little harder. If you can answer questions or converse in short sentences, that's harder (that's about a 6-7/10). If you can gasp 1 or 2 word answers, you're at an 8 or a 9. If you can't even manage "no", you're 10! So you should be going from:

3-4 (talking)--warm up for 5 minutes
**to**
7-8 (short-gasp answers) for 30 seconds
**to**
4-5 (talking) for 90 seconds
{repeat the last 2 as many times as your plan}
**to**
2-3 (cooldown) for 5-10 minutes

Hope that helps!

Oh yeah--I don't know what kind if fitness you're in, I don't know how long you've been exercising, limitations, abilities, etc. So this is the standard advisement:

Do this kind of workout (interval training) every OTHER day. The days in between, feel free to throw in either an LSS (long slow steady) workouot or take the day off. But for at least a few weeks, give your body the recovery time of 48 hours in between.

Lulu!
Wow, I love that you've given us so much info about yourself. Thanks!! We Turtles love having new members and ideas and our board is really hopping right now. Thanks for joining us and good luck with your fitness challenges.

Ariana,
Okay, , this is the tough time when a plateau hits really hard and it's miserable. We've all been there. The trick is not feeling sorry for ourselves and changing something. From what I see you're doing two huge changes and that should work. You're changing and revving up your exercise with Mousie's help and you're changing your food by using the Wendie plan. I tried that when I was doing Flex and it did help me shake up my weight loss. I'm sending : that it will work for you.

Princess,
do I remember right that it's hard for you to post on the weekends? I think I remember that. In any case, I hope you had a better : than you were expecting--and it's very important to stay realistic. I know for myself that when I put in two or three really good days in a row I want to be 123# soaking wet and you know that's just not happening for me. LOL.

Bandit,
How are you handling your weekend challenges? You're our social butterfly!


All goes well here with me. I ate a little more than I wanted to yesterday, but things are still on track. Sometimes I expect too much from myself. I did face one challenge by eating my lunch when I was hungry and declining to go out with dd and dgb and dh when they moseyed out for lunch. That worked better because later on we ordered in Chinese food and my other dd came out to visit. So, as I said, my weekends are often changeable and it helps to have good food in the house for myself if I have to deviate.

Didn't mean to ramble==-off to yoga.
Good luck and : to us all. Spring is here, let's get this body clutter off!
Judy Itry
234.6/209/thinner into onederland

Yup, I don't get on line over the weekend so it is pretty much Monday thru Friday postings for me

Well I weighed in on Saturday... lost .8 pounds which was better then I thought with the meds and it being that TOM I thought I would gain but I will take .8. DH lost 6.2 so he is down over 15 lbs in two weeks... I am very excited for him! His clothing is getting really baggy and he is doing so well. I am done with my meds so I am really hoping to see some changes here soon.

Did everyone have a nice weekend?

Welcome Lulu!

Have to run but I will check back in later on.

Princess

Sorry, Lulu, I forgot to welcome you. We're glad to have you!

As I'm sure everyone could tell, I was quite frazzled on Friday. ;O But I'm feeling better now, with a plan and extra sleep over the weekend.

Interesting, mousie. Why start out at the same rate, instead of gradually increasing, on the warmup? Thank you for the detailed advice! (And I will be careful. I always am. I have been working out steadily, 3-5x a week for almost 2 years now. I know that if I get dizzy or experience chest pain, any of that stuff, to stop.)

Judy, thank you for the moral support. I really needed it.

Congrats on the weight loss, princess!

My weekend was pretty good. I start the plan Wednesday, so I am calculating my points allowances. I figure that I eat some things every day (9 points worth, including breakfast, a 1 pt snack, 3 fruit servings and 1 cup of milk with dinner.) Knowing this, it should be easier for me to track points, since I only need to track points outside my daily regimen (for example, if my Wendie plan starts over each Wednesday and I eat 9 points in my daily regimen, I get 15 points to split between lunch and dinner.) Point tracking has always been an effective, but terribly tedious thing for me. Only having to track two meals, and any extra snacks, should be easier.

Hi Turtles,
Princess, I'm so glad you lost weight with both meds and TOM figuring in the mix. That is excellent! At this point, being off meds, you should be doing even better. Keep on keepin' on!

Ariana, glad you've got a Mousie to help you with your exercise and it seems like you're pretty much an expert yourself since you've been exercising so well for so long. Weigh to go!

This thread is getting long, so look for us at turtles #154!
Judy Itry