Welcome, new folks!
Dani, what does your menu look like with such low carb? I have such a hard time with low-carb. I kept wanting to try carb-cycling but I couldn't seem to get a plan!

I've found that its easier than I anticipated and for health reasons I'm newly gluten free so that makes it easier!

A typical weekday menu might look like this:
Plain Greek yogurt mixed with protein powder, cinnamon and blueberries. Tastes like a blueberry muffin!
A small apple or celery with almond butter
A spinach salad with cucumbers, peppers, carrots, red cabbage with an egg or turkey bacon with homemade dressing
This lo carb banana nut bread I make
Grilled chicken with a potato and veggies. Or tuna or salmon.
Dark chocolate, over 70 percent.

I drink unsweetened ice tea, unsweetened coffee, spinach smoothies made with almond milk and only rarely diet coke when I'm jonesing. My trouble has always been consuming too many carbs through sweet drinks.

When I stick to eat I feel amazing, healthy and light. But I'm on 1200 calories and struggling a little to feel full so I may have to Mae some tweaks.

I'm in for the *star* challenge. I'll have to go back and look at my spreadsheet for the exact stuff.

But, something like this:

1. At or below your weekly alotted calories = PLATINuM
2. 1-500 calories OVER weekly alotted = GOLD.
3. 501-1,000 calories OVER weekly alotted = SiLVER.
4. 1,001 - 1,500 calories OVER weekly alotted = BRONZE.

You have to announce, in advance of the challenge, what YOUR weekly alottment is.

I'm in for 9,800 per week. Maybe a 6-week-challenge?

Would run Monday to Sunday....starting Monday, Aug 26?

Can we run the star challenge Monday - Sunday like we did last time? Then we report in Monday?

Hi Shander! Good to hear from you.

Hi Chloe! Good to hear from you too. 30 weeks?! How exciting! Gosh time flies.

Hi Jen! Sounds like you have a lot of fun stuff going on. I bet you're happy not to be starting back to school right now. Have fun at your fests this weekend.

Dani, we probably need that low carb banana nut bread. Yum!

Beeps, when is your surgery again?

I got up and lifted this morning and it felt good. Eating has been good all week and I had 3 big glasses of wine last night; my plan was for 2-3. So far I'd call this week a success. Let's hope the scale agrees with me tomorrow.....

http://toneitup.com/blog.php?5724

This is where you can kind the banana bread. It's pretty tasty. Sometimes I had nuts to the mixture or fruit.

Thanks Dani. Those look yummy. Any idea on their nutritional values?

Welcome Caitlin. West Africa?! Wow! Interesting. As for calorie goals, you can calculate your TDEE; just google a calculator. I am 5'2" and 132.5 as of this morning....:grumble: and my TDEE, considering I am sedentary, as in I have a desk job, is around 1621 a day. (I think that may be actually based on a slightly lower weight when I calculated it). So that's what my body uses daily. If I want to maintain, eat that every day. If I want to lose 0.25 pound a week, I eat 1496 a day. (3500 cals / 4 = 0.25 pound / 7 days - TDEE). If I want to lose 0.5, I eat 1371 a day, etc. etc. So I have mine set to 1350 a day to give me a tiny bit of wiggle room, and I also count my exercise calories. Right now I'm aiming for about 9500 calories a week to supposedly produce 0.5 pound loss a week. I personally have a hard time with 1200 consistently. I can do it for a day or two, I tend to feel deprived and end up binging at some piont. I hope that helps!

Yeah, so my 0.5 pound loss from last week came back. I'm frustrated on several levels. #1, this is the first week I feel like I've been "back". My diet has been decent and my workouts good. However my weekend sucked and I drank too much and the scale is showing it. Plus I had planned on a light lunch yesterday, but my co-workers were going for sushi. Who turns down sushi for lunch?! Not me. So there was the soy sauce I had. I just felt pretty bloated and yucky yesterday. Feel mildly better today. I just need to kick @ss this weekend and keep it going. We're not going to St. Louis this weekend after all (death in family) so that should help with my food and drink battle. Anyways, I'm supposed to be down 6.5 pounds in 5 weeks for South Beach. Probably not going to happen....so I'll just do my best, eat well, get my workouts in, and watch the drinks.

Have a great weekend. Today is my Friday!

Caitlin's, try the 1,200 per day and see how you feel.

For me, I work off a weekly average (not daily) so that I can plan a weekly allotment around special occasions, etc.

I'm 5'9" and work off 9,800 calories per week.

Mind you, I'm lucky to lose 0.5 lb per week with that many calories. I'm ok with slower weight loss.

PS - I don't "eat my calories" back. But, I weight-train, so burning next to nil, anyway....

Can I suggest a modified point calculation for those of us who are preggers and need to be maintaining or gaining weight? Maybe something like this?
Within 100 calories of your weekly allotted calories = platinum
Within 500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = gold
Within 1000 calories of your weekly allotted calories = silver
Within 1500 calories of your weekly allotted calories = bronze

I think I'm too competitive to join a challenge where the goal is to eat under your allotted calories when I need to be trying to hit my target, not to go under it. But if that's going to be too confusing then I'm happy to just cheer you all on for now!

For intros, I'm Marissa from Washington, DC. I originally joined this board to for motivation to try to lose those last 5-10 pounds. I got pretty close to by goal weight when I got pregnant. I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant so I'm gaining weight, rather than losing, but the ladies on this board are so wonderful and motivating that I still love coming on here. Right now I'm focusing on staying active and eating nutritious food. My exercises of choice are running, lifting weights, walking, and biking.

I'm fine permitting preggo's to do what they want.

I even thought about a 100 calorie buffer for ALL! But, you know what?? It's a CHALLENGE! Meaning: do it to MEET or EXCEED your goals....don't do it if you want some kind of permission to "slack off"!

Even preggo's could choose to meet their goals by first giving themselves the proper allotment of weekly calories to begin with! If that means preggo's gets 15,000 calories per week while dieting-chick gets 9,800, so be it!!

I digress....

Be sure you are clear on what your weekly allotment is....the rest really is about sticking to THAT!

This preggo is in! Sticking with my calories typically means I have avoided junk. If I eat my healthy food I feel good at 2000 net cals a day. So that is my weekly goal of 14000 net cals! Looking forward to starting the challenge Monday! I am also going to do my best this weekend, but it will be hard because it is a busy one! I have my friends shower tomorrow afternoon, I am MOH. And then a cookout tomorrow night. Sunday is the husband's bday we are going to the lake to cookout. So I will just be sure to bring some healthy snacks for that day! And of course get my morning walk in both days!

You guysssss I watched myself binge at lunch today and I went over my calorie intake....was too ashamed to even put in all the homemade tortilla chips (read: greasier) in the log. Then I promised myself that I'd do P90X this afternoon, got too caught up with work, and now it's too late (lesson learned: ALWAYS do work outs first thing in the morning!). Thank GOD the challenge starts on Monday!

My overeating at lunch was because I was eating with a new person and we made so much food. After one taco, I was totally satisfied, but I thought she would think I was crazy since what we made was so delicious, that I just kept on going. Next time, I'll eat slower so that it doesn't seem like I'm eating like a rabbit and remember my happiness is not dependent on how one person thinks about me, but rather reaching my weight loss goal! What do y'all do in situations like this?

Re: very low cal days, I like that a lot! I especially like doing a quasi fast on Sundays...something I've carried over from living in France.

I think I'm going to up my weekly calorie goal to 9,500 because I work out pretty consistently.

Hey ladies! Sorry I've been MIA. First, I had a tooth ache, then had an allergic reaction to antibiotics, got a horrible cold, had a root canal and could not recover!!! I also had to go back to work. New school years always start out so crazy, I'm lucky if I eat lunch. On the bright side, the scale loves me right now!

I want to join the star challenge. I can't get back into logging so hopefully it will motivate me. I like 9800 calories.

I think I've missed to much to catch up on. Welcome new friends. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Hellooo! I'll do the challenge too , I'm hoping to try 8400 a week. I need to try to stick with 1200 a day for right now, I have a long way to go.
Also I posted but didn't introduce myself- so rude, sorry! I'm Andrea , currently living in south west florida. I need to lose 25 lbs. I have always had to watch my weight (thanks genetics) but things just got outta control and I just woke up one day and was the heaviest I've ever been and feel so tired all the time. I work in a doctors office , drug reps bring us lunches almost everyday, I'm working on my self control.. Feel free to friend me if you'd like!

Hey ladies. Put me down for 10,000. I ended up 10,419 last week so need to tighten it up. But I am being realistic as we are headed to the mountains for a long weekend with my parents this weekend and we like to drink wine when we get together. I really want to get in a nice long flatish (as we'll be packing my 25 pound 19 month old) hike in. Also may try to swim some laps one morning or get on the treadmill. Just do SOMETHING rather than lay around and eat. I also have dinner plans out and book club this week.

The following week I reckon I'll lower to 9500. The three weeks before South Beach may be even less. So I'm in for the challenge for 5 weeks I guess. May pick back up when I return from my trip.

Let's have a great week ladies!