Motivation, Success and Frustration Sharing!

Hi ladies!! Sorry I have been MIA for the last whole week! I've been totally slammed at work, hoping that next week will be way better (my boss just left for Hawaii!!). My coworker burst her eardrum and I've been covering her too. Plus I was busy all nights/mornings etc!! Didn't even get to the gym on Tues/Wed or Thursday this week - I was such a grouch!!

Nicole - it must be this time of year, because this week my hubs is feeling off, really missing his dad! (he passed in April). I think it is the time of year where we look forward to being with our families and Christmas is in the near future, so it definitely brings up a lot of sentimental memories. Hang in there, and make some fab new memories with your family this holiday season. I'm going to try that here too!

Rachel - va va va voom! Nice new profile pic!! Looking great! Glad you are feeling better. Your weekend sounds great, I love pizza and board games! And really really really treasure your time with your grandma, I wish mine were still here. Good idea with pre making the chilli! You are going to do great. (Just tell her after 2 cookies to take the plate away and hide it! LOL)

Jane - I so want to see Fantastic Beasts!! Looks great, and will be very imaginative! Ok, I don't know what the heck sticky toffee pudding is (is it really pudding?), but it sounds like I would scarf the whole thing! haha!

Gem - great work on the deck! Reno's are hard work, but worth it when you can look back and be proud of doing it yourselves!

Jen - ummm hello!? Clothes falling off? That is AWESOME! Or as my 9 yo would say "swasome" (sweet + awesome). LOL! Definitely keep up the great work!

I didn't even weigh myself today. Just trying to get through this week!! Hope everyone has a great weekend, and has time for exercise!

Hi Joanne welcome this is a great place to be. Please add me as a friend.

Rachel. Great job sticking to your food plan. Your profile picture is beautiful

@jdelaroy great NSV. Woohoo. Where do you live. We in Ohio had our first snow Saturday. Yuck it was 28 this morning on my way to work. Not ready for that.

Joy. Nice to hear from you. Hopefully this week won't be as hectic. Do you only work three days also.

Thank to everyone for the good thought and cyber hugs I am really taking them in. Happy Monday everyone. May these three days go fast.

Was a quiet day in this thread yesterday. Hope everyone is doing alright, hanging tough and taking the steps they need/want to.

I had a rough two days. I did fine with my calories at work, but I was starving when I got home and dinner took 3 hours to make. So while making dinner, I snacked on pretzels covered in almond bark. Then the BF asked me to make him blueberry muffins. He just bought, and set up a brand new dryer for us. How could I say no. I ate one of those too. Lets just say my scale said I was u almost 2 pounds. My fat is fighting eviction and that stupid thought of this was the lightest weight I will be is looming in the back of my mind. I need to step it back up, and call in the reinforcements. Stupid fat is not going to win.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Shy - sounds like you are really making it work . have fun at Thanksgiving and enjoy the pie!!

Nicole - yay for happy hump day, sadly I still have two more to go after today - boohiss! Hope you are doing ok at this tough time - first holidays after the loss of someone special are so hard. Make sure you look after yourself.

Jen - I hate those days when you are hungry and food takes so long. I think I would have succumbed to the muffin as well. You are doing so well though - you will not let the fat win out!

Joy - sticky toffee pudding (at least over here) is steamed sponge pudding with treacle in it and then a liberal dose of treacle sauce poured all over it. And then you really should be adding either cream or custard to it - it is lethal, delicious and so not conducive to a calorie counting and weight loss regime

So I had a morning to forget - missed the alarm and overslept so missed my normal train to the office. Got breakfast sorted for all of us and helped hubby get Alistair up and dressed for nursery. Drove to the station to discover no bag - so no train ticket, purse, phone, house keys - nothing! Thankfully hubby had not left for work so was able to get back to the house and pick everything up but missed another train in the process. The day could only improve!!

Hope the day treats you all well and happy thanksgiving to you all!

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving for tomorrow from Canada! Hugs all around! Hope everyone has a wonderful day with their friends and families.

Jane: Thanks for telling me what sticky toffee pudding is... sounds delicious! I had to google what treacle was, and it is molasses! Yum. Then I googled pics of sticky toffee pudding... shouldn't have done that! LOL! Sounds like you are having 'one of those days', hope it turns around!

Shy: your thanksgiving sounds great! Is that usually what americans do? put up their christmas decorations right after thanksgiving? Since our Thanksgiving is in the beginning of October, we aren't even thinking about Christmas at that time of year. Makes sense though, take one holiday deco's down, and put the next up? Might as well! Have fun at all your dinners and enjoy decorating!

Jen: that made me laugh! Wishing to chew the food and spit it out! haha! I have felt the same way, that's for sure! I've definitely been struggling with the portion sizes, eating times (clock) and eating times (too many times!) over the past while. It's a daily struggle!

I woke up and weighed myself and I'm down a pound, so that was a nice surprise today. I've been so busy still, barely time to exercise. I have to get myself sorted, plan some meals, plan some gym times and plan some time for just being at home. I'm out again tonight for the SIXTH night in a row. Let's just say I was dragging my knuckles to work today - too old for this! No solid plans for the weekend, we have to work all week this week, no days off here sadly. I'll do some black Friday shopping I'm sure, been trying to work through my Christmas list and get some presents checked off!

Enjoy Thanksgiving, friends! xo

Okay, I almost never post (because I'm lazy and it's more fun reading what other people have to say.

Rachel, your skating is so inspiring. Makes me want to go find the one skate rink I know of w/in 50 miles of where I live. If I do, I'm likely to break an ankle.

jdelroy, I totally agree about the spitting, if I thought it would work, I'd try it. You think spitting it out would work with infused vodka? (more on that later)... And I can think of a lot foods that I remember fondly that I go back and try and am disappointed (I wasted 740 calories on THAT?)
ngolden, LOVE the image.

All of you just amaze me. You're SO active. I'm totally a slug. Well, I have been lately. Caught something a few weeks ago, just before Halloween, missed Rocky Horror because of it. Went to the doctor after feeling horrible for 4 days, and sounding worse. People would call me at work and think they dialed the wrong number. Lots of meds. Went back a week later, more meds and "Oh, yeah, the cough, it'll probably stick around another 4-6 weeks." This is three weeks of coughing since he said that. Grr. Wonder if it 4-6 weeks since he said it or since the cough started? Sometimes I can walk but sometimes I can't. Have done a lot of nothing since.

I'm thankful Thanksgiving is over. My plan, have T-day lunch with my sis in law, drop in at the end of my cousin's dinner, deliver dessert (ie: remove it from MY house, put it somewhere that dervishes will devour it...did I say dervishes, sorry, my bad, should have said children), chat a bit, have a dessert go home after a couple hours. My sis in law and I are both on here, so I figured we would both be reasonable (and, we were, generally).

Lunch was nice. Hubby has no brakes where there's dessert, but hey, I almost never make dessert. I head to my cousin's. They've finished eating. We say no thanks to more food (but it all looks amazing). We hang out. Hubby watches football with her hubby and oldest kid, I hang with my aunt and cousin in the kitchen. And then she breaks out a bottle of Kinky Pink. So tasty. I think, hey I can handle this...one drink. No big. And I stick with one. We have dessert. I stick with a nice, healthy piece of apple cobbler (who am I kidding? I made the cobbler, I know how much sugar and butter went into it!). I was still okay on the calories. I was GOOD. Well, not bad. But then it's, hey, I made mulled cider. MMMM. It's terrible hanging out with people like yourself (you know, good cooks who go overboard and are food pushers). 600+ (totally worth it) calories and 4 1/2 hours later, we're heading home.

By this time I've offloaded 1.5 of the loaves of evil-wonderful cranberry bread (recipe makes 3 loaves! usually I only make half of the recipe), a jar of Cranberry-Blueberry Chutney, a jar of Cranberry-Pear-Orange Chutney, half a huge apple cobbler, a Mississippi Mud pie and a pumpkin pie. Mississippi Mud for those of you unfamiliar with the dessert has nothing to do with Mississippi or with mud and everything to do with Oreo cookies and chocolate. Understanding of the name eludes me. My version, and there are many, of this particular evil: Oreo cookie crust, layer of white chocolate pudding blended with cream cheese, layer of real whipped cream, layer of crushed Oreo cookies, layer of chocolate pudding blended with cream cheese, layer of crushed Oreos (usually there is another layer of whipped cream between the chocolate layer and the last layer of cookie but there wasn't space). See, told you I was a food pusher.

If you missed the subtext: I totally went overboard...on dessert and on the all things cranberry. Reason I don't generally make dessert or bake? This.

Of course, when we get home, there's the extras from my sis-in-law's house and my cousin added stuff to my cooler, too. So, while I came home with less, not as much less as I'd hoped. Glad we planned to have leftovers the next several days! Thus endeth Melanie's food porn.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

@janetay01 Yikes, what a day. I sure hope the rest of the week was better.

@wishfuljune Thanks, I am trying to remember. I think I did alright the rest of the week. How is your writing going? The new trainer?

@ngolden3320 Hope you are doing okay. Loved the Meme.

@melaniedscott Congrats on your loss and reaching your goal early! Good job. I also loved your post of your week so far.

I did great on Thanksgiving. I enjoyed the time with my family, won at spoons, and did not overeat. I was very proud of myself. Getting dressed for Thanksgiving was difficult. I couldn't find anything that fit right, or didn't show off my beautiful muffin top. (I swear I am not losing from this spot at all) Finally, found a shirt that looked pretty good on me. It used to be one of my least favorite shirts to wear. I also did pretty good the rest of the weekend. I challenged the BF to see who could lose the most weight by the end of the year. We are both competitive, so hopefully this will keep me motivated. I also did a Fitbit Challenge with my sister, BF and a few of her friends. I kicked butt, with over 30K steps. Woot.

I believe tonight the BF and I are finally going to join the gym. That will be awesome sauce. I love my walking, but it is starting to get really cold, and I can't seem to get my heart beat up high enough for it to be cardio.

I checked out the scale and it said I was down 1.5 lbs. I hope it stays that way for tomorrow's weigh in. If so, I will be down a total of 39.4 Pounds!

Have a good Monday everyone!

@melaniedscott Congrats on the loss! Great job keeping things in check, I loved your food porn lol

@wishfuljune .5lbs in a huge victory!!! I'm here to cheer you on into the 160s

@jdelaroy Amazing loss over the holiday! It is funny how clothes fit entirely different as our body shifts with weight loss

@gemwolf110 Gorgeous pie and coffee machine! Glad you had a wonderful holiday

I'm finally back and back on track. I seriously ate my way through the holiday week and I'm staying far, far away from the scale until the sodium bloat goes down. I stayed active, but it wasn't nearly as intense as I normally do. I have no control when it comes to my MIL's homecooked food or my Grandma's chocolate chip cookies. A week does not define my journey and I am committed to staying on track so that I can enter Dec. 24th in a good headspace. On the flip side, I had an absolute blast and I didn't binge eat so I'm counting those as victories.