Motivation, Success and Frustration Sharing!

@ShyCush6 Great NSV! My guy likes to snack all night in the evening, gummy bears, worms, twinkies, pudding... you get the idea. I try to leave some extra calories, so I can snack a little with him.

@evamutt it is so hard to change habits, and if they are habits you have had for life it makes it that much harder. You can do it though.

@429jules No Problem. I find that pre planning meals tends to help me. I try to leave a little room at the end of the day for a snack.

@rachel0778 It sucked. By time I got home I was less that half way on my step goal for the day. Plus the BF was still being a butt. I love your at home date nights. I wish I could do that. but the Mom won't go to bed until her son does. So leaves no alone time for us at all.

Well I ended up being out of the house for 15 hours yesterday. Didn't take a lunch so was way behind. I didn't feel like cooking, so stopped at McDonald's I ordered the grilled chicken sandwich, and stuff for the kids. Got to the window and went through the bag, they forgot my sandwich. I let them know, they took the bag, and brought it back and said, oh yea we forgot it. It's in there now. I didn't double check. Got home, and it was still not there. Ended up eating crackers, salami and cream cheese. BF was still being a grump, so I went and walked in the backyard until it was too dark, then walked in the living room until I reached my step goal.

This morning hasn't started off much better. I got to work, and spilled my Chi Tea all over the floor. I didn't even get a drink. Then I spilled water. Argh. Hope today gets better.

Maybe this doesn't belong in this thread, but is there somewhere to get a comparison for your net calorie consumption just like the exercise diary has for your daily and weekly exercise goals vs completed? It's a nice little snapshot - I'd be interested in seeing a comparison just like that for the food. I realize you can probably get the same information from the reports, but you have to add that up manually. Haha.

At 1 lb/week its 1260, I put it to 1/2 lb/week for a while & it gave me 15something. on the TDEE site, it gives me 1415 /day, so I've been trying to go with the 1415. Thing is, in the past, I never snacked, just ate 2 meals/day. I do make a fruit/veggie smoothie in the morning since I started mfp & I really DO feel better. Maybe I'll do the smoothie & twice a day eating for a while & see if that would be better for me. When I eat snack in evening, it's really hard to stop. I have 20-25 lbs to go & i really want to get there.

@jdelaroy You were having quite the day yesterday! I hope today is going better. For date nights, do you have a TV in your room? If not I recommend investing That could be an easy way to shut his mother out to have one-on-one time.

@ngolden3320 Your week sounds awful. I'm so glad Cassidy and your husband are both on the mend. Hopefully now you can focus on your own self care too because your health is equally as important!

@Evamutt 1415/day sounds more like a BMR (basal metabolic rate) than your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). Since your BMR is how many calories your body needs if it was in a coma, that probably explains part of why you're hungry a lot of the time. Maybe consider bumping your daily intake up a bit? It will lead to slower weight loss, but it will be easier to stick with long term

@Emma_ExpatinItaly Welcome! 1200 is a pretty low number, which is likely why it's so hard to stick with! Have you calculated out your TDEE and BMR? (see info above I wrote to EvaMutt). Working with those numbers and incorporating some of that delicious Italian food will likely make your plan a lot more livable for the long term!

@kasey39 Under reports you should be able to see weekly/daily/monthly views of your net calories. I find reports easier to work with/view on my mobile device vs. the computer

@janetay01 The one I tried was called Walk away the Pounds on youtube if you want to give it a shot. Were you able to pre-log everything and make it work?

I hate that it's only Thursday and not Friday. This week has seemed extra long and I've been extra hungry Yesterday I was able to stick with my goal but only because I had to leave the house for dance class. I was the only one who showed up so it was like personal training! Tonight is derby and I'm just not looking forward to it. Now that our trainer is leaving it feels like our team has thinned out and I just have a feeling we are going to disband after summer because we have no plan in place to replace her. I hate that all of the cool sports I find locally end up disbanding right after I join them. Seriously, am I cursed? I keep trying to think of a new option for if derby ends and I'm coming up with nothing which means I'll have to join a regular gym again (ugh).

Holy sodium!! I hadn't been tracking sodium because I was focusing on other things, but when I switched it to start tracking it today, discovered I'm doubling, some days even tripling my recommended sodium intake. There might be part of my problem! Even when I'm 300 net calories under my goal, and way under in the sugars, I'm way over in the sodium. Well, it was nice having soup for lunch. Now I need to find something filling (THAT TASTES GOOD!!) that's a little lower in the sodium. That alone seemed to be the biggest offender. I already knew it was really high, just didn't realize how much, and how much compared to my goals since I was focused in other areas. Oy! The pains of being a Doritos girl vs a chocolate girl! Never enjoyed sweets as much as the salty foods. Guess I need to figure something out there! Bye, bye Progresso!!

Today I divided my daily calories up into smoothie or quest bar,P&J for afternoon snack & rest for lunch & mainly dinner. see how it goes. I have 1380 cal/day

I was just about to say "Happy Friday everyone"!! Sadly, I realized it's still Thursday! LOL!

Shy! GO BADGERS! Sounds like you have an epic weekend on the horizon! You are going to do great. Just keep drinking the water in between the boozy drinks, and try your best not to snack on junk. I think we can do well with the healthy choices for dinner, but sit us in front of a bowl of cheesy poofs and Houston, we have a problem!
You are doing great, 11 lbs down since January, you are killing it girl! Keep up the good work, you are my inspiration!

Kasey - welcome to the group! I'm up the 4 lbs I lost, so don't feel bad about the 5 lbs up! It will get lost again. Good thing you are paying attention to the sodium intake. I think fresh and homemade is the best way to limit your sodium. sometimes I think of it like eating very simply, like one ingredient foods. One of our fav healthy dinners is yam, with roasted brussel sprouts and salmon. The more ingredients, the more sodium and sugar and junk gets put into it. Good luck! I'm right there with you with the love of salt, because I'm allergic to chocolate!

Rachel - Beauty and the Beast was worth it to see in the theatres (but I am a Disney fan). have you seen the live action Cinderella? It was really good too. I'm also eating a lot of frozen foods lately, I decided we should try to clean out our freezer, to get through all that comfort food stashed away in there. Gotta make way for salads and bbq'ing - spring is here! I hear you about the long week - I just thought it was Friday! I will try to think of something else you could do in case your group gets disbanded. Maybe we could come up with something that you could start! Then it won't disband!

Jen - Glad that things have simmered a bit at home, that was a rough go. I love my chai tea lattes, and if I dumped mine, I would go back and get a replacement too! I love that you are roller skating so much! Jealous! I grew up roller skating, but they tore down the rink and it is now movie theatres and a pub. I was thinking along the same lines as Rachel, but thinking can you get your MIL a tv in HER room? Then she could watch it, and you could live in your house in peace!

Emma - welcome! How lucky are you to be living around all of that amazing food! But yes, that does put a damper on balancing a healthy lifestyle when there is cheese and bread and gelato around every corner. Talk about test of will power every minute of the day!

Eva - I had tried to lower my cals to 1200-1300 and it was just too low. I could do it for a few days, then would lose it and eat way over. It was unsustainable for me. I'm at 1600 now, and honestly sometimes I think that is way too low! (But I love food). No snacking in the evening works best for me - have to tell myself "no, the kitchen is closed!"

Nic - your week did sound like a hot mess with everyone sick and in the emerg and no gym! Hope things have settled. My week was a hot mess too, but only because I was wallowing in a small pity party. Ate too much, and didn't really make it to the gym either! Glad that is over!!

Shyanne, this looks suspiciously like pie and ice cream!!!

Joy - that cat meme was me on Wednesday night - regret nothing, apologise for nothing!

@kasey39 - I'm with you on the sodiumlevels. Although I like my chocolate, I will naturally reach for the savoury snacks most of the time. We don't add it to any of the meals that we make so not too much of a problem there but I've had days where I could deal with a bag of Doritos/tube of Pringles single handed - and that would give me enough sodium to last for weeks!

Jen - so glad that your week has taken a turn for the better. Hope roller skating went well. Understand about the MIL - it's impossible to put down boundaries in that situation and therefore must make it very hard.

Shy - love the photo. She's watching that bowl so closely!! Sounds like you've got a great weekend lined up - enjoy yourselves

Rachel - thank you, I'll look up Walk Away the Pounds on Youtube. Pre-logging went ok earlier in the week but it's all gone out of the window in the last couple of days! Sorry to hear about Derby being at risk - is there anything you can do to try and push the recruitment of a new trainer?

It's been a mixed couple of days here. The terrorist incident in London on Wednesday was about a mile and a half from my office and, whilst we weren't impacted at all, it's just a stark reminder of the nasty element of the world that we live in and the risks of working in a big city like that. So came home on Wednesday night and gave my two boys a huge hug - husband was fine, Alistair wriggled away saying 'no don't cuddle me mummy'!! Then proceeded to eat with abandon in the evening. And as for yesterday - well I should never have got out of bed. Never got going for the day and was really, really unproductive at work. So back on it today. We have a friends birthday lunch tomorrow which will be nice - and then nothing planned for Sunday. We'll probably try and find somewhere to go on Sunday but after the busy nature of last weekend and a long week at work, I'm looking forward to a quiet one. Hope you all have great weekends...

Me this weekend

Now I can say it.... Happy Friday, Lovely Ladies!! LOL! Glad it's finally here. It's raining today, so ended up not going to the gym this morning (was dark and cold!) Tomorrow if it is nice I will be going for a long hike with a friend. I'm a fair weather outdoor person - don't like to walk/bike/hike in the rain!

Rachel - YES the live action cinderella movie was amazing! I think I liked it better than the beauty and the beast live action, but both are so good! Definitely try to see if it is on netflix!! maybe this weekend when you are sitting around on your *kitten*! HA! enjoy that, by the way! (oh the joys of a life with no kids - do what you want, when you want!)

Jane! So glad that you are ok and were not affected the other day! Wow, talk about close to home. I'm sad that these crazy acts are getting worse and closer together, like on the way to becoming the new normal. It's scary! Definitely hug your family tight (even if he's trying to get away!) HA! Such a boy, mine do that still!

Well, enjoy your weekends, everyone! We have company staying with us for the weekend, so I'm going to try hard to cook healthy and not drink an entire vat of wine! PFF!

Friyay, finally! Well, I will admit it, bad week here on several fronts. Sloth mode: ON. I am feeling quite frustrated with myself as I was doing so well! I am currently, going through a break up too, as an expat this can be a lonely experience without the usual support structures such as life long friends and family. So the high emotions influence my eating, I wish it didn't but I'm hoping others can relate to this also?! New day Saturday, Gym Babe Mode: ON. Have a good weekend all xx