200+ Summer Meltdown!

My new heart rate monitor came today! Woohoo! I definitely noticed a difference in calories burned vs the HRM that came with my exercise video game thingy. Today's workout was fairly short so the difference was only ~40 calories, but I've seen with other people the difference can be way bigger for a longer, more intense workout. Plus, now I can do other workouts (without the video game) and get a fairly accurate idea of my calorie burn.

Work today kind of sucked in that it was my monthly departmental conference call/meeting. We went long again this month, just over two hours, and of course the meeting is from 11:00-1:00. So my regular meal time got totally messed with. I had ate my snack at the start of the meeting (instead of right when I got to work) and then found myself eating the almonds I'd planned for this afternoon because by 12:00 I was insanely hungry. Then when the meeting ended I had my actual lunch but I'm thinking I was protein deficient 'cause I was starving again by 3:30. Bought some granola bars today so hopefully those will help tomorrow.

Hailie: Those are some fantastic goals.

kingfisher16: Welcome to the group! This particular group is fantastic.

Amy: Those are some great goals. If you can pass the Air Force PT test you're in better shape than a huge percentage of the population.

Victoria: I picked up some healthier types of granola bars today so we'll see if those help tomorrow. I was ready to eat my arm off at work by about 3:30 this afternoon thanks to my crappy eating schedule (see above),.

Kendal: I'm glad you liked the pics better when you got another look at them. I think getting glamour shots when you hit a major milestone sounds like a fantastic goal! Now I'm thinking I'll have to get something like that done too. Maybe roll it into family pictures or something as we haven't taken any since my wedding, and I was almost 270 lbs then.

Kristina: Hope you have a good weekend visiting with your parents! I enjoy when the boss is out of town because I get interrupted far less often.

Karen: I hope the flooding goes down soon and you can go home! I can't imagine being flooded out for that long .

navajoon: Way to find a silver lining about pictures you're not happy about. I also didn't remember to take pics right away but I remembered after about 5 lbs, and I've got far enough to go that the first 5 was not really noticeable.

Lacey: Way to go on giving up the scale! Wish I had your willpower there. May you be blessed with a wonderful loss in 6 weeks .

Amber: Loving those goals. You can do it!

pyschohope: Congrats on finishing your last exam. That's always an awesome feeling.

serendipity: Welcome to the group! Those are some great goals. Feel free to dive right in and join the conversation .

I'd love to join this group too! I'm quickly approaching the spot where I weight loss slows and I give up. Hoping with a support group to check in with I'll be able to push on through this time.

Height: 5'10"
SW: 232
CW: 210.5
GW: 170
Goals:
*Do some sort of "real" exercise each day instead of counting my housework/cleaning
*Drink more water. I've not been buying diet soda for the house, but I'm still not drinking enough water each day.
*Do more fun active activities with my kids...dancing, playing tag, etc.
*Get more sleep
*Add strength training
(Will come back and add more detailed goals later, but wanted to make sure I joined the group)

A continued welcome to all the new faces!!! All of your goals seem great.

Check-in for yesterday 2444 burned and 2991 consumed. 30 min low impact aerobics for exercise. I can see I am slacking since this is the 3rd day of significantly higher consumption than burning:blushing: I am hereby kicking my own @ss and will do better today!!! At least I'm logging and know it's all my own fault... My stomach just seems like it's a bottomless pit. But, no excuses - I will be better today.

Amy - I get your frustration with the scale. Men (*rolls eyes*) I can see why he took it off but still. Hope he gets it replaced today.

sarah - YEAH for the HRM. I hope the granola works. String cheese, hard boiled eggs and Greek yogurt make good snacks.

Kendal - Glad the pictures are looking better on the second view.

Psycho - want to trade places? I miss school - no, what I really miss is summer break. This full time work things bites.

Karen - how was it to sleep in your own bed? Good luck with the inspection today!!!

Kristina - you guys are starting to suck me into "Game of Thrones"... I haven't purchased it yet but will soon. (*sighs*) So many great books and so little time. Have a great weekend with your parents.

Lacey - DH got the fax machine to work. I'd love to use one of those programs but the evals and progress reports to the doctors have to have my signature before going out to be an official medical record. I was about ready to take a bat to the machine. It turns out it was crashing since the saved faxes memory was too full - I've never even saved a fax (*sighs*)... I only have to fax a few things a week. Is Gracie feeling any better? Hope you got some sleep...

Hallie - your job sounds fun. Only a few more days until prom - have a GREAT time!!!

I know I've missed some people but the board getting so big, it's getting harder to reply to everyone. Sorry if I missed you - know that I love reading all of your posts and think you are the best group of Super Pals around!!!

This week has flown by. I can't believe the weekend starts tomorrow - I love Fridays!!!

Wow, lots of new members! So awesome & I know I'll never keep up without taking notes on each person I want to comment on! LOL! So welcome to you & I saw some great goals! I will do my best to keep up!

I slept in my bed! Hooray! Ahhh! And when we drove out this morning, the water was completely gone off of the road, so the kids can come home & start riding the bus again tomorrow! Yay! Now we just get to clean up all of the mud all over everything! Blech! The smell is horrendous! Thank goodness it's all OUTside! Thanks everybody for being so patient with me the past couple of weeks! You kept me sane!

I've been sticking to calories this week, but exercise...not so much. But I rewarded myself for getting to go home with Coldstone Creamery last night! LOL! But I got a small size, and I'd been good all day, so I still managed to stay under calories! :-)

Amy-sorry about the hubby's cast, again! I don't think numbness is something that just goes away. Sounds like they need to get someone else to wrap it. I take it there aren't many options on where he can go over there? And awesome on going for PT test! I was in AFJROTC in high school, and I could pass everything but the run & the arm hang! So I never quite passed it! And I was always 30sec away at my best. I'm just not a runner! LOL!

Sarah-meetings can be a pain! I've got a drawer full of pistachios, almonds, & granola bars (I like Fiber One, a few more cals, but the extra fiber keeps me full longer), then I try to remember celery sticks & carrots every couple of days to put in the fridge. I'm lucky enough to have one in our dept that only 4 of us share! :0)

Victoria-I'm with Amy, you still logged your food! So you're not off the wagon completely. Since you're kicking your own tail, we'll just sit here with the whips for now! ) Glad the fax is working!!

Kendal-glad the pics look better to you on 2nd review! Maybe we can see them soon? :-D

Lacey-sorry Gracie is sick! Hope all is better soon!

Haillie-have fun at prom!!

I can't post all the pics here, if you want to see them, I'll message you the link and password.

but here are a couple PG pics.

Nava: I've thought of having that hair treatment (I've been fighting with my curls for my entire life). Let us know how you like it. You didn't have any problems with breathing or anything when you had the treatment, did you? I've seen reports of the chemicals causing breathing problems in both clients and hair stylists.

Kendal: Those pics are AWESOME!!! I especially like the first one (with you by a window). You look gorgeous!

Tae: I did not start with this group until this past summer (I think) so I know that it can kind of seem like you're on the outside when you first start posting. But you'll soon see that we LOVE new people and we try hard to include everyone in the conversation. You won't be on the outside for long, I promise! Congrats on the calorie burn!

Karen: Congrats for being back home. It sucks about the smell and the mud but it's really, really good that it's OUTSIDE rather than INSIDE.

I'm home today with G. Her face isn't so rosy and her chest sounds a bit better so she can go to school tomorrow I think. YEAY!
P90X shipped yesterday so I should be able to start some time next weekend. I'm thinking Sunday. So today I'm going to clean out the office and get it ready so I can do it in there on the laptop. I guess I need a door frame and my living room Is huge and there isn't one. I also need to get a resistance band. For now I'm just going to use the 5 lbs weights. I remember doing 30 day shred and after a few eta they were making my arms shake.

Kendal I want that link! Those two pics have a gorgeous etherial quality to it!

Karen YEAY for going back home!

Tae it can take a while to feel comfortable but you will get there!

Crystal??? Where is you girl????????

I can't see any more posts on this iPad. I will hop back on later and finish up.


On a random note....my no must be completely off today becau all I can smell is over ripe bananas. There are two bananas in the hous but not at that point. My nose is so weird. Either hyper drive smelly sense or can't smell a damn thing lol!

Kendal's pics are AWESOME!! ) Love 'em!!

Nava-let me know how that works out for ya! My hair is fine & thinning (yeah, it stinks!) so anything I can do to help it...it'd be nice!

Tae-you just dip your toes in at your own pace! )

Lacey-yay for G headed for better!

I swear my head is on backwards today! I have entered things wrong. Copied stuff upside down. And charged someone for a report that should have been free! I blame it on the smell at home or TOM, take your pick! LOL!

Just when I thought i was beginning to get on top of the thread - responding and remembering peoples names - it's gone mad again.

Welcome to all the new people - will take a while for me to work out your names and who is saying what (an age thing I think - well, it's what I put it done to anyway!!!!!)

Kendal: love, love, love the th=wo phots - think it must have been your tom when you first looked. If you happy would like to see the rest, they look amazing.

Krisitna: gald you back running and this weekend - the most important thing is to have a fun time wioth your folks. Enjoy.

Amy: yes please, would love to support re sabotage - I am currently trying to decided whether I need to work out why I do it or whether I could just find ways of addressing it.........do you know when you do it.

Lacey: So sorry to hear about G. It gives you a clue re changed behaviour but wuold obviously be happier time if she was not poorly. Hope she better soon.

Karen: Glad you back home - let's hope that's it for a while - must be time for some sun now.

Haillie: enjoy your prom

Victoria and everyone else: mind is now boggled and have forgotten who said what (sorry) but gald you all still here and we are working together to achive our common aim!!!

Am now on 4/7 good days; 2/7 bad. Have mixed feelings re what today should count as already as totally missed lunch (which in reality is bad, but not the bad I was originally thinking!!!!) Decisions/decisions. Aside from that, loggin good/bad is really making me think so will continue for whole of this challenge, if all alright with that?

Annette x

So I missed a day and you would think I missed a week. So happy to have all the fresh faces on here and excited to get more time to really get to know all of you. Today at work I am actually back in our HR office (HR person is also one of my best friends and I am her back up when she's not here), so its a bit easier for me to take some time and devote to you guys. So here I go, trying to catch up with everyone. If I miss you, I'm super sorry! I'm normally on here so much more!

Annette, I think you should continue to strive for more good days than bad, but maybe you need to look at is as more of a more good "decisions" than bad. That way, if you slip up at lunch, you can't think "well now this day is a bad day, so it can stay bad." Just a thought. Keep at it though, you're doing great!

Tae, if it makes you feel any better, I have been here for a bit and I'm still overwhelmed and sometimes feel like a wallflower. Just dive in! We're all super duper nice, I promise. Over time, you'll find a way to connect with everyone. The thing that's so great about this is you can talk about whatever, and no matter what, somebody else in the group is going to react to it.

Victoria, remember when you got your bootie back in gear after you realized you had gained back some weight, and then it started dropping off again and you were SO HAPPY about it? Yeah. You need to be there again! So I agree with Amy, if you're hungry, EAT. Just make sure you're burning to compensate. Or maybe look at what you're eating? Protein is the killer for me. Without it, I think I would feel like I was starving all the time. And water too.

Kristina, I totally cracked up at you saying you need to spread the Kristina love around. You do! I totally get your lack of desire to rush into that - dating is kind of a pain. But that's awesome that your date dude messaged you again. Of course he did- you are fantastic! After reading all the chatting about the Game of Thrones books, I'm thinking I need to invest. We just watched last Sunday's episode last night - craziness!

Bwildered, welcome! That's awesome that you are doing Insanity! Keep it up and I'm sure you'll see amazing results. A bunch of people on here have done C25K, so if you're thinking about it, you can bounce ideas off.

Kendall, well hello gorgeous! The 2 pics you put up on here are freaking beautiful and you look beautiful in them! Yay you! And you can totally lose 5lbs by the end of this challenge!

Karen, I don't think there are words to express how excited I am that you are finally in your own home again. You can zumba again! And no more sharing your mom's tiny fridge! YAY! Is the inspection today? For some reason I'm thinking the inspection was on Thursday.. if it is, I hope it goes well!

Nava, I have also thought about getting one of those hair treatments. I have that stupid middle of the road hair that is just frizzy and awkward on its own. If I take the time it can look awesome curly or straight, but its definitely not low maintenance. I also agree that no one should ever post pics of someone else that they wouldn't post of themselves on facebook. So frustrating!

Bells, welcome! see above for my comment about runners in the group and C25K. We're here for you!

Cristina, welcome! I agree that it would be nice to not want to eat pizza and queso... and beer. lol

Renee, welcome to you too!

kingfisher, I completely relate to wanting to fit into your clothes in your closet. Today I am actually wearing a pair of capris that I haven't been able to wear since 2006, and I love them and it feels AMAZING.

Lacey, I am so pumped that you are getting P90X. I am telling you in advance that I am going to totally harass you about staying at it. Seriously, you might hate me for it, but remember I'm doing it because I love you and I love P90X and I really want to see you accomplish it.

Sarah, you have some pretty awesome/impressive goals. Let me know how getting your sodium at 1500 a day goes... I'd love to do that, but I still have quite a few "convenience" foods in my diet which of course adds sodium in. I'm trying. I find it the hardest on my big calorie burn days... Amy I know you relate to that! How's the HRM treating you? You got a Polar FT7 right? Fancy. I LOVE having one.

Hailie, have a great time at prom this weekend sweetie! Can't wait to see pics! I actually went to a Lutheran boarding school and they didn't want us to get involoved in the usual prom shenanigans so they held it on Sunday night and called it Junior/Senior Banquet. It was still pretty much just prom, though.

Amy, have you done the Air Force PT test yet? I bet you will do amazing! How long were in the Air Force for? I can't belive the hubbs cut his own cast off - hilarious.

Phew! I got all that I had written down! And now my boss is coming back so I will get back on to you tell you about my day! Love you all!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to check in. Hope everyone is having a great day! I've been on track with my calories today and I'm hoping to convince the hubby to let me mow the lawn so I can get my exercise in for the day. It was errand running in the morning and a playdate in the afternoon for my two kiddos, so I've not gotten it in yet.

After I've been here a bit longer, I'll try and do more comments to other posts. I'm having a hard time just getting this response in as my kiddos are all over me. lol.

-Laura

I won't lie... I tried to read all 4 pages but eventually had to give up, lol. But here I am!! *waves* I can't reply to everyone but congrats to Kerry and welcome to all the newcomers! It's great to have you all. :happy:

It's insane to me that I lost 14 lbs during the last challenge leaving me at 18 lbs less than when I started MFP on April 3rd! Holy cow... My goals for this challege:

1. *Continue* logging all calories and exercise (this hasn't been much of an issue for me)
2. Do 3 days of strength training every week (I suck at getting myself into it the one extra day that I should be doing it without my personal trainer!)
3. Get outside more, enjoy the amazing weather WHILE doing my cardio and reserve the gym's elliptical for crummy rainy days
4. I'd love to start the Couch to 5K. I'm going to try to get a jogging stoller to make this goal realistic but if I can't afford one, then maybe it'll be a goal for another challenge.
5. Grow a pair and make it to a Zumba class to at least give it a try.

Given this challenge ends right before my birthday on the 18th, I'm gonna shoot for dropping 15 lbs and landing right at 212.

Thanks for all the positive comments - have decided to count yesterday as a good day - missing lunch was 'out of my control' and I didn't over eat as compensation - in fact I ate very little at all (not good) but I didn't do that - eat everything in sight thing which is usually associated with missed meals.
Therefore 5/7 good days 2/7 bad. Can see the sabotage coming already - if I slip to less than 5/7 will feel like a failure and punish with food. Idea - change tact - challenge is six weeks - 42 days - ergo if keeping tally for whole challenge 5/42 good 2/42 bad so far - no scale on which to punish - Hurrah. You lot are fantastic - you are making me think and address by being in my head with your comments and thoughts and you are making me work it through - THANK YOU.

Anyways - weighed today - 183 - AND am so excited about the day - I am off to rollerblade along the sea front, with two friends - who are cycling. The Hubby cringed when he heard (he hates it when I skate - feels I am an accident waiting to happen - don't know what he's on about really - just because I don't know how to stop.......................


Victoria/Kristina: am totally in awe of your staying power - how do you get through that 'boredom' factor that hits after 20 minutes of so?

Amy - you have lost so much - your body taking time out to re-adjust is a positive thing - the pizza and soda WILL NOT HELP - body will just get confused and not know whether to want good or bad foods.

Lacey/Kerry - thanks for the comments - as above - you are all helping me re-adjust my thinking.

Enjoy your weekends all. Have to run part of a fun day at chapel tomorrow (I have 30+ 6/7 year olds for the day) so may not be able to post, then monday am working and have cakes and things to make for a funeral. Tuesday is filled with taking my father to consultants and Wednesday, back at work. No wonder housework sits looking at me!

Annette x

Happy Friday the 13th!!! Check-in for Thurs (I had to estimate dinner so it may be bettter than it looks) 2971 burned and 3227 consumed. Exercise was an hour at the park walking and jogging on trails plus 2 mile walk for dinner.

Lacey - both pairs of shoes are Brooks. I've been running in Brooks for a year and like the fit and how the instep is built up for arch support (stops me from pronating). The trail shoes were awesome - forefoot is sturdier and big nobs on bottom for better traction...

Annette - you asked how I keep going after 20 min. I assume you mean with running. The first 2 miles are the hardest, then your body releases endorphins and it's easy to keep going... It's what we call the runner's high!!! You just feel fantastic. I do many things to get through the first 2 miles... I listen to books on tape and make sure it's a great story - I only get to keep listening if I keep running. If I'm on the treadmill, I envision the view as if I'm running outside (at 1/2 mile, I'm making the turn at wildcat corner. Now I'm approaching the horses, etc)... Running really is a mental sport. If the beginning is really hard for me, I slow my pace down to 15 min mile, enjoy the view and wait for the endorphins... Running is my drug of choice - what else beats a natural high. I talked to many runners as I was doing C25K - week 5 had me freaked out with the 20 min run. Best advise to slow down and just get the time in. Once you know you can do it, then work on speed.