@cornanda – I am so sorry.
@holly2e – Welcome to the team! You definitely have your hands full with your troupe! I love yoga, too. My local lady just started in-person sessions back up, but she picked days and times when I’m either at work or church…so I’m pouting. Do you attend a class? Or do it on your own?
@leonadixon and @Glombog – Happy Birthday!
@Katmary71 – Since you’re going to be on the Board, you can delegate the weeding!

@laurelfit57 Most people run on glucose because they eat so often that their bodies don’t go into their fat stores for energy. Your body will make its own glucose if you let it. Also, during the fasted state the ketones start firing up the brain and that is why so many IFers claim to have awesome mental clarity while fasting. I was super busy and high-energy yesterday until I had a big carby dinner. Then I felt super tired and didn’t want to get up off the sofa. How fun to have everyone over for Easter and what a great way to get your house super clean! What kind of foods will you make?

@askewcr I’m sitting here in the midst of the storm right now and I’m sure you are too. A good day to just be lazy and stay home. I know what you mean about how getting off your regular routine can mess with your eating and exercise. I have that same problem. We just have to fight it and try to do the best we can. We have to take care of ourselves!

@Katmary71 I LOVE that you have a profile pic and I can see how pretty you are! Yeah, I hadn’t thought about how belly dancing would be hard on the lower back. I better refrain for that reason alone. The last two Beachbody dancing programs I tried and the boxing one all killed my lower back. I do much better staying with strict form and not being so fluid in my motions. That is great that you got some help at the pain clinic and that you will get some help with your weight lifting, which I know you want to do. Be a good girl and listen to them!!

@Glomberg Happy birthday! My fingers are crossed that your plan with your wife will be perfect! And if something crazy happens try not to take it too personally.

@trooworld Ohhh I am so sorry that you woke up in pain. Can you do some gentle stretching to lose up or will that make it worse? Extra weight is never good for our bodies. I’m sure that is why I am still dealing with knee issues.

@Cornanda I’m glad to see you posting! I know it’s hard right now not to feel like a gloomy bird but know that none of us are judging you all for how you feel. So you don’t either!! I’m glad that you have such a great family to give you support. And what good timing for your health insurance to send you an offer for a mental health program. You have to believe that someone is looking out for you.

@vegan4lyfe2012 I know it can be tough to turn things around but you can do it! I am doing my best to turn my gains around too. We just need to focus on why we want to be healthy and believe we can do it. And I think making Easter cards and offering them to members is an awesome idea. Message sent!


Hi Team! I was supposed to go into the office today but made a mistake about when Maggie was supposed to go to the groomers so I had to bring her back home. I decided just to stay and work from home and will go into the office tomorrow. I love how flexible my schedule can be! I’m going to do a fasting technique that is called an up/down day. What I plan to do is eat dinner, set my fasting app timer, and fast until dinner tomorrow. I will eat one small 500 calorie meal and then hit the timer again. I will fast Thursday until lunchtime and also eat a big, yet healthy dinner. This kind of fasting has shown to have really good results for people. I plan to stay super busy tomorrow with office work and some church cleaning, so I don’t think about food. And if I just can’t do it then that is OK. I will eat and try again another day. I love how flexible IF is also!
2022 Word: INTENTIONAL[/b]

@askewcr I think we have all been there, falling off track for a bit, but I know you can hop right back on!

@katmary71 Believe it or not, I actually don’t find our big family dinners stressful. It makes me happy to have everyone here and after two long years, I am so excited about it! I’m not very good at desserts, luckily my sister-in-law and daughter-in-law are awesome dessert makers so they will take care of that and my daughter is a pro at the appetizers! So I just need to do the meal in the middle :-).
I think that is great that you’re going to go to Physio! I actually do the same thing and he is so helpful! When I go to a class and there are exercises I can’t do (I have been hard on this old body throughout my life:/), he will give me other ways to do it or maybe just work up to those motions without any weights and soon I am adding weight to it. Fine for these young 20-year-old whippersnappers to pop off all those moves, some of us need a little help😜. Even if you are using half pound weights and still doing those range of motions your muscles will thank you!

@glombog haha sounds like your youngest is having a lot of fun planning your birthday! Happy birthday to you! I am really hoping that this birthday celebration rivals your 2019 celebration, not the ones in between:)

@trooworld I am so sorry that you are waking up in pain on a regular basis! I know carrying extra weight can exacerbate it.

@Cornanda i’m sorry this time is so hard for you, grief…
I’m glad that you made a plan for today and that you have people who support you! Just moving and doing things is so good for you, although I know it is hard to do sometimes. Be impressed with yourself that you did a weight workout, that you are doing these things is a testament to your strength! That app sounds like it is really helpful! Thinking about you❤️

@vegan4lyfe2012 I am so sorry that you are struggling right now, dealing with the loss of your sister is a lot❤️. It is so crazy, right now therapists are needed so badly and I know the wait lists are forever! Here it takes up to six - eight months. I really hope things turn around quickly for you.

@Teresaw1020 those carb dinners always do me in too LOL! My daughter, DIL and SIL will take care of appetizers and desserts, so that is always a surprise but always super delicious! I will be baking a ham, scallop potatoes, probably three or four different vegetables, pierogies and cabbage rolls. I will limit myself to a taste of everything:). I should have most things organized and made by the day before, so the day of, I will only have to bake the ham. Hoping to get in a really good spin class that morning LOL.
I love the flexibility that both your eating plan and your work can be!

@Fushiakat Congrats on the weight loss!

I didn’t do any weight classes last week, so it felt good to do one today. Have an appointment with Physio tomorrow, my hip is still giving me grief from that fall, so he will give me some tweaks that will make my workouts even better. I am trying to switch things up a bit, I think my body gets used to what I am doing and the weight tends to stay on. Now that most of the ice has melted, we have started to go down to the river valley to walk. I’ll tell you what, that hill to get down to those trails, it’s fine on the way down, but on the way up, at the beginning of the year everybody is huffing and puffing🤣. It’s a very twisty windy trail, I took a picture, you can only see about a third of the trail. Once you are in the river valley, it’s absolutely beautiful and so many places to go. This time of year there aren’t too many people there before 3 o’clock, I like to go just after lunch, there is a huge bridge that goes across the river and I can let Vannie go off leash, no fear of coyotes there :-) :-). She sure gets her Zoomies out on that bridge! Staying on track with my eating and tracking this week so far! I plan/track my food for the day at breakfast in the morning, really trying to stick with that!

Username: Trooworld
Weigh-in day: Weds
PW: 235
CW: 235.4

@vegan4lyfe2012
Thank you for the welcome! That’s a bummer your local yoga person has class times that don’t work for you. I do yoga myself at home. I would honestly love to go to in person classes, but I haven’t been able to make it work lately with the amount of things we have going on. I just try to fit in a little practice while the baby is napping or whenever I can. I used to teach yoga and hope to maybe be able to do it again someday.

I read your post about dealing with depression and I think it’s great that you’re being open and getting support here. That’s really important. Sorry you’ve been having such a hard time seeing a therapist, that’s frustrating to want help and not be able to get it. I just started seeing a therapist online about a month ago. I wonder if there would be anyone available for you through Telehealth?
I have been using an app recommended by my therapist called Healthy Minds (the logo has an HM) - the app leads you through a course about meditation and healthy mental habits. I have been enjoying and finding it helpful. It’s free too.

@Katmary71
I am not very experienced in meditation and mindfulness, but I am about one month into the journey of making it a daily habit.
I use a couple of different apps and guided meditations and am learning to incorporate mindful activity as well. I really enjoy and recommend the Healthy Minds app.

@laurelfit57 Your Easter dinner sounds wonderful! I haven’t had pierogies in years, but I love them! Switching things up is a great idea. Your body will get used to what you’re doing so shaking things up with your diet and exercise is a great idea. Vannie is so stinking cute!!

@Katmary71 Wahhooo on your weight is down! I can totally see you spending hours and hours at a nursery.

@trooworld Yes, my knee pain is a whole lot better since losing weight. It still acts upon occasion. It doesn’t like lunges very much, but I can do squats all day. Go figure! An annual pass at the zoo is awesome! I sure wish we had a good zoo near us so I could go all the time. And yes it will be a wonderful exercise.

@FushiaKat Yikes roofs are very expensive. In our last house, it had a metal roof and we thought it would never be an issue, but the screws were the wrong ones, and one day it started raining inside my dining room. Very annoying! I hear you about thinking about your future without your husband. Now that I’m going through cancer with my Joe it’s hit me much closer than I expected. Joe is 23 years older than me so I will probably have a lot of life left but I’m still worried about how I will handle it all.


Hi Team! Today was a good day. I went to work this morning and did all the office stuff. It's Spring Break for the homeschoolers so I could have cleaned but we are having a huge Easter egg hunt this Saturday. There will be a ton of people inside the sanctuary so I will really clean it after the event. After work, I went to Walmart for a few things and then home to do an arm workout with 21 Day Fix. By the time I sat down for dinner, I had been fasting for 23 ½ hours. Hunger kind of came and went but honestly, I was so busy that it wasn’t a problem. I had a small dinner and plan to fast until lunch tomorrow. Fingers crossed that the scale goes down!!
2022 Word: INTENTIONAL[/b]

@trooworld Glad the begonias came out well, how pretty! Are you feeling better at all today? I hope so, thinking of you.

@holly2e Hi Holly! Feel free to handle it as you're comfortable with, if I'm rushing sometimes I'll just post my update but if something speaks to you someone else is mentioning and you'd like to comment that is awesome. You can reply to other posts as little or as much as you'd like, we just love having you here and like getting to know you. I think one big thing I've learned on MFP and in this group is sometimes you think you're the only one dealing with something but if you open up about it you'd be surprised how many of us are going through something similar, plus we all share the lifestyle of counting calories and trying to better ourselves so it's inspiring to hear from each other. I'm going to check out the app, thank you for the name.

@FushiaKat How frustrating to have a medication go up that severely, how ridiculous. I can see why you're mad, some of the loopholes with pricing is insane. I look at losing weight in 5lb goals too. I finally got strawberries today, I thought of you at the store when I found them, they're really good too!

@TeresaW1020 The Easter egg hunt will be fun, how exciting! Sounds like you're doing amazing with fasting, I'm impressed!

@laurelfit57 Thank you! Way to go on getting 10,000 steps, I definitely see having a dog as a huge plus for health. I love the feeling of decluttering, sounds like you did an amazing job with it today. It's stressful but feels great once everything is gone.

Hi everyone, happy Wednesday! There's some hissing going on, my brother's cat is hiding under the couch hissing at my cats. Before I adopted my cats she would hide the first day she came here so I'm not surprised, poor girl. My two are absolutely fascinated as you can imagine. Anyhow, went back to the garden center then spent the afternoon in the yard, did Walmart pickup and went to Sprouts, and now have Cali so that's my day, I'm letting their dog out for a potty break before the housesitter gets off work and plan to mulch in the yard, I have a bunch of straw from when I made a feral cat enclosure (he never used it of course) so I'm going to get creative and spread it around. Have an awesome Thursday!

A little late, but here I am, Gabi 50yo married with 2 kids, leaving in Northern VA and with a full time desk job. Work is busy and cheap-drama heavy, so I’m grateful for my happy dog and the close by park trails these days.
I’m about 15lb to goal and when I blink it seems even farther 😁.
February to April I’m doing the things below and will reassess on May 1st:
- exercise 6 days/w
- cut/reduce eating after dinner or snacking thru the day
- walk 10k on all days
- one phone call a week to people I love talking to, but rarely see/hear
- do at least one stress reduction action a day
I’ve exercised, did so-so with evening snacking and poorly with stress management.
Oh well, onward and upward!

Username: GabiV125
Check in day: Thursday
PW: 136
CW: 136