Today went well. Logged my food and stayed in calories. Did a 45 minute ballet workout. Not sure if anyone else is watching college basketball. I'm sure I burned some calories watching Gonzaga even though they did great. We had wind storms today and lost power. I hope it doesn't take days to get it back. I guess the baby chicks will be staying in the house tonight by the wood stove!

Hi all, I'm Katie from near Nottingham in the UK with my husband and our two cats. I've been with the group - and actively trying to lose weight - since January and both enjoying it and seeing success on the scale. Prior to that I was doing WW for over 5 years and got close to a healthy BMI once, but then regained all the weight and couldn't seem to shift it. I have a desk based job (currently from home full time) but I like to move... walking, running and resistance bands; weight lifting will hopefully re-enter my life soon.

Monday morning, @jugar, okay if I jump back in? No sitting on the sidelines this month. My dramatic yoyoing was making me not want to screw up the team stats BUT an energetic sunny Monday morning has me saying 'ENOUGH'.
Please put me back in and I'm aiming for a great April.

Hello everyone! My name is Stephanie, I currently live in Luxembourg but am from Oklahoma. I'm married with two teenage kids and also have a son in the US. I'm working on a Masters Degree and taking French lessons. I love to run, hike, bike and travel. I hate that COVID has restricted movement and there doesn't seem to be a vaccine in sight for me in Europe...

As for health and fitness. I've always been very active and eaten what I liked. After my third child and taking on additional career roles my weight topped at about 182 pounds. I was stressed and miserable and too tired to focus on my nutrition or fitness, I hate those pictures. In 2019, we moved to Luxembourg in support of my husband's career and I left my mine. I traded my stress at work for living in a foreign country and integrating my family here. Honestly, it has improved all our lives in so many ways. Since then I have worked to improve my fitness, nutrition and mindset. I'm a lot more fun to be around these days. I currently weigh 156.5 and am working to get to 145.

I have found that being mindful of carbs helps me to manage my overall food intake, I like to eat less than 100 carbs per day. I also have eliminated snacking late at night by "intermittent fasting" - which for me means finishing any eating by 8pm and having just coffee for breakfast. I did "Dry January" and realized that a cold fizzy drink does me just as good without the negative effects of alcohol on my metabolism. I am working on getting more sleep currently I get about 6 hours and my body needs more.

In March, I waivered in recording all my foods and exercising routinely. In April, I plan to just get back to my basics. I will read the group chat every day and work to post more routinely.

Hi Waistaways - can't believe it's already April.

I'm Kay, 26, living in Boston. Been on the team since August and really loved the support system and motivation here!

That said - I actually decided that I am going to back away from calorie counting. This Wednesday will mark 500 days straight of logging and reaching my fitbit step goal and that's a LOT. I was just thinking that actually, since meeting my step goal meant 1-2 hours of walking at a minimum every day, I have basically not given my body a true rest day in a year and half. !!! MFP has definitely helped me lose weight, especially in the last 3 years (hovering around 45-50 lbs lost), but recently has not been working as well. I've been stuck in a restrict-binge cycle for maybe 6 weeks and I think I need to reassess my relationship with food. I have been too focused on numbers - scale, calories, steps, streaks, yada yada yada. I am actually going to take my fitbit off for a while too!

I won't be weighing myself for at least a good month I hope, and then more like every 2-3 weeks after, so I won't be fitting the bill for the F2F system, but hoping @jugar can put me on support team and I can still check in and read about all your journeys? (While embarking on my own!) I feel like I know someone of you by now and there is such progress being made here!

Hi WaistAways, I'm Courtney and I'm 40 years old and live in the National Capital Region of Canada with my husband and two cats (both of whom are also overweight according to the vet). I have just closed down my toolbox and traded up for a desk job working from home until the pandemic is behind us. I like the idea of working from home based on the cost of commuting, but I know there will definitely be struggles for weight loss since I'll be moving less and will have easier access to snacks! I had a high-stress desk job 5 years ago and ballooned to my highest weight ever. This new position is more relaxed but boredom can be an enemy to willpower just like stress can.

As for my weight loss story, I was very athletic in my youth but once I hit university and sports weren't an everyday thing, I failed to lower my calorie consumption to match. I've been gaining and losing the same 40lbs for almost 20 years, so this time, with all of the motivation around me like I've found in this group, I will finally stick to it, and learn to be satisfied with the calorie limit I should actually be consuming instead of my goldfish tendencies to eat until I want to explode. I had great habits and motivation when I first joined MFP back in August but have gotten comfortable in the size I've reached so I've relaxed my discipline with my calorie goal to the point that I overdo it on the weekends and then spend Monday and Tuesday trying to turn the bus around for my Wednesday weigh-in. Like others, I'm going to have to find a bit of a better relationship with food to have this last for the long term. I'm 9 lbs from my first major goal. I have added an exercise routine I don't hate and The Habit Tracker I started using in February really kept me on track! I've picked out the reward I want once I've earned it. I'm giving myself $5 a week for each week I complete my three goals so another couple of weeks and I should have accumulated enough to get it!

My goals for March are:
1. Log honestly every day, even if when I hit "Complete my Diary" I don't get the caption "Was under her calorie goal" at the end.
2. No drinking wine 5 days per week
3. Remember to drink water (at least 40oz)!
4. Do free weight exercise at least 3 times per week

With this new job I have regained an hour and a half of my day that I would have normally lost to driving back and forth to work. Home reno projects take a bit of that time because there's always SOMETHING on the to-do list, but that's an hour and a half DAILY that's now MINE where I should be able to dedicate a good portion of that to wellness, either in exercise or meal planning/prep.

I do want to commit to posting more often as I'm one of the guilty ones that tends to post mostly on weigh in day and I really appreciate all the sharing of stories and advice from members of this group so I need to step up and contribute!