I've not been feeling too well today. TMI, but I was visited by Aunt Flo a few days late this month and it has been pure h e ll. I know that I'm probably premenapausal, but if this continues to get worse I will have to talk with my doctor about it as I can't give up a day or two each month to just crawl into bed. I really need to get us packed for vacation, but lack the motivation needed.
From one perimenopausal to another.... hang in there!
Have had a bad day today with several things upsetting me and weighing on my mind. Trying to remain positive and look at the big picture. Nobody is dead or hurt. We will wake up tomorrow with food, shelter, clothing, transportation, money and everything we need to life a happy life. All of the issues will work themselves out with probably no long-term consequences. One issue may cost us a lot of money but we have done nothing to owe this money and our conscience is clear.
Shawn
Nice job keeping it POSITIVE!!!
Question of the Day For the HH points this week the challenge is to eat at least 5 fruits or veggies a day. How to manage to do this? What are your favorite fruits and veggies?
Unless the fridge is bare, I have no problem getting my fruits and veggies. Breakfast almost always involves one or the other.... egg whites with veggies, greek yogurt with fruit, etc.
Lunch and/or dinner are very, very often a salad. If not a salad, then usually some sort of hot veggies and quite often carrots or celery with hummus.
Snacks usually involve baby carrots, sliced cucumber, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon or peaches this time of year. Later in the year it will be clementines and apples and grapes.
I would say I average about 5-8 servings of fruit/veggies per day.... sometimes as many as 10 servings! I do really like veggies and I serve a lot of them to my family. I bulk up a lot of our meals with extra veggies where ever possible. I made a delicious "creamy light fettucine alfredo" the other night I haven't made in a while. It calls for two cups of steamed veggies, but it is easy to bulk it up with lots more! Plus I served it to DH and myself on tofu shiritaki noodles (whole wheat spaghetti for the kiddos) and it was delicious!!!!!
We've been eating our big family meal at lunch time a lot this summer and it has worked out well. DH is working from home and DD is home during the mid part of the day. That way we can kind of "wing it" in the evenings when we are dashing to swim and such.
Favorites??? Veggies..... broccoli, cauliflower (both oven roasted....mmmmm),asparagus, romaine, tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, fresh apples, mango.
Have you ever heard the old saying "If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know" ? I find that is so true. If I have a lot going on, I am so much more productive. If I don't have much going on, I end up procrastinating on even the few things I have to do.
Shawn
That sounds like me to an extreme!!!! Lazy begets lazy.... but busy begets busier!!
This challenge is surprisingly hard. I love fruits and veggies, just don't eat enough of them. Best way to get a few servings in is make a salad, downside to that is dressings. Just need to make better choices in those. I really don't have a favorite, I go through phases where I love this or that at the time then kind of get burned out on them cause ate too much. I have decided I don't like spaghetti squash, tried it and was a fail. Today going to hit local farmer's market and see if can still find green tomatoes. Those are surprisingly good roasted in oven. I want to roast them and then see if can make salsa out of them. It will be experiment, but I like doing those in kitchen.
Mmmm.... the green tomatoes sound good. I saw some at the fruit market this morning, but short of fried green tomatoes (which I've tried and didn't like) or green tomato mincemeat (yummy but full of sugar), I couldn't think of anything to do with them! I usually end up with green tomatoes at the end of the season after the first frost.... I keep the oven roasting in mind for them!
Talked to my mom last night for a bit. My sister had upset her again as usual and she mentioned she thought she needed her medication as she thought she was going to have a seizure. Of course then she wouldn't get off the phone with me to call the nurses. She slept through her therapy session yesterday so hopefully they will do one today. I finally convinced her that we would talk tomorrow and that she needed to call the nurse. I'm feeling guilty about not being there to help. My brother and I are in disagreement with my sister about something at the moment so she appears to be mad at both of us. My brother's been away so he may have missed her call. I can't deal with my sister when she is in a pissy mood and I've got enough of my own issues to deal with right now!
TTFN
Sorry that things are still crazy with your Mom.
Good morning, everyone! I just have a minute but I wanted to thank those doing the exercise challenge with me. It is really helping me stay on track. When I might have moved my long training session to tomorrow I figured I had to exercise anyway, so I might as well get that out of the way. Worked out well. I did 8.21 miles. It took way too long compared to what I was able to do pre-injury, but I racked up the activity points and don't have to fit in exercise again today.
Have a great day, everyone!
Hey.... the heck with the time.... at least you are moving again in the right direction! POSITIVE thinking!
QOTD: It's really hard. DH said, "just throw some berries on your cereal in the morning and you're off to a good start." Well, yes, dear, but when I choose a cereal it's loaded with sugar and doesn't need anything else!
So, for favorites, I like bananas, strawberries, watermelon and veggies: broccoli, corn, peas, carrots. Another problem for me is the timing of this challenge: it is the very end of the month and we have pretty much used up the grocery allotment. Ya gotta love once a month paydays. I would love to run out and buy fresh stuff, but hope to wait until Monday.
Have a great day everybody! Drink that water and eat those fruits and veggies.
It took a long time to get used to the once-a-month paychecks, but you do learn some tricks! I always try to keep a few frozen/canned fruits and veggies on hand for the when it gets tricky at the end of the month. Frozen broccoli and canned peaches/pears in juice are bearable when necessary.
I had a really hard time last night. School starts in Texas in the next few weeks and my emotions hit me like a tsunami last night. There are events you look foward to as a parent and taking your child to her first day of kindergarten is one of them. I would be school supply and clothes shopping right now. I would be getting ready to meet her new teacher in a few weeks. I'd be stressing over whether the Navy would be letting her daddy be there on her first day of school. All of these things you get to look forward to as a parent and I don't get that chance thanks to a dumb drunk driver.
I had an emotional night and spent a good amount of time sitting in my dark closet bawling my eyes out. I haven't cried that hard in I don't know how long... the funeral maybe? It was one of those nights where I felt the drunk got off to easy. Yes, she died but for a split second last night I wished she was sitting in a dark dreary jail cell having to live with the fact that she took my family from me.
Question of the Day If you could pick your choice of EMH which would it be AM or PM? What park would it be?
Have a happy and healthy day.
Tough question.... I like them both! I'm enough of a morning person that I love AM EMH! But it is only one hour..... and usually the evening EMH is a few hours and it is fun to be there in the dark.... and usually by about 1 am the place is DEAD (in a good way!). Disney seems to have a devious plan to put an AM EMH on the morning after a PM EMH.... but we trick them.... we use a good alarm clock and lots of strong COFFEE and make it to BOTH!!!!
For AM EMH I like DHS.... you can get TOT, RNR, and TSM all done (sometimes a few rides on each) before the rest of the folks arrive! Then you are free to see other stuff or leave the park (not my favorite park, so I am happy to be out of there by noon).
For PM EMH I love MK!!! What's not to love about riding BTMRR in the dark 3 times in a row without getting off! And I can get as wet as I want on Splash and not worry about looking like a drowned rat for the rest of the day!
We ran 6 miles this morning. It went well, though it was pretty warm and muggy. I am just about done icing my knees. I didn't ice on Friday and I could definitely tell.
Probably at the end of the week I'd like to start throwing around some ideas for the next challenge. If you are currently helping out with something please send me a pm and let me know if you'd like to continue. I don't know yet if I will post a planning thread or if we will just talk about the next challenge here.
Have a great Sunday!
Don't give up on the icing! It is an important step! I have been really lax on my stretching and I can always tell the next morning!
I know I've been MIA more than usual for this challenge, but I'd love to chat about planning for the next one! I know BUffy and I both mentioned helping out with an "organizational" component for the next one. If there is any interest in that, let me know!
I'm really cracking down on my diet and exercise now that my trip is so close. I would LOVE to lose another 12 lbs before then and I think I can do it/come really close to it. I'm back on my diet TODAY after two weeks of being so far off plan, I couldn't even see my plan. I can't wait to get back on the scale and see a number I *like*, hahaha!
Glad that you got your plan back "in sight" again! My exercise schedule must have been visiting your plan, cause it has definitely not been here!
QOTD I am early riser so I would pick EMH and I would pick the MK. You can do most of Fantasyland in an hour. The best EMH I ever saw was with my sister. Only Fantasyland was open and it was geared for little kids. My dsis and I were by ourselves but we went anyway. I even called to ask if it was open to all guests and not just those with kids. It was different in that the characters were all out but you were not allowed to ask them for autographs. the characters were playing with the kids and going on the rides with the kids. We saw Wendy take a little boy on Peter Pan and then meet up with Peter at the end. Minnie was playing jump rope. The Mad Hatter took a little boy on the Tea Cups. It was so sweet.
I think I remember them doing that a few years ago! It sounds like it was pretty neat.
I used to be a Twilight fan, I started reading the books when they first came out. But then they got popular and I realized that they were kind of lame, and the movies are just blah. Taylor Lautner is the high point of them for me.
Harry Potter still has it'a magic (no pun intended) 14 years later and keeps getting better (I'm still finding new stuff every time I read the books or watch the movies), but Twilight lost it's appeal after only a few. I did watch the first three movies, but I have no interest in the last two.
I was SO happy when DD finally realized that she didn't care so much for the Twilight series! In fact, I don't think she ever even saw the last movie. It was, fortunately, a flash in the pan.
OMG!!!
I will never ever ever again paint a room a dark color. Alan has put on two coats of white primer + paint (its all in one) and the dang Aggie red is still bleeding through. He's up at Sherwin Williams right now to see what they suggest.
We both agreed the new house is NOT getting painted.
Honestly.... some colors are just tough to get good coverage over and some are tough to get good results! I painted DS's room this past fall..... one wall of pumpkin orange and three walls of lime green all over light blue..... so you wouldn't think it would be too bad, but it took at least three coats of the orange to look decent! I can't imagine what it will take to cover the orange some day!
If you aren't painting the new house, what will you do?? Wallpaper? Do people still use that? Don't see it much around here any more.
Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around. We are just so busy and we are leaving for Nashville on Thursday, we'll be gone for 10 days but I'll try to sneak some time in while we are on the road.
Enjoy Nashville!
EMH: always night!!! We are NOT morning people!! LOL Although Pamela, her DD, my DS and I did morning EMH at Hollywood Studios and we got so much done!!! I'd like to do it again, I just need to get my kids moving in the same direction!
Oh my gosh.... that was such a fun day!!! I finally got around to putting some of my pictures from that trip on FB for the family to see. I love seeing them pop up when check FB!
Pamela Please wish DD a happy birthday for me!!! Just sent DS upstairs to text her a message!
I did! Thanks.
Tomorrow is the day I committed to getting myself back to this thread. New month, new diet approach (I'm going to try to be lower carb), new exercise routine, and new resolve to get myself on here and chat!
Missing you all and looking forward to catching up, even if it is imperfectly with shorter posts and fewer replies
Maria
ME TOO! I've been doing good with food, but I'm recommitting to more exercise and new motivation! Lower carbs is a big PITA, but I have to honestly say I notice such a difference around my middle that it is worth it. I don't miss potatoes (as I had given them up a while ago) and I don't miss pasta much (although I miss it as an option for a quick/cheap family meal), and I never buy white bread any how. But I do miss the occasional Skinny Cow treat, Vitamuffin, FiberOne bar, etc.
Look for the Joseph's Flax, oat bran, and whole wheat pitas and lavash.... they are really low carb and very good! The pita makes a nice pizza crust!
I find, if I am craving a carb, I can have a moderate amount of a really healthy carb (like whole wheat couscous, quinoa, or a Joseph's pita) and it takes care of the craving.
The HARDEST part is giving up the reliance on artificial sweeteners. It is so easy to fall into a trap of consuming TOO MUCH Splenda, Equal, etc in an effort to avoid sugar when you are watching your carbs. You kind of just need to enjoy things LESS sweet (coffee, tea, yogurt).
Plain fat free greek yogurt is a nice alternative, but it does need sweetening (IMHO).... but I've gotten it down to just one packet of stevia plus some vanilla and some berries. I stewed some peaches last week (in an effort to save them.... not very good ones) and they are really delicious mixed with the greek yogurt.
Anyhow.... PM me if you wanna talk!
Slinking back into the room ...
Well, it has been about a month since I've last posted - but I promise I do read every post, every day.
I just have not been able to get my act together in terms of food. I've been eating junk, eating out, not counting points, not weighing or measuring, etc.
I feel gross - I feel like I've gained fifty pounds. My only saving grace is that I drink a ton of water each day, and I've continued to walk three miles a day at least 5 days a week.
My starting weight at the beginning of this challenge was 207. At one point I was down to 203 and had actually been runner-up BL one week. I weighed myself today to send my weight to Donac and was right back where I started - 207.
I'm not going to dwell on it - I can't get the time back or change what I've done (or not done) - just wanted to get it out there so I deal with it and move on ...
- Laura
Isn't it funny how our bodies try to get back to a particular spot? And of course, we are always fighting to get to a LOWER spot!
You have dealt with it.... you did the hardest part! You hit the scale, faced the music, came clean with us, and now you can, as you said, MOVE ON!! Glad you see you back!!
Happy birthday to your DD. 16 seems SO far away for me, but its really not. I'm only 25! When did 25 start to feel so old!
Good luck losing before you vacation! I know you can do it! Your such an inspiration to me how you manage to keep yourself on track! Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself "What would Pamela do?" And ok to be honest sometimes I say screw it and go "this is what Trina wants to do" but i am trying!!!
I'll share the birthday greetings with DD!
Thanks for telling me that I inspire you. I don't feel very "inspirational" lately and I think that is why I haven't MADE the time to visit here very often this summer. Like I've said, after 3 1/2 years of WW, I've definitely got the eating thing down pat..... but the exercise I continue to struggle with. But as long as I am still TRYING I figure I am moving in the right direction (at least figuratively).
I hope your DD had a great day! I've been sitting at the top of my maintain this summer, too, and it's getting old! My DS goes back to school on Wednesday, so Thursday Mike and I are recommitting to getting back on track!
Yup.... definitely being home for the summer and having a crazy summer schedule has NOT helped with the exercise schedule.
I've been at the top of my maintain pretty much since I returned from Disney (except for maybe two weeks) and it SUCKS!!! In fact, the lovely size 4 shorts that I bought for our trip are now SO TIGHT that I refuse to wear them.... This is the first time since I started this journey in 2008 that I have backpedaled so badly for so long.... and I KNOW, without a doubt, that it is the exercise that is the problem. Trying hard to resolve it though.
Ok, it's August! I don't usually like to see the summer go by, but July was a busy, slightly stressful month at our house, so I am ready for a new month.
I know for a lot of folks school will be starting back up soon. It's always a little stressful when school starts back up, but I think being back on a schedule helps a lot of people, including me!
So if you have a few minutes, take some time and write up some kind of schedule for the next week. Last week I scheduled all of my runs up to the W&D and I feel much more in control. Later this week my plan is to get a meal plan together for the rest of this month.
Have a great, OP day!
You've got a deal! I will write up this week's exercise plan/schedule, as well as a plan for my vacation week next week! I'll post it later!
Question of the Day
It is a new month and many people are talking about starting over I think this is a good question for the day.
What is the one thing that you can do today to start your new life style?
I think that writing up my exercise plan for the next MONTH is a good start!
I am going to work on getting in my exercise. My knee and my other ankle have been bothering me a great deal this weekend. I bought new sneakers yesterday and a new pedometer. I am aiming for 10000 steps for today. It is going to be tough but I am hoping to do it.
Have a happy and healthy day.
Hope the new sneakers help!
P. Nick was telling me yesterday that his 16th is coming right up
How is this possible he was just born, wasn't he. Of course he completed driver's ed on Friday so he is really itching to get his license. He got an A in the class so that makes me feel a little better. Wish DD a Happy Birthday from us.
DD says HI and THANKS! She hasn't taken Driver's Ed yet cause we've been too busy, but hopefully we can find a course for her to take in September. Swim season doesn''t kick into high gear again until the end of October, so we need to take advantage of that time.
************
Well friends.... I spent too much time replying so now I've got to FLY to pick up DS at Robotics camp! I'll be back later to chat....................P
We had a great birthday celebration with friends earlier this week, so today is low-key. 
I did the early entry thing this morning!
I owe ds a Glee 3-D, and I will admit I loved the previews for Happy Feet 2. So cute! 
This will keep me up and moving, instead of seated and eatin'. 
