200+ Hot For Halloween!

Thanks for your answers so far! I'm genuinely curious about how everyone else does it....I used to think I knew everything I needed to know about weight loss, but the more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know. I've been freaking out lately on days that I work out and my net is way under what I think it should be, and then I watch Biggest Loser and think "why am I worrying about this?"

The really frustrating thing is that my body is not at all consistant. I can eat 2,000 + calories and lose weight the next day, or I can have net calories of 1200 - 1400 for several days in a row and my body will hang on to every ounce. For so long I've heard "it's just calories in vs. calories out...so simple!," but I'm not really finding that to necessarily be the case. So far the only thing that seems to work for me is a kind of zig zag with one or two days of high calories...I just keep trying to find the "sweet spot" of calories I need to eat on most days to have a consistant loss though.

I had another minor freak out about the sugar thing this morning too, but after hearing from you guys I think I'll put that one at the bottom of my list of things to worry about.

I did not go to bed when I said I was going to last night, but I still managed to stay out of the kitchen and didn't eat anything else (although I did wake up hungry!). The scale was nicer to me this morning.

I'm going to have to double up one day this week and go to the gym and walk Lexi on the same day. I'm thinking that will have to happen on Saturday. I haven't worked out since Saturday and that was a half a s s attempt and I didn't even break a sweat.

Friday my bff and I are going to see Uncle Kracker at a bar. Woohoo!

Kristina: Thanks for leaving off the +4.6 pounds :bigsmile: I'll get my crap together this week and turn that + into a -.

Sarah: I'd be one of those ones who KNOW better (hardest job I've ever had - and that includes my time in the military).

Kendal: Uncle Kraker rules!!!

Jessi: Free bunnies!!! That's so cool. The Kid has been bugging me for a bunny but I just don't see that happening until we get back to The States.

I have got a headache from hell. Seriously. My head hurt yesterday but today it feels about ready to explode. I think I'm allergic to biochemistry - it didn't start hurting until I did my coursework today. Boo.

Bunnies are cute. Until you don't take super good care of them. Like I mean super duper good care of them. And then are not so cute anymore. I had two of them at one time. I didn't change the cage once for a few days for some reason and when I got my one bunny out to hold it I noticed she had worms or magets or something crawling all over her underside that weren't there the two days before. I promptly too them out to the woods and released them so they could be happy for a while before they died. And I will never have bunnies again.

They have added a Warrior Dash for NC in May next year!!!! OMG!!! I don't know if I should do it cause I think I'd rather run it with you ladies up in Michigan

Why not do them both with a goal of beating your time with the second one.

WOWZERS! Look at those losses! Congrats ladies! I want to be one of you next week.

Pam: I have to say that I stick as close as possible to my calories for the day. Right now I am supposed to be at 1810 a day. I overrode it and bumped myself down to 1750 because of the change I am making this month and reducing my sugar intake as well by cutting out sweets. I strive to be no less than 10% of what my calories are for the day as I can feel when my body is shutting down because it needs food. I also do not eat back my burned calories from working out. I may eat some protein to kick-start me and keep me going but I rarely eat any of those calories.

Hubby on the other hand gets 2300 calories a day and he says he has a hard time reaching it on some days but on others he has been over. It all depends on the day.

Today is day 4 of NO SWEETS and I am happy to say I haven't even been tempted today. I am hoping to add in some sort of exercise this week as I haven't had any in far too long besides the regular "calisthenics" that hubby and I joke about. LOL!

Okay, so I haven’t been posting in forever. It will take me a bit to catch up.

Crystal—keep up the good work on the smoking, or not smoking that is. My mother’s doctor said the same thing about Benadryl. She’s done that for years now when she is having problems getting to sleep.

Lacey—I would never be able to hire someone to clean my house. I’m so silly I would scrub the place top to bottom before they would come clean because “I can’t have strangers coming into a dirty house.” Hey, maybe that’s what I need for accountability, hire a cleaner so I’m motivated to clean more of it myself :laugh: Also, I know how frustrating male OBs can be about the weightloss. The first time I went to visit my old one, he ran my cholesterol three times because he just couldn’t believe that someone as overweight as me could have healthy normal cholesterol. Then he would spend at least half of every visit recommending I have surgery of some sort to deal with the issue. I was still in my early twenties at this point and didn’t have the confidence to just change doctors. He completely ignored the fact that I exercised multiple days a week, my BP was fine, my cholesterol was fine, and my cycle was every 28 days to the flippin’ hour.

Which leads me to…

Bobbie—my new OB runs a weight loss support group. While I am not a member of the group, at my annual this past spring she said that it is her experience when dealing with obese women that they almost always have three things in common. 1.) they are not drinking enough water, she recommends that a person needs to drink half their body weight in oz. or water a day. So for example. A person who weighs 300 lbs. would need to drink 150 oz. of water. I don’t get anywhere close to that, but since she told me, I have greatly increased the amount I drink. 2.) they don’t eat breakfast, or they eat carbs for breakfast. She recommends eating a high protein breakfast within thirty minutes of getting up. And 3.) they don’t eat enough calories; she said that about 90 % of the women in her group were eating less than 1200 calories a day. I don’t know that any of this is helpful, but there you go.

Sarah—I LOVE Zuppa Tuscana. I have the recipe for it, and make it every other month or so.

Kendal—the costume is so cute

Amy—350 Stairs, OMG, I couldn’t imagine. I’m done after climbing the 120 to the fifth floor of the courthouse. And as for how to tell how you met. I would have just said you met in a fitness club. It’s sorta true. I’m all for letting people assume what they will. Not that there is a problem meeting people on line—that is how I met my husband—but your right, some people just don’t, and will never, understand.

Wiggle—I don’t know how you can get a pedi. I could never let a stranger touch my feet. I’m way too self-conscious to do that. When I was in middle school I was so embarrassed about the fact that my big and first toe didn’t touch I spent weeks exercising them so that they would stay together. All in preparation for a sleep over I knew was coming. I, to this day, still find myself clenching my toes together without even thinking about it.

And one last thing to all you football fans—I have absolutely no sympathy for any of you. I’m a Colts fan so I don’t even want to hear it. 0-4 just makes me sick. Thank God my other team is the Saints and they aren’t doing anywhere near as bad.

As for me, I have a pretty bad anxiety disorder, which I keep in check most of the time. Last week was not most of the time. It took everything I had to go to work, make dinner, and try to focus enough to be able to fall asleep. Now that things are more or less back on track I can catch up on all the posts. My diet was relatively okay, great on salt and water intake. Which is probably how I was able to finally for the first time in months drop below 280 (yeah me!!!) Bad on exercise though, unless you count pacing the floor . Anyway, I am at least caught up. Hopefully this week will be better.

-Katheryne

Katheryne, I completely agree with you on not being able to hire a cleaning service. I can't imagine having someone else clean up after me... I'd be embarrased and want to get everything tidied up before they got there. I grew up in a house where my mom vacuumed and dusted every.single.day. So yeah - it was spotless all the time. Still is.

Crystal, YAY for no smoking for 4 days! You can totally do this, girlie! Just think about all the money you will save, all the great and healthy things you are doing for your body... I can't imagine how hard it is, but I have faith in you! Keep it up and you'll be through the worst of it!

Jenn, you are my hero for 4 days of no sweets. I seriously cannot fathom it. I'm sure that is a lot to blame for my nagging belly pooch, but I just can't help myself. I purposely save calories so I can have an ice cream sandwich or a bowl of Cocoa Puffs after dinner. If I'm trying to behave, I'll have Raisin Bran instead. lol...

Annette, I like the way you are keeping track of yourself - keep it up woman!

Kendal, I agree with Lacey, do BOTH Warrior Dashes. You are a warrior, after all. Enjoy Uncle Kracker! I saw Kenny Chesney and friends 2 summers ago at Ford Field (where the Lions play) and Uncle Kracker just showed up to sing with him. It was awesome. I was actually more excited to see Sugarland and Lady Antebellum than Kenny, though. And wtg on staying out of the kitchen last night - super willpower, you have. (that's my best Yoda. Sorry.)

Lacey, (itty bitty whip crack) Get back to logging, woman! I know it was fun to not log while on vacation, but that's why its called a vacation - its a break from real life. So get to it before you really hate your scale! And how is it possible that I constantly shop at Banana and Gap and have never seen/heard of athleta.com?! I.want.it.all. Their stuff is SO CUTE!

Amy, how's the headache? Better? Gone? I hope so! Just thinking about you doing biochemistry kinda makes my head hurt, so I can only imagine! :laugh:

navallez, congrats on the big loss! :drinker: Yay for you and all the "losers" this week!

Jessi, yay for bunnies! I LOVE bunnies. I find them adorable. I also love sweaters made with angora. They are the greatest ever. I don't think I can ever own a bunny again though, because when I was in 6th grade I had a dwarf floppy eared bunny name Baghera (like the Jungle Book) and we left him in his cage to go to chuch on a Sunday in May, and out of NOWHERE it got to be super freaking hot and within the 2 hours that we were gone, he died of heat stroke. It was awful because I came home and ran to his cage and reached in to grab him (I thought he was sleeping) and he was totally stiff. I had nightmares about it for forever.

Pam, I don't think I can say more than what everyone else has on the starvation/sugar topic. I completely believe in starvation. I believe that if you starve yourself, you will lose weight. I believe also that the second you start eating again, you will have a heck of a time keeping that weight off, along with giving yourself all kinds of health issues. Its bad. We need fuel, especially if we are working out. I DO however LOVE hearing about how people have their calorie goals set up. Now that I'm so close to my "goal" weight, I switched my MFP goals to 1 pound a week losses. For NET calories, Monday thru Friday I stay between 1300-1400. (So I eat back ALL of my exercise calories). On the weekend... yeah I end up netting closer to like 2000-2500. I think the natural "calorie cycling" that offers kind of helps me. Up until now. We'll see what this week's weigh in brings, and then I might be shaking up my whole routine. We shall see. As far as sugar goes, I know I eat way to much. I blame Clif Bars and dessert, as I mentioned before.

Victoria, you are so wise and wonderful. Any thoughts on ways to compensate for one-side-of-the-body-butt-soreness from running on the road and having my left leg need a little bit longer of a stride than my right? I suppose I could start running on the wrong side of the road for a while? I have been stretching like crazy, but I just always have some tightness in my left cheek/hamstring.

Sarah, I can't imagine what your friend is going through/dealing with. She has a long road ahead of her and my thoughts and prayers are with you and her and her family. Yuck, that's all I can say. What 1/2 Marathon are you running? What day is it actually on? I'm curious, because I might be out there running 13.1 miles at the same time as you! We could send each other good juju from the internet universe. lol.

My funk of dealing with my HRM strap/no scale movement is officially OVER. I declare it so. Amy is right, I absolutely can't start slacking or Doc Horton is gonna wipe the floor with me in January, and I'm completely uncool with that. I want to kick P90X 2's @ss. SO! After a long and crazy talk with the hubbs about how he doesn't want me to stop being "me" and assuring him that he's the greatest thing that ever happened to me and I'm never going to leave him just because I got skinny... I think I have his support in marathon training. Right now I'm still thinking Chicago in October of 2012, but I MAY try for Traverse City in May of 2012. I don't want to overload between P90X2 and running though, cuz that just spells i-n-j-u-r-y, so we'll see. I think after 10/16 I'm going to stick with 5 mile runs on Tuesday and Thursday, then a longer run on Saturday (maybe a rotation of 8-10-12 or something per week?) and then still do P90X jazz on the other days. My goal is to up my weights/reps with P90X. I really need to push it. Time to take this to the next level, baby!

(and then, maybe, just MAYBE, I'll start to pay attention to what I'm doing sugar-wise. Not fruit and such. But yogurt, energy bars, sweetened cereals, ice cream, yada yada. Mmm sweets. Mmm savories. MMMM FOOD!) :laugh:

Hi ladies!

Busy week this week with my London-side boss in town to do an audit so I won't be able to log on here much.

That being said of the posts I remember...

Pam, on one of the seasons of Biggest Loser, I remember one of the contestants or Jillian saying they hadn't reached their daily 6000 target burn. I think the women eat about 1500 and burn about 6000 a day. I'm assuming they go on some manner of crazy maintenance. Of all the contestants I've seen the only ones to totally keep the weight TOTALLY off are Ali, and so far Hannah and Olivia.

Sarah, I think if I cut bread out of my diet I might just lose it. Bread and ice cream are probably my two biggest weaknesses.

Ummm... someone else had said something I wanted to comment on but I totally can't remember now!

Hope y'all are doing well!

Sarah - Haha, definitely quite a job! I know how kids can be. :P

Amy - I've got them hanging out in the office with me right now, and the two of them have never been around each other before. They get along beautifully, other than all the face-humping. I hope your head feels better soon.

Lacey - Eeew! I'm pretty religious about cage changing already, since I have 5 cockatiels that try to eat anything that falls to the bottom of their cage, poo included. I went a little while where I was changing the cage more than once a day, because my female bird was laying unfertilized eggs and then breaking and destroying them, too. Fun, fun stuff....

Crystal - So glad you're staying positive! I'm sure it'll get better, but I don't doubt it will take time. I did the celibacy thing for about a year and a half, and it wasn't so bad once people I'd dated and whatnot in the past got the picture.

Kerry - OMG! That's so terrible. I couldn't do it either. I don't deal with death well, especially pets.

So yep, hanging out at work with the bunnies. Boss man is letting me leave early since our sales and production people are out of town for training, so I really have nothing at all to do. That, and he doesn't find my bunnies adorable. Here are some pics:

Jessi- LOL at the face humping bunnies!!!


Can I just say what a GREAT motivation it is to come home, catch up on the few posts I missed and WANT to go to the gym. I think this is what I need to start doing every day. Now you ladies just need to make sure to post between the time I leave work and the time I get home. Yup, time to shave my legs and go to the gym. :-D

Way to Go with BMF Lacey!!!!

Jessie - so cute!!!

Kendal - I'll try to help keep you motivated!!!

WOOHOO, Kendal!! Running a mile after 60 minutes on the treadmill = rock star. Nice work!!!

Kendal gets a gold star!!! Woohoo!!! A mile is a LONG way! And you weren't takin' your time, either! GREAT, GREAT JOB!!!