Fat in HK, that looks like a great healthy day's worth of food. I'm having a pretty good day too. It's amazing what having a house full of only the good stuff does for one's plan!

beginme ~ Glad to hear that you had a good day ... Try to post your daily food like Amanda suggested, I find it really helps to keep me accountable and makes me want to make good choices instead of bad ones. You will notice that I have edited yesterday's food as I didn't have the planned orange after dinner ... however, I did end up having 4 glasses of wine which were not planned for!! Hubby's fault ... he decided to open a bottle of wine with dinner ... and I drank most of it!! Now I'm feeling guilty and I didn't like having to edit my post, but there's no point in trying to kid myself and pretend it didn't happen ... it did, and I'll try not to let it happen again ... at least not until the weekend!

Amanda ~ Hope you have a good trip ... see you in a day or two!

2Bthin ~ Haven't seen you for a few days ... hope all is well with your son and he's feeling better? Come back soon ... we miss you!

Hope everyone has a good day! I'll be back later to post today's food .....

Greetings, all. I've had another good day on program. Suffering from monstrous chocolate cravings, but have kept them at bay thus far.

Hope everyone else is having a good day.

Good Morning!

Didn't get around to coming back yesterday to post my food ... so here it is ... Yesterday's Food .....

Breakfast
2 small slices wholemeal toast w/2 slices Kraft 97%ff Cheese

Lunch
Salad w/Tuna, Cottage Cheese

Dinner
Stir Fry w/Chicken, Black Bean Sauce, Red & Green Bell Peppers, Onion, Chili
Rice

Extras
Strawberries w/99%ff Fromage Frais
Wine (2 Glasses ~ getting better!)

beginme ~ Glad to hear you had another good day ... keep it up! I know all about chocolate cravings ... I'm a real chocoholic! I simply can't have it in the house at all ... if someone buys me a box of chocolates I can't rest until they've all been eaten ... unlike my daughter who will keep them for weeks!! I don't know how she does it?! I used to buy the little mini chocolate bars for whenever I had a craving ... the only problem was that I didn't stop at one bar ... I'd eat several, so I'd have been better off having a normal sized bar to begin with! Now, I just don't buy it. My biggest problem though is at work ... there is always chocolate/cakes/cookies, etc, in the staff room ... it's always someone's birthday, and I have terrible trouble resisting. Thankfully, I've finished work for the summer holidays so I don't have that temptation at the moment. Hopefully, when the new school term commences in September, I'll be so used to eating more healthily that I'll be able to resist.

Hope you have another good day!

Good Morning Ladies - I'm back in town and back on track. Amazingly I did not gain a single pound while away and eating tons of food...and a lot of crap but good tasting food - yum! I had the best steak on Sunday night with Crab Meat & Bernaise on top - yum yum yum! My mouth is still watering from it - it was just delish! Of course yesterday morning I had 3 - yes THREE Krispy Kreme Donuts -but I'll stop going into detail about the junk I ate while out of town - it was just way too much!

I'm excited to be home and eating right again - it would be great if I could get these last few pounds off my body over the next couple of weeks - and I'd ultimately like to get down to about 145lbs....my original goal of 155lbs is where I'm still headed - and once there I'll be very happy & can't wait to post some goal photos - but I feel like it won't be quite enough and I'll want to go down a few more - we'll just see where this journey takes me!

In order to eat more clean this week after the junk food fest of the long weekend - I'll be focusing on eating a lot of cereal - it always cleans me out - along with some fruits and veggies - but the higher fiber cereals have always been helpful to me - and I keep a good stock of them at my house because I love so many different ones. I hope I stay on track with that plan.

It will be nice to get back to the gym as well - haven't been since Friday so I may be a little rickety - but I did stay active while out of town with a lot of walking

Well, I've got some work to get done...2bthin...where are you????

Great to see you back! Glad you had a good trip. I had another good day today. Still fighting the cravings, but at the moment, I'm winning!

Hi Amanada ~ Glad you had a good trip. It's good that you've been able to enjoy some food treats whilst you've been away without it ruining your weightloss, and good that you're able to get straight back on plan now you've returned. Your goal is so close now, you must be so excited!

beginme ~ It's great that you had another good day ... Keep it up!! Keep those cravings under control and it will all be worth it when you get on those scales and see another loss ... just keep thinking of that feeling you get when you see the scales go down ... there's nothing like it!

I had a reasonable day yesterday ... a little too much pasta with my spag bol for dinner ... that's another one of my problem areas, pasta! I am trying to cut down, but it's one of those things that I really should try to avoid because I always end up having too much, no matter how good my intentions are.

Anyway, here's yesterday's food ....

Breakfast
Oatmeal w/Banana, Passionfruit, 1 tsp honey

Lunch
Sandwich w/Turkey, Salad, wholemeal bread, low fat spread

Dinner
Spaghetti Bol (too much pasta!!)

Extras
Milk (daily allowance)
Strawberry Smoothie (Strawberries, 99%ff Yogurt, Skimmed Milk)
99%ff Fromage Frais

Hope you all have another good day!

I'm back...well just for a minute. It's 8am, the kids are eating breakfast and acting up - as usual. I have to change the sheets on some beds, then get the kids dressed, take a shower - run an errand to pick up a piece of furniture - the home again for a play date at 10:30
Whomever posted about the chocolate - me too. I crave it every second of every day.
As for my goal with the soda - not going so well
We are going grocery shopping tonight...so feel free to help me with my grocery list!!

I love the idea of posting your daily menus on here! That is great and will give me some ideas.
We leave for DISNEY in TWO MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now is the time to kick my butt in gear and drop those 20 darn pounds!!!!!!!!!

Sorry Amanda - I know you are looking at my ticker -- I haven't changed it yet!

2Bthin ~ Great to have you back on board! I think Amanada's idea of posting our daily food is a good idea too ... it's certainly helped me to make better choices for the past few days ... wouldn't like everyone to see what crap I can sometimes shovel away!! Two little tips for your shopping list ... cross off the soda ... and don't get any chocolate!

Thanks for the warm welcome back everyone!

2bthin - 2 months!! You can get off 20lbs in 2 months!!! Am I going to get a chance to meet up with you once you get to Florida??? I agree - for more than just weightloss reasons, you need to cross the soda off the list. Look for lightly flavored waters that are zero calorie (Aquafina, Dasani, Sam's Choice and many more have these available). Also - I know it is easier said than done - but take a moment to relax and breathe. You *sound* stressed out - and that will not help your in your journey. I know you have a lot on your plate (kids!!!) but you can do this!

Beginme - glad you are still on track - I promise you, the cravings go away for the most part once the weight starts coming off in bigger chunks. I rarely crave junk food anymore - I was a major drive thru addict - I just don't do it very often, and when I do - it's because DBF and I are on the road and a little junk at this point in my journey is not that harmful. I actually rarely see it effect the scale.

HongKong - have you checked out www.fibergourmet.com ? I order my pasta online through their website - and it is soooo packed with fiber (18-21 grams per 2 ounce serving...which is not a huge serving at all!) and much lower in calories - I think 110-150 calories/serving - than regular pasta - the deal here is that if you eat way too much of it (I usually eat about 4 ounces) you will have major trouble in the bathroom I know - scary, but definitely a good switch - and I know you are overseas - but Ronzoni has a high fiber pasta as well - www.ronzonismarttaste.com - which you could probably order thru amazon.com - it's no where near as high in fiber as the fibergourmet.com stuff - but has a good amount in it and is overall just better for you. I'd highly recommend making the switch to either one of these - it's amazing the difference it will make - and they are both great tasting pastas!

As for the CHOCOLATE CRAVINGS - mine have never gone away either - but I do only eat dark chocolate and buy special bags of them that I keep around the house - I may eat a whole serving size - depending on the brand - 3-6 pieces - but I definitely prefer things like Dove Dark or Hershey's Dark Bliss - nice smooth chocolates that I can have a couple of pieces (dark chocolate is also higher in fiber than milk chocolate) and move on with my cravings - although I've got two bags sitting in the pantry for more than 2 weeks unopened (had a coupon for buy one get one free) - and I've thought about opening them a couple times, but my candy dish currently has a huge stash of starlight mints -soooo...I don't want to put them together or else my once fabulous dark chocolate will become mint chocolate - which I love for ice cream, but don't like it to spoil my nice rich dark chocolates!

Okay - I have to get some work done

Here's what I'm eating today (so far!)
*Coffee with creamer
*Slim Fast
*Couple of apples sliced up
*Fiber One Oats and Chocolate bar

Oh - I picked up a new item last night at the grocery store at the suggestion of Hungry Girl - Fig Newton Fruit Crisps in Apple Cinnamon - you get 2 in a pack for 100 calories - not much as far as nutritional content goes (fiber/protein) but they are super duper yummy - I split a pack with DBF last night and there is just something about these things that is great.

I'm back again -- 10:30am....apparently furniture store doesn't open until 11, what a waste of gas!
As for my soda issue - yes I can cross it off my list - but what will prevent me from driving thru McDonalds to get my morning coke??
As for the choc, I don't usually buy choc, but sometimes DH gets in these phases where he loads up.
Right now I am working on my grocery list -- new goal here - eat fruit with my Slim Fast in the morning.
Bananas go so bad so fast....and we only shop once every 2 weeks. I think I'll eat bananas one week then apples?

A friend of mine is due shortly - a success story - 70 pounds lost and she looks better than Madonna. She did it with WW and is going to help me with some meal planning. It's funny how we only go to the store every 2 weeks and "stock up" but 2 days after our shopping trip we're like "whats there to eat?"

Amanda - I'd love to see you in Florida -just don't know how it's possible. Any ideas? I have no idea what type of schedule we'll be on. I'd hate to make plans than we'd be late getting to where you are. Our first day there (Sept 17) we think it will be an early day - after the 2pm parade at MK I think we'll head back to the pool and stay at the hotel the rest of the day. Our plane leaves around 7am we arrive in Orlando around 9:30 - and cant check into our room until after 3, so we'll hit the MK have a late lunch at Tonys and watch the parade from there then take the bus back to our hotel.

What have I had so far today?
Large McDonalds Coke.

I LOVE This posting your menu thing -- great great great idea!
Are we posting any calories burned too?

We could probably post "exercise" rather than calories burned - I don't believe that there is a good and/or accurate way to get an idea of calories burned unless you are hooked up to a heart rate monitor. But it would be a good idea to post what we did for exercise - whether it be how many steps we take or how many miles we run. What weights we lift of what videos we worked out to...it all counts...I just never ever rely on those burned calories to allow myself to increase my total number of calories that I can intake in a day.

2bthin - I just checked it out - maybe this will deter you from grabbing that large coke - it has 310 calories in it - I currently take in about 1400 calories/day (when on plan and not on vacation!) and that would be 22% of my daily calories - on something that is just not filling - not to mention it is chocked full of sugar which are carbs (I don't count carbs, but some people do) 86 grams of carbs - which is 29% of the RDA for the day!!!

Here are some photos from my little vacation to Gainesville - the first is a picture of "the french fries" a famous sculpture at UF, the second at Florida Field, and the third in front of the Stadium, the last one is in front of Century Tower - middle of UF's campus.

fries.jpg

stadium.jpg

gator.jpg

tower.jpg