Well, we’re fresh back from a two week vacation, driving around the Western half of the US. We had a great time and visited lots of family we haven’t seen in years. We sat in a car for most of the two weeks, having driven 6300 miles (!) total, and ate fast food the whole time, ugh. During the tenure in the midwest, we pretty much ate nothing but meat and mayo, which happens to be the native diet of Mr. Armadillo’s family. Seriously, I think they consider mayo to be an entirely separate food group :smack:. One nice thing about the whole thing is that we stayed at an aunt and uncle’s house in the Northern MN forest where I could run and run and run on all their private property trails and never have to worry about someone seeing my jiggly butt and snickering, so I got to do a lot of jogging in the mornings, whee!
Anyway, I weighed in the first day back at work convinced I’d have to have gained fifteen pounds, but joy of joys I’m down another 3 for the two weeks. Woot!
Keep it going guys, we’re gonna be a buch of hotties 
wow. Congratulations! 3 pounds while on vacation is an achievment.
Good job, Mixie!
Thanks, it feels soooo good! Keep it up, y’all 
In discussion with my public health PhD-candidate friend, we’ve determined that 165 is probably a good target for me. She said that body fat percentage and BMI will both play a factor, and since I’m not a hardcore athlete that it’ll be pretty accurate. For the record, my beginning BMI and body fat percentage were 40.1 and 42.6; now BMI is 28.7 and body fat % is 31.8 (about a month ago). She also tells me that at my age, my body fat is pretty close to good unless I’m a competitive athlete. Tables tell me that’s still overweight, so I have a little to go. Another 17 pounds!
I am still holding since last month. My weight goes up and down by small amounts. Today I weighed 199.
I have a new dog and I have been trying to walk her to the park every morning or evening. Saturday, I will be fencing off part of my yard for her. This is usually very good, weight shedding exercise. I would dearly like to see 195 soon. Winter is always tough, as there is far less time to exercise outdoors. I have to get serious about looking into buying a rowing machine.
Good Luck you bunch of Losers, 
Jim
After losing 5 lbs in week 1, I am holding steady. I find this weird, considering my exercise has increased, and I’m sticking to the carb/protein amounts the dietician recommended. Kind of hard not to get discouraged, but I have seen this happen before, where the weight stays the same for days, and then suddenly drops 5-8 lbs. I hope that will happen, because I really hate dieting and something’s got to keep me going.
I like exercising though. I’ve been doing the elliptical cross-trainer (the one with the arms) and walking on an incline on the treadmill. Yesterday, I did an exercise tape I used to do when I was 40 lbs lighter, and damn, I’m out of shape. I’m really feeling it today. Exercise makes me feel better. Dieting just pisses me off.
Remember - often you will lose inches, but not pounds as you trade fat for muscle. If you are eating right and excercising, something good is happening, it just may not translate to the scales.
Take a few key measurements and when the scales seem they are betraying you, break out the measuring tape. You may be pleased!
YOU CAN DO IT!!
Help! I’ve hit a wall…
I had this big goal to lose a bunch of weight before I saw my family last month (haven’t seen them in a year) and I made it- lost 30 lbs- everyone totally noticed and were all happy for me- even my mother told me she was proud of me (for the FIRST time in my whole life- and I’m 37). I look good, feel good, and am very happy with my accomplishment.
BUT-
I still have 20-25 lbs more to go before I get to my ideal weight (according to the gov’t), and I’m having a hard time being motivated to continue. I notice that I’ve started to relax the guidelines I found so easy before to follow on my eating, I’ve missed the gym 2 times this week (I had poor excuses to skip), my weight hasn’t moved one pound in almost 3 weeks, and I’m worried that I can’t keep it up anymore and that I’ll get fat again!
I need some words of encouragement and some reminders why this is a good idea- my mojo is fading! 
How about… your heart health? Your cholesterol level? Your family? Your sex life? Your lifespan?
Eat more for a few days, that always serves to jump-start a loss for me when I’ve been stagnant scale-wise for awhile. I’m hovering in the low 180s, and have been for a few weeks. I’m also working out a lot and have to remember that I need to measure myself as well as weigh.
You can do it, Anne. I’ll just remind you of why I think you can: I did, and I am.
To give yourself some motivation, go to this site and plug in your numbers for where you were and where you are now. Forget about your goal - focus on what you’ve done so far.
My before
My current
I actually used a virtual model once when I was shopping for a bathing suit that would look good on my overweight body- so that model was still saved! It was very cool to “update” her and see the changes- thanks for that! I do admit, though, that my new & improved model still doesn’t look good enough to me, and that tends to be my problem. Even when I did weigh 20 lbs less than I do now (about 7 years ago), I still thought I looked bad- in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever thought I looked good, so it’s hard to look at the “updated” model and feel total satisfaction! Ugh- I kind of suffer in the “self-love” dept, so when I’m down, I’m really down! But I’ll keep looking at my before/after models and remember that I’ve made some big changes, and maybe that’ll get my butt to the gym tomorrow morning! 
Good. 'Cause I’m not flying out to California to kick your ass into gear.
My own personal method is to remember how horrible I looked and felt at my starting weight and that giving up and that my current malaise will only intensify and/or become my default if I give up and go back to that original weight.
And even though I currently weigh 180.2, the same weight as last Friday, I’m going to cheat a little and claim 177. It’s what I was at before a somewhat indulgent dinner of tongue, fried yuca, and rice with a pitcher of some sort of blackberry drink at a local Colombian restaraunt and was worth it. I’d never had tongue before and was surprised how tasty and tender it was.
183 down, 27 to go.
That’s really excellent work! I lost 1lb on my holidays despite eating everything in sight! It’s amazing what that bit of exercise will do for you, isn’t it?!
Oh Lord, my Mother used to cook us tongue for dinner, how I HATED it!!! I can’t imagine anyone calling it tasty except my Dad, who’d eat anything!
Takes all kinds to make a world huh?!
It tasted like an incredibly tender piece of roast to me and was really, really good. Easily one of the better pieces of meat I’ve had in a while and I am not exaggerating in the least.
There are few things better in this world than tacos lengua at a good taco place ;0)
Ugh. No tongue, please.
OK, I was a little bad last night. I stopped out for beers with the guys from work. I actually didn’t really want to go, but I also believe strongly in team building and I think that a team that are friends outside of work, work better together inside of work. The one guy has invited me to his place more than once and I have said no each time, so I figured it would be rude to not go.
But I wasn’t too too bad. A little bad, but not too much so.
None-the-less, I will make a concerted effort to be extra good today.
Dave took me out to dinner last night to a teppanyaki grill Japanese place. I watched with horror as the chef poured oil on the grill willy-nilly, so I really limited what I ate. Great meal, fun time - not a date sort of place, but good nonetheless. I weighed in this morning at 182.5 so I must be doing something right. Oh wait - I’ve been there for a week. This is getting frustrating.