[carla49]

Shad, yes my Roomba is a robot vac. I think it'll work a lot better once it's dug down thru the many, many layers of cat hair and what have you. Today the poor thing just wore itself out, and there was still half my little condo to do. I was careful to pick up the cat toys first; I think Zen just feels a manly responsibility to protect us girls from potentially vicious machinery.
Have you gotten past the post-trip bloat yet? Maybe it was the change in diet after all that healthy food in Japan?

Mez, sorry to hear about your friend. I know what an empty place our old friends leave when they go, even if we rarely see them.

Derry, a friend of mine (formerly fat and out of shape, now fantabulous)trained for a sprint triathlon last year, and she had a calendar with special stickers for swimming, running, and biking. She said even though she knew it was silly, it was motivating.....

Curly, still motoring along, back up above her daily hour again. A woman of few words, no doubt too busy knocking off those challenges to blether on like some of us.

Well, tonight was my spinning class. An hour of tuchus torture. I'm so far behind everyone else in the group, fat and out of shape. And yes, I know that I'll never get back IN shape unless I go and humiliate myself this way. I'm just having a very quick little pity party here. Day 6 of CREAK over with. Day 5 of DETOX also done with. It was interesting while I was spinning, almost as if I had two independent trains of thought going on. The voice with the little halo and wings was full of resolve, absolutely determined to get super-serious and not just drop wine and chocs but set a calorie limit and stick to it and melt back to a normal size. The other one, the one with the pitchfork , was busy planning to go to Wendy's for dinner after class. You'll never guess who won... (But I only had the burger, no fries.)

I invented (?) a tasty way to eat more apples today: I put half a pack of instant oatmeal in the bottom of a bowl, then sliced 2 apples over it, then some cinnamon and a tbsp of maple syrup, and into the microwave on hi for 2 minutes. Yummm. Instant apple cobbler. (I think it would work as well and be even healthier with regular oats, of which I have none right now.)

Tomorrow I'm flying off until Saturday for work. And I'm not taking the laptop, so may not be in touch. But I will take my workout duds, and hope to use the hotel gym.

[mezmerize]

Shad – I made a snack out of your breakfast of yogurt and almonds. Very yummy! Thanks for the idea.

Linda – Thank you!! Your post touched me deeply and I’m finding it hard to express my gratitude! (((HUGS)))

carla49 – Thanks I really needed that hug! I feel that her death is really hitting me right now and the kind words/advice is so wonderful!! I would like to write more but am having a hard time just know how thankful I have to have such wonderful friends.
((Lots of hugs and to you all!!))

[icedragon6669]

Hi Guys!

STEALTH CHALLANGE!!! thats hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

Yes RED i was nearly 300 and hated myself oh so much! but lost is all, and gained some back (to 214) so this time I am here to do it properly.. healthily... (last time was a desperate starvation of 4 months! )
I am tall so at 194 I am actual not too bad ! only 24 to go! to get my BMI under 25! Although at that weight my mother threatens to move in to feed me, becaus i am seriously underweight to her ideal! I am very pear shaped! So in head shots I look fine... LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

Mez - I am sorry about you hearing about your friend!

Carla - your apple , oatmeal sounds nice, I think I am gonna have to try that!

Red - Fair suck of a sav???????????? what the??????????? i am aussie and know a lot of slang, but NO it that is not typical aussie slang?????????? All the others are pretty typical!We do have a lot of slang, i must admit, though to us it is normal! so most do not even really realise it is only slang! Australian and American English are way different! we still spell colour not color! and we say can't (car-n-t NOT can-t) or past (p-ar-st, not p-ast), I think it is hilarious when I watch Oprah or DR Phil or Springer and an aussie stands up in the audience, and the whole set just goes quiet!!!!!!!
A boss of mine at work is american, and we pay him out when he says he is going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!! that to us is funny! (i suppose like vegemite to you). You will find aussies love the american way of speaking and vise versa , because each is so different.
But then my teeth are floating..... (gotta go to the dunny!!! LOL!)
see ya'll..
sonja

[Apple Blossom]

My dog would go absolutely nuts if a Roomba was roaming around my carpet. He has a strong herding instinct...
Just a quick check in....tomorrow will be day one. Here are the rules:
Sit-ups
arm weights
no eating after dinner
I think I'll try one week of 1500 cals too. Did someone mention there's a thread for one week challenges?
See everyone tomorrow!

[Shad]

Day 5 is done.

Good food,
Good exercise,
Water not so great but passable. I'll do better with that tomorrow.

Day is done. Time to shower and get organised for tomorrow. Clear the kitchen, lunches, ironing, bit of ordinary vacuuming, and I'm done for the day.

Fair suck of the sav seems to come mostly in North and Outback Queensland. Must admit I have never heard it in Melbourne. It really is old aussie.

Glad you liked the yoghurt idea Mez. I like it with sultanas and nuts as well. The banana or sultana seem to just take the edge of the natural set yoghurt which can sometimes be a bit on the sharp side. I've also tried it with dried apricots and walnuts. Yummy.

Right shower - can't stand myself any longer.

[derrydaughter]

Good to read lots of you are making such progress. Today is day 2 for me and I shall do my movement/exercise thing and smile while I think of you all.
I want one of those Roomba things too, I have two cats and I do wonder if they would ever get used it it wandering about? My darling husband would laugh at me for saying I want one of those and here I am posting a chart to do activity on the refrigerator and giving myself gold stars for movement. In his view, I could just vacuum every day and resolve it all I'm sure!
Mez, I am thinking of you and I know you need to do something to make yourself feel good about your friend. It reminds us all that really communicate and SEE those we care about and love as one never knows how much time we all have left.
Take time all amidst your day to day busy lives to contact one of those people who you always put off contacting as you are too busy and will get to it "one day". You'll be glad you did!
Linda

[redballoon]

Heh there, all! Great to see some action around here. I'm on Day 5 of my challenge here and so far have had a great day! I just got back from the gym, where I jogged out a fast 5K. I cycled there and back and was almost not going to go because I didn't have time to do any more than that, but I went and I'm so glad I did!

A coworker is trying to lose some weight by the end of December when he goes home to Ireland and yesterday he was asking me what's the quickest way to get the fat off. I told him to do lots of cardio. I told him I wanted to knock off 2 kgs by Dec. 7 when I'm supposed to go to H.K. So, that little talk stoked my competitive nature (something I have come to acknowledge in my later years) and fueled my trip to the gym today! Let's hope I can keep this up. I was thinking that a couple years ago, when my weight was a good 4 kgs less despite the fact that I had a lot more muslce, I would jog 5 K four or five times a week, AND do heavy weight workouts. I was eating more but not that much more, so it was no wonder I could maintain a lower weight. Oh well, this is the price I pay for being short!

Speaking of short NOT.....ice, way to go on that weight loss! And, I understand about the pear shape. My face is always thin and people don't think I have excess fat on me unless they see all of me, and even then, I always wear baggy clothes so they can't be sure, like in the gym...I guess it would be cool to be tall and okay at 194. Wow, I could eat so much, probably. But, being short has its advantages, especially in Japan.

Fish -- Good luck on your new challenge and congratulations on the swearing-in. Did you get there on time?

carla -- You sound like you're doing great on your challenges! I'll miss you while you're in Calgary. Wish you could post. When will you be back? You had me laughing early this morning when I read your post where you described me as a "pretty strong, direct, don't f***-with-me kind of woman" Yes, I suppose, some people would use those words. They may just shorten it to something starting with a "b" and ending with "tch" though. Oh, yes, this higher-up (really not a concept in my mind...) is either yella or something worse. We tend to call him much worse. Oh, yes, and "male idiot"....aren't you being rather redundant? Well, I took your advice and Shad's and did put the pride aside, by sending back a short email saying I was willing to help and he should tell me more. Well, he send me more specifics and it sounds like the money is better than I expected so that's good. Apparently it wasn't him seeking my help actually. He said someone else in the section asked him to ask me....when I heard that I wanted to shoot back something nasty but I restrained myself...it was hard!... and, after writing out little nasty things, cut them back out and sent the message. Sigh. There is no making up with this guy I think. He is always playing the vague, disappearing act, use you and screw you and come slinking around for more...doesn't sound like a professional relationship, does it? Speaking of slinking and such....I was thinking you were writing me some sort of Zen koan before, till I remembered Zen was your cat. Cool! Then again, maybe it is a koan, from Zen. Cooler! I will ask my furries to interpret for me.

As for unions, it's nothing very big. Just us foreigners getting together and trying to act scary at the paper. There is a parent union that helps though and various companies who hire a lot of foreigners, mostly the English school chains and the newspaper have started unions. We can't do all that much because there is really not much of a legal system. Most trials would take years. But the union has forced the company to at least act a little more transparent and to think twice about pay cuts or cutting out the bonuses. I, however, being a parttimer, benefit zero from it all, but I joined for solidarity's sake. However, this show of force on my part has probably done more to hurt me, as what the company is doing is hiring a bunch of scabs and spineless foreigners, the kind who we call "illiterate editors," who will work for peanuts and a word of appreciation for a job poorly done, which is about all they are capable of doing. One incompetent patting another on the back. Everything's dandy. Don't know why circulation's dropping!?!?! Ah, like duh!!! Sigh again.

carla, the voices in your head are interesting. You better not discuss this too much with your friends. Perhaps we should start calling you sybil. You also remind me of a coworker who yesterday was sitting there eating his lunch that he had packed all neatly in a little lunchbox from home. He was telling me how the theme the previous day had been "leftover rhapsody" but today it was some sort of "serenade." I said, hmm, interesting, and asked if he heard music playing. He said he did.

mez -- Ah, mez.. you get the new smilie, you poor thing. I am so sorry to hear of your friend's death. Mez, other than the natural grief you feel about losing her, don't feel bad about not seeing her while she was ill. Many people don't want others to know when they are ill, especially terminally ill. This may have been the case, that she didn't want you to see her like she was. She may well have wanted all but the people caring for her to remember her as she was, as you remember her. This was likely her wish. There is no reason for you to be soul searching. How could you have known?

Shad -- thanks for the slang. Wow. Kiwi sounds like another language! I'll have to start using "hua" at the office more! How do you pronounce that? As you can read up by carla, I took your advice and have more or less buried the hatchet. I didn't even mention anything. The hatchet may be buried but I know what the guy is capable of. There are sad awakenings, the death of innocence, ah, sweet innocence, sweet, that is, until that first cut...
Actually, the pride part was work related and the reason for a lot of the words that came between us...more accurately, a lot of the *****ing I did back when I was working with him. The paper is being run these days by a bunch of bureaucrats and salesmen, none with any journalistic sense whatsoever. They are sacrificing the paper to bought copy and naturally circulation is dropping. They also are weeding out anyone with an inkling as to what makes a newspaper interesting and this includes most of the foreigners. There seems also to be an us-against-them mentality (as in Japanese vs. foreigner) that has taken hold over the years. Very sad, but I think it has something to do with the poor economy. Anyhow, this was the reason for a lot of the dissatisfaction on my part and no doubt the dissatisfaction on his. In any case, I can do a little work for him, keep my name off the stuff and just take the money and run!

derry -- I'm so glad to hear that you've gone out and made up that calendar with stars and all. It sounds like a lot of fun and I think I'll try to make something to, to record my exercise like I did today. Good for you on your first star!! You're shining!

curly -- Quiet curly. Moving right along on her challenge.

Apple -- Looking good! Good luck on your new challenge! Yes, there's a thread for week challenges. It's always on the first page of the support groups forum. Some others from her post there too. Don't worry. I won't get mad. I may shed a few tears though....

[Shad]

Geez I go and edit my post and there are two others there as well.

Red, good to hear that you've got the work sorted. Who cares where it comes from - the money in the bank is all the same colour at the end of the day. Glad to hear the competitive side is coming out over the weight loss before Christmas bit. The other day someone asked me what was the easiest way to lose 10 kilos in a month. I told them to chop off an arm. I am so over people trying to do this in a hurry, trying to harm themselves and their metabolism by not eating, not eating regularly, not exercising and expecting the fat to just vaporise! Pouffffff. It would be nice if we could just dream it away. No such luck.
Carla is going to Calgary for the stampede? They may all stampede off in the other direction when she gets there!! Oooops sorry Carla.

Hua is pronounced who-aa. Long a - definitely not an 'at' sound. I use Maori frequently when I want to have a good old sound off. I can stand in front of the hua who annoyed me and with a huge smile on my face - tell him of his pedigree, his little wotsit, his lack of brain, his whatever else takes my fancy and tell him where to go, when to go, what to do whilst there and how to get there and what to put up it or in it or over it. And the b*stard has no idea what I am talking about. I have a twisted sense of humour.
There is a lot in this world which has slipping standards. I get it in my job all the time. Spare money on a good trainer and expect the user to learn by osmosis. The system gets garbage in it and the trainers in general are blamed for not teaching the users how to use. A friend of mine got sent to Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton last week to train the Power company users in SAP Plant Maintenance. Each worker was given 1 hour of training and is now expected to know his new job and the new computer system and keep the power flowing. Bullsh*t is what I say.

Linda good advice there on your post.

That shower won't wait any longer.

[redballoon]

Well, me too, I didn't see the two posts before my last one because they came in while I was sending mine.

Man, I am guzzling water here. Haven't done that in a while now. Just shows how little I am sweating in the winter without hitting the gym. It feels good to be so thirsty! I feel like I've accomplished something!

Well, to all you Japanophiles out there, today was the wedding of Princess Norinomiya, now to be called Sayako as she is no longer royalty but has been thrown to the masses and demoted to...gasp...commoner!

Linda -- I agree with Shad. Good advice there on the communication. I need to remember that especially as I get so busy and only end up writing to a few people and posting on here. Good going with your challenge and I'm cheering you through Day 2! I just went out and bought some little round dots. They didn't have any stars. I don't know what I'll do with 'em, but I'll start sticking them on the calendar I guess to indicate riding, jogging, weight training and maybe an OK challenge day. That way, even if I restart, I can see all the good days I had nonetheless. They too are important.

Shad -- Good going with you too! Day 5 down! The Aussie I asked at work yesterday about the sucking thing...wow, did that get a look from him!! ... is from Perth, so that would figure if he didn't know it. I hear you on the quick weight loss lament. "10 kgs in a month!?!?" Are they nuts? Yeah, right, amputation would be just about the only way. I am surprised at how many people still think starving the fat off is somehow commendable. Ok, a who-aye. Got it! Now to start using it. I like your innovative use of Maori. For me, however, I think I like to actually see them understanding me. It's more dangerous of course. The only time I don't do so is to Japanese running me down in the street on their bikes and so. Them I just call "jerk!" in English. Better than starting a fight, as they're not going to change anyhow....sigh. Sounds like you and I work for the same place? How'd we manage that?

[Shad]

Try who-a and not aye. As in I had a red balloon. Not a as in at or Japan, a as in ............. this is terrible, Americans always say a different from us. It's actually more like the first a in always rather than the second a. More of an aarr. Try thinking of fewer and then make it who-aar. That's the nearest I can get to it.

Does the Princess now get banished from the castle or is she allowed back to see Mumma with the eyebrows once in a while?

[redballoon]

Ok, got it. That's what I thought you were saying at first, then not. who-ah, we would write, I guess. Sounds like a bluegrass huha! The princess is not really banished. She can visit of course. She got a lot of money to soften the blow of having to become a commoner though. She does have to go live in an apartment. But I don't think it's a 1DK! (short for one room and a kitchen big enough to put a table in it, like what I have)

[curlylocks]

HAHA .. quiet? nah just hungry... i usually post when i get home after the gym in the evening and before dinner.... lol so i post real quick and then go in search of dinner!

[mezmerize]

Thanks once again for your support. I’m doing better this morning and have planned out what I’m going to do. It really feels good knowing that what I’m going to do will help her family and others.

Red – I believe your right about her not telling me she was sick. When I think of her I picture a tall slightly plump woman with very expressive eyes and for some reason I still picture braces even thought she got them off before we graduated. She really made the time pass in math we’d joke all the time. Or when I’d run into her shopping and we’d chat and end up lol til tears would come to our eyes. I’m sure that is how she’d like to be remembered.

[Apple Blossom]

I picture Al Pacino in that movie where he plays the blind guy...he says hoo-ah alot.

[gigiapril]

How does the challenge work? I am new to this thing...was wondering on how to get started.