Good morning!

It's time to share those numbers. Tell us what you've got...

Sometwit happened . . .

Yup, I finally joined twitter.  Mainly to keep up w/ friends who have migrated over from FB or blogging.  And it's silly b/c I don't even have a mobile phone that could update my twitter status on the go.  Oh well.  Leave a comment if you tweet, twit, twattle, or twhatever.  I'll follow you if you follow me!  ;o)

I've got the Thursday Feelibg

Right then, you there, how's this week going?!
How are you doing? Have you evercised? Have you stuck to eating what you ought to?
Got a photo you want to share to show your progress?

Confession time

So, after nearly a month of making great food choices, I had to have it....could not resist....sooooI gave in and drove through and got it- A BIRTHDAY CAKE MILKSHAKE from Zaxby's. Oh my goodness- it was fabulous!!!!! It is my absolute favorite ice cream flaver too! I do believe I will not burst into flames or suffer any long term damages from one milkshake, but I needed to confess. ;-) Haha- maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but the milkshake was really-really good. I have decided to allow myself one every few weeks as a treat. It will give me something to look forward to after working hard for a while. Thank for listening-'er- "reading" my confession.

weigh away!

Hey everybody, Debs can't come to the blog right now, but if you'd like to leave your numbers she'll get back to you.

How goes it?

How is everyone doing?
You on track with your eating?
You exercising?
Do you need prayer for anything?

To answer any or all of these questions just leave a comment!

On a serious note, in case no one has heard, please be praying for Bekki and the whole family (hubby Rob, mum & dad Elly & David, sis Debs & HB).  She went into hospital on Thursday.  She has blood clots on her lungs and is in a lot of pain.  They're giving her blood thinners, she's on bed rest, & she may be released Monday.  I got all this info from Debs' tweets, which you can find a live feed of and link to via her blog, in case you're not a tweeter.

Measure up

There's a wonderful program on tv over here called Outnumbered. It's about a family with 3 kids and one of the best things about it is that it's only semi-scripted, so the kid have a fair amount of free reign to take a topic whichever way they want. Anyway, there's an episode where the youngest one is talking to Gran about what 'size zero' means. And Gran reassures her that "A woman can be any size she wants to be" and Karen replies "What about a hexagon?".
There's a clip on youtube here and that conversation happens at around the one minute mark.

Anyway, I say all of that mostly just cos it amuses me, but also because I've been watching another program called 'Bulging Brides' where brides have a personal trainer and a nutritionist to help them lose inches and pounds to fit into their previously too small wedding dress and (I realise this is a very long run on sentence) one of the things they do is weigh them and analyse their body shape.

So I was thinking it might be a good thing to do that myself. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to measure myself (they did bust, waist and hips) and work out my body shape. Partly cos if you know your body shape you can dress better, but also cos when I measure myself again in a couple of months I can see how I've changed. You don't have to share the measurements here, but why not make a note of them?

G'day folks

It's that wonderful time of the week when we get to step on the scales and check out how we're doing on this journey. Remember, if the numbers go down then it's fantastic. If they go up it's a chance to re-evaluate how we're doing, make some adjustments, and keep on going.

So, what's your number?

hey y'all

what's up?

Mini-goals?

So how are y'all doing with your mini-goals this day/week/fortnight?

I was trying to stick to a food plan.

Christy F, are you managing to eat healty foods? Have you evercised any evenings this week?

Debbie, how's sticking to the food plan this week? Are you getting in your exercise? I'm off to check your food blog in a minute.

Missy, how's tissue tearing. No wait, I mean have you stayed away from sweets and walked every day?

Just throwing it out there . . .

I was wondering if any of you ladies would be interested in a challenge?  Nothing very intensive, just an added incentive to log our weight every week and generally keep connected to the community we have here.  Perhaps the first week you'll post a before pic (which quite a few have already done).  The next week share a new recipe you've not shared before.  The next, log how many calories you've burned through exercise or how much water you've been drinking.  Things along those lines.

So what do ya think?  I'll be happy to head it up and provide a prize (don't expect anything too fancy, tho, as I'm not making the big bucks these days!).  I'll keep track of the weekly challenges and necessary posts.  I know there were lots of challenges at the old OWOA site, but that was before my time, really, so I'll be flying blind at first.

Any thoughts?  Mini challenge suggestions??  Violent protests???

Mini goals

What's your mini goal for the day/week/fortnight?
Have a think... are you drinking enough water, exercising, sticking to a food plan, etc etc.

Once my ankle is better my goal will be exercise. For now I'm aiming to stick to my foodplan, even when Sophia is stressing me out - basically avoiding comfort eating. I didn't do too well today - she wouldn't go to sleep (and still hasn't. She's next to me, tearing up tissues and apparently trying to eat one too!) and I ate some stuff I probably shouldn't have. So here's to doing better tomorrow.

Second chance...

I know even when I was more a part of this group, I was never a consistent "regular." I really struggled with dieting results, and couldn't quite put my finger on it. I could do really well and suddenly gain 10 pounds, and do poorly, I mean really POORLY, then lose 10 - almost overnight. Turns out I was really sick with an autoimmune disease. It finally came to a head last summer when I broke out in a painful rash from head to toe, then began to experience arthritic pain. This time last year I could not walk and it could take almost 2 hours to pull myself up to a sitting position. It was determined that I have psoriatic arthritis, an inflammatory autoimmune disease that attacks connective tissue like joints, tendons and the skin. After a strong dose of prednisone, I was moving and walking again. I just weened off of the prednisone in the last couple of weeks and hope that the weight will come off easier now. In November I started taking weekly doses of a chemotherapy drug to suppress my immune system and it's been working very well. I'll likely continue these treatments for the rest of my life.

My skin is clear and I only suffer a managable amount of joint and tendon pain - unless I push myself too far. Many foods make my condition worse, so I am working hard to watch what I eat. Losing weight should also help relieve the workload on my joints and tendons. My starting weight is 197.5, as of today. My goals are to continue watching what I eat and walking daily while increasing distance. Keeping it simple. :)

Here we go....

Yep, like it or not, it's the first weigh-in for a long time. So whatever the numbers, don't panic, just be determined that they will change. And slowly but surely (and sometimes not so slowly!) they will change.

I want to remind myself that it's not just about the weight loss. It's about teaching (or re-teaching) myself to eat healthily, to respect my body and help it to help me live the life I want to be, looking the way I want to look.

We're on a journey, and it's gonna be fun.

You know what, just writing on here again is making me feel inspired and making me want to exercise. Yay! (let's just hope my ankle hurries up and heals)

Here's me (and my mum and a girl from my church)

I don't really like this photo of me, but it wast taken yesterday, so it's recent. (notice the tubigrip bandage on my ankle!) I'm wearing size 28 clothes which is truly truly horrible. So here's to changing that asap (I want to get back into my pre-pregnancy size 16 clothes and maybe even buy some smaller than that.)

Fun in the Sun

I normally avoid full-body pictures, but I actually let Rob snap this one when we went to the beach during his visit last month.  Therefore, this will be my official "Before" pic for this new start since it shows more than just my head and it's only three weeks old. 

So, here I am.  Let's get this party started!

Debbie, July 2010

Anybody out there???

Hi everyone,

Just curious if anyone still stops by from time to time and if so, are you interested in jumping back on the weight loss wagon? I realize we are all really busy and daily or weekly posts may be a lot, but maybe we could do bi-weekly posts ot something similiar? Since I have let my weight creep back up almost 20 lbs, I could really use the support. I seemed to do better when I was held accountable by you all on this site. Hope there are some of you out there! ;)