Valentines Day to April 18th

[BLLingg]

@Bobbinyc, I hope it's ok for me to plagerize your Christmas to Valentine's Day Topic Starter but it was absolutely perfect!!!

Welcome all Challengers!  What an amazing group we have!

Let's all continue together to take off the excess pounds and keep getting healthier.

This challenge will begin on Valentine's Day and finish on (American) Tax Day - 18 April 2017.   (Really!  It's the 18th this Year, not the 15th!)

All you need to join this challenge is to post your stats regarding your weight, and check in weekly or as often as you'd like. We are a great support group and enjoy keeping up with each other and being there for our ups and downs.  Generally we have found that the more we check in and offer support, tips, info,  and ideas to others, the more we get for ourselves.

We list our weight, as well as any other goals we might have related to being healthy (such as increase water, more active minutes, etc).  Developing good health habits is primary.

A little rundown of terminology for anyone who is new.

USW- Ultimate Starting Weight

CSW- Current Starting Weight (for this challenge)

GW- Goal Weight   (for Feb 14)

UGW- Ultimate Goal Weight   (what your healthy target weight is)

PW- Previous Weight

CW- Current Weight

MFP- My Fitness Pal

List as much info as you like.  Some people include age, gender, height....whatever seems relevant to you.

We keep it as serious or light as we feel, but we always keep it focused on being as healthy as possible, while we support each other kindly.  We can do this together!!

[RachelShrinks]

@_Lilac_: I'm so sorry! I'm in the same boat today, too. 2.5 pounds up overnight—all of it hormones. But it is hormones, Lilac. It'll go away and you'll be back to it in a few days and the scale will shut up and stop making you crazy. You've been amazing while you've babied your knee, and you know you didn't really gain that much overnight—and none of that really helps, I know. 😞

I wish there was a way we could all shut off that stupid Negative Nelly, but I fear it's something we all have to learn to ignore.

This is me, telling your NN to just shut it and wait for this time of the month to pass ;).

[DJC_63]

@dancefoxtrot  I also would like to see a video of you dancing. I love watching dancing. My aunt used to ballroom dance regularly but she lived in another state so I never got to see her. I did get to see her dresses once and they were beautiful!

[DJC_63]

@TravellingSunny  CONGRATULATIONS!! You are doing so well! Isn't it great to see such a difference in the mirror? I'm so happy for you! Keep it up.

[DJC_63]

@Bobbinyc This is a few days late but I'm so glad to know you feel the same way I do when I don't get enough sleep. That happens a few times every week for me, and no Dr's can figure out a solution. At least I know that I will crave junk food, so I try to fight it, but like you said, impulse control is not so good when I'm tired.  I'm still glad that I recognize these things now. For most of my life I didn't realize how much better I'd feel if I slept more.

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@Bobbinyc wrote:

@almost_where  I've had some sleep problems and I learned the hard way that when I am tired, no matter how hard I try to push past it, I have cravings, weird appetite fluctuations, poor decision making, less impulse control, and I just don't care as much.  As soon as I can get ever 6 good hours straight, I feel like a new person with much more control. 

[HeartBiller]

@Ava_  Well I am very sad to admit that I did not resist the pizza. I did drink a full bottle of water before we got the pizza so I would be fuller and not eat as much, but I did have to have some. It is a true weakness of mine! So today is a new day and I am back on track and I let my husband know we will not be doing pizza for them anymore any time soon...lol. I can feed them hot dogs..lol. I have no problem resisting them..lol.

Oh well today is new and fresh... I have a plan. Now to just make it work out. I have to work until 5. I am 30 minutes from home so I will not get home until at least 5:30 depending on traffic. As soon as I get home we have to head right back out to church. The youth perform skits tonight so we have to be there at 6 to finish set up and a quick practice and church starts at 7. So I am thinking I need to figure out what I can grab very quickly to eat on the ride from home to church, so I do not end up eating at 9:30 after church. So any ideals on super quick something...lol. I do great for breakfast and lunch her at work.. Supper is my complete screw up. It seems like we always go in a whirl wind and always end up in a drive thru late in the evening. I NEED A CHANGE, BUT I have to make it happen.!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderfully blessed day!

[RachelShrinks]

Okay, fair warning—it's my turn to whine. But first...

@TravellingSunny! OMG, you look fantastic! So awesome!

Now to the whining. Like @_Lilac_, I am having a hormone difficulty this week. I have been walking an enormous amount and yet still I have gained weight the last two days for a total of 3 pounds! I have stuck to my eating plan and such, and I am aware that it'll go down in a couple of days once everything gets started with my monthly, but... I looked in the mirror today and felt like I looked at fat as I did on New Year's Day.

I have been so proud of how much slimmer I'm looking—not thin or skinny or trim, but slimmer than I was. Other people have commented on it, too, but this morning it was like I had fat glasses on and I wondered what the point of all this work was when I was still a corpulent lump. I hate feeling down on myself like that, especially given all I've been able to do to get myself in shape. Forget the pounds lost, I walked 30,000 steps in one day this week. A year ago I could never have done that.

My Negative Nelly needs to suck it up. And I need to be good and not go get a donut or something to eat away my sorrow. SIGH!

Whining over. Off to figure out how to work in a work out when I have so many places to be today :).

[HeartBiller]

@RachelShrinks& @_Lilac_  I know the struggle is so real! I am exactly the same way. I think we all are when she visits here, BUT the good news is this wicked witch will go away...lol. Well at least for a month. Well that is unless you lucky enough to have her visit twice in a month. She tends to do that me me more frequently than she used to. BUT on a good note it gives me something to look forward to in my older age...lol.MENOPAUSE.. YES I said I am looking forward to it. I may not say it once it gets here, but at the moment I am looking forward to it or at least I think I am...lol.  So in the mean time we will whine about her visit and praise the lord when she leaves and we get back to normal. I am hoping mine holds off at least another week. But is likes showing up unexpectedly. Just like the weight lose journey.. We are all in this together..lol.

[_Lilac_]

Today I got 10,000 steps for the first time since my knee forced me to rest. It's so much better but I do occasionally I tweak it, but I recover quickly. After walking with Mom this morning I had a specialist appointment to find out if I have problems with my ears, those that might be causing my dizziness and instability. They found my hearing to be on the low range of normal and dropping a bit. There is soooo much hearing loss in my family in the older folks. Everyone just assumes they'll go deaf in my clan. My ears are healthy though, so the dizziness must be something else. My theory is that it's my meds and weight loss.

From that doctor's office it was a 2k walk to the closest bus stop (one that I was familiar with). It was snowing and slushing and I was soaked by the time I got on the bus, but I got my steps! After lunch my boxer had soooo much energy that he was interrupting everything I tried to do and generally harassing me and the other dog, so I took them both for a walk. I've been relaxing since. I don't want to do too much.

I need to be more diligent about tracking my food. I've kinda been slack after so long of being obsessively putting in every morsel of food. I'm going to need to focus on the breakdown of my meals in protein, carb, etc. @A_Lurker do you have good references for what percentages are recommended? 

My plan is to also increase the intensity of my exercise when I feel I can on this leg. I am not sweating, I am not breathing heavy with my walks. I am having difficulty now getting my heartrate over 111. So, time to buckle down. I know I'll feel better. I know I will have more success. 

Grrr...gotta get  myself back into things!

[DJC_63]

I don't know what to do today. Saturday I did a lot of walking around the house, laundry, cleaning out closets, a lot of bending over. That did something to my back and it's been hurting and stiff since then. That makes it hard to sleep so I haven't gotten a good nights sleep for 3 nights now. My back muscles will go into spasms while I'm sleeping and wake me up.  The next 2 days I did exercises at home, gentle things like stretching and walking. Last night I thought I'd try doing the elliptical at the gym, as sometimes it makes me feel better. It's gets the blood moving and will loosen my back up. I didn't have as much energy as usual, I guess due to not sleeping well. It helped my back a little at the time but I had a lot more muscle spasms overnight. 

So im not sure what to do today. I could try to rest but I have a really hard time with that  mentally. I'm always thinking about my steps and I hate being so low in the challenges.  I hate it when my body doesn't go along with what I want to do.

[_Lilac_]

@DJC_63 Wow, do I ever hear ya on this one!! I did NOT want to rest when I got hurt but I wouldn't have recovered unless I did. And I hated every moment of it and wanted to MOVE. Felt guilty for not doing it, scared i'd lose my drive to get back into the swing of things. If you need rest, you need it. Take care of yourself. That's what we are doing, right?

[DJC_63]

@_Lilac_ Yes, I suppose it is what we're doing. I'm just SO bored! If I were sleeping well I could at least make some jewelry or sew or do something fun. But when I'm tired I don't seem to have the creativity that I normally have.  I feel like I'm wasting a day/evening. Mentally I'm ready for spring and more activity but neither my body nor the weather is ready today.  My feet have been hurting the past few weeks, I think because I've been doing the hourly 250 steps more often. I guess my feet aren't used to that. I've decided I'll try some leg lifts and maybe some ab exercises, at least I'll feel like I'm doing something productive.

Thank you for answering, it feels good to know that there are others who feel/have felt the same way.

[A_Lurker]

@TravellingSunny - glad that you're seeing such great progress. Far too often we let the scale determine our progress. How we look and feel are much better indicators. Congrats!

@Cele21 - I'm not on as much lately as I'd like to be. I keep thinking that my life will get less busy, but it's 8pm tonight and I'm just making a point to eat dinner (and probably combine a snack). Then I have a few more things to do and will probably try and get to sleep at a decent hour as well. We've got a couple of people out all week at work and I really didn't want to work this weekend, but I think I'm going to go in Saturday to catch up.

@TT_is_me - sometimes I can explain the ups and downs, sometimes they don't make sense. As long as the overall trend is down it's good.

@dancefoxtrot - I'd keel over on 500 calories. Really, I would. My morning snack at work (usually some kind of baked egg thing, clementines) is usually about 400 cals.

@_Lilac_ - I'm pretty sick of winter as well. We warmed up, but it was back super cold and icy this morning. I have one crocus almost open and a few trying hard to come up. I have rabbits (chewed crocus leaves) so I'm not sure how they will do from year to year if the furry little friends keep chewing them down. They are unfortunately in an area that the snow piles on. I'm going to plant some out in the middle bed this fall as I've got daffodils quite far up, but definitely some cold damage on them. Our spring is coming in bits and pieces. Oh, and also, back in the days it wasn't unusual for me to gain 5 pounds around that time of the month. A couple of days in it would start to come off quickly. @RachelShrinks - you know this too, so listen to yourself.

@HeartBiller - Assuming that you're not driving, cook up some chicken and keep it in the fridge. Do the same with some brown rice. Dump a large amount of lettuce and veggies into a bowl, add a small amount of rice and add the chicken chopped up. Toss with a measured amount of salad dressing and enjoy. I actually make a base salad that keeps for about a week - it has some kind of grain (I'm using farro at the moment, close to barley), chopped onion, chopped celery and chopped peppers with some salad dressing. I'll take a portion of that for lunch with add-ins (cherry tomatoes, cucumber, more pepper, feta cheese) and either have hot chicken with it or cold chicken chopped in. I think I may have posted the recipe over on the eat well portion of the board. If you're interested let me know and I'll look for the posting.

@_Lilac_ - pretty much everyone will have a different opinion. I try and keep my protein at about 20% and let the rest fall where they may. I don't eat low fat products and my carbs and fats usually end up about even. Not with every meal and certainly not every days. But back when I was logging everything that is how they would balance out at the end of the week.

@DJC_63 - I find muscle cramps (I'm thinking this is what you mean) are usually triggered by dehydration and not enough calcium. I can get away with one or the other, but when I don't I can be really bad.

[HeartBiller]

Good Morning all! Well I know it's not always the best option, but last night I opted to go with out dinner. I had a little bit later lunch than normal and the I got home with just enough time to grab what was needed and head back out the door to church. We had to be there an hour early to get the kids ready to perform their skits. They did such an awesome job. We are sure proud of our young ones. They are a group of kids from 6 to 10 with the exception of us having 3 teens who jump in for some of the bigger parts, but wow, how powerful seeing little kids do this really is! Anyhow, after church was over there was a gentleman who kept my husband talking for a little bit, so by the time we got home it was after 9:30, so I just decided to skip dinner. I really wasn't hungry any how. I had filled up on water...lol.

Well girls @_Lilac_ @RachelShrinks , I did not get lucky enough for the wick witch to give me a few days longer as I had hoped..lol. She stopped in for a visit this morning. So if I try to think positive, that means she should be ready to leave right about weigh in day for me...lol. I have to think positive or I will pull my hair out. lol.

Okay I had a first today..lol. and yes it was a lol moment. I jogged for the first time in I couldn't tell you how long.  It may not have lasted very long, but it was a start. I work in a doctors office and I walk the loop inside the office a lot of mornings before anyone else comes in. It is not a big loop by any means, but I can walk it no matter what the weather is and I usually have 30 minutes after I drop my grandson off at school before I have to clock in, so that is my walking time. Well this morning, I have no clue why I decided to, but I decided to just see if I could jog..lol. I haven't in probably 35 years..lol. So I started with jogging 5 laps around the office and I did it with out dying... (I thought I was going to) so after the 5 laps I walked to catch my breath and let my legs recover from the wobbling they were doing and after walking another 10 minutes or so I jogged another 5 laps... and again I lived to tell...lol. After the second set of laps, it took me a tad longer to get the legs to stop wobbling... BUT hey I did it! Yay me! Now to see if I can make myself keep that up. Maybe tomorrow I will try 6 laps each time..I really have to add in some changes and get this ball rolling downward again. I hope today's feelings last.. I walked and jogged constantly telling myself we are going to do this! we have this! I even told God that I feel soon I will be praying to see the 4 instead of the 5..lol.

Ok I have rambled enough. It is time to get busy. Today is going to be a clean up day, as we have flipped our clinic and do not have any patients today but will have a full load tomorrow. So we will enjoy the peace and quiet today and prepare for the rush tomorrow!

Hope you all have a wonderfully blessed day!

[_Lilac_]

What a day already! One of my dogs was quite stinky allll night and yet after trying to get him outside to do his 'thing', he wouldn't go. That had me up several times during the night. The other dog had stomach issues as well this morning. And now I am having problems. What in the world did we eat?? I went walking with Mom this morning and our three laps of the mall went pretty quickly since we gabbed and chatted the whole time. 

I forced myself to drink 32oz of water before I had coffee or food. I had a wonderful lunch. I'm so tired and twisted my knee again so I'm stiff but I'll have a nap and stay off my leg for a while. It's cold so I don't want to take the boys around the neighbourhood. I might feel like it after my rest. 

6000 steps so far, so I'll need to do a few more things to get my goal. I might try a Leslie Sansone video but she does do some twisting and it might be hard on my knee. I'll give it a shot.

Catch ya later.

[SunsetRunner]

March 23 update:

USW- 184 (highest, January 2017)

CSW- 180.9 on 2/15/17 (BMI=26)

GW- 170 (BMI =24.4)

UGW- 160 would be nice (BMI=23)

PW- 183.0 2/27/17 (Mardi Gras weekend in NOLA) BMI=26.3

PW- 181.2 3/2/17 (BMI=26)

PW- 177.8 3/9/17, also BBG - 38 inches* (BMI=25.4)

PW-175.8 3/16/2017, BBG still 38 inches

CW-175.8 (???) 3/23/2017, BBG 37.5" (!!!).

Well, my weight is holding steady, but at least my girth has decreased slightly. And I had a BIG dinner last night, though it only clocked in at 620 calories.

So, I'll blame my new job, where I'm desk-bound...wait, so was the life at the last job...

Walking has suffered, though. The new neighborhood is not nearly as inviting for a stroll.

Okay, enough excuses.

To me: 174.0 by next Thursday, BUSTER!

Time to flop around on the yoga mat and confuse the cats. https://youtu.be/B2Je1CEPkUM

[HeartBiller]

Well I count today as a success. I did good with eating all 3 meals today and didn't over do it on anything food wise. I did a 30 minute walk this morning with 2 tiny spirts of jogging.. lol. Then this evening I actually had a tiny bit of time home alone, which never happens. So I got to walk on the glider for a little bit, and take a nice long hot shower... and still have a few minutes to check in here. So if I continue the weekend being as goog as I was today, I may see some success on my next weigh in... 

now to finish up the laundry and dishes before the boys get back home... lol

[Dirkle]

Thursday: walked 1.75 miles at Gym. Weight is 182. Ate steak on big salad at Red Monkey Tavern. Then dinner was just 1/2 of a sub. Seven days until race day. 

[_Lilac_]

50 lb **shriek**!! 

After spending the entire day in the bathroom, that four pounds of monthly visitor baggage I'd complained about came off, plus an extra 1.5. I'm the lowest I've been in many many years. I just received my 50lb badge and feeling like I've smashed a big goal. I know there's a lot still to be done, and this has probably been the easiest part, but it is a big accomplishment for me. 

Thank you to all my friends, family, associates. This award has meant....oops. It's not an Oscar, its a badge. Ok, onward and upward...er...downward.

*bow* *curtsy* *bow* *curtsy* (ugh this feels like aerobics)

[HeartBiller]

@_Lilac_  I am SUPER EXCITED for you. I know you have to be glowing! You deserve the Oscar. An Oscar couldn't make us feel any better than that badge does..lol. I so hope to be joining you with this badge very soon. My visitor just arrived yesterday so hopefully by my weigh in day her whirl wind effects will be over with and I can get so much closer to that badge. I WILL GET THAT BADGE!!!

My morning has started off about as rough as rough as I can handle. My grandson woke up at 5:30 with a bad cough and sore throat. So we were up taking meds then, and then trying to get ready for work and school he got in some trouble so  I had issues with him before I took him to school. I get to my office (TMI alert)  and just as I step out of the car, my visitor caused a huge mess so I had to go all the way back home and start over getting ready and then back to the office. So it is 8:30am and I feel as if I have worked all day already. BUT it is Friday and I will survive it! I will adapt, adjust and overcome!!!!

I hope each of you have a wonderfully blessed day!

[_Lilac_]

@HeartBiller  Yes, you will overcome!

I went up the street to get my taxes done. I had to file two returns, one for myself and one for my deceased husband, so of course it cost more and took time. He is getting a refund and I owe, and after paying the fee to the place, it's all balanced out even. Kinda sucks. Anyway, I made a few discoveries. My health insurance disability isn't taking enough income tax so I'll always owe. I have to get that fixed immediately. Another discovery is that I walked out of the place and eyed the bakery I'd have to walk by to get home. Normally, money stress would send me into the bakery for a 'pick me up' but then I thought about that 50lb badge and celebrating this morning...and I walked right on by that darned bakery. No rolls for me, dietary or physically! So, I'm home, my sister is going to come visit and dye my hair. I have some homemade pizza dough so we'll make our own pizzas (all veggie with minimal cheese for me) and have a nice afternoon. 

New badge, new hair, let's hope the weather changes! We need spring.