Fran, congratulations on your 6 month anniversary! :cheer2:

Your photo looks great! Glad to know you've decided to focus more on the NSVs!
Cindy

Fran - you've been putting in the effort and it's really paid off! Terrific work! :cool:

Edited to add: food bad, exercise good. I'm hoping that food will follow once the exercise ball gets rolling again properly. It has in the past so it can again, can't it?

Mel, how are things going with your new food regime? Have you and DS got used to it? And is it a lot more work? I read your comment somewhere about working full-time, and making all food from scratch and all the rest ... :hug: We make most of our food from scratch here and it's a bit time-consuming. (That was a good example of traditional British understatement. :) )

Edited again to tell you that it's a cold, very clear night here. The stars are so bright and I've just popped outside to look at the lunar eclipse! :cool: I made sure I had my hat on and now I'm back by the fire!

Hi all! Just a quick stop bye to say hello, been a while. I've been over at the Featherweights and since time is limited, haven't checked here in weeks. Fran, you look fantastic! Congrats on the 6 month results.

Have been very faithful this past week with my workouts.... alternating days of heavy duty lower body, alternating w/ bi/back and tri/chest/shoulders. My cardio hasn't been what it should, but the snow got in the way, and I just don't do as long on the treadmill I have at home to feel it's really effective. But now that the weather's getting nice again, I've started my outdoor power walks. Today just did some floor lower body and then washed the car to get all the mud/slush/salt mess off. Figure that counts as another workout.

Hope everyone is well.

Susan

Mel, thanks for the advice. Yesterday I figured out a similar thing for my shoulder. I was noticing that doing push ups I am putting about 75% of my weight on my right shoulder so I tried a one handed wall push up with just my left hand. It worked. I will go try the one legged stand ups right away. Thanks alot.

5k is without daughter in the morning. Its my little alone time. I have never been able to run and it is thrilling to be able to do it. I have great hills which gives my legs a bit of a workout too which is an added bonus.

Hi Chickies! :wave:

I've had the BEST weekend and just had to share!

Friday night my DH and some friends and I went to a performance by Les Ballet Africains the national ensemble of the Republic of Guinea. They were here at the University of MN for one night only. It was such an amazing show. They had about 8 musicians that played a variety of drums, flute, xylophone, and these gourd guitars. The troup had about a dozen dancers, male and female. They performed traditional dance, music, acrobatics and storytelling through song but not in English in their native language. They were wonderful and if you ever hear of them coming to perform near you I'd highly recommend seeing them. One thing my friend and I noticed was the women! They were so graceful, athletic, strong, and they had NORMAL body fat! It was wonderful to see these strong amazing women that in no way fit the "stick skinny ballet dancer" paradigm. They were gorgeous. It was so heartening to see them creating all this magic with healthy normal bodies.

Today we went snowshoeing along the creek from Minnehaha Falls down to the Mississippi river. It was a blast. The sun was shining and the snow was so deep! It was wonderful! We "shoed" along the river and then watched three loony men water skiing behind a boat on the river! They were having so much fun. I can't imagine (1) water skiing this time of year in Minnesota - the wind chill alone on your face would get me; (2) skiing in a dry suit - there's no way those were wet suits with the water that cold they'd have to be dry suits and if you've ever worn a wet suit compared to a dry suit, I'd take the wet suit any day; (3) water skiing this time of year period! If you fell in that water even a dry suit wouldn't be good enough for me! After snow shoeing we climbed up to look at the frozen water falls. You can walk behind the falls where the water has carved away the limestone. It's beautiful. The ice is a bright blue like the glaciers you see on TV. It was so fun.

Oh, and I had two great NSV's! (1) I had to buy women's M snow pants because the men's XL that were skin tight on me last year are now so big they actually fell off while I was walking! and (2) My size twelve jeans are so dang big that they were sliding down the whole time we were hiking. If it hadn't been wearing my new snow pants over my jeans they would have been at my knees! :carrot:

It was a WONDERFUL day! Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Beth :D :D :D :D :D

Good Morning LWL:

Beth: It sounds like you really did have a great weekend. The show sounds fantastic. And congratulations with the new snow pants. It still amazes me what a difference a year can make.

It's going to be a busy week for me. I already know it's coming. Over the weekend my younger brother was killed in a car accident. He turned 23 last month. The next few days I'm going to my father's home for services. I am getting a workout in this morning and I don't think I will be able to get the next one in until Friday. I could use a little break for a few days anyway.

On the upside, my knee if feeling pretty good and I'm hoping to get a good run in later this month.

Lydia, my dear, I'm so sorry. That is terrible news. :hug: :hug: I'll be thinking of you all week. Do take care as you go. :hug:

Lydia,

I am so very, very sorry about your brother. Please know that my prayers are with you and your family. I am truly sorry for your heartbreaking news. :hug:

Jo

Oh Lydia :hug:

Lydia,
I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. I'm thinking of you. Take care.

Rabbit

I've been majorly slacking :)

DH and I went to an adventure travel expo this weekend. It was pretty interesting. I bought a book on Costa Rica and had it signed by Arthur Frommer (from Frommer's travel guides) who was at the expo. I talked to him and he seems like a really nice guy. DH and I got lots of ideas on local things to do as well as foreign future trips.

I have been in a non exercise funk but I'm trying to get over that. I like exercise when I'm doing it but when I stop for a short period of time, it is hard to start up again.

Hey all - happy Monday!

Lydia - so sorry to hear about your brother :hug:

I had a so-so weekend - we went out to dinner Saturday, and I was not good. I'll confess in the confessional, where it belongs. Then, as a result, yesterday was a "crave day" - I wanted to eat all day long!

Luckily the scale was steady this am, so didn't show any evidence of my sins :crossed:

I did hit mile #100 this weekend, so I was pretty happy about that! I am a bit behind schedule to make my 500 in time for the wedding, but I'm pretty happy about what I've accomplished so far, so in the spirit of the goal, things are right on track.

You gals have a great one - I'm running behind this am!
Cindy

Oh, Lydia, I'm so sorry about your brother! I can't even imagine what this must be like for you.

Beth

Oh Lydia, I am so sorry too. What a tragedy. take care of yourself and your family.:hug:

Hello all. :) Well it has been quite some time. I just checked, my last post was October 30! :yikes:

Lydia, I am so sorry. :hug: Such devastation, I can’t even imagine.

Fran – Congrats on 6 months, your progress pix look great!

So much has happened since I was last here, but I am back now because I desperately need to get back on track! We moved into our new apartment which has been coming together nicely, our dog has adjusted to the move and climate change pretty well, I ended up working a temp job for about three months and have been in my new permanent job for a couple of weeks now, and Jason and I got engaged last week. :woohoo: Phew! In the midst of all this the exercise and healthy eating has been hit and miss to put it mildly. Let’s just say the land of beer and cheese and winter has not been making this easy, and I’ve been having trouble figuring out how the gym is going to make it into my new schedule. But the great thing about personal fitness is you can always start over, so here we go (again)! Now that I’ve got my wedding to plan for (and plan to look great at!) I’m going to restart my food journaling and am going to have a go at the at home workout thing since I think that will be easier than trying to get to a gym regularly right now. I picked up some free weights and have my yoga gear and stability ball. When it gets nicer outside I’ll pick up the running again, right now I plan to go with kickboxing and look into some other forms of at home cardio that don’t involve a machine. Any suggestions? Looking forward to restarting this journey with all you fabulous ladies!