Just to set the record straight, the Edmonton Oilers will rise like the phoenix in tonight's hockey game and CRUSH those American upstarts. Hurricanes? Ha! (tongue firmly in cheek - please hold all remonstrations...)

Had to work late -so I didn't make it to the gym (you can bet the daughter went without me - mostly to check out the guys!). Water has been good this week, I've managed to go over th 64oz everyday. I'm a huge coffee drinker and am trying to substitute water after the first cup instead of the constant cup of coffee. Hard time getting away from the desk but did manage a 2 mile walk during lunch.

Red - good luck on your goals! You've got so many & I'm still struggling to get a word for the week. I can't believe you are so far away! the lifestyle differences must mean a whole different set of obstacles than the rest of us -good luck!

and Sushi - exploring Australia! Can't even manage what thats like! What downtown where you headed for? Good luck to you to - finding your way today and drinking your water!

mscat - I like to watch for your word, hope you don't mind; I'm not to original. I really like unstoppable! i haven't explored much - but is the 21-day challenge another forum with challenges set by the moderator?

Hope all have a "moving" day!

Hi,

I'm new around here and looking for groups to join. I have 6 weeks until my 49th () birthday on July 25 and have a mini-goal to lose 10 pounds by then.

I've started the Slim in Six exercise video as of today [6day/wk for 6 weeks--it seemed to fit the bill] and am doing an 80's version of Weight Watchers.

Could somebody fill me in with how you do your challenge? I like the no-nonsense sound of your group!!

My word for my first day of this project: No Retreat, No Surrender!



Diana

Diana, to our little crew! If you go back to the first post of the thread, you'll find Mscat's clear explanation of our challenges. We all set our own goals, specific or general, and try to meet them. But there is no such thing as failure around here - just varying degrees of success.

So, Mscat, did I get that right?

Bonnie, I hope you didn't drown your sorrows in martoonis last night... or extra helpings of turkey stir fry. (Why do they call themselves "hurricanes"? Because they blow big time?) Let's hear it for the true north strong and free!!!

Well, gotta go. Time to sing "O Canada" now...

Hi Ladies - Wow - I am all tingly, INSPIRED and happy to see so much life in this thread!

Diana to our group! Carla did an outstanding job of summarizing our thread ( carla!) I love your challenge mantra - everything you are doing fits right in. We are happy to have you.

Bonnie Lass - 6 workouts in 10 days??? You are DA BOMB! Enjoy your celebrations You are not a monk - continue doing what you are doing - eating a little less than normal, limiting portions GO HURRICANES!

Tryin' Awesome job on getting that water in and squeezing that 2 mile walk in. You can Do it Again. Red is the hostess of the 21-day challenge - check it out! It's great especially for challenges you are trying to master (it takes 21 days to form a habit). You can borrow challenge words at anytime. However, you ARE original - there is only one of you and you are a magnificent creation, whole perfect and complete just as you are.

Carla - I LOVE your word - I might have to borrow that today. GO OILERS! Okay I am straddling the middle
Sushi you WILL do better today! You and I must be symbiotic - I didn't do great with water yesterday either. So let's affect each other's karma positively today - I am complete with 16 oz (50 ml?) and working on the second bottle now. How much can you get down by the next posting today?

Red - for being here - Your presence has made a profound difference in my life and I am sure in the lives of the others here Your goals are so inspiring and I love your "being" words. Being Calm, Collected and Aware can be very powerful -especially when we are focussing on our well being.

I met with a trainer at the gym last night - more than I can afford, but maybe what I save on junk food will make it a little easier! Exercise has never been a part of my vocabulary; so this is all new! I had to get on a scale and am happy to report I am back down to where I was before my GIANT step backwards! But, keeping with the Monday morning postings; I'll officially weigh in then and make the change on my signature. My words are that I am COMFORTABLE with my life-style change and CONFIDENT I can succeed!

Red - "being comfortable, calm and aware" is a fabulous way of describing it when you finally realize you are going in the right direction and will be successful!

mscat - I've looked at other forums and found the excuses for failing to be discouraging. You've really helped me focus on the successes no matter how small and not to look back - just keep moving on! Thank you!

Hi people. Just a little report here before I go out the door. I will probably be able to make 3 x at the gym, but not four, just because there are no more days. Still, I am going to walk more outside so that will help. Have two days done in the gym, along with two riding sessions. I stayed clear of cheese and deep-fried stuff 'cept for one thing... Let's see, what else, 21-day challenges are on track....I took the measurements but don't think I will post them here...worried about carla ...but I will be posting the losses from next week. As far as the little extras of exercises...well, it was only yesterday I didn't move around much. Will do that more today. The cleaning the area in the room...no, haven't done that...really it's much too involved and it's really annoying me. What I really hate is that my work involves NO movement. To me, it's like the entire day is wasted. I HATE sitting in front of a computer! Well, just wanted to report in...calm, awarel and collected I have been! It kind of seems to take the fun out of things...but only the stupid things...drunken nights in bars...a lot of it is only fun because you're drunk and when you're being "aware," well, you just can't have fun. Better off without that kind of fun!

Well, I'm off! Ciao tutti!!

Oh, Bonnie! Tonight (it's already Saturday here) could be it for the Hurricanes, right??!! carla, whaddya say? Oilers goin' to make 'em wait another game?

Just saying hi. Water was good on Monday and Tuesday, disastrous on Wednesday, better Thursday and Friday, but today it's downhill again. We went hiking, and for me it's really difficult to drink lots of water when I'm going to new places that might be a fair distance and in the middle of nowhere - and besides, I'm doing all the driving there, and I'm far from a confident driver, so I don't want the persistent need to go to the toilet to distract me from the road... and no, there aren't many stop-points along the highways, and most of the time we're on back country roads anyway...

Today I only drank a little bit of water and actually got a headache in the afternoon - typical for me when I'm dehydrated. So I'm doing what I can, hopefully I can have 2 bottles finished well before bedtime.

Sorry, I'm too tired to read up and respond to everything said... I've been having trouble falling asleep the past few days, and spent a good while jumping around rocks today, really tired. I'll catch up next time.

RedB: HOOT!!! You had me there, I was reading along wondering how all those women could be happy with their heinies......

Happy Weekend! Got my exercise video done already this morning and have the days meals planned out. I'm finding that having my birthday as a goal and having it be fairly soon is a goal that actually holds my interest. I guess I'm feeling cocky today--I'm even beginning to wonder how I'll reward myself on my birthday if I make the 10# loss!

I had a terrible time last night after work. Got so hungry I felt nuts and frantic so I broke my "no late night eating" goal and ate a baggie of pretzels so I could get past the FIVE late night drive-thrus with no damage. I did manage to make it home without a cheeseburger but it was dicey there for a while! Whew! That is my most awful habit and I need to break it. I guess it's good to keep emergency rations in the car for those occasions.

So today I get to stay home and work on the Father's day quilt. And try to stay on plan for the rest of the day.

Have fun today!! Diana

OK, it's Monday morning here and I am reporting in on last week's accomplishments....

GOAL REVIEW for LAST WEEK

1) Get to the gym AND train 4 times through Sunday.

Got there 3x, but also had a day with a long walk scheduled just for the exercise. Also rode twice.

2) Stay away from all deep-fried foods!

Ok here except for one transgression and not a huge one.

3) Go easy or totally abstain from cheese on my veggie stews and curries etc.

Yes, this was good!

4) Clean an area in my room for an exercise bike,

No, no time as usual...not upset about this in light of the other successes!

5) Take my measurements, record and post them here!

Done and am happy to report a 9-cm loss total over 8 measurements! How is that?!! I knew I had lost but if I hadn't taken them and written them down I would have nothing to gloat over! ALSO, my weight is down 1 kg to 72.6 kgs. I have a drinking date with a buddy at the gym that says when I break through 70 kgs we're drinking at the Irish pub!

6) Stay on track with my 21-day challenges

Yes, all days notched, NO pause days!!

7) Try to do little bits of movement during the day.

Well, this is hard to judge. I'd have to say I had only one somewhat slothful day and even then I did try to get out and walk around more than I normally would at lunch. So, OK!

********

AWARE, CALM and COLLECTED were my words...how did I do?

Got this one too....in fact, one night out in the pub I would have perhaps stayed on, but NO, thinking of my words, I did a steely (perhaps slightly wobbly) walk to the station and got the next-to-the-last train home! Yowzah!!! Also, during the week, instead of getting down about all the work ahead of me, I simply said, deep breaths, calm, collected!! AND, I stayed very aware of what was going in my mouth. The journaling from my 21-day challenge helped there a lot!!

Sorry ladies for being MIA - I didn't get a chance to post I was going out of town for the weekend and would have no internet access! Thank you to all of you for keeping things going. I love you Will post big and catch up with you tomorrow.

mscat

Hey ladies

Monday again... brrrr, it was so FREEZING in our room this morning... As I blabbled on another thread, my boyfriend's family has a strange (to me) habit of having the heating on during the day but off at night... and not having heating in the washrooms at all. Even if someone is up before me (hasn't been happening the past few days), our room still takes a while to get warm. Red, that reminds me, I forgot to answer on 21-day challenge - we do have a heater, but it's not smart or sophisticated enough to know to turn itself on half an hour before I wake up - and it's too backwards technologically to have an option like that built-in.

I think I didn't try hard enough with my water last week - there were a few days when I came close to meeting my goal of 3 x 600 mL but didn't push to actually meet the goal. And days when I drank very little water and didn't quite try to drink more.
So I'm continuing that challenge for this week, and I'm happy to say that Monday is a success - I'm well into my 4th bottle at the moment!
I'm also thinking of two more things - making an effort to get to bed earlier (this has improved a lot recently, but I'm far from satisfied) and having no treats/sweets/desserts other than fruit, vegetables and maybe nuts. I'm doing a "no chocolate" 21-day challenge and that's going great, but I there have been other occassional threats, and I'm interested in seeing whether forgoing those will make the scale go down. I'm very eager to get down to 58 kg/129 lb and claim my reward! Not sure if I mentioned this, but I decided to put a reward system in place, hoping that this will provide the boost and extra motivation which I've been struggling with over the last few months.
I'm even more eager to get down to 55 kg and get my second reward - my heart is set on getting it before I leave in Australia, and that's just 9 weeks away, so I better get cracking! And I better get moving, doing some real exercise real lots and real soon. Yesterday I found out, to my desmay, that my wonderful yoga classes won't be held for the next 2 weeks... It's school holidays here, and numbers always go down during holidays, and they won't be able to even break even. Sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. What sucks even more is that it's so HARD to do anything right now - it gets dark by 5:30-6 pm, doesn't get bright until 7:30 am, so I can't run outside at all (I have a new temp job, so daytime is out). All I have left is the awful stationary bike... Well, and the skipping rope...

Red, well done with your goals last week! I forgot to tell you that since we're almost a full day ahead, I do my weigh-in on "thread Mondays", not on actual Mondays - so on Tuesdays for me and you, when it's still Monday for everyone else, and this way it's the same day. That's what I do, but of course you're free to do your own thing.

Bonnie, don't leave us! I've had weeks, many of them, when I felt the way you're feeling right now - that there is no point participating in the thread if you can't do what you promise. Well, maybe it's time to scale back a bit, and declare some small, achievable challenge - something not too daunting, just to get yourself started again. Give it a go!

Trying, good luck with the personal trainer! I'm in Australia right now, have been since last September, but I'm going back to Can-land soon.

Mscat, come back!