Hey everyone! Thought I'd create the thread for March since it hasn't been made yet.

:-P I'm so silly. I realized after I made this thread that I didn't need to put "daily" in the title. Oops.

But I'm back! I took January off to get things in order. I wasn't sticking to my plan and had a lot going on in life. Hey, it happens. More important that I'm back.

Things are looking up now. I hit the grocery store once a week, meal plan, and I've been exercising regularly. I even signed up to do a color run in May!

I was particularly proud of myself Wednesday night -- I went on the elliptical for a full hour. And every time I go to the gym in my building, I take the stairs instead of the elevator. I'm climbing up 9 flights of stairs after every workout!

Also made my little visual motivator, and it sits on my bathroom vanity. Every time I workout, I get a bead in the glass vase. I also get a bead if I lose half a pound (based on my weekly weigh-ins, not daily), and I get a bead if I eat on plan for the day. I like my beads. I'm not quite sure if they'll "translate" to anything reward wise (ie with 50 beads I get a massage) but maybe I'll create a system.

How's everyone doing?

Hello everyone! It's taken me a while to get back in the swing of being an active forum member, and now I feel that I'm back in the game with my Bikini challenge I want to get back into these month chats =).

My week was a terrible one! To cut a long story short, I was sick, not working out and not eating the right foods (would opt for quick meals since I was too zombiefied to travel further than my 7/11). I stepped on the scale on Friday and it read 162 lbs. I was hovering around 154 lbs so this new number is shocking to me.

I'm hoping it was a fluke, that I just need to drink more water and my TOM is here...so maybe I'll get a lovely WHOOSH when I'm back in action! I'm currently doing Jillian Michaels's Body Revolution and I've now decided to add Zumba to this also. I got Zumba fitness for my PS3 so I'm hoping I can burn up to 500 calories a day. BR burns around 250-300 calories, but when I was running or doing Insanity I would be burning 400+. So hopefully adding Zumba will be a great way to get that extra cardio in.

Hitting the 160s again has been my biggest set back since I started losing weight. I've stalled but I've never gained a lot of weight back before, so it's a huge wake up call to try harder and keep going. Before I got sick, however, I was doing amazingly well. Eating healthy meals and working out every day. I was too scared to step on the scale in case there was no change or a gain, but now I'm regretting it since it might have been a nice surprise! Not the horrible surprise I got on Friday!

Anywho, that'll be all from me, speak soon!

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Hey QB! Great to see you back! You know I should probably take a leaf out of your book and climb the flight of stairs to work. I'm on the 5th floor, so it's not that bad, and would be great for my legs and bum!
I've seen people do the beads in the jar thing! It's a great visual motivator for sure =). And something you can physically do, tickers are great but I bet there's nothing like adding or taking away a bead!

QuietBallerina Getting back on track is always a great feeling, go you! The visual motivator also sounds like a cool idea, I've read about stuff like that before - I think using it as an incentive like you mentioned with getting a certain number of beads meaning you get to treat yourself to something like a massage is cool!

Riestrella Eep, I guess it would be hard to see the 160's after being out of them for a while - hopefully it is just a fluke, I'm sure you'll be totally back on track weightwise very soon!

~I just trekked 45 minutes for a wedding on my own, luckily I knew one other person there so it wasn't too bad. We were both only invited to the ceremony, which was a little awkward as it seemed we were the only two people there in that situation - so we kind of just made our exit when it seemed less obvious though we did get queried by the guy in the carpark as to why we were leaving when the reception hadn't even begun - oops. Oh well. Our friend who got married looked beautiful and I'm glad we were there to see it.
It's Saturday evening and I'm going out for dinner...again. Went out last night with friends and have another dinner tonight. It's challenging, but I'm doing ok I think!

I'm so proud of myself for sticking to my running and even more so for doing early morning runs on Saturdays! This morning I did 8km!! I feel good about it and I'm hoping the scale continues to reflect my efforts with both running and calorie counting.

Yeah it does suck =(. But I'm determined to get out of the 160s and eventually the 150s!!

You were only invited to the ceremony? That's a bit odd! Do you know why? I'm glad you had a nice time regardless! It's always nice to go out for dinner =). I'm always going out for dinner or lunch!
Congrats on sticking with running, I miss running! 8K is awesome, good for you! You'll definitely see a change in the scale with long distance running =D.

Riestrella I initially thought it was just a cost thing - like that a bunch of people had been only invited to the ceremony...but it turned out to not be that way. If it had been a cost thing, I would have totally understood - but for two people it seemed pretty bizarre...considering she'd also already made sure I knew that it was just me invited and not my boyfriend. Odd. Oh well. You will get where you want to go I know it - you are so dedicated and have already come so far!

QB: welcome back and thanks for making the thread! your bead thing sounds fun, i hope it works out for you! and well done on working out so hard! i could never do a whole hour! i'm so lazy... lol.

Rie: aww, big hugs hun! though i feel you with the regain! i gained back like 2kg after my last cheat day and i thought it would just go back down and it didn't and that was pretty depressing... T_T you'll get back to the 150's soon though. hang in there! how is the zumba game?

Rainbow: well done with your running!! that's a bit lame about the wedding though... why would they not invite you to the reception? :/ oh well, at least you had a nice time!

Hey guys!

I've been a bit lazy with posting on the forum over the past week... honestly i was just grumpy over my weight not coming down after my last cheat day and i felt i had nothing to say. lol. but i didn't give myself a cheat day this past sat (didn't deserve it ) and finally my weight is back to what it was before, so hopefully i can see a loss this week.

I've been struggling a bit though... i always feel like i wanna eat these days. i finish my meals and go "i wanna eat more". or i'm ok and then 2 hours after dinner i'm like "wanna eat... wanna eat... wanna eat!!!!!" usually, i can steele myself, and sometimes i end up munching on fruits or veggies (nothing bad) but i still feel sad that the feeling is there. it's like i'm always gonna be fighting with this mindless desire to eat for the rest of my life. i'm also bummed because i hadn't been feeling like that for the first few months of my diet and i'm like "why now?" so it sucks. cuz it just means i have to have much stronger willpower. lol. also i'm drinking so much tea that i end up on the toilet every 20 minutes in the evenings... lol.

other than that i've been doing my Body Revolution like a good little girl every day. i'm nearing the end of week 4, which means soon i'll start the second month, and all new, harder workouts... :/ i hate cardio day sooo much, and i'm looking forward to being able to change it, but it'll probably be worse! lol.

hope everyone's doing well!! i only have one more day of work next week before i fall into about a month of holiday! lol. the new school year starts in April here, so i'll start classes again about mid-april... not sure how i'm gonna go about working a whole 5-day workweek after all this time bumming around though... lol.

Rie Good to see you! Hopefully you're all finished with being sick. And my fingers are crossed for your big whoosh!
Yes, I like my visual motivator. It's helpful that it's one of the first things I see when I wake up while I'm getting ready for work.

RainbowStripe Glad you enjoyed the wedding (I agree with Rie and Kawaii though -- seems odd to not invite you to the reception). And good for you for waking up early in the morning for a run! I don't know if I could do that on the weekend. I love sleeping in a little bit on my days off.

Kawaii It helped that there were two half-hour comedy shows on. And towards the end, I was the only one in the gym so I kept talking to myself to push further. I'm so jealous about your holiday break! I feel like I could use a holiday break myself.

I've mostly enjoyed a relaxing weekend. After a kind of stressful week, I needed to rest my brain. Next week I start my new round of classes, so I have to adjust my workout schedule around them.

Kawaii Oh man I feel you on the wanting to eat all the time thing. Seriously, I feel like my days just revolve around when I next get to eat and what I'm eating. Urgh. A month of holiday sounds awesome, how exciting! I think the key to not bumming around too much is to at least set a daily schedule for something - like... getting up at a certain time, exercising at a certain time.

QuietBallerina Relaxing weekends are the best. I totally blobbed yesterday and it was good (aside from eating too much). Re waking up early, now I just have to figure out how to do it on weekdays too!

~I definitely need to start counting calories and being more in control on weekends. I've cut out a lot of alcohol, but I'm still eating too much and I know it. My figures in the daily weigh in thread are ridiculous, instead of losing I'm gaining and I'm pretty sure my weekends are the cause.
Friday night we went out for Thai food - I did try to pick healthier things - no creamy curry, no deep fried entree, but I know I overate.
Saturday I ate a piece of toast before I went for my run and then my boyfriend really wanted to make waffles and he gets so excited about stuff like that I can't say no, so I ate waffles... and then a small portion of curry left over from Thursday and then out for dinner again where I ate garlic bread, deep fried squid (shared), steak, fries AND brownie and icecream for dessert. Oh man.
Sunday was just bad again, I ate a scroll with icing and some other thing filled with ham and then popcorn, chips, homemade burgers and more fries and to top it off, apple pie and icecream.

Yup...when I look at it like that, it's obvious that's the culprit behind me being 64.2kg on Friday and now back up to 65.5kg. I know it might not all be actual weight, but it's disheartening - and totally my fault!!

QB: eheh, well that's still awesome. i love that they have tvs on the machines at the gym!! it does make it go soooo much faster than just listening to music! though sometimes there's nothing good on.... eheh. good luck for next week!!

Rainbow: man... i wish there was a way to get rid of that stupid desire to eat!! it just totally blew it last night. gah... you're right though, i'm gonna have to try to make some sort of routine cuz these days i'm just waking up between 10 to 12, dicking around the internet for 1-2 hours while i have coffee and breakfast, then workout, then more internet and maybe i'll get out of the house by 5pm. lol. why don't you give yourself just one day as a cheat day? and not the whole weekend? that's what i do. usually it's saturday, i can eat what i want on that day but really monitor myself on other days... and if i go too overboard one week, then no cheat day the next week! lol. it works for me. i'm sure it would help you limit the damage too.

bah. i suck. last night i totally let the munchies-monster get the best of me... i bought these "dried veggies" chips at the store and ate the whole container, followed by a couple clementines and half a cantaloup. lol. then i had a salad. haha... i know it was all healthy stuff but i still feel mad at myself. and the worst part is, it demanded a supreme effort of will for me to eat only those things and not more!!! how sad is that? so effectively weight is up this morning. poooh... i tried to counter the effects of my badness by drinking a ridiculous amount of tea... but i'm not sure it worked, haha...

well anyways. today i have to do all the marking i've been putting off!! tomorrow is the last day of classes and the last day to submit grades and my last day of work! wooh!

Hey everyone! My Monday starting with a positive note! I weighed in at 162 lbs on Friday and I'm down to 158 lbs!! Woohoo! That's a 4 lb drop over the weekend, which is very impressive since I still didn't work out (was at my boyfriends) but I tried my best to eat better. It's not quite back to my average weight of 154 lbs but still, I'm so happy that it went down!!

I also didn't eat cr@p today at work, which is always a plus! I had edamame, a corn/carrot/pea mix, a banana, an apple and a yogurt for lunch. I usually put something extra in there like a boiled egg or some rice but I didn't have it in my apartment so I'm surprised I made it through the day without caving in to a sneaky convenience store trip!

But today was the first day of my new workout routine. Well, my workout routine +. I did Body Revolution and did a lot better than the first time I did that specific video. Then I added Zumba to my routine and I loved it! It was so tough, I was sweating my a$$ off for most of it and I got a terrible stitch, which made me feel so out of shape haha! But I really liked the Zumba game, the actual game itself isn't great (since it's supposed to detect your moves - but I was doing it the wrong way because I have a projector and it still said I was hitting them!) but the routines are awesome! So challenging even though I was on a beginner class. So I'm looking forward to seeing how I progress within the game and to seeing the other routines!

So I'm in a good mood today and I'm reaaaallly hoping I see another drop this week! Fingers crossed that with the extra cardio I'm doing I can start shedding some poundage!

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rainbow - That is odd! Oh welly, I'm sure she appreciated that you went =). It's still a nice thing to invite you to see her get married!
Thanks for your support, it means a lot!
Well, I think once you put it down in writing you realised what it was that was making you gain. While that all sounds delicious, it is all bad food for the body! It is really hard to eat right when out with friends, I feel your pain! My boyfriend is lazy/not confident with his cooking so he never cooks for me when I go to his place so we end up eating really snacky foods. But when we're out with friends...yeah I go just as crazy as you! Calorie counting might be a good way to keep on top of it. Once you know you have a 500-600 calorie limit per meal then it would make it easier. Maybe try sticking to just one course when out instead of starters or dessert?

kawaii - Thank you It was pretty darn shocking to see my weight shoot up like that! Thankfully it did go down a bit, but I'm still 4 lbs heavier than my average weight these days!!
I know how you feel when you are doing a bit poo in the weight loss department and you don't feel like coming on the forum and revealing all! But good for you for coming back and sticking with it =). And I'm so happy you got your weight back down!
I'm not certain why you're feeling so hungry all of a sudden. Are you working out more or eating less in the day? Your really on top of all your workouts, my best guess is that your metabolism is speeding up! Have you ever seen what athletes eat? They eat sooo much food! So don't feel sad, your body is working in the right way you're becoming stronger!! I wouldn't be surprised if I'm right here because you've been AMAZING with keeping on track with workouts, like holy wow. I'm super proud of you!

QB - I'm all done with sickness, just left with a bit of a cough/cold but nothing terrible! Good luck with adjusted your workout schedule, I know it must be tough to begin with =).

rainbow This weekend was similar for me. Way too much junk food. But at least I got all of my green peppers chopped (an absurd amount -- like 5 or 6 of them!), so I have a big container of that to reach for when I want something to munch on. Need to cut up the celery next.

Kawaii Oh yes. I definitely need tv or good music. I'd get so bored otherwise. I like your advice to rainbow about the cheat day and the good week vs bad week. Might be following that advice myself!

Rie Great news about the drop! The Zumba game sounds fun. What game system do you use?

*grumble* one thing that is so frustrating. I weighed myself at home this morning. When I was at the doctor 4 hours later, my weight was FOUR pounds more! And the problem isn't my scale (at least, I don't think it's my scale) -- my weight fluctuates that much!

Mondays are my easy day at work, and so far it's going well. Start a new class tonight, but I'm going to get a workout in before it starts. Only downside is that there won't be anything good on the TV while I workout. Boo. Better make some new playlists.

Kawaii At least you are reaching for the good things, that's definitely a positive. Yay nearly break-time for you!

Riestrella What console is the Zumba game on? I used to go to a Zumba class and really enjoyed it but I stopped going because my boyfriend's mum started going and while we get along really well, I just like my exercise to sort of be my own thing - sure there are other people in the class, but I didn't know them or feel like I really had to talk to them haha! Re the calorie counting, that is what I do so well all through the week but for some reason I've been telling myself that it's fine to just not count on the weekends - now I really know that I have to start doing that again because that's how I lost all the other weight, so of course it's the best way to go.
I do keep a mental tally throughout the weekend...but if we go out for dinner I just forget haha. No more though! Congrats on your loss over the weekend, how awesome!!

QB Wow, green peppers. I could never eat those raw haha, I barely like them cooked! Go you though, how great to have something to snack on. Actually I don't like celery either haha! I need to find a vege that I like that is low cal and snackable! Re the weigh in at the doctor, I always find that the scales there weigh me higher - but it's also super normal to fluctuate as I'm sure you know haha

~Urgh, finally my weight is coming down again after the weekend.

It's Tuesday here, I'm going to the doctor later on - FINALLY. I've been meaning to go for seriously like 11 years to get a referral for allergy testing - my skin is so sensitive and I always get itchy. I have something similar to athlete's foot but when I used the stuff the podiatrist recommended, it got worse, way more itchy and now my feet are a mess and I'm kept up at night by the itch. Here's hoping the allergy test reveals something useful!

I've got a couple of challenges foodwise this week - tomorrow I'm meeting a friend for lunch but I've already decided that we'll go to this place that does bento boxes and I'll get the kids one (luckily they have calorie counts on their website). Friday we are going out for a team lunch with work...and that's where I'm more worried, we're going to a pub/bar and it's all going to be fried foods like burgers, pizzas, spring rolls, fries etc...I don't even know what to do. It's not like I can just not eat because we're such a small team and everyone is going as like a team building/end of month thing. I hate stuff like that sometimes just because of the food.

Hey y'all! Nothing much to report, still at 158 lbs this morning so trying my best to stay hydrated and eat right. Today I was feeling really lazy so didn't do my 2 workouts like I planned but I did get a Zumba workout in there. I'm sure my neighbours hate me, but I have so much fun! I must look like someone having a seizure, but it works me out good!

Tomorrow is a bit of a weird day for me. It's the anniversary of the death of one of my best friends. It always throws me back to memories both good and bad, I just hope I don't break down at work! I won't use it to be bad and lazy, I want to try and keep my day normal. She was super healthy so it wouldn't be fitting to pork out in her name!

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QB - I use a PS3. I recently bought a Move to go with it PURELY for Zumba since I loved it so much when I was at a gym. I was only enjoying the gym for it's Zumba class and the game is pretty much the same routines if not better ones, just without the people!

rainbow - ^ !! Hehe! Yeah I know what you mean about working out being a solo affair. I had a friend who wanted to run with me and I just warned her up front I will leave her behind (I ran alongside a canal so it wasn't like she could get lost) and she was 100% cool with it thankfully! But if she wanted me to run WITH her I would have had a big problem! Yeah, I'm exactly the same with the weekend dinners! I just let loose too, guess we both gotta work on controlling ourselves.
Speaking of which, you have a few challenges coming up! I think you will have to rely on your own strength to get through it. Hopefully the pub will have some options that aren't terrible for you. And you can always try to calorie count the cr@p too! It's not good nutritionally but if you stay in range then it might not be as bad as it could be if you just went all out. Good luck! I feel ya!

Riestrella Yup, definitely solo for me. My flatmate's girlfriend wanted to come running with me one day and I was kind of just like...um...sorry, I like my alone time (because I always listen to music when I run). I felt bad saying no, but a girl's gotta do what a girls gotta do! Ah self control with food...it's always been my struggle - but I've done it before so I can do it again, right?! I hope tomorrow is ok for you with the anniversary - that sounds hard.

kisskiss Sometimes I feel like there is actually no healthy option at some places, and it makes me mad because they must know that not everyone just wants to eat whatever, whenever? Like it can't be that hard just to offer something that is grilled and not fried haha! I hope your date goes well! And I'm sure you'll see your mini goal soon!

~My weight is finally going back down in the right direction, but I feel like by the end of the week it will be where it was at the end of last week - how frustrating! I am annoyed at myself for continuing this annoying pattern of loss during the week only then to gain most of it back over the weekend to then try to lose it again the next week!

I did get my run in last night but it wasn't as good as it could have been. I am loathe to say that perhaps my new running shoes aren't as great as I initially thought them to be - I think perhaps they are a bit too low/not enough support at the back as my calf muscles are SO sore during my runs and then also after! Anyone have experience with this?

I'm having lunch with a close friend of mine today, I haven't seen her in far too long, I think like 6 months! Oops!