I use MFP too. If it makes you feel good, keep doing it! I like the graphs and charts as well. And if weighing every day doesn't discourage you....that's great! And the fact you are recording daily...yahoo!
I'm Lisa and a veteran of these challenges on the WISH boards coming back after a hiatus.I use this for an excuse why I don't reach my weight loss goals.
My goal for September is to lose 5 pounds. I have been stuck in this decade FOREVER and want to find myself solidly in the middle of the next one by the end of the month. I'll use my Aria FitBit scale to measure and that will be the goal I am reporting here. I also have an exercise goal on the exercise thread. I will continue to follow my WW plan to lose this month. I attend meetings and also have two personal coaches on WW. They have helped me to come up with action plans to meet my WW goals.
I joined the challenge this month to give myself a little more accountability and to publicly set that goal of 5 pounds this month. I may not be posting too often but I will be like Roz . . . watching, always watching.
The extra set of eyes is always appreciated, at least in my book! I need that person who holds people accountable FOR SURE.
Oh wow! SO MUCH activity in here today! I LOVE IT! Where were all of you in August????I'm just kidding.
It's 1:38am now so I'll have to check back in later on and really read closely and reply to everyone. But I wanted to make sure I got in my answer to Wednesday's QOTD!
My WOOHOO is that I weighed in this morning at 204.4lbs! That's down 1.1lbs from Monday, and while that could be caused by anything and will probably be back up tomorrow, I have been over the moon about it all day!! It has been SO LONG since I have seen a number that low on the scale.I'm also seeing a lot of change in my shoulders, which I'm just thrilled about. I just wish the change were as obvious everywhere else!
My slightly-less-excited "woohoo" is that I'm almost done addressing wedding invitations. It's slightly-less-exciting only because I'm exhausted and don't have the energy to be properly excited about them, or even really care about them at all anymore LOL. They should've gone out 60 days before the wedding, so around August 24, but we decided at the last minute to change the color of the envelopes, because plain white envelopes are just so boring. LOL. So we had to wait for the new ones to come in. Then I, of course, decided that it would be so pretty if instead of just writing people's addresses on them, I would run them through the printer and print the addresses out in some pretty font in light grey and go over that with white ink. Easy peasy! And hey - I was right! It's really pretty. It's also REALLLLYYYYYY time consuming, because white ink is thin and needs at least two coats, and if you go too fast, the gel pens don't cooperate. I've been working on these since Friday night, from about 6pm til almost 3:30am every night (even longer on Saturday!), and out of 90 envelopes, I'm finally down to just 16 left. Not at all my wisest craft project. 51 days til no more wedding!!
View attachment 121308
It's kind of hard to see the lettering on the envelopes, but these are our invitations! All in all, I'm pleased with them. I love the colors - our wedding is themed "Autumn Elegance" so fall colors are playing a big role. I'm just so tired of doing this! Haha. And yes, I'm sending invitations to Mickey & Minnie. I've read they'll send you an autographed photo in response, so we'll see!
Bonus QOTD: I have an iPhone, but I don't use Siri (or any other "digital assistant"). Haha. She irritates me to no end.More often than not, when I try to use her, I just get frustrated because she isn't very helpful.
Good morning fellow losers!
QOTD - September 3
Let's talk about scales today. Are you a daily weigher? Weekly weigher? Hide the scale in the closet and never think about the numbers sort?
I'm also curious about how the numbers make you feel and what you do with the data. Do good numbers make your day while bad numbers bring on storm clouds? Or is it just a brief snapshot in time that you immediately let go? Do you record the numbers with spreadsheets, charts, sticky notes, and projections or forget what the scale said as soon as you step off?
Looking forward to the chatter!
You can throw a check mark for me in the weekly weigh-in category. With WW it just makes more sense to work hard during the week and then on whatever day it is you've chosen to weigh in and hope for the best
I use the WiiFitU for my scale and I love it. Now that we're on a first floor I can use the WiiFit system and do all of the fun exercise programs on my off-days for Couch to 10K.
As for numbers... I will say that with all the effort I have put in that I do get disappointed when the work doesn't equal results. I'm of the firm belief that the harder you try with extreme effort that the results should pay out. Unfortunately that is not always the case for weight loss. Sometimes your body says "nope" and you don't see what you think you should on the scale -- sometimes fat is turned into muscle so you think you've lost pounds but you've lost inches; you could be retaining a lot of water; and sometimes you've over-exhausted yourself to where your body is trying to conserve calories.
It is a process. And we all have to remember that. A loss is a loss, no matter how big or small. And sometimes we will have weeks where we gain - and that's okay too because we'll just do better the next week!
.
Next up for us is 14 days in Orlando
Sometimes I think we should just be a little pink bunny beating a drum! We keep on going and going, we might slow down a little now and then but we recharge our "batteries" with rest, nice meals, time in the pool and we are ready to go again!
I wrote yesterday of my best friend and our friendly challenges.......what I didn't write was that we live 700 miles apart! But I visit her monthly and at least twice a year she and I leave her old, grumpy husband home and take a 2 week vacation together..........which is Orlando in just 20 days........NOT that I am counting.
Something that we did after we started using our Fitbit on a cruise in August 2013 was we pay $5.00 per day for every day we meet our step goal, one month she pays, one month I pay! We have a joint savings account we call our Vacation Fund that we contribute $100 every paycheck (biweekly) plus the "step money".........needless to say we have done 10 days in Nashville, 11 days in Vegas, and have 14 days in Orlando (coming up) .......all of which is 100% paid for before we arrive at our location
Oh my goodness, what an AMAZING story and relationship. Congratulations on all you have accomplished together. You're inspiring! I'm completely envious of your friendship! I think everyone needs someone like that in their lives. I LOVE the vacation account idea, and the $5 a day toward a vacation is a fantastic motivator to keep you stepping. Way to go!!! Definitely worth a woohoo!Today begins move-in day - we pick up our keys after work!
We packed up the cars last night with the kitchen and bathroom things we wanted to bring over. Super excited to see our new place today.
Heading to Disneyland tomorrow for Race Packet pick-up for the 5K, a chicken caesar salad, cake pop and the pin releases. Our crazy week continues on - not too much time at the parks because we have to be up at 4am on Friday to run.
Hey all! Sorry I didn't get back on yesterday. I was washing vegetables for lunch and noticed that the water pressure in the kitchen was bad.... anyhooo.... after some investigation I discovered that the kitchen faucet was leaking under the sink (and down into the basement). Anyhow..... after much wiping and mopping on my part and swearing and sweating on the part of my DH, we ended up removing the entire sink in order to remove the faucet. And then, of course, we ended up at Lowe's at 7:30 last night to buy a new faucet ($220 I did NOT budget for this month..... gotta dig into the "household repairs" envelope!). So my ENTIRE AFTERNOON was down the drain..... and after all that (and getting to bed very late for me.... 11 pm), the faucet is installed and the water is useable..... but the sink isn't fully clipped back in. Fingers crossed he gets that done today while I'm at work.
Oh no!!! SO sorry to hear your day off was a stressful one! Did he get everything finished up today??
Well, I take that back. I won't WANT to eat, but I WILL want to drink, so at some point I won't have a choice but to eat something to balance out the wine I will almost definitely be consuming. 
WOOOOO! All caught up! Now off to more envelopes. 16 to go! Also, just got a major Ben & Jerry's craving. Uh oh! Thankfully there's none in the house, but there's a gas station just around the corner... Dinner needs to cook faster!
Thank you, it truly is a wonderful story and she is the reason I keep trying! Without her, I would have given up long ago in so many ways!
BUT by the time she arrives I will have been checked into our rental condo for 10 hours, unloaded the vehicle and totally UNPACKED...........and YES, she knows she is spoiled, but she won't have expected me to do all that, she will fuss because I did it all alone! I am on average a daily weigher, sometimes multiple times a day. I tend to think I over do it, but its right in my bathroom, and I just jump on too often. I Wish I were a Friday/Monday weigher. I'd like to see where I am heading into the weekend and where I am after the damage is done Monday. I am not looking for a low number Friday to justify binging all weekend, it is actually more likely if I see a number I am pleased with on Friday that I will do better with my choices on the weekend. But if I don't like it, I tend to think, well I made no progress all week, whats the use of restricting myself this weekend when we go to X (party, take kids for ice cream they earned, out to a restaurant).
When I get a number I am not happy with it usually makes me feel depressed and like I am failing. I will then be super careful for a few hours about my eating, and then next thing you know, I will feed the frustration, sadness, etc with something sweet, usually chocolate. When I get a number I like, I am actually better for a day or two with my rewards. I really think my biggest obstacle is getting over the notion that I deserve junk food as a reward. My body deserves fuel (healthy options) not junk.
My scale (made by iHealth) syncs via bluetooth with phone, and is then nice enough to update MyFitnessPall and the Apple Health App for me. So there is no hiding from the truth.
Hope everyone has a great Thursday. I only got 4.5 hours of sleep last night. This is a dangerous thing for me. I always overeat when I am tired. And I need to run three miles to keep up with my training plan. Going to be a challenge!
You can throw a check mark for me in the weekly weigh-in category. With WW it just makes more sense to work hard during the week and then on whatever day it is you've chosen to weigh in and hope for the best
I use the WiiFitU for my scale and I love it. Now that we're on a first floor I can use the WiiFit system and do all of the fun exercise programs on my off-days for Couch to 10K.
As for numbers... I will say that with all the effort I have put in that I do get disappointed when the work doesn't equal results. I'm of the firm belief that the harder you try with extreme effort that the results should pay out. Unfortunately that is not always the case for weight loss. Sometimes your body says "nope" and you don't see what you think you should on the scale -- sometimes fat is turned into muscle so you think you've lost pounds but you've lost inches; you could be retaining a lot of water; and sometimes you've over-exhausted yourself to where your body is trying to conserve calories.
It is a process. And we all have to remember that. A loss is a loss, no matter how big or small. And sometimes we will have weeks where we gain - and that's okay too because we'll just do better the next week!
.
This is exactly how I feel and what I struggle most with. I can go for a run, or a class at a gym, and feel great when I am done and proud of the accomplishment. But if the scale doesn't show anything it really bothers me, and anything positive is completely forgotten (and usually I go get a handful of chocolate chips). I have been toying with going to a much period longer between weigh-ins. But I am afraid I will miss more inadvertent gain. I may see how the first two weeks of this challenge go, and if I do ok, I might try going a week between weigh ins for the rest of the month. Because my biggest problem is what I eat. I can get the exercise in. But I have a lack of self control diet wise. So if I can tell I am being honest with myself and maybe see a loss of a pound or two by the end of next week I may space out my weigh ins, because the sad scale feedback is a trigger for me. I wonder if I focus on doing things right with nutrition and exercise and stop giving the scale so much power, if I might actually be more successful.
OK, home from work and back to finish up replies before I get cranking on more envelopes!
In my world, those are HUGE accomplishments some days!
I don't think I've gotten to say "hi" to you yet, so, HII!!! SO SO SO sorry you are a night-shifter. I spent a couple of years managing a hotel, and had to work the night audit shift every other Friday and Saturday. 11pm - 7am. It was MISERABLE. It would take me a full week to recover. I assume if you are regularly on the night shift then it's a little better because your body can get into a routine, but still. It's rough. I would spend my entire shift eating junk, too, because I was bored and needed to stay awake and get really bad late night cravings. Here's hoping you deal with the overnights better than I did, LOL! Where are you going for vacation??
So excited for you!! Hope everything went/goes smoothly with the move and unpacking - we moved in April and are still 60% packed LOL.
From someone who can not pass up a candy bar at the check-out, trust me, it IS huge! Good job!!
Happy belated birthday to your dad!!
I'm so jealous! First of all, a chicken caesar salad and a cake pop sound AMAZING. Secondly, how cool to be doing a Disneyland 5k! Are you a runner, or will you be walking it? I would definitely have to walk it, but I want to do one so badly! Maybe one day I will have the physique (and the funds!) to do one in WDW!
Thank you! and thank you! Haha. I have high hopes for September. Not only did I not stick to my plan like I should've in August, my doctor put me on some medicine that I am 100% certain was causing me to put on weight. Since it was just a trial to see how I responded to it, I kicked that around the 18th because I was miserable and sick all the time and gaining weight, and now that it's fully worked its way out of my system, I feel so much better. Hopefully that will play a big part in my losing this month!
Good luck to you today! How did your run go? It would be a challenge for me to run 3 miles on 10 hours of sleep, much less 4.5!
YAYYYYYYYYYY for seeing some progress! So proud of you, and so glad WW is working for you!
You & I are so similar! I, too, love tracking and charts and data. Totally agree that the emphasis should be on the behavior, more than the number, but at the same time I don't want to make a habit out of a behavior that isn't giving me any results, so I'm always torn!
Such good words to live by! I completely agree with you - I'm the same way in that I get SO FRUSTRATED when I'm working so, so hard and then that number didn't fall. What makes it worse is when, the next week, you don't work as hard and you end up losing. Haha. If only there were some tried-and-true "do this and it works every time" method!
Thank you!! Especially for the "they're worth the time and effort" - I've been so frustrated at how long it's taking me that MANY times I've thought "Why am I even bothering? The envelope just gets torn open and thrown in the trash. No one will even care what the outside looks like!" Haha, so that means a lot!
I hope so! And I hope that the extra 10lbs really does put me where I'm wanting to be... I'm afraid that I'll hit 195 and then realize that my goal wasn't low enough and I'm out of time. Also, REALLY hoping I'll be able to keep my stress eating under control and not spend the 2 weeks before the wedding undoing everything I've been trying to accomplish so far. Fingers crossed!
We are actually intentionally blocking out the first 30 minutes of the reception for EVERYONE - including us - to eat and focus on eating and mingling with the people they are sitting with, and then we can do all the chatting after that. We are having chicken parmesan and a mashed potato bar at the reception, and I am BOUND AND DETERMINED to enjoy them there, not out of my microwave at home! So hopefully that plan will work like we want it to. Haha. I will definitely do my best to eat during the day, though - but I can already pretty much guarantee I won't.
Thank you!! We are SUPER hoping that we get our RSVP's in soon. We've requested that everyone respond by October 3, so here's hoping that our friends and family can follow directions.
I do this (the once a month photo) as well, and definitely recommend it to everyone! It's amazing how you don't see any changes in the mirror day after day after day, but if you compare your today picture to your month ago picture, you can usually tell a big difference! That's one of my biggest motivating tools.
I am by no means a runner - but I'll be faking it! We did a race back in 2009 when we filled in for a friend who couldn't make it and then decided that starting tomorrow would be our official training. It's a race to see where our baselines are. Husband is running at his full potential and will likely be at the finish line about 15 minutes before I get there. I'm going to just try my best with the run/walk combo. I've done Couch to 5K before, but it's been several years since I ran a race. Tomorrow is just the first step of Couch to 10K because we signed up for TinkerBell's 10K in May! OMG! It'll be fun to run through Disneyland and through Cars Land!
We'll be doing the Avengers race in November as a progress check. My goal for Tink is just to not get picked up by a sweeper. We have 8 months to prep so I should be okay!
Move so far... is... ok? I had to drop a list of about 15 things to be fixed my the maintenance crew. Minor annoyances and major appliance failure! Just hoping for smooth installations tomorrow for Internet and TV so we can have some music or TV in the background as we unpack. Last night was the kitchen unpacking and it felt long because we didn't any 'noise' to keep us going.
To weigh or not to weigh.....that is the question! No, just kidding. I actually bought Vanessa (best friend) and I both new scales about a year ago because what we had were just old (think 30 years old at my house), so I bought identical scales so where ever I might be on Sunday mornings I can weigh, important because I go to her house in upstate NY once a month. The only time we don't weigh on a Sunday is if we are out of town ie not at either house, and for the upcoming trip since it will encompass 2 Sunday's I will put my scale in the car to take with me, I am driving to Orlando with everything BUT the kitchen sink LOL and she is flying with a couple of cameras, her kindle and her spare glasses! Somehow I think I got the rough end of this deal
We picked Sunday's to weigh because that is how we set up our Fitbits as the first day of our week. I might occ. weigh another day but not often, not unless I have really cranked up activity and toned down eating!
Happy Friday, everyone! Hubs and I are off to the race and I'll make sure to get a picture of me in my best running gear and Ariel-inspired Sparkle Headband.
It's really really early. I think I'm running off adrenaline and Mountain Dew this morning. Hoping for a time that is about a 15 minute mile. I'm a slow runner, so Hubs will be waiting at the finish line for me with a bottle of water and a congratulatory hug. (He'll probably finish a good 15-20 mins before me LOL)
It's just a number at the moment and the trend is what is important. We all want weight loss to be linear but unfortunately it isn't. That being said, I had an awesome weigh in yesterday at WW and I've been happy ever since! 
And a big woo hoo for an awesome loss!
Someone upthread mentioned having their doctor make a medication change and that making a difference. That is exactly what happened to me. I saw my doctor in mid-August, he adjusted my meds and boom down 7.1 so far. So my PSA is if you can honestly tell your doctor that you are doing everything you should (i.e. meticulous tracking and logging lots of activity per the FitBit) then do yourself a favor and save yourself a lot of frustration and head banging. For the first time in forever I have a new decade just around the riverbend!
I was down 2.4 at WW yesterday so that brings me to 46%
The insulin regulator made me sick all the time, and the birth control made me gain, and I couldn't get it to come back off! It also made me have really bad cravings, so I was eating really poorly while I was on it. I put on 6lbs. I was supposed to be on the insulin regulator for 6 weeks and the birth control for 4. I kicked the insulin regulator after 3 or 4 weeks because I couldn't take it anymore (I was missing too much work and ended up having to take a scheduled PTO day from my honeymoon to make up for one of the days I had to miss 
) and I dropped the birth control during week 4. I ended up not going to the doctor for follow up tests since I hadn't been on both medicines like I was supposed to. Since I've gotten off both of them, though, and gotten them out of my system completely (at least it feels like I have) I'm down 9lbs, from 212 to 203 today. I've only been off the insulin regulator since August 12 or so, and off the birth control since August 17, so 3ish weeks now.
to your Maid of Honor.... this is YOUR event and she should be cooperating. Happy Friday, everyone! Hubs and I are off to the race and I'll make sure to get a picture of me in my best running gear and Ariel-inspired Sparkle Headband.
It's really really early. I think I'm running off adrenaline and Mountain Dew this morning. Hoping for a time that is about a 15 minute mile. I'm a slow runner, so Hubs will be waiting at the finish line for me with a bottle of water and a congratulatory hug. (He'll probably finish a good 15-20 mins before me LOL)
I weigh daily and have all my life. So I am used to the fact that it fluctuates and at times those fluctuations seem totally oblivious to all the good choices and hard work I am putting into my healthy lifestyle. I have an Aria FitBit scale at home and the WW scale weekly. The WW scale is the hardest one to get to move sometimes.
Thanks! I missed you all, too.
@courtneybeth have a fabulous time at the 5k this morning -- I know you are standing in your corral enjoying all the excitement now!
@JacknSally both dresses are cute but I pick the red because the color really pops on you plus the fix is probably easier.
Someone upthread mentioned having their doctor make a medication change and that making a difference. That is exactly what happened to me. I saw my doctor in mid-August, he adjusted my meds and boom down 7.1 so far. So my PSA is if you can honestly tell your doctor that you are doing everything you should (i.e. meticulous tracking and logging lots of activity per the FitBit) then do yourself a favor and save yourself a lot of frustration and head banging. For the first time in forever I have a new decade just around the riverbend!
I was down 2.4 at WW yesterday so that brings me to 46%
