Seehee: the line in your post that read "Take one day at a time. I am going up to a resort in Phoenix on Saturday to see my visiting sister and BIL, which I know will throw me off my plan. This makes me feel like giving up on the whole week, so I am going to focus on each day one at a time." made me wanna stand up and clap for ya!

I think every single one of us still struggles with the "plan messed up, give up on the whole week" mindset - it's how we ended up here because we always DID give up on the whole day, week, month, year... etc etc! The fact that you recognize the challenge you're going to have AHEAD of time, and made a plan to focus on each single individual day, is a great strategy! it's kinda like the flat tire analogy; just because you find one flat on your car, doesn't mean you're flatten the other three! I think that's a great goal, as are your others - well done you!
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OWR - omg on being caught by the BOSS! hope it was AFTER your annual job evaluation - guffaw!! And you nailed it right on the head with the line "I just wanna be able to walk up the stairs without wheezing like a freight train". It's exactly what moving our parts every day is all about - being able to do the things WE want to do with ease, whatever it may be! I'd love to start biking outside again, and I want to try kayaking this summer, and I'd like to be able to take the stairs UP to my floor without collapsing into the fetal position at the third floor! THAT's what moving my parts every day will accomplish for me!!

Excellent goals for both you and Susan for this week IMO!! YAY YOU'S!

(BTW.. are you going on vacay OWR??? im guessing a 10 hr drive aint for fun in itself?)

P.S. I think we need a pic on each page for motivation for our challenge.. anyone got sumpin for us as we're on a new page now and it's nekkid..?

Lmao!!! I need to get me one of those little guys to stand at the end of my treadmill !!!! Maybe I'll cut a paper doll one at work tonight to hang there! Thanks for the pics Susan!!!

OWR. how lovely you're going to visit your DIL since your son can't be with her); and how nice you're going to paint the nursery and do the furniture; what a great MIL!! lol@the "if I didn't love her" - absolutely!! Sounds like the trip will be a great benefit for all of you!
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After so many months of frigid temps here, It hit 38F (yup I did the conversion thanks to Siri LOL) here this afternoon; and the sun was shining brilliantly as I was lacing up my sneakers to hit the treadmill, so I decided to grab a small joy and hop in the car instead and head to my beloved lake to walk outside!1 I have so missed my daily walks there, and it was spectacular! I completely forgot of course that its always a few degrees colder by open water, and the wind was a little stronger than I realized LOL. but I tugged my mismatched mittens and earmuffs on and it was just fabulous to be out hoofing it in the sunshine!! There were at least half a dozen others out there as well LOL.. none of us could resist the moment as we know there's more cold and snow coming next week! Some of the lake trail was still too snow covered to walk on, but there was more than enough to get me 45 minutes of joy!! Woo hoo!! About to make up some snackage for my first night shift tonight.. turkey slices rolled around cucumber and yellow pepper strips (with a little mustard just for the love of same!) should take care of that 3am "i'm hungry cause I should be asleep" moment.... rock on peeps!! (Gonna try to post a little pic of my small joy moments location!)

ouch SBH!! sounds like it might be a sciatica thing (only cause you said pain started in hip and spread down leg...that's almost identical to what happened to me and honestly I thought the doc was nuts when he said it was my back because the pain was in my hip and leg.. not my back LOL.. but ended up I could barely walk, and trying to get from any sitting or lying position to up was near impossible for a few days! Please give yourself time to recover fully before kicking into gear with the exercise... you don't want to exacerbate whatever is it that's been injured til it has a chance to heal... I shuddered reading your post.. falling on the ice is one reason I didn't walk outside this year.. last time I fell I felt like a mack truck had hit me the day after... whole body was aching!

Love your goals for the week; as far as your cal instake, i'd be happy to take a look at your diary over a few weeks and see if anything jumps out at me? I had a friend look over mine about a year into my loss (TArnold) and she pointed out a couple of areas I hadn't even considered... not that I know anything more than anyone else of course.. but i'd be happy to take a looksee.. but I gotta say I find it kinda.. odd.. that people you know are CONSISTENTLY losing 4 to 5 pounds a WEEK.. or should I constantly losing that amount?? That would mean they are consistently burning off 24,500 EXTRA calories every week in some way... or burning off over 3500 EXTRA cals every single day?? That's a whole hell of a lot of calories to burn every single day unless youre an athlete or professional dancer or something. IMO anyway..... even 2bs is an aggressive goal for most people which is why MFP suggests setting your goals to 1lb or 1.5 a week.... and when our bodies take a break to catch up to the changes we're making, it can get frustrating to not see the scale moving for sure.. its been almost a month for me with no loss til this week so we know how you're feeling.. but would be happy to have a boo at your numbers and offer an opinion one way or the other?

and oh... re the eating back cals.. I USED to eat em all back, but over the past few months I've decided MFP and Runkeeper both overestimate the calories I REALLY burn from my exercise.. so I only eat back about 1/2 unless im actually hungry.. then I eat no matter what any numbers show. But i'm eating between 1400-1500 cals right now and gradually moving it up a wee bit too... so even if I don't eat them all back im still staying above the min 1200 required for my body to just function every day...

Suzy - so glad to hear your having success and progress with your plan to lower some simple carbs... about the "holding onto the weight" thing.. I truly believe that.. when I first started here someone told me that weight loss isn't linear.. it'll go up, down, around many times due to so many factors, including but not by any means limited to, us flipping around from a good day here, then a "bad day".. then a couple of days of good then a pig out.. consistency in hitting our daily calorie goals every day as close as possible lets the body learn you aren't gonna starve it one day and over feed it the next and lets it start to release the excess fat its storing from never knowing what we're doing to it LOL. And when you lose a fair bit of weight, like 10 lbs, it appears sometimes needs a bit of time to stay at that weight, that hemotosis theory, to adjust to the changes before it is ready to start releasing it again. But as that article also stated, there are many reasons why it doesn't respond to our efforts when WE want it to ... we just have to keep being consistent and it will eventually respond (as I said to OWR.. kinda like a man IMO.. it WILL do what we ask, but it will do it when IT wants to, not when we want it to LOL.
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Susan.. lol @ the jumping pic.. love it!! thanks mucho!! I have started typing a bit, then saving it and re opening it to edit it lately because I've lost a few posts too ... sometimes I open it 4 or 5 times as I read back to add stuff.. at least that way I don't lose everything.. sucks when you've typed out something and the sucker disappers.... grrrr!!

Gail - love the madly waving hands!! YAY You for having the goals; it doesn't matter if you share em with us, as long as you got em, girl! And I see you've been rocking the biking already this week... well done you!

Didn't sleep well today but that's not unusual for first night shift; did my 30 min beginner yoga full body stretch video when I got up to cover my 30 minutes of moving every day, but no walkies today; stayed in my jammies inbetween sleeps lol! hoping by tomorrow will be a little more energetic and better sleep!