Hey Girls I'm on a break. I had to check QVC tsv & got their Birki's Soft Footbed Embossed Cutout Sandals $59, I need comfy shoes in the summer.

My Boo-Hoo for today is: Yesterday was hot 94* & humid, not common to b in the 90*s here, normal summer is the 80*s. I got a migraine that is still going for 24 hr now; if I take my RX I can't function, only sleep. So I'm struggling w the pains today instead of taking my RX until bedtime. I hurt so bad & couldn't sleep so @ 7 am I cleaned our 3 refrigerators & 2 freezers this morning & took some food out to feed the wildlife & heard a fawn. The fawn was still crying a hour later & Doe's never leave their tiny fawns that long. I walked our woods till I found her & then phoned the DNR; he walked our woods looking for the Doe & found it dead near the road (hit by car/truck) & the 2nd fawn was laying near her. DNR took them away to a foster home w other Doe's to nurture them w their fawns. So I'm back to ignoring my pains & getting more work done today.

We leave on our 5 day camping trip tomorrow & r taking our 3 babes, 6 yr, 8 yr, 10 yr w us. Our heat wave ends today we r back in our normal 80*s for a week; the weather channel Never lies does it so we'll have a good trip....But dh & I laugh because we bike, fish, swim, canoe & kayak when we're home anytime we want just living within 15 minutes of 3 big lakes & 1 river; but camping is different surroundings & a fun fellowship w neighboring campers. But to the babes its like a exciting, traveling adventure sleeping in our pop-up tent camper w all the extra kids there & we play board games & cards w them, I found my old wooden pick-up sticks & the kids think it's so much fun & Kylee loves playing w my old paper-dolls & color-form stickers...do you remember when life was less technical & such a innocent time....

Carri I'm like you, I'm 1/2 Irish & a strawberry blonde & my face gets red & my skin tight to breathe in high heat/humidity & people think I may pass-out. 2 yr ago I actually did pass-out once while doing a 52 mile bike ride (round-trip back to our car) & dh called 911 & they told him how to help me, it was dehydration combined w heat stroke they said (chills, clammy skin, weak body & slow pulse) I drank water about every 10 miles but the humidity made the temps +100*. So now I don't bike or walk between 12pm-5pm.

So please girls NEVER walk, bike or do any sports 'Alone' when the temps r in the +80*s because of heat stroke or dehydration that can kill you if it goes on for long, it's simply to dangerous being alone working-out in the high-temps.

Susie You r our sports warrior here & we all envy & r proud of your work-out dedication & I'm happy that you took a break when you didn't have a partner to b with last week, instead of being alone & risking getting hurt while alone. I'm adding you to my prayer list w your injury. Good Luck @ tops tonight, I skipped tops today because I don't like driving in the strong sun-light w a migraine, dealing w the traffic.

You'll think I'm crazy girls, but when I'm plugged/yes constipated; instead of pills I eat a big bag of M & M's, peanut or peanut butter so yummy & by bedtime I have relief That's the only sugar/fat I eat on that day so it never shows up as a gain, instead I'm always down a --pd. Eating chocolate candy bars doesn't work for me, it just puts pds on me & I can't eat that many fruit & veggies in 1 day to get relief, but the M&M's r easy. I know that was TMI, but if you all have a helpful weight 'hint to share' please spill-it besides common sense eating/moving....

Carri I'm sorry that you r feeling discouraged. How about sharing a activity w your dh, or play backyard games in the evening or crank-up the AC & dance or do some dvd's a few times a week. At tops we do silly little weekly challenges like; every tv commercial lift hand-wts & do some sets of 15 counts, or other activity. Take your doggie for walks outdoors around your house 3x every hour, etc. Watch some dumb, funny movies; take a 1 hr 1/2 nap to refresh yourself & then get active or prep some healthy-yummy food & Remember to eat Protein & Fiber w Each meal I just don't know what else I can suggest. I am Proud of all the Progress you've made.....b patient, 'good things' do take time

Anyone watching Duets? Incase we can't get the abc or fox tv signals, when we r camping w our tiny tv we take using bunny-ears; please pm me here with who goes home next week on: Bachelorette, Glass House, HK, MC, Duets, In the Wild. Googling the recaps is a pain in the butt, so Thank You girls for the Updates on those shows!

Have a Happy, Safe & Blessed weekend & next week, Luv, Dee

ps: my dh told me yesterday I'm looking a little fat this week to him so I told him to 'close your eyes' or 'stop looking @ me'

Morning Girls, my blah attitude carried over in to last night ...I was good all day but then we were going to Culvers for dinner and I wanted to treat myself so I had a cheeseburger with everything on it, fries, and their root beer....their root beer is so good ...anyway I just wanted to eat a meal and enjoy it without thinking about how many calories it had in it ....a few hours later I had some cake and ice cream for dessert. So now that is out of my system ...

Dee - so sorry you get migraines, my Mom gets them really bad ...she also takes a med that pretty much knocks her out for a while, but takes care of the pain. Hope you are feeling better today. Have a great time camping with your babes, sounds like a lot of fun...we are also gonna get a little time without such hot temps...it is gonna be in lowers 80's next week and that is gonna be wonderful here too. I do hate that my face gets that red anytime I get hot, my like you I am really fair and it just happens...Thanks for suggestions on how to get out of my diet funk...I am sure the weekend will refresh me, haha ...

Hi Susie

Have a great weekend everyone !!!!

Carri

Ladies, TOPS last night was ugly! I had a 4 lb gain! I was shocked!

Then I thought about it and I haven't "been to the bathroom" in a couple of days, so maybe that was it. I was so disheartened and then I thought to myself "Dang it Susie", you are letting your emotions control you and YOU are in charge of your body and mind and if some pretty much homeless man whose son died in the middle of his yearlong weight loss challenge, what the HECK is wrong with you? NOTHING! You just need to committ to yourself."

Then I thought, how am I going to tell Dee and Carri and then I thought, they love me, they understand and they will drag me back on my feet and cheer me on as I once again...start anew.

Ladies, this is huge for me as I rarely share my failures. I had a NSV this morning. On Friday's my DH always takes doughnuts to work and I have him get me one--a buttertwist--today I said "no thanks".

So there it is..the good the bad and the ugyly.

Carri: You have come a long way and it's hard work so I'm sure you are tired. I think that maybe for the next 2-3 weeks you don't work on losing weight but rather maintaining it. I know you want in ONDerland so much but when you get there you will have to maintain at sometime, so give yourself a break...not by binging or "cheating" but rather maintaining and loving how you look at almost 199 lbs.

Dee: I suffer from migrains as well at times. It's a b*tch for sure! After I have one, it can take me two days to get back to myself. I hope you are feeling better.

Enjoy your trip with your babes and yes, I remember when life was less technical and life such a innocent time. It is good to slow down to that once in awhile.

You both were talking about the heat and how red your faces get..mine does too..people think I'm going to have a stroke or something..I'm just fair skinned and "flush" easily, sounds like you all do to.

So, DH and I have one week of work and then we are on our Staycation the first week of July. We need to have some work done on our car and we want to sell his car and let the other car we have now become a second one and buy a new car. DH needs to have his annual blood work and physical and I just want some lazy time too so we took the 4th holiday and planned a home vacation around it.

Then we were just talking with our friends that we usually vacation with but was finding a hard time when we all could take off. They raise their grandaughter and she usually goes with us on vacation but it seems this year she is very busy with camps and girlscouts. So, we found about 3 days to get away together. July 28, 29, 30, 31 we are going to Mackinaw, Michigan. We plan to spend a day on Mackinaw Island as well.

Dee: am I going to be close to you?

It has cooled down here this weekend and I hope you all are getting some relief. I'll be around off and on all weekend. I know Dee is gone for a week.

Carri: I hope to see you here.

and if anyone is lurking it would be so nice to hear from you all too!
Or even if someone is new and wants to join a wonderful bunch of gals!

Just stoping by to see if anyone is around. I expect it will be pretty quiet here this weekend and week.

I had another NSV last night. I choose not to have any ice cream after dinner for dessert. We ate out local last night and they have very good homemade ice cream but I was full and so I declined.

Today after lunch I thought about having a Reese Cup that was in the fridge but had watermelon instead. We are going out to dinner tonight with your Personal Chef before she leaves for Mexico in about 3 weeks and we are going to a place in Cincinnati called Terry's Turf Club. It was on that show Drive-in, Dinners and Dives. You should google and check it out. I want to save my calories for dinner tonight.

Feeling very accomplished today, the house is cleaned, everything in my home office is filedand put away and groceries are bought (my DH helped with that!).

Have a great Satruday everyone.

I can't believe the weekend is winding down already.

We had a great time out to dinner last night and I stayed within my calorie range.

Not much else going on. I did see the extended forcast for this week. YIKES!
In the 100's!

HELLOOOOOOOOOOO????!!!!

Just popping in to say on track for the day and meeting my workout partner at the Y tonight for cardio and weight-training.

It was such a beautiful night last night that we changed our plans and walked for the entire workout hour.

Planning a walk in the neighborhood tonight..all by myself. My workout partner is on vacation and has left the city.

Morning Ladies !!!! Had a very nice weekend, hope you all did too ...

Susie - sorry you had to hold up the thread all by yourself this weekend, haha...and yes, you are totally right, we don't care about those 4lbs , we are here to support you thru good and bad, we all have those times...so don't worry about it, come here with your truth !!!! I
I understand what you are saying about maintaining but I am so close to Onederland I can taste it so I can't slow down now, lol ...even though I am having some burn out, I will just try and work thru it. I am at 204 now with another 1lb gone last week ....but ....drumroll please .........

I have started exercising, well I guess tonight ...my good friend has a really nice in ground pool and we are going to start doing water aerobics 2-3 times a week since it is too hot to walk ( yes Susie we are also getting in to the 100's this week, super sick !!! ) ...so I am looking forward to it, we are actually starting tonight as a matter of fact ...so I figure I will be really sore tomorrow ...let you know.

A week off to stay at home sounds so great Susie - enjoy !!!!

The Bachlorette - this is getting exciting now that we are down to the last four, can't wait to see the home visits next Monday ...still saying it is gonna be either Sean or Arie ....right now, from last nights episode though I am kind of leaning towards Sean, she was kissing him so passionately last night, and I haven't seen her do that with Arie, I mean they do kiss a lot but not like that ....hubba hubba

Hi Dee !!! Hope you had a great weekend...

Here is to a good week !!!! and hope that our a/c's can handle the heat....

stay cool !!!

Carri

Morning !!! Oh Ladies my butt muscles and lower back muscles are really yelling at me today…last night me and my friend did water aerobics in her pool for about 45 mins and I am really feeling it today…it actually good be a lot worse …I just wanted to feel some muscle pain so I knew that I actually did something, haha ….we had fun, gonna do it again tomorrow night….maybe try every other night or so, schedule permitting…my suit is too loose in the boob area ( of course with this 34 lb loss my boobs are practically gone ) and go that was hard to keep up …might go after work tonight and see if I can find a nicer one on sale …

Peeked on the scale this morning and I am down another lb at 203 …getting so close !!!

My stomach is really growling at me this morning…I normally have a late snack at 8 every night but since we were at the pool working out I didn’t have anything after about 6:30 …it will probably be good for me to skip that and work out but I will just have to make sure I am eating enough ( and a lot of protein ) at dinner then.

Think me and a friend of mine here at work are gonna go and get a pedicure one day after work this week…my feet are really needing some attention and I LOVE pedicures…what woman doesn’t???? haha

Susie and Dee – Hi Girls !!! Hope you both are doing well ….102 here tomorrow and probably just as hot where you guys are , well at least Susie…so keep cool

Have a great day everyone !!!

Carri

Where my girls at ? LOL

Girls, we're home
What's up when home is a Paradise after being on a vacation..... We came back 2 hrs early for me to see my chiropractor. I was in a bike crash, a biker passing me drove into my front wheel spokes & it threw me across the pavement & I hit my complete right side incl. my head. Bloody knee, hip, elbow, shoulder (road rash) & bruised & maybe light concussion cause I got 8 dizzy spells/headaches/neck pain over 24 hrs w walking wobbly. Next day headaches were so bad I kept dozing off during the Bachelorette, but sounds like Emily forgave Ari; the promo last week made it seem like the dating he did was recent just to trick us into watching more tv drama I guess. I'm glad it was old drama, I hope he'll confess to Emily so they can put that dating to rest instead of being on her mind.
My chiropractor teased me today about not seeing a doc & ER about having a concussion, but I didn't want to mess up our trip w my ouches/cuts/bruises so I dug-deep to save our vaca & took some pills/band-aids to finish our vaca trip. I'm just p-off that he wrecked my bike (Giant hybrid $650) the spokes & gears r wrecked & has to go to a bike shop for repairs now.

Susie, save your calories for the island fudge shops & look for ferry discount tickets to the island We live about 2 hr south of Mackinaw City. I wish we were going to b home that week so you all could stop by for the day/night w us, we have camping reservations again those days. Phhfff 4 pds, not a big deal when so often it's water. In the summer I'm allll over the place week-to-week w my weight up & down within 1 pd to 4 pds, it's SUMMER & I just enjoy & I do miss several tops meetings. Susie I'm going to Fill-up a fridg shelf w salads & a veggie tray & salsa's & lo-salt toppings to keep myself from reaching for a bag of chips; plus make a fruity granita & put in the freezer/fruit slushies ready instead of a pop or to add to some vodka/rum for our guests & us. I know you don't eat meat, r you a 'vegetarian' (you drink & eat selectively w fish, etc. & cheese, etc.) or a 'vegan' (nothing from a living creature or their hides/skins, leather shoes, etc) I don't to b insensitive during posts. After the cartoon 'Finding Nemo' @ age 5 yr, my 7 yr babe will not eat any fish, not even tuna....But he enjoys eating fried/BBQ chicken & bacon, it's a complicated decision. Susie were you on the karaoke tv show contest a year or 2 ago, your pic reminded me of that Susie

Carri, mid 90*s here all this week, I like the low 80*s the best. on your continued Successes Each Day.... Go Girl it's Happening because YOU want This to be Your REALITY you Are getting your former body back & you Deserve this you've Worked Hard for Your Results never forget your 'protein + carbs + fiber' to keep your energy levels up & calorie/fat burning this summer & not have a 'crash & binge', cause I want to see you in a size 10-16 @ Christmas time we know you Can do this

Mandy I hope that your move to Texas is going smoothly

Hugs to all, pool time again, helps my ouchies heal..... Dee

Doing the Happy Dance because Carri and Dee are back!

Carri: You are so close..and so since you are "so close you can taste it", think about that "taste" instead of whatever you want to put in your mouth that isn't with-in your calorie range or eating plan for the day.

I was really excited to hear you started exercising and water aerobics is a great exercise! and for pete's sake woman! go get a new bathing suit...you deserve it after a 34 lb loss!

Dee: I am bummed that you were in a accident! I am sorry to hear you had to deal with all of that. I know you aren't ok..but I'm glad you are ok..meaning alive! Serious injuries happen to bikers all the time.

I wish you were going to be close when I am in MI but such is life I guess.

So, here's the scoop on me and being a vegetarian. I do not eat anything that breathes or has blood in it when you kill it, so, no chicken, no red meat, no pork, no seafood. I do eat eggs as long as they are boiled or in a omlet and I drink milk.

For me it's all about the texture and me thinking about what it is...flesh..and I just can't do it. There is on reason other than it just grosses me out to digest it. It doesn't bother me that others eat it around me. So, I'm not sure what sort of vegetarian I am...I just know I don't eat meat.

Good Afternoon Ladies …having a good day so far …guess what ? And this is cool …today we had a Health Fair at our work and one of the ladies from The Biggest Loser came and spoke to us, Marci Crozier …I loved her on the show and she is a GREAT public speaker, so inspiring…she talked a lot about her daughter Courtney who was also on the show, it was just a great thing to get to hear her talk. I was really surprised they got her.

So that is how I started off my morning ….Girls !!! It is going to be 105 here today !!!! OMG !!!! Tonight I am going to do my water aerobics again with my friend Tammy …as hot as it is I am sure the water will be very warm and not very cool and refreshing, haha …

I brought my lunch today because with it being so hot I didn’t want to get out at lunch …

Dee – Ya know I haven’t had a lot of people say much to me about my weight loss, and it does surprise me, I mean 35 lbs is a lot of damn weight !!!
Lol …I did have something pretty cool happen though, the other night when me and my friend were doing our exercises in the pool her daughter and her boyfriend showed up for a visit, I was self conscience about being in front of them in a suit of course, but he came around the corner and saw me and yelled “Holy sh*t you have lost a lot of weight !!!” and it made me feel SO good about myself for a while that I totally forgot about being in a revealing bathing suit. My dh says something once in a great while, I usually have to drag it out of him though…he better get better about that real quick ! And I will be in a size 12 or smaller by Christmas…possibly 10!!!
I’m sorry that you got hurt on your bike, glad you are feeling better.

Susie – I did go out and buy a suit at Target last night on sale for 45.00 , it was one of those suits that was supposed to suck it in at all the right places, however it was so darn tight I couldn’t even breathe in it …so I am taking it back, it was the largest one they had at XL so I cannot exchange it , nor would I want to, too uncomfortable the way it was made. I did find an older one I had and liked last night but it doesn’t have any bra cups in it and normally I don’t care about that but my nips were showing really well in it, and that I don’t care for ( Dee what can I put in their or sew in their quick to cover the girls? Haha ).
I hear ya on the meat thing, thankfully dh cooks most of our meals because I have a problem with raw meat and preparing it, so much so that I have often thought of swearing it off, but I love my steak too much.

Praying that all of our a/c unit’s make it thru the heat this week …as far as the 10 day outlook for weather it still shows low to mid 90’s…guessing it is going to be a really hot and dry Summer …

Have a great day girls !!!!

Carri

Morning Girls, did another workout in the pool last night, stepped up the intensity this time…did more of the running in place in the deeper water…my thighs were really feeling it…hoping for a good loss this week. It was 103 when we went out there and you could barely breathe it was so steamy…but the pool was so cool because they had just filled it some…we are going to do it again either tomorrow or Sunday evening probably.

With it being so hot it is really the only exercise you can do outside right now

I tell ya though it is wearing me out, my body isn’t used to so much activity, I have been sleeping like a rock and its been hard to get out of bed for work in the morning…I know it will get better though

Dee – is it me or did your post from yesterday disappear ? The one about me and the bathing suit question.

Susie – Hi ya !!! Happy Friday !!!!!

So needless to say I am glad it is Friday and CANNOT wait to sleep in tomorrow, my body really needs it. Tonight after work I am going to go and return the suit I bought to Target that didn’t fit and try to get another one. Avenue is having 60% off all their swimwear right now so I will probably go there.

See ya girls !!

Carri