#293 Bale of Turtles Working It!
 

:carrot: :welcome3: We are the Turtle Group here at www.3fatchicks.com. We welcome you to join us as we work toward good health and fitness in a persistent manner. As our inspiration, we use the race between the turtle and the hare where the turtle was the victor because he didn't give up. We believe in keepin' on by using the skills and techniques we have learned from experience to keep us on track. We believe in giving each other support. Good luck.
Itryharder
Judy
(for Lin and Lauren)

Hi Turtles,
there is still plenty of time to lose a few pounds between now and Halloween.
That will be our first official challenge of the autumn. Let's keep on using our skills to drop some pounds.

Any good new ideas for food?
Judy
234.6/201/199 and thinner :cool:

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend... I managed to overeat again and had a large gain at WW on Saturday, so dissapointed in myself!

I don't have any great ideas for food Judy but if I think of anything I will let you know!

Bandit hope you are doing well!

Hi Turtles,
I had a wedding over the weekend. I did really well, but just not well enough to lose any weight. Need to exercise!

Bandit and Princess and Cherry and all................good to hear from you any time. Chime in.

Judy
234.6/202/199 and thinner :cool:

Hi Turtles,
I did lose a pound this week, so I am :bravo: happy.

Judy
234.6/201/199 and thinner :cool:

Happy Monday all!

Busy weekend but I got my exercise in, did not make it to WW on Saturday though since I had to work at my second job so just did not have enough time, the following weeks weigh in was not good so I am kind of leary about going anyway :)

Great Job Judy on your loss!

Hi Turtles,
Princess, glad you got your :exercise: in! Weigh to go. You are busy.

Let's keep on doing this bit by bit. We can do this.
Judy
234.6/201/199 and thinner :cool:

Its good to see the posts from everyone. Judy good job on the weightloss. Princess keep on keeping on. Bandit good to hear from you. I can't seem to get myself heading in the right direction. I guess I get frustrated with myself because I have been here and done this before. Sometimes I have trouble finding that kickstart that gets me going in the right direction. I try to just keep moving forward.
The

good to hear from Cherry, Bandit, and Princess.
All I can say are the things we've heard before.
Keep on Keepin' on.
Baby steps
one day at a time, one pound at a time.

I continually disappoint myself, but if I don't keep on trying where would I be?
I may rejoin the weekly sessions at WW's. The leader there is terrific.
If I learn anything , I'll let you Turtles know.
good luck to all of us!
Judy

Hello Turtles. I'd like to join up again; I was a member a few years ago, got all the way to goal and then ten pounds below to 130, my personal goal (right in the exact middle of the weight range rec's for my height and age.) Then I got sick -- stomach pain so severe that a fast paced walk hurt -- and I got married -- I was at about 150 for a while but managed to put on 10 pounds in the last two months, between a career-changing opportunity that was great, but left me in another country, living out of a hotel with few food choices, no microwave and no fridge. I could have made better choices and handled it better but I cannot change the past, only the future.

So I am here, to make a commitment and I'd like to join you ladies again to give and get moral support. I AM NOT GOING ALL THE WAY BACK. Not now, not ever. So this has to stop now.

With that in mind, I am taking it one day at a time and then one week at a time. My goals right now are tracking and gym 5x a week. My first gym "Date" is tonight. I will also post my tracker here today because tracking is my biggest weakness. So please, if I don't post it here, please poke me if it occurs to you.

I hope you all are having a good day.

Quick update -- made it through an hour at the gym, at slower than my normal pace, but still, made it to the end -- while jetlagged (it usually takes me 3 days to recover from 7 to 8 hour time difference and I'm only on day 2). Having an interesting tv show to watch on my ipod helps tremendously, time goes much faster when I am watching Dexter or The Closer. :) I must try and keep those shows queued up on my ipod for gym visits, going to be visiting a lot more. :)

Only have six points left for today but I am tracking so I'll take it as a win.

Ariana- Good to "see" you again. I am kinda in the same boat. Lost all the weight and due to meds for stomach issues have gained some back. I refuse to go back where I was to. Great job on making it through your gym date.

Hello to bandit, princess, and judy.

Ariana, :welcome3: So glad to see you here again. Giving and getting support is the "weigh" to go. So smart to stop the gain now and work on getting it off.
Cherry, see above! Lol. So glad to see both of you here. We can all use that extra boost.
For me, it's been a very trying year. I haven't gained much, but let's face it..................I'm far from goal and the idea is to lose much!!!!

I did a great thing last week. I realized a dear friend of mine is babysitting early in the morning in my neighborhood. Since my dh hasn't been able to make time to walk and since I lacked motivation to walk by myself, an :idea:
came to me. Now my friend and I are walking for about 25-30min. each morning after she gets the little guy she's watching on the school bus.
Success! Of course, walking makes me feel as though I need to watch what I am eating more closely. I call this a win-win.

Best of luck to all of us. We can do it. We just need to believe it!
Judy

CherryAutum and Judy thank you for the warm welcome; it's sweet of you to remember me, I remember you guys too. :)

Cherry, it's good to know I have company, even if it's a club neither one of us wishes to belong to...! But we will win this battle. I have discovered one of the culprits of my stomach pain and although the resolution is "move to England permanently" there may be other places that work too and for the time being, I am limiting my diet to vegetarian + chicken and turkey and that seems to help. I didn't use to have this grumpy of a stomach, but....

Thanks for the kind words on making the gym. :)

Judy, kudos on the walking! Exercising can definitely bring your mind around to watching what you eat and it helps reduce stress levels, etc. -- you know all the details, the hard part is getting going, I understand!

Update on me --
Monday Journal -- Starbucks short soy latte (2), Sbucks Oatmeal + Sugar and Fruit (7), Frozen Lunch (7), 12 now/laters (4), 2 tsp oil(2), 1c soy milk(2), amy's mac (11). Total -- 37.
Tuesday Journal -- Coffee with Creamer (1), WW Bfast Sandwich (6), Fritos (9), Small French Fry (6), 6" Turkey + Mayo + Olives (10) + Baked Chips (4) and Soy Milk (2) and Dessert (2). Total -- 40.

Neither of these are great days but I tracked, and that's all I'm shooting for right now. I will target gradually reducing how far I am over flex points until I can get down to my real daily target (26) + FP.

I didn't go to the gym yesterday but Rosie (my wife) and I picked up some e-juice for our e-cigarettes (zero nicotine for most days, with nicotine for crisis situations), which will help me fight the urge to munch and I picked up some wonderful (and expensive) tea at teavana. My game plan is to switch gradually to just tea (I can drink my favorite teavana teas without sugar, so yay, zero points caffeeine!) and use the e-cigs to combat the initial urge to munch.

The gym and I have another date tonight. I am EXHAUSTED already (jetlagged still) but I am going to do at least 15 minutes at the gym. If I can do no more, at least I tried. If I can do more, awesome -- sometimes the hardest part is walking in the door and after 15 minutes it all seems much more do-able.

Hope you ladies are having a great day.

Hi turtles - lots of posting, which is great.
Ariana - welcome!

Glad everyone seems to be focussed & doing their best.
Busy times up here & glad trailer is closed up for the season & my
home yard is pretty good. Hopefully did the final grass cutting last weekend & raked tons of leaves as well.

Heading off for my vacation this Sun for a week in Punta Canta in Dominican so looking forward to that. My grandson took his first steps Tues evening so that was very exciting.

Lost 2# each week for past 2 weeks & have w/I tonight but am feeling like the scale will be up abit. Planning on doing some extra swimming/walking on vacation.

All - good luck at the scales!

Bandit, congrats! :bravo: :love: :cheer: :exercise:

This is great news!!! Keep up the good work and enjoy your vacation. Aren't you lucky that your grandson is nearby and you can watch all the cute things he does.

Turtles,
I rejoined WW's. I felt I could use the social connection. So far, so good.
Plan is to be very careful today and use some extra points on Sat. for my dh :hb:.

Best wishes to all of you. We can do this one day at a time!
Judy
234.6/201/198 and thinner :cool:

Ariana, aren't we supposed to ask you what your menu is today? I'm asking.
How are you doing?

I went to WW last week as a "friend", then I joined again. My first WI was yesterday. I was very high on the scale since we had eaten out the night before. Hoping for a good WI this upcoming Wed.

Cherry Autumn, if you see this, go to your private messages. I am going to leave a message there for you.

Everybody have a good week and chime in when you can. I have a friend to walk around the blocks here. It's about 1 1/2 miles and that's a good place for me to start.

Good luck and keep on keepin' on!
Judy
234.6/?/199 and thinner :cool:

Ariana, aren't we supposed to ask you about your menu? I am asking. Good luck and write back.

Things going well here. I rejoined WW's and had my first WI yesterday.
I haven't been hungry which is very weird for me, but I'll take it and run.

Cherry Autumn, if you see this, check your private messages. I am going to leave something there for you to see.

Judy

I didnt see anything in the private messages. Sorry Judy.
Hello to bandit, princess, and ariana.

Judy, you are. I'm doing a bad job of tracking, working out and checking in... so. I've been under a lot of stress and I had 7 days of continuous tracking and then it went sideways.

I think for the next few days I'm going to focus on trying to check in every day and start tracking as of tonight.

To get things started - I don't know the points for everything yet but this is what I've had so far today --
Breakfast, Starbucks Peppermint Mocha, 4 shots of espresso, with whip (about 8-10 pp) + Hot Oatmeal (5pp)
Lunch, 1 piece of original or thick crust dominos (it was a screw up, they just said it wasn't thin crust and gave it to us)
Snacks, 2 snack size reese's pumpkins (2pp ea), 3 mini oranges

My stress this week has been a continuation of the stress that knocked me off the wagon and which I allowed to drive me to gain 20 pounds in about 3 months. I am working on the biggest career opportunity of my life, a project which I can't talk about yet because it hasn't come out yet! But suffice it to say the project is very complex, and the deals for it very expensive.

What started out as a 4-person project because a 1 person project until about 2 weeks ago, where I gained a second person for a small chunk of the work. I've been working 60-70 hours a week. For 7 of the last 12 weeks I lived in a Holiday Inn Express in a business park in Cambridge England. I worked 10-12 hour days, had no car (I was afraid to drive on the wrong side of the road), no fridge, no microwave.

As a result of a bad situation, stress and my OCD "need" to make dinner the last thing I do each day I ate a lot of pizza and drank too much (not alcoholism too much, but more than my usual limit of 1-2 drink nights a week, with 2-3 max drinks a week, so, say, 4-5 drinks a week sometimes?) I slept badly and drank a lot of sweetened coffee to get by and made bad decisions. I walked to work almost every day but I made up for it by eating junk at lunch and dinner.

So. Now I have this project due at the end of the month -- writing training materials for the new product, plus finishing my own end to end test bed. But every morning when I start work, there are people that pull me aside from that -- people who won't wait for me to finish my document and want me to enable them NOW (and whom I cannot refuse because they are managers or sent to me by managers) and early deals on the new project, for which I am the only resource to devise a proposal (the only person knowledgeable in both services and the product.) So I can't say no to those either.

So if I could get time to finish the documentation, I could start enabling more people and take the burden off of me, but nobody will allow me that time. And the people demanding immediate action from me on all day tasks are my manager and their managers -- people I can't refuse!

So. I'm panicking, and it's very hard to eat healthy and take care of myself right now. I KNOW that if I eat healthy I will feel better and if I workout regularly that will help too, but I can barely even talk myself into taking breaks during the day right now, I work for 10-12 hours straight.

Alright, that's the bad news.

The good news is that my wife and I can get legally married. The wedding is a small affair, the rabbi is booked, the marriage license obtained, the reservations for dinner are already made, the dresses found and ready to wear, I just have to show up and be married.

The other good news is that all of my hard work is paying off. I'm earning major kudos and recognition from my boss on up and my boss is talking about promoting me by the end of the year, a financial gain so big it would allow us to pay off everything but the house and start saving for emergencies, and allow my wife to put her salary towards a car (which makes it easier for me to work out without worrying about meeting her anywhere or helping her work out.)

So. The question is, what am I going to do now? I can't -- I WON'T keep gaining weight until December when things ease up. But my attempt to put two feet in the water last week didn't work. We're going to try again with one foot.

Baby step goals
* track everything I eat as zero for now (not attempting to track points, just getting in the habit of recording every bite)
* attempting to check in almost every day here at 3FC
* take a one hour do something fun break each day

I also ordered a free fitbit (part of work's fitness program) and once it arrives (2-3 weeks) I can use it to track my activity. I used to use a Nike fuel band but I have to take it on and off when I type because of RSI in my wrists, so I was forever forgetting to put it back on... this fit bit attaches to your bra or waist so I won't need to take it off to type.

Judy -- I am glad to hear things are going well!
Bandit -- good to hear from you, hope your vacation is awesome.
CherryAutumn, how are you doing?

Okay, Turtles, I had the weirdest thing happen with this thread. I wrote replies but they wouldn't "post". Except they did post and my computer didnt' show that. Ugh. So, Cherry Autumn, the reason you didn't get a private message was because I didn't think it would show up. When I finish this, I will send you a private message.

Ariana, wow is all I can say! You are right to select a one foot strategy for getting back on track for now. I like your plan. Commit to coming here and doing the very best you can. Good luck and weigh to go! :bravo:

I finally broke my 200# plateau this morning and I am thrilled. I think that getting out and walking with my df in the morning has something to do with that. Also, get ready for this, if I am not hungry...............I don't eat! I am hoping to maintain this weight loss and lose more by Wed. I'll let you know how I'm doing.

:cheer: and :love: to all of us. Ariana, congrats on your upcoming marriage.

Talk soon.
Judy

;) Good afternon Judy. Sorry about the computer troubles! Sometimes they have a mind of their own, and I should know -- I'm a software engineer! ;)

Wow about sums it up Judy. Thank you for the support. :)

Congrats on breaking your 200# plateau! I am sure that exercise helped -- not just in terms of burning calories but also reducing stress and if you are like me, cutting back on stress eating. And I know the feeling about the not eating when not hungry part. The average person would be puzzled but I get you -- it's the HALT drivers -- Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired -- the non-hungry reasons we eat. I would add anxious to that list, but that's just me. (I believe the list comes from Al Anon, but it seems to work, right?)

Thank you for the congrats on the wedding Judy. :) My wife and I are thrilled that we will get the chance to turn our religious marriage into one the state of Arizona will recognize!

Today's food so far --
Breakfast: Starbucks Peppermint Mocha, Grande with Whip, Half Sweet, Starbucks Oatmeal with Brown Sugar and Nuts

Lunch: 2 scones with clotted cream and jelly, two sweet potato pancakes, tea with 1 tbsp of sugar. Not a terribly healthy lunch, but my wife made it, I've been working and didn't think too much about it.

This afternoon we have a family picnic in the park. I will bring my embroidery to keep my fingers from cycling continuously back around to my Tia's amazing homemade guacamole.

Tomorrow I'm making my "healthy pizza" (a low point homemade (even the crust!) pizza to give me 4 servings for evening meals this coming week. I can alternate between pizza and peanut thai noodles (I make my own sauce, from a WW recipe.) That way I won't have to make hungry decisions about dinner.

If time allows I am also making these muffins from a Krusteaz low fat mix + applesauce + wheat bran -- they're good for breakfast, high in fiber and still tasty. Do you guys want the recipe?

Ariana, so glad you have dinners figured out for the upcoming week. Weigh to go. These steps get us to goal.

I would love the recipe for the muffins.

Things are going well here. Right now I have the "Unstuffed cabbage" simmering on my stove top. It's an unconstructed stuffed cabbage roll without all the work. I had forgotten about the recipe, but when I picked up a huge cabbage on sale at my grocery store this recipe surfaced. If my kids come over today, I can serve it for dinner. If not, I'll have it (dh politely declines) and I'll pack up the leftovers and make them "planovers" as my friend, Grace, calls them. Handy to have in the freezer for a quick meal when I don't know what to have.

Okay Turtles, let's keep this going. I know there's a lot of social media out there but I would love to make 2014-2015 the year the Turtles here at www.3fatchicks.com make it to goal!

:bravo: :cheer: :cheers:

Best to everyone.
Judy
234.6/199.6/189 and thinner :cool:

Judy, and other fellow turtles -- more shortly! I'm being a whirling dervish in the kitchen.

For now, let me share two recipes. I'll put them in separate posts for readability.

High Fiber Muffins (4pp or 2p on the old system)

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 Box Krusteaz Fat Free Muffin Mix
2 cups wheat bran
1 cup applesauce, unsweetened
1 cup water
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix the ingredients

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

(Ari notes -- if you measure the wheat bran by weight instead of in cups (where you can easily get a different amount), you get about 39 muffins out of a double batch, giving you roughly 3pp a muffin and you'll want to bake them longer. I did it by weight yesterday and found they came out too soft at 15 minutes, I'm guessing 17 would be more appropriate.

Makes about 12 muffins or 24 mini muffins

An old favorite of mine! They freeze well too...

Hi turtles,
Ariana, the recipe looks great. I think these muffins would be so handy to have in my freezer during the holidays. Thanks!

Turtles, back from my walk. My df and I are walking each morning around 8:40. We've got the distance to a little over 1 1/2miles. We walk and talk. It's great for both of us. She's a WW'er too and we go to the same meeting.

I hope this response works.
Have a great OP day . let's do this!
Judy

Judy, sure thing. :) I amended the recipe to say that if you measure the wheat bran by weight, you get more weight bran, and therefore more muffins, making it 3pp -- but you should cook them longer to avoid them being overly soft. They're still tasty just soft.

They are great to have in the freezer for a quick breakfast or a quick filling snack during the holidays for sure! I'm wondering if I could find a low fat pumpkin muffin mix to make up this way for a holiday theme. :P It would be a few more points if I can't find fat free, but it's worth a shot.

Congrats on keeping up with your walking. It feels good, doesn't it?

Yesterday I ran errands and cooked -- I made two batches of the muffin recipe and froze them (I free them in a single layer on a baking sheet for 30-45 minutes and then put them in a bag, so that they don't all glue together into an uber-muffin. I did all of the prep work for two healthy pizzas and two recipes of burrito mix, which I shall make today.

Have a great day ladies!

Hi Turtles,
Ariana, you're doing great. Keep up the good work. My leader always says the most important part of losing weight with WW's is to be prepared. I
m going to make a veggie soup again. It was perfect for lunches last week.

Cherry Autumn, I have left you a private message. Let me know if you got it.

Wishing everyone a great day and lots of weight loss. I lost 3.8# at my WI.
Of course last week I weighed in after eating out the night before so I can't say it's a true weight loss........but I certainly did lose weight this week and I hope to break 200# next week.
J;udy

More later ladies, but for now I want to share a recipe I made this weekend and calculated in MasterCook...

* Exported from MasterCook *

Burrito Mix

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
3 1/2 cups pinto beans, canned
3/4 cup salsa
2/3 cup tomato -- chopped
1/4 cup green chiles -- chopped (I use 2 anaheim and 2 jalapenos)
2 teaspoons red pepper
1 bunch scallion
1 1/2 cups brown rice, cooked
1 1/2 cups reduced fat cheddar cheese
3 teaspoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil

Pour oil into heated skillet (medium low)

Add beans, salsa, tomatoes, red pepper, scallions, garlic and chiles to skillet; cook over medium low heat, stirring frequently until heated through

Add rice and mix well

To serve immediately, divide it among tortillas (not in nutrition calculation) and top with cheese. To serve later, divide into equal servings and top with 1/6th of the cheese.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 271 Calories; 7g Fat (24.5% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 37g Carbohydrate; 7g Dietary Fiber; 6mg Cholesterol; 899mg Sodium. Exchanges: 2 Grain(Starch); 1 Lean Meat; 1 Vegetable; 1 Fat.

NOTES: 7pp as written / 6 servings. 9pp/6 servings if you choose to use regular (not reduced fat) cheese.

First off, Judy, congrats on your 3.8# loss. That is awesome! It's still a true weight loss, it's just not as much as it would have been if you hadn't eaten out. It still counts and congrats!

Okay onto me since it seems everybody else is quiet.... Hello ladies, things are crazy and only about to get crazier!

But quick recap -- I weighed myself after breakfast last time and came in at 164.4. This week, before breakfast it was 159.4. I realize that probably 2-3 pounds of that is breakfast and coffee, so I'm calling it a 2-3 pound loss and running with it! I also know that my biggest pair of jeans -- which was tight two weeks ago and was uncomfortable to wear -- now fits comfortably! Making progress in the right direction!

I have not started tracking yet and I haven't been working out. I will get there. I have been taking a 1-hour "break" of some kind each day even if it wasn't fun or relaxing, I got away from work. I've been eating the food I made this weekend, high fiber muffins, homemade pizza (less cheese and crust, more veggies) and Rosie (the missus) has been making healthy food too. I know all that helped. I'm not being a saint, I'm still stress eating sometimes but my main meals are healthy and that helps.

I hope you ladies also enjoy the burrito mix I posted -- if you break chips into it, it's like a taco salad. (I didn't count the chips in there.) It freezes wonderfully. It started out as someone else's OAMC recipes that I adapted so much it is unrecognizable versus the original.

Okay, time to bear down, as they would say at my alma mater (U of Arizona.) If I can get this project done -- or "good enough" by Wednesday night I can take next Thurs/Fri off for Thanksgiving AND the following M/T. 6 whole days without working -- it sounds like bliss when you've been working 6-7 days a week for months!

Take care ladies and talk to you soon.

Good luck on finishing your project, Ariana.
Love the burrito mix and will try it soon.

All goes well here.
I walked 1.75miles each morning Monday thru Friday. It's good to be back to moving at least this little bit. Helping dd out with her household, but I take that 1/2hour in the morning to walk with my friend. Great for the venting and the walking. Good for both of us.

Ariana, keep up the good work. You're making great progress. I like the goal setting.
Right now I have to tighten up the food. i can do this!
Talk soon.
Best of everything to the Turtles!
judy

Judy thanks for the good wishes. Weekly weigh-in -- down 0.8. Not much but given the hellish week I had last week, I'll take it and run with it. I was only hoping for maintenance after all!

The burrito mix is delicious. It is spicy though; if you want to dial down the spice just use fewer or different peppers. It's a planned lunch I actually look forward to...!

Yay on the walking Judy! And yay for venting and talking. That can help take a lot of pressure off. I am going to go to the gym for 30 or walk in our neighborhood for 30 because the pressure is building up in me, like, well, a pressure cooker and EVERYTHING is getting on my nerves and I still have until Wed. at midnight to go on this project (hopefully I'll be done by then. I have a feeling that I may have to call it either way for my health but I want to be done by then.) I just keep having to remind myself it does NOT have to be perfect, it just has to be a draft. (I'm a chronic perfectionist and something of a workahloc. Trying to make progress there.)

Judy thank you for the kind words. :)

You CAN do it. I have faith in you. :)

-Ari

Hi Turtles,
Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I think Bandit already celebrated Canada's harvest day. Hope it was fun.

I looked forward to walking this morning, but it rained. I headed to the grocery store for a huge shopping and every time I had to back track to get an item I counted it as exercise. Lol.

I hope I maintained this week. A few eating challenges later in the week, but today has been good so far.

:bravo: :cheer: Weigh to go :goodscale: to Ariana. Good luck on finishing your project and lightening up on the pressure.

Happy Thanksgiving Turtles. Chime in when you can.
judy

Good morning turtles and happy Thanksgiving! Bandit, hope the Harvest Day was good. :)

Judy sorry you missed your walk, but every step counts. In a pinch you might think about walking the perimeter of the store 3 or 4 times before shopping. It's not walking outside given the crowds but it's SOMETHING. I was going to a long neighborhood walk but my stomach was upset by all the stress, so I um, didn't want to be too far from a bathroom. So the missus went fishing and I walked all the way around the lake and back, in view of some restrooms. :P

I am going for at most a 1 lb gain this coming WI because I have Thanksgiving today and AGAIN tomorrow with the other half of the family who fly in tonight plus the week's stress is likely catching up on me. But I am wearing my fit bit and it's challenging me to walk further. ;)

I didn't have time to figure out in weight portions for each thanksgiving item, but i will be grab my tiny fork. It will make Mom's amazing mashed potatoes last longer!

Also, I finished the project and I am on vacation for the next six days (I include weekends because I've been working the weekends.) SO EXCITED!

Hope all of my turtle friends are having a great Thanksgiving so far. Here in AZ it's only 9 am so we're on our way to Starbucks for coffee and some oatmeal to get the day started.

Ariana, you sound great. So glad you finished your project and are on vacation.
I don't have much time to write since my son and his family are here since Wed. and are going home tomorrow.
Having a good time. Good to have my grown children and grandchildren here together and enjoying the company.

Talk when i can. Food could have been better, but I'll keep on keepin' on!

Happy Thanksgiving and Best Wishes to all the Turtles!
Judy

Well, that didn't go as well as I'd planned (up 2.6#), but that's okay. It was Thanksgiving and one horribly difficult week on top of that. The Thanksgiving food is down to one meal of leftovers (sans pie) and then it's gone. I survived that project (WOOT!) and I am on day 5 of 6 of my vacation, I still have today and tomorrow.

I have a lovely Channukah table runner pattern to work on today, with matching napkins and an apron for the missus if there's enough fabric left over. I have a great audio book (Catching Fire, Hunger Games Trilogy #2) and I'll head out to the gym tonight with my MIL and Rosie.

Hope all of my turtles are doing well! Thinking of you!

OMG! Arianna is back! Jeeze I am so thrilled to see you, I have thought about you so often and have missed your words of wisdom and support!

I have to read thru the posts and get caught up as I have not been here in ages.

I Hope everyone had a great holiday - I went to weigh in on Saturday and was up but I went anyway. Now I am back on track and moving forward.

Judy: How was your Thanksgiving?

Bandit: How are you doing these days... the cold weather is coming :(

Isn't it great that Ariana is back? I love it when members we knew from years back pop in to share their journeys.
Princess, so good to hear from you.
Bandit is here often and I'm sure she'll be chiming in soon.
We've even been hearing from Cherry Autumn once in awhile.

I have promised myself to keep this club going for as long as there is one other turtle to share with. There are so many other social media outlets now, but I still love this little group the most.

My Thanksgiving ran for 5 days and I haven't stepped on the scale yet.
My ds's wife is having very tough back issues right now, but she encouraged him to drive down from upstate NY with the kids 11 and 13 so they could have a family Thanksgiving. Very generous of her. We had such a good time. My daughters decided I had made enough Thanksgiving dinners and they took it on themselves to provide the food for Thanksgiving. It was a bit more complicated than they thought, but honestly everyone pitched in and they all got along (son, son in law, 2 daughters, and me_) and it was a real family time.
My son and grandkids stayed with us for the 5 days. It was great, but honestly that's a food challenge for me. I'll try and rein it in now.

Princess, glad you're back on track and back here!
:bravo: and :cheers: and :love: to all our Turtles.
I walked again this morning and to be honest even though I was a bit out of practice, it felt wonderful to be outside.

Judy