Day 10
1300 (about) daily calorie limit - 1 pause day left
Exercise daily - 2 pause days
Portion control - 1 pause days
Water - 1 litre at least - 2 pause days

Took a pause on the food yesterday. Not that I ate that much but it wasn't good stuff so I am not accepting it. Consequently the weight was up from yesterday - just not good enough. Get with it Shad.
It amazes me how I can eat well during the week and lose and eat so badly during the weekend and undo it. I guess it is that social thing.

So today I am off to breakfast with the brother and the niece and I don't know who else. He (the brother) is going to Mackay for week to train some new recruits to the business. I think (at last) he is thinking ahead to when he can no longer do the delivery rounds and hump crates etc.

Have a fun Sat/Sunday all

No Beer, Day 4, 2 pauses allowed
Wii Fit, Day 4, 2 pauses allowed
Well, the good news is that my appetite is low, and I have no desire for a beer. Yay! The bad news is that I still don't feel all that well. My kids were all sick this week and I might have a touch of what they had. I am back to normal eating, although I don't think I did a great job of it either. I didn't eat too much, but I had intended on eating more fruit. I'll eat more fruit tomorrow!
Red, I really hope you are feeling better soon! Hang in there!
Shad, I'm the same way, week-ends are tough. But if you are good for the other 5 days, the math should still be on your side.

Day 11

1300 (about) daily calorie limit - Day 10 1 pause day left
Exercise daily - 2 pause days
Portion control - Day 10 1 pause days
Water - 1 litre at least - 2 pause days

Managed to hang it all together yesterday. So we move along. Busy day again today - getting close to finished in the loo. Only one row of tiles and the capping row to go, finish the paint, grout and decorate - thats it. Will get most of the painting done today and the tiling.
But first I have to organise the shopping and plan the menu and tidy up around the house. DS2 has been putting in more power points and shifting light switches and he is not a tidy workman I can tell you.

Red - hanging in there? Hope the hip and back as now starting to come right for you.

Apple - how's it going. Your description of diet reminded me of one I did years ago which started with fasting - just water and weak coffee or tea and then added fruit juice, fruit, soup, veges, meat. By the end of the week you were back on full rations. It did drop a few pounds if you managed to stick with the first 3 days, but it was only fluid basically that you lost.

Anyway, I'd better go and get on with this glorious day. You into the Cherry Blossom up there Red???

No Beer, Day 5, 2 pauses allowed
Wii Fit, Day 5, 2 pauses allowed
Nothing exciting to report today. So far I'm eating OK today, and I did a lot of gardening. I'm about to take a stroll with the dog and the kids on bikes. Just have to make a good choice for dinner. Tomorrow I hope to go to the gym, and get started on a routine. I keep thinking a routine would develop once school started and we have been back for over 3 weeks now. Last week all 3 were sick so that didn't help.
Sorry, I have to go, the kids are excited about the bike ride. Hello to all!

Red - sorry, I forgot, the spring is sprung down here. I saw a program on the Cherry blossom this weekend and thought about you. Hence Stupid comment number 1023

Red - Good for you for sticking to all your challenges! You rock, sista! Sorry to hear that you have asthma too. Mine is mostly "exercise induced", so I use an inhaler before I work out. But when I get a cold, it typically goes straight to my lungs. I'm so sorry to hear you're still in so much pain. I know how frustrating back and hip pain can be. Are you using ice packs (or bags of frozen veggies) to help with the pain/swelling? Ice therapy can really ease pain and speed healing. I can TOTALLY understand what you're going through with the pain while walking. I know your frustration. Before I got my most recent cortisone shot in my back (specifically the SI joint), I was only able to walk 7 or 8 minutes without pain and was also afraid to be in crowds for fear of being bumped. Hang in there. Do y'all have Aleve over there (Naproxen Sodium)? That can really help with back pain, but make sure you take it with food or milk as it can cause stomach upset.

Apple - Good for you for climbing out of the hole and taking the dogs for a walk. I'm sure they enjoyed it a lot! I've got a ton of clutter in my home. I wish I could tackle one area a day and be done with it. Are you eating lots of veggies? Veggies contain a lot of similar vitamins as fruit...but for a lot less calories. I try and eat 4 to 5 servings of veggies per day and 2 servings of fruit (usually strawberries and grapes) per day during the week.

Shad - I too have trouble sticking with my program on the weekend. I'm just not as regimented about sticking to my eating plan, water drinking and exercising on the weekend. I think I need to challenge myself to stay on plan for the next 4 weekends, and if I do, I'll come up with some kind of fun reward for myself. I hope you had a great breakfast with your brother and niece. I hope you hear about the job interview soon. Glad to hear the loo project is nearly complete! Yay!

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Red, I've been on prednisone several times...in fact, I was on it most of last autumn for chronic bronchitis/pneumonia. I've never noticed a dependency...it's the other side effects that I hate: feeling jittery, irritable (like PMS times 1000), CONSTANT desire to eat and resulting weight gain. Well, at least it is helping and I'm down to just two pills today, 1 tomorrow and then I'm done.

As for me, it was a tough weekend. I mentioned above that Prednisone makes me want to continuously eat. And with this course of Prednisone, they started me on a high dose of 7 pills five days ago, dropping down by one pill per day until after tomorrow when I'll be all done. With the higher doses, I kept wanting to eat and snack and nosh throughout the day. So Friday and Saturday were difficult. Saturday afternoon, I went to the store and got lots of carrots and other veggies...so that if I had to keep eating, at least I could be crunching on zero point veggies which helped. I'm starting all my challenges over today.

Journal and stay within WW points - 3 pauses allowed
Drink 64 ounces of water - 3 pauses allowed
20 minutes (at least) of cardio - 3 pauses allowed
25 crunches - 3 pauses allowed

No Beer, Day 6, 2 pauses allowed
Wii Fit, Day 6, 2 pauses allowed
HI all. Not a great eating day yesterday, but I made it to the gym this morning and today is going OK.
Diyana, my dog was on prednisone and the same thing happened to him. He wanted to eat all of the time and was practically climbing up on counters and tables to steal food. Not that I'm comparing you to a dog.... I'm glad you are almost done with it. Do you feel better? Good luck on the restart of your challenges.
Equator amnesia...ha ha

Nope, snow flurries are about as visible as the Easter Bunny round here.

1300 (about) daily calorie limit - Day 11 1 pause day left
Exercise daily - Day 11 - 1 pause days
Portion control - Day 11 - 1 pause days
Water - 1 litre at least - Day 12 - 2 pause days

Fairly busy day here. Up early and into the garden before it got too hot. Then working inside the house until I had to go out for an appointment. Then back to working in the house. The days are certainly geting longer and it is harder to come inside at night but the mosquitos are beginning to bug me and the DS so unfortunately we have to come in and shut up the house long before I am ready. Aaaah well.
Missed out on the job I went for. According to the recruitment officer I am not a good team fit was the excuse. Huh?? Oh poop. Try again for something else another time.

Good to hear you are not beating yourself up Red. These things will happen. Just not very regularly we hope.

Red - Congrats on completing the caffeine cut back challenge! I'm glad to hear you're working on being less self-critical. I think there's nothing wrong with self-praise. You can't rely on others for praise (other than here), because they may not notice your successes. So why not pat yourself on the back. You're doing great! You're taking wonderful strides toward better health and you should be quite proud of yourself. I know it's frustrating when you're working hard at doing all the right things but the results aren't showing up. And I understand the frustration of pain and not being able to exercise. And how forced inactivity due to pain puts more pressure on us to watch calories. Can you recumbent bike or swim at the gym? Or another non-weight bearing exercise. If you can't exercise without pain, then just hold off until your back/hip heals. I'm glad to hear that you think the pain in your back/hip are muscle related and not spinal. That's very good news. If the muscles are sore, a good treatment (in addition to ice) is massage. I know this is difficult if it's in an area you can't reach yourself. My PT suggested that I use a good hard lacrosse ball or even a tennis ball and sit or lay on it (depending on the muscles that need to be massaged) and roll around. I know it sounds weird, but it is a good self-massage technique. In fact, when DH's low back was bothering him the other day, I had him lay on his back on the floor and I put a tennis ball under his back. He rolled around on it and was able to massage exactly where he needed it.

Shad - Such a stupid company to pass up on the chance to have you come in and make improvements. Their loss. How nice that your days are getting longer...sorry that the mossies are such a bother already.

Apple - You're doing great on your challenges! Good for you! Yup, I used to have a dog that was on Prednisone, and it did the same thing to him. At least I'm handling it better than I did last autumn when I was on it for 3 or 4 months and gained A LOT of weight. Hopefully, I'll stay the same or show a loss on Thursday.

At my work, we are having a walking challenge where we are all encouraged to walk at least 10,000 steps per day (which works out to roughly 5 miles). Even though I have a sedentary job, the building I work in is quite large so it takes nearly 250 steps round trip to go to the loo, about 700 or 800 to go to the cafeteria to get more water or coffee, and if you walk around the all the office buildings (not all my company) in the office complex, that's roughly 2 miles. We've had lovely weather...which has made it nice to go out for a walk at lunch and then take another walk after I get home from work, which brought me to a total of nearly 12,000 steps for the day, about an hour of which was in the cardio zone.

Yesterday was a stressful day. The details are too long and sordid, but my 25 year old nephew is being a closed-minded idiot, and there's no opening his mind - believe me, I've tried. I've just gotta accept it, move on and not stress about it. It does no good.

I'm not going to focus on what frustrates me though...I'm going to focus on all that I enjoy and all the positive people/relationships/aspects in my life and how fortunate I am.

Right now, time to get to work at the job I really appreciate and enjoy!

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Journal and stay within WW points - 3 pauses left - Day 1 completed
Drink 64 ounces of water - 3 pauses left - Day 1 completed
20 minutes (at least) of cardio - 3 pauses left - Day 1 completed
25 crunches - 3 pauses left - Day 1 completed

Time to check in again.

1300 (about) daily calorie limit - Day 12 1 pause day left
Exercise daily - Day 12 - 1 pause days
Portion control - Day 12 - 1 pause days
Water - 1 litre at least - Day 13 - 2 pause days

Feeling totally antsy today. Forgot to weigh in before breakfast - that annoyed me. Then of course I had to check in AFTER the fact and that annoyed me even more. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course you are a pound heavier after you have eaten cereal, yoghurt and rhubarb you idiot. Bah humbug.

Forgive me, no personals today. I'm going out to kick something around the back yard. Haven't exercised yet either. My friend who walks with me has been cancelling out a bit lately so I have had to do my own thing late in the afternoon. Another thing to annoy me. It's not her fault either. I'm just antsy.