Welcome to the CAROUSEL of PROGRESS challenge for December 2015!!

[LaceC]

Well then, as suggested I'm going to jump in and join! )

I'm a 30 year old mother to one little girl. Both she and DH love Disney just as much as I do! Makes for some great family fun.

DD is 7 and until two years ago I was still carrying around the 70lbs I had gained while pregnant with her. For a little over a year I worked my butt off to lose that weight and did a pretty good job getting pretty close to 50lbs off. Unfortunately when we got back from WDW last year I went back to working 7 days a week and let myself slip into old habits at work. That combined with 5 nights a week at the stable with my DD and our horses left little time to meal prep. I made excuses for myself and packed the pounds back on.

We are booked on a cruise on the Dream next September (with a WDW stay beforehand) and I'm determined to get myself back on track! I'm using our trip as my motivation!! This month I would like to get back in the habit of packing lunch every day for work and cooking at home at least 5 nights a week. No more fast food!!

Thanks to those who welcomed me to the thread, I'm very excited I found y'all!

 

[acbshada]

The holidays are sneaking up on us, faster, and faster! Today is NATIONAL CHRISTMAS CARD DAY! Are you doing holiday cards this year (Christmas, Hannaukah, Kwannza, New Years)? If so, are they done and in the mail? Perhaps you do an e-card?? Is it sent??

I usually do my best to get cards out to a few of our friends and family, but I've been behind on a bunch of things regarding Christmas this year. I just started my shopping yesterday, really. I had so many grand ideas on things I wanted to do and make, and now I'm just looking at my house going, "If I can just clean up this pile of stuff, I'm good." So we'll see if it happens this year. :\

DO NOT WAIT! No sense in waiting until January.... jump in NOW! WELCOME! Tell us about yourself and then feel free to join the chatter!..................P

Yay! I agree with this! Join in with us now! Why not? The cruise you have planned for next year sounds like fun. I stand by the idea of "if you did it before, you can do it again". So if you can, try not to get discouraged. We all slip back into old patterns and old routines because that's what our brains are wired to do. You'll create those new patterns and the brain will learn 'em, and then you'll be up and running where you want to be in no time!

 

[bigsis1970]

Good afternoon everyone! Excited to see as many replies to the QOTD and chatter over the weekend as we've had! Often the weekends are super quiet and with the holidays upon us I wouldn't have been surprised to be alone here with crickets in the background!

I've put in HOURS of WW work at home here today getting ready for an exciting week ahead! I also went into the woods and lugged rocks with DH for a while.... trying to find fieldstone to use to build a firepit in the spring.... so that was today's workout!

DD is HOME!!! Love having her here and that content feeling of EVERYONE being here and safe! We are having our official celebratory dinner tonight because yesterday was kind of busy and crazy..... steak tips, potatoes, roasted broccoli/cauliflower, and apple crisp for dessert! I splurged a bit LAST night on pizza (told you the day was crazy) so I will keep some control tonight.... modest amount of meat, no potatoes or bread, and I'm going to make my own portion of lightened up apple crisp. Gotta save a few calories for celebratory sparkling wine!

Off to start chopping apples and broccoli! I'll be back in the a.m.!...................P

Hi I can't attend my WW meeting till 12/13 can you PM me the changes coming? I am dying to know what it's all about .. Please tell me fruits and veggies are still zero!

I am not doing the challenge this month - mostly because I am super busy at work and won't be here often but not even sure if I can attend my WW meeting because we have a large family to fit in all our Christmas's with that hog up my weekends and being super busy at work means longer hours and a pooped out girl at the end of the day.. my eating has been mostly on track and according my scale at home I am holding steady and that is ok with me for the month of DEC.. I am glad your girl is home!

DEC 9 QotD - Christmas cards all mailed out with the USPS on Dec 1st .. this year I did our first ever photo card! Shutterfly kept offering 10 free card codes in Oct and Nov so I kept printing them .. they are snowflake ornament ones

 

[courtneybeth]

It looks like Weight Watchers has completely changed its program?? I haven't been flipped over to the new system yet because my weigh-in day is Saturday. My husband has and he's freaking out over it. He is upset that his point values severely changed. He can only eat 38 now per day and all the points for things he liked to eat went up 1-2 points per item. I have no comment on it as of yet, as I am not on it, but was curious if anyone here noticed the change and how they feel about it? I'm excited for the new changes - but like anything new, i am also apprehensive


Yesterday's presentation went great! My group really pulled together a solid presentation and now it's just 6 days until I'm done. Two final exams to go

 

[bigsis1970]

@courtneybeth, I have only heard they have gone to SmartPoints taking into account the type of fat and lean proteins and stuff with figuring out the points.. and no longer having 49 weekly points but only 35 I think but fruits and veggies still appear to be zero.. I have to wait til Sunday 12/13
for my stuff..

 

[DisPup75]

@courtneybeth

The new program is called Beyond the Scale and seems really focused on the whole you. Points are now SmartPoints and FitPoints replace Activity Points. Both daily points and weekly points now change. Mine both went down a little and the points for a lot of my foods went up by one or two or more.

The new food calculations encourage fruits, vegetables, and really lean protein. Sugar and saturated fat are severely penalized. Good health guidelines are gone. FitPoints rack up crazy fast and you are now encouraged not to swap them. There also doesn't seem to be a mechanism for adjusting your points up/down so you can lose at a rate that is right for you.

It all seems good in theory (tech and customer service issues aside) but I'm kind of reserving judgment for now. I had a really great day yesterday calorically and nutritionally but just blew through my points. I'm specifically trying to moderate my eating to keep my psyche happy and some of the calculations might be a little extreme for me (or I just might be a little too dairy happy). I know soda isn't great and I drink very little of it but I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that one can of Coke is 1/3 of your daily points. I was really looking forward to learning about the new program because it sounded so nutrition/whole foods focused while still allowing for limited treats. Now I'm just kind of worried about how to make it work without triggering some sort of eating frenzy.

I'm also really struggling with the app and its lack of totals. Plus the whole FitPoint thing. I always are some of my activity points because I walk so much (and lost successfully when I actually followed the plan) but the 24 FitPoints I earned yesterday just seems crazy even for almost 18,000 steps. And the choice is swap or don't swap at all. I suppose I just want the power to say you can eat x FitPoints/day if you earn more than y without having to keep track of it in my head.

I suppose all there is to do is give it some time!

 

[courtneybeth]

I'm also really struggling with the app and its lack of totals. Plus the whole FitPoint thing. I always are some of my activity points because I walk so much (and lost successfully when I actually followed the plan) but the 24 FitPoints I earned yesterday just seems crazy even for almost 18,000 steps. And the choice is swap or don't swap at all. I suppose I just want the power to say you can eat x FitPoints/day if you earn more than y without having to keep track of it in my head.

The 24 points earned will probably balance out the daily points. So the new program seems similar to the old program, but encourages you to move and exercise to keep eating like you used to. Or at least that's the impression I get. LOL.

This was a great response and I shared parts of it with my husband. He's still reserving judgment on it but he's trying to wrap his head around the logistics as well. I'll see how I feel once I get to Saturday morning. We're going to do a Disneyland trip that morning as a study break and see how bad a Mickey pancake and a mouse cakepop are! Like anything new, it'll all be an adjustment.

I've set up MyFitnessPal to track as well in parallel. I have an idea of what I can eat from WW since I typically ate on routine. So using that as a basis has definitely helped.

 

[pjlla]

And here we go.... better late than never..... RESULTS of week one of the December WISH challenge.....

acbshada 0%

courtneybeth 33.3%

DisPup75 20%

DVCFan1994 0%

Flossbolna 49%

flvy 10%

meghammy 0%

pjlla0%

SarahDisney33%


Still missing lots of reports it seems! If you are at 0% you can still be added to the list so that we know that you are still here! If you are having trouble figuring out your percentage, let me know. Too many 0% there, but we've all had lots of challenges so far this month with Thanksgiving leftovers, holiday celebrations, Hannaukah, and colds/flu! But there is STILL time to make progress in December!................P

 

[courtneybeth]

And here we go.... better late than never..... RESULTS of week one of the December WISH challenge.....

Keeping the momentum up this week for sure - great work this week everyone.

 

[courtneybeth]

I don't know if we're still doing Woohoo Wednesday, but I thought that I'd share mine for today:

I'm flying to Dallas on March 18th to compete in the Rock-n-Roll 5K race! My brother is running the half marathon that weekend and invited me to stay with him if I wanted to try running in a different state.

The best part? I get to see my niece! My sister in law and I will be running the 5K together and I'm super excited to spend time with her, my brother, and my niece. Having them live in Texas makes it harder to see since we're in Southern California, but now I can spend the weekend with them. My race calendar seems to just keep growing.

 

[SarahDisney]

Grumble grumble grumble. I'm really not happy with Weight Watchers right now. I don't so much mind the new program (although my points totals for the day make it clear that I need to rethink some of my regularly scheduled previously low point foods). HOWEVER. The app still doesn't work right and the desktop site isn't much better. The meeting I went to this evening was seriously the worst WW I've ever been too. It wasn't my normal meeting but it was the only one that fit in the schedule this week. I won't go back. The leader was completely unenthusiastic about the new program, was downright rude to several members, and responded to basically all questions by telling people to read the materials for answers. I've tried to schedule calls with three different coaches this week and NONE of them has called at the scheduled time or even followed up to explain that the system was down or provide some other excuse. I e-mailed customer service and got a response that was in no way responded to the questions I asked and so then spent about 3 hours on hold with phone line only to be told that they were very sorry for all the inconveniences and that normally they would extend my membership by a week or more for each missed coaching phone call but they couldn't in this case because I got a free month when I signed up. So now I'm sort of livid and I have no idea what to do.

Sounds like a nightmare. I hope you can figure out some way to make this better - and I really hope they do something to fix the app and website ... because as important as the meetings are, most people probably use the app and website more, so those really need to be working perfectly.

The holidays are sneaking up on us, faster, and faster! Today is NATIONAL CHRISTMAS CARD DAY! Are you doing holiday cards this year (Christmas, Hannaukah, Kwannza, New Years)? If so, are they done and in the mail? Perhaps you do an e-card?? Is it sent??

Holiday cards ... I don't think we've ever really done them. Chanukah cards don't seem to be as big of a thing as Christmas cards (although my Aunt sends us cards every year, but that's just a delivery system for our Starbucks gift cards). I think my mom may send a generic random card to all my cousins with some cash, but beyond that, nothing.

At least I managed to go out for an early run today. Well, until it started to rain pretty heavily and I was starting to get drenched. Rain on glasses and then with the head light was not very good either. I ran for only 15 minutes. But I went out in the dark morning, so I am proud about that!

Great job going out there and running! Rain can be a real annoyance during a run ... but something is always better than nothing!

Well then, as suggested I'm going to jump in and join! )

I'm a 30 year old mother to one little girl. Both she and DH love Disney just as much as I do! Makes for some great family fun.

DD is 7 and until two years ago I was still carrying around the 70lbs I had gained while pregnant with her. For a little over a year I worked my butt off to lose that weight and did a pretty good job getting pretty close to 50lbs off. Unfortunately when we got back from WDW last year I went back to working 7 days a week and let myself slip into old habits at work. That combined with 5 nights a week at the stable with my DD and our horses left little time to meal prep. I made excuses for myself and packed the pounds back on.

We are booked on a cruise on the Dream next September (with a WDW stay beforehand) and I'm determined to get myself back on track! I'm using our trip as my motivation!! This month I would like to get back in the habit of packing lunch every day for work and cooking at home at least 5 nights a week. No more fast food!!

Thanks to those who welcomed me to the thread, I'm very excited I found y'all!

Welcome!! I think a Disney trip is always a great motivation.
And packing lunches is such a good idea. When I was working full-time, I was always shocked that I was the only person who brought lunch from home almost every day. Food made at home is always better than fast food, because you can control what's going in there!

These are amazing! And I love that you have some Disney pictures on there

Yesterday's presentation went great! My group really pulled together a solid presentation and now it's just 6 days until I'm done. Two final exams to go

Yay! I'm glad to hear the presentation went well. And you're only 2 finals away from being done ... so awesome!!

I'm flying to Dallas on March 18th to compete in the Rock-n-Roll 5K race! My brother is running the half marathon that weekend and invited me to stay with him if I wanted to try running in a different state.

The best part? I get to see my niece! My sister in law and I will be running the 5K together and I'm super excited to spend time with her, my brother, and my niece. Having them live in Texas makes it harder to see since we're in Southern California, but now I can spend the weekend with them. My race calendar seems to just keep growing.

Double yay!
I've heard the Rock-n-Roll races are a lot of fun ... they really put on an amazing event. I'd love to do one someday. And seeing your family will be awesome!

---

Hey guys. Nothing too exciting going on here. I've doing okay with my eating, but not great, and pretty good with exercise. Hopefully the scale will reflect that on Friday, but we'll see...

 

[DisPup75]

I'll add a woohoo for Wednesday! Every article of clothing I had on today was from the regular women's department!! No more plus size for me! Size 14 pants, a size L blouse, and a too big sweater that was clearly mis-sized since it was labeled XS but could fit my entire household and then some.

 

[jaelless]

OK it's a day past my birthday and so did not accomplish what I wanted to this year so trying to make this next year better. First step find more areas where I can think about healthy lifestyle. W.I.S.H. has always been good at that so I am back here once more after a long hiatus. Is it too late to join in?

 

[CruisingKate]

Finishing up my first night shift after an amazing Christmas trip to the World. Lots to catch up on - especially interested in the new WW plan. I'll check in when I have the chance!

 

[pjlla]

Dec 10, 2010:

Disneyland Paris receives more than four inches of snow, marking their highest snowfall in 25 years! The heaviest single-day snow in Paris, France since 1987, the weather disrupts traffic and forces the closure of the Eiffel Tower. Disneyland Paris remains open but all outdoor entertainment and parades are cancelled with some ride operation disrupted.




How ODD for us here in the U.S. to think of a Disney park with SNOW!!?? Can you imagine??


While it might be hard to imagine snow in Anaheim or Orlando, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine yourself at your healthy goal weight. Think about it.... your body at the weight you've been dreaming about.... strong and healthy. No knee pain, no threat of diabetes.... your clothes fit without having to pretend that the dryer shrunk them. Picture in your head, a day spent at your goal weight. What are some of the BENEFITS of being at that healthy weight and having that strong body? Does this spur you on to stay MOTIVATED during this tough holiday eating season?

***********************

Just apologizing here for my lack of chatter and replies. Working two jobs and trying to visit with DD and keep up some sort of semblance of a clean home is kicking my butt! I promise time for you all tonight! Gotta dash..............P

 

[Flossbolna]

I suppose all there is to do is give it some time!

Sorry that you are so frustrated with the new program! I am sure you will soon feel more at home. And if the whole reassessment of points shakes up some of your routines, this might be a good thing. Gives you a new perspective!

But I remember when WW went from the original points to the ProPoints (or was it PlusPoints - I mean the change when they first introduced the weekly extra) I was all excited about it, but then in the beginning it did not work at all for me and I was very frustrated. I took a break from WW and came back 2 years later. By then they had fixed some of the issues I used to have with the then new, now old programm and was really successful. If you are still doing ok according to MFP, you know at least that you are not doing something that damages your weight loss.

I don't know if we're still doing Woohoo Wednesday, but I thought that I'd share mine for today:

I'm flying to Dallas on March 18th to compete in the Rock-n-Roll 5K race! My brother is running the half marathon that weekend and invited me to stay with him if I wanted to try running in a different state.

The best part? I get to see my niece! My sister in law and I will be running the 5K together and I'm super excited to spend time with her, my brother, and my niece. Having them live in Texas makes it harder to see since we're in Southern California, but now I can spend the weekend with them. My race calendar seems to just keep growing.

Sounds like a fantastic event: family and a race!

And packing lunches is such a good idea. When I was working full-time, I was always shocked that I was the only person who brought lunch from home almost every day. Food made at home is always better than fast food, because you can control what's going in there!

I think that this was a reply to me moaning about my poor lunch choices. One of my problems with lunch is that I love the social aspect of it. I have many colleagues who I go out for lunch with. Since I live on my own most of the time (one of the advantages or disadvantages of having a long distance relationship), the lunch chat is an important form of human contact for me. But I should try better to make plans with colleagues for some days and then also plan a few lunch paket days. You are absolutely right, it is so much easier to eat healthy when you bring something from home!

I'll add a woohoo for Wednesday! Every article of clothing I had on today was from the regular women's department!! No more plus size for me! Size 14 pants, a size L blouse, and a too big sweater that was clearly mis-sized since it was labeled XS but could fit my entire household and then some.

(I chose the guy in the non plus size suit for a celebratory dance!!)

OK it's a day past my birthday and so did not accomplish what I wanted to this year so trying to make this next year better. First step find more areas where I can think about healthy lifestyle. W.I.S.H. has always been good at that so I am back here once more after a long hiatus. Is it too late to join in?

great to have you here and it is never to late to join in!! Just set yourself a goal for December and report your progress. And otherwise, just jump into the chatter!

Dec 10, 2010:

Disneyland Paris receives more than four inches of snow, marking their highest snowfall in 25 years! The heaviest single-day snow in Paris, France since 1987, the weather disrupts traffic and forces the closure of the Eiffel Tower. Disneyland Paris remains open but all outdoor entertainment and parades are cancelled with some ride operation disrupted.

How ODD for us here in the U.S. to think of a Disney park with SNOW!!?? Can you imagine??

We are actually going to DLP this winter and I would LOVE to see something like that! maybe only 2 inches... DLP was really built for bad weather and is lovely to tour in winter. I have been there more often during cooler times of year and it really is quite pleasant!

Picture in your head, a day spent at your goal weight. What are some of the BENEFITS of being at that healthy weight and having that strong body? Does this spur you on to stay MOTIVATED during this tough holiday eating season?

One of the things I picture for myself at goal weight is fitting more comfortable in an air plane seat. With 170cm (according to my calculations that should be 5 feet 7 inches??) I am always feeling a bit tight lengthwise when I am on an airplane (and I am not really that tall). I noticed that it does make a huge difference when I am thiner as then my fat is not in competition for the space with the rest of my body. And since my boyfriend lives in the US, transatlantic flights happen regularly, so there is a real incentive to be smaller!

I also hope to gain a little speed with losing more weight and find it easier to run longer distances. I would love to be able to run a 10k under one hour and I am far from that at the moment (even though my last 6k was at a pace that would have been under 1hour for a 10k). Getting rid of the additional weight should really help in that regard.

Just apologizing here for my lack of chatter and replies. Working two jobs and trying to visit with DD and keep up some sort of semblance of a clean home is kicking my butt! I promise time for you all tonight! Gotta dash..............P

Don't worry! You are still posting some amazing questions! And you shoudl enjoy the time with DD! Is she going back to Bermuda next semester? Did she enjoy her time there?

 

[dsnyfn1022]

Dec 10, 2010:

Disneyland Paris receives more than four inches of snow, marking their highest snowfall in 25 years! The heaviest single-day snow in Paris, France since 1987, the weather disrupts traffic and forces the closure of the Eiffel Tower. Disneyland Paris remains open but all outdoor entertainment and parades are cancelled with some ride operation disrupted.

View attachment 139326


How ODD for us here in the U.S. to think of a Disney park with SNOW!!?? Can you imagine??


While it might be hard to imagine snow in Anaheim or Orlando, it shouldn't be so hard to imagine yourself at your healthy goal weight. Think about it.... your body at the weight you've been dreaming about.... strong and healthy. No knee pain, no threat of diabetes.... your clothes fit without having to pretend that the dryer shrunk them. Picture in your head, a day spent at your goal weight. What are some of the BENEFITS of being at that healthy weight and having that strong body? Does this spur you on to stay MOTIVATED during this tough holiday eating season?

***********************

Just apologizing here for my lack of chatter and replies. Working two jobs and trying to visit with DD and keep up some sort of semblance of a clean home is kicking my butt! I promise time for you all tonight! Gotta dash..............P

One thing that I've really loved when I've been at goal previously is that I feel strong. I feel my muscles move when I walk. I don't just feel fat. I'm very motivated to get back into it! I want this badly!

------

Just did my post-Disney weigh in and I didn't gain on this trip at all! Not really sure how that's even possible but I won't question, I'll just be grateful. I'm hoping that means I may even have a tiny loss to report for the official weigh in this weekend!

 

[DVCFan1994]

Think about it.... your body at the weight you've been dreaming about.... strong and healthy. No knee pain, no threat of diabetes.... your clothes fit without having to pretend that the dryer shrunk them. Picture in your head, a day spent at your goal weight. What are some of the BENEFITS of being at that healthy weight and having that strong body? Does this spur you on to stay MOTIVATED during this tough holiday eating season?

So, a year ago, this was me. I was right at a great weight. Not my dream weight, though. I have recently come to the conclusion I ever won't hit my dream weight, I have too much muscle mass and not enough desire to starve myself. I am moving the bar higher for myself. It will still be within the healthy weight range, just not as low as I would like. The main benefits to me were pretty much just what you described. Jeans going on without tugging, shirts fitting straight out of the dryer. But more important to me, running without any issues of pain, feeling higher energy, and just being happier that I was more in control of my health and making good choices regularly. I stayed at that weight through March, but once I had an abdominal surgery with a very restricted recovery in early April, 10 pounds seemed to appear overnight. So, I am really trying to focus on the fact I know I can do this, I just really have to commit to it. I want to be at that weight by the time PHM weekend roles around, or as I like to call it ~ The unfortunate February bathing suit season I am doing a good job so far this week. Hoping I can carry the momentum into this weekend. I was also cleared by my PT to pick my exercise routine back up a bit more, so hoping that helps with the mental funk I am feeling right now.

Motivation is tough for me. Some days the fact I know I can do it, I've done it before, reassures me and tells me my goal is very achievable. Other days I feel disappointed that I lost all my progress, and have this much work to do again. Now, its less than a quarter of what I have lost overall since I started 6 years ago, but 10 pounds (down to 7 currently) feels very big to other fluctuations I have experienced in that time. So some days the ability to remember the healthy weight helps, other days, it depresses.

 

[Lady Marie]

Hey all! Sorry I have been totally MIA recently. We have been working on a HUGE project at work that needed to be done by tomorrow when we leave for Disney, so I haven't been using any work time to catch up on the Dis... and late nights here at work haven't been helping my eating habits either.... But good news is that we are almost finished (hence my break right now on here!). So work has been nuts, BUT I got to squee with delight this week when I had to quote Disney World for some of our products. No one around here except DH gets why I'm excited, but it would be fun to be looking around the park and be like, Oh so that paint and faux finish totally came from our store

I think my weekly report got lost last week in my chatter. I was at 0% -- happy I am maintaining and not gaining at least! And despite my awful eating with this work project (take out and all), I am still maintaining for this week. Will have official report this weekend though. Could be less as I haven't weighed in the past two days and have been having a small dinner with a big veggie juice rather than a large dinner and a cocktail!

Ok I'm off to catch up on like a week of chatter on here Glad to be back and will definitely be more on target with my habits and more active on thread next week when things go back to normal around here!

 

[pjlla]

OK it's a day past my birthday and so did not accomplish what I wanted to this year so trying to make this next year better. First step find more areas where I can think about healthy lifestyle. W.I.S.H. has always been good at that so I am back here once more after a long hiatus. Is it too late to join in?

NEVER too late!! Welcome to the group! We are happy to have you here! Tell us a bit about yourself, read the ins and outs of the group on page one and then jump right in!!...............P