HermioneCrusher

Thanks for the support, Teri! I definitely have "recipes" set up in my calorie tracker for regular meals, so it is super easy to log them. Anything to make the logging easier! Good advice. I did pretty well this week, although am frustrated by my lack of progress with weight/fat loss. I need my pants to fit better! I feel like I'm making the right choices, but there's no effect on my body. I don't feel like I can eat any less, I'm already at 1,500 calories most days and that includes 5 servings of fruit/veggies. Any thoughts? Goal 1a: Average 5 fruits/veggies per day! Done! Had one day that was under 5, but made up for it on other days. - 100% 1b: No snacks after dinner: Was successful 6/7 days. The one day was yesterday when I sampled the dessert that I baked with the kiddos while cutting it up putting it into tupperware. There is only so much willpower in this body. - 86% Goal 2: Exercise 3x per week: Done! I knew this weekend was going to be tight with all of the activities going on, and plans to see "Wicked" at the theater today, so I made sure to get my exercise done during the week. VB on Monday, Running 4.5 miles on Wednesday, Tennis on Friday. Goal 3: Posted weekly update! Goal for next week: Catch up on other people's threads.

Good first week! Before I started off on this challenge, the guy who runs this site sent an email out that reminded me what the purpose of a challenge is. Good read, boils down to a challenge being about building healthy habits and incrementally making healthy choices that will allow you to reach your goals. This small tidbit of wisdom has been very helpful for me to keep in mind! Here's how the week stacked up for me: Goal 1: Calorie limit - I wasn't religious about counting every single calorie. I find that exhausting anyway. I was focusing more on my sub-goals which are more in line with the making incrementally healthy choices idea. I was definitely under during the week, but parties and eating out this weekend pushed me over--5/7, C Goal 1a: Average 5 servings of fruit and veggies. Whoa, this was an interesting one for me. Before this week I thought I ate this much fruit/veggies. Turns out I don't!! I had to do some major planning to make sure I got these in, and in order to get them in I had to eat more calories that I otherwise might have. Example, sometimes I pick up an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. This week, I'd also grab an apple. Net win, I think, because I would feel full for longer, so less temptation to snack. There was one day where I only had 4 servings, but made up for it the next day by having 6. So, 100% on this one! I am also finding that the more I include large amounts of fruit and veggies, the more I crave them instead of unhealthy food. Yay! An example of one of my days' worth of fruit veggies: 2 cups strawberries with breakfast, Apple, banana, and guacamole with lunch, mango and a salad with dinner. That one was my make-up day! Anyway, I really like this goal. 1b: No snacks after dinner. This one challenged me early on, but I managed to stay out of the snacks all week. Funnily, I am kind of fake hungry now at bedtime, but it's for strawberries and not ice cream. So, improvement? 100% on this one. 1c: Not really measureable, so while I'll use it as a strategy, I'm not going to rate it. Goal 2: Exercise 3 times during the week: 100%! Played tennis on Wednesday (ugh, so rusty!), Ran 6 miles on Friday (so beautiful out, yay spring, yay blossoms on all the trees), did a fartlek run this morning. Goal 3: Posted weekly update! 100%! Side quest: I read a couple articles on body image. Some were really terrible. I found the national eating disorders webpage to be pretty low on useful content. There were a couple interesting ones, but nothing Earth-shattering. I'll check in on other people's progress tomorrow!

Thanks for the support, Teri! Tonight is going much better. One day at a time! Food brain...ha ha ha!

This no snacks after dinner goal is challenging me right now. I know in my head that I had enough to eat for dinner. I know that my stomach isn't rumbling, I'm not actually hungry. I know if I can stave this off for a few days the cravings will go away. But man, why is all I can think about heading over to the kitchen and having something to eat?

Hi Scouts! I don't know about you, but I am happy that Spring is finally here. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere. I didn't do so well with my last challenge. Life got to be too much. Looking forward to refocusing and building up some healthy habits! Goal1: Make healthy choices to stay within a set calorie limit. To do this I need some sub-goals: a. Average 5 servings of fruit/veggies per day b. No snacks after dinner c. This goal isn't really measurable, it's more of a strategy. But my plan is to have a rough plan every morning about what the day's food intake is going to be. Goal 2: Keep up with exercise 3x/week. I'd like to try an exercise class called PiYo (pilates/yoga mix). Keep up running and volleyball. Add tennis. Yay nice weather! I am coming off of an awesome performance at the Cherry Blossom 10 miler (which was really a 9.53 miler this year). I'll make a separate post about this. Goal 3: Post updates weekly about progress on goals. Life goal: Focus on positive body image.

Just saw this and wanted to share: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/16/dove-one-beautiful-thought_n_6880918.html A good reminder to stop with the negative body talk!

I find that being in charge of large groups of children is exhausting (where large >= 3) . God bless teachers and daycare workers. Hope you are starting to feel recovered!

I didn't even realize it's possible to do 50 burpees. I can do like 5.

Ha ha! That shirt is really awesome. Do you really have offers from other sites? I didn't even realize there were competitor sites. This was the first one I found and felt right at home. Long live nerds!! Wait, I want both of you to be my workout buddies. Teri for weights and 18ck for running. Is this some sort of new virtual reality thing that I haven't learned about yet? ;-)

Impressive work-outs given your foot situation! And nice job on the no sugar/junk food! You're inspiring.

Teri, really, THANK YOU! These last 2 days have gone much better. I was seriously stressed out and felt out of control. You are an amazing virtual coach. Planning is key, but I start to feel out of control when we go to restaurants that don't have nutrition info or that have mostly unhealthy fare. Maybe I should avoid those places, but when the rest of my family wants to go somewhere it can be hard to be the one saying, "No we can't go there." I would say that my after dinner eating is more in the mindless snacking category than binging. Days are so crazy that by the end of the night, when the kids are in bed, I really enjoy watching a TV show and getting to leisurely enjoy a snack. The problem is when I keep snacking instead of just stopping. Sometimes I'll doze on the couch, and then when I wake up and head up to bed, I'll go eat something on the way. What is up with that? Why do I do that? I'm not even hungry, and on my way to sleep! There is no need for food then! Trying to be conscious of that. Goals for my travel week: * Make sure eating is only at mealtimes. If snacking, only snack on healthy, whole foods * Buy mostly non-candy fillings for easter eggs (so that I am not tempted to steal their candy!) * Exercise 3 times

Teri, THANK YOU! What you wrote makes a lot of sense, and is a great starting point. I really appreciate your wisdom here. I guess I've been feeling like life has been catching up with me lately, and I've just not been focusing on tracking my calories, which has led to several days of overeating and noticeable weight gain. Frustrating, since I feel like I erased 8 weeks worth of hard work in 2 weeks. Anyway, to break it down, I feel like I really need to focus on my calorie goal. Here is my plan: * In the morning, make a plan for my meals for the day that will allow me to stay at my calorie goal. While eating throughout the day, ask myself if this particular food was in my meal plan. If it's not--just don't eat it! (Why is that last part so difficult?) * Watch the snacking. No more late night binging. I'm not sure if it's best to cut out an after dinner snack entirely, or limit it to a piece of fruit, or something else. But I've been eating too much after dinner, and that needs to change. Thoughts? * <Gah, I was thinking about a third one, but I need to leave for work...will think more and post an update> As for the travelling, I feel like it's hard to do well because you're constantly eating food prepared by other people or by restaurants you're not familiar with. I'll think some more on what I want my goal to be while we're traveling. Thanks!!

Thanks for the recipe ideas, Teri! It was on my list to try your turkey meatball rice dish next week. I'll let you know how it turns out. In other news, I am having some serious motivational issues sticking to my food goals. Boo! Any advice? Next week we will be traveling, so I know it's going to be even harder that week to stay on track. Help!

Sounds great, Teri. Thanks!!

Had a frightful encounter with the scale this morning. SO frustrating! I thought I was back on track, but this last week wasn't so great. I caught a nasty head cold (whyyyyy, the weather is just getting warmer!?) and my energy was zapped. I ended up taking today off work to rest, and I think that was a good call. In spite of the bad scale encounter, I managed to stay away from the sweets at the grocery store (yay!) and pick up some ingredients for healthy pasta with meatballs. I added onion and green peppers to the sauce, and meatballs are made out of turkey. I put way too many onions, so the meatballs weren't that great. Note to self, just use store bought meatballs!

Wurkaut...LOL! You're right, I definitely need to warm up more than I have been, which has been essentially zero. I'm young, I shouldn't need to warm up! Oh wait, I'm not young anymore, that's why. ;-) I decided to play co-ed VB on Sunday night and did a lot of warming up. Shoulder is still a little sore, but it didn't seem to be made worse by playing, so yay. My team is in a rebuilding phase, and I just stepped into the "setter" role, which is something I enjoy, although I'm not all that great on it. The team is pretty desperate. ;-) We pulled out our second win of the season on Sunday, so that felt good! I've done lots with asparagus, never done anything with rhubarb! Good idea. Anything else you can do with rhubarb other than jam and pie?

Wow, what a story! Open heart surgery at 3 weeks! What a fighter! Keep reaching for those dreams!

Hey, way to go on that 5K. It can be so hard to be motivated when Mother Nature is not cooperating. But now you have another notch in your "I'm a badass" belt. Nice.

Nice! Way to enjoy that weather! You reminded me to chat my running buddy to set something up for tomorrow. Also, I checked into the masters swimming in my area, but none of them fit into my schedule. Boo! I'm just not willing to get up at 5 AM for it. But good for you!!

Yes!!!! Why does this happen? You can go along for a few weeks with no problem, but then if you have a bad day it can mess you up for a long time after. Food is hard.

I am doing a poor job of conjuring new food. I made it through my mom's cooking and dessert buying relatively unscathed weight wise, but man, it was really hard to get back into the groove of tracking my calories. If I'm not consistent with it, I lose all desire to do it. I had a monster exercise week last week! I am proud of myself. Weather was awful, lots of snow everywhere so it was pretty impossible to get out. I did volleyball on Monday, easy running on Tuesday, a 6 mile run on Thursday, and a 5.5 mile run AND volleyball on Sunday. Sunday's exertion put me in not the best shape for Monday's women's volleyball match. I pulled a muscle in my shoulder/neck and had to sit out the last game. It was really painful and I was worried I did some serious damage, but things seem to be on the mend. I decided to go out for a run today because the weather was a gorgeous 64 degrees (this after 6 inches of snow last week). Went out with a friend of mine and it was a great 6 mile run, and really loosened up my shoulder. So, anyone have any shoulder exercise/strengthening tips? Anyone have any recipes to recommend so I can get moving on that aspect of my challenge? Would love to try one or two vegetarian recipes!

Guys, this weather is killing me. My volleyball match on Sunday night was cancelled due to an ice storm. I just couldn't muster the energy to exercise on the treadmill that night. You know, I am more tired at the end of a weekend than I am at the end of the week. So I promised myself that I'd get an extra day of exercise this week. Monday night I had a different volleyball match, women's instead of co-ed. I haven't played women's in awhile, and so all the jumping for blocking and hitting was hard on my knee. On of my kiddos fell out of his top bunk bed on Moday night, so YIKES! Took him to the doc on Tuesday and stayed home with him. He's going to be just fine, thank goodness. I took him to special lunch at McDonald's, but used some good willpower to wait and get my lunch from Chipotle instead. Then we sat on our butts and watched movies for the rest of the day. Which led me to feel like I should do some exercise on Tuesday night after the kids were in bed. My plan was to do some bodyweight exercises, but I started off on lunges and could feel it in my knees right away, so I decided to stop that plan and just do an easy treadmill run. 3 miles, 30 minutes. It's amazing how a few lunges can make my knees feel terrible, but running doesn't seem to hurt them at all. They've already cancelled school AND work for tomorrow due to the forecast of 6-10 inches of snow. So, I'll probably try to d a 6 miler on the treadmill tomorrow at moderate pace, maybe 9:00 miles. Any recommendations for shows to check out while running? Netflix preferred.Lastly, some food porn. The roasted butternut squash was my contribution to the meal, so I am going to count it as one of my 5 new recipes!

WOW! That is some serious artistry going on. I just...I mean....I can't even....WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS AT THE BOTTOM? Jelly Beans? Totally had to google PopJam. I am so uncool.

WOW! That is some serious artistry going on. I just...I mean....I can't even....WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS AT THE BOTTOM? Jelly Beans? Totally had to google PopJam. I am so uncool.

Hold on a sec, buddy. You run hilly marathons, you exercise EVERY DAY, sometimes multiple times a day, and you can do pull ups and hand stands. If that isn't a mega-fitness machine, I don't know what is. Also, I am addicted to cake too. Are there support groups for people like us?