The fun's over! It's time for an Easter (Sunday, March 31) Challenge!

[thriftygranny]

Friday is a great day to weigh in!!thanks Lynn

[i_forget]

Went to the gym to sign up today.
they REFUSED to tell me the monthly cost or membership fee UNLESS I went into a membership office and signed a contract.
Like hell I am going to do that!
Monday when the kids are back at school I am gong to go to Fit4less and pay $150 for the year. I will just go to the recreation centre for the pool and see where else I can try the Zumba and Yoga classes.

[Mia001]

DH is a great motivator for me....

Good luck everyone, we can do it !

[Lynn49]

Some of these tips are interesting. Not all apply to me or maybe you but a few are good sensible things we can all do.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...ck-your-diet-0

I was recently asked for 10 tips for sticking to your diet. I quickly made the following list but I didn’t necessarily include the 10 most important tips, especially because each dieter is different. Which tips (on or off the list) have been most important to you?

1. Don’t even try to change your eating until you have learned important skills, such as how to motivate yourself every day, how to get yourself to use good eating habits, how to withstand hunger and craving, and how to get yourself back on track immediately when you make a mistake.
2. Motivate yourself every day by reading a long list of reasons that you want to lose weight every morning. Pull out this list at vulnerable times of the day, as well.
3. Eat everything sitting down, slowly, and enjoy every bite–whether or not you feel like it. It’s much more difficult to allow yourself to eat off plan, eat mindlessly, or binge if you are doing this.
4. Stay accountable. Report (whether or not you have used good eating habits and followed your eating plan) to another person–daily–through email, texting, or voice messages. Stay accountable to yourself by weighing yourself every day.
5. Stop looking for the perfect diet or the perfect combination of foods. Eat in a very healthy way but allow yourself to have one favorite food, in moderation, every single day. If you’re tempted to eat more of this food or go on to other foods you hadn’t planned to eat, then consume it shortly before bedtime, brush your teeth, and get in bed.
6. Change your mindset about food and eating. Recognize that you can eat whatever you want whenever you want OR you can be thinner. You can’t have it both ways.
7. Prove to yourself that hunger is never an emergency (if you don’t have a serious medical condition). Skip lunch and snacks one day. You’ll find that hunger is only mildly uncomfortable, compared to real discomfort such as you might have experienced after surgery or after breaking a bone; that hunger comes and goes, lasting no more than 5-10 minutes at a time, usually; that hunger is certainly tolerable.
8. Teach yourself the difference between hunger (that empty feeling in your stomach when you haven’t eaten for a few hours) and craving or the desire to eat (which you will feel in your mouth or throat). Ultimately, you want to just label what you’re feeling (hunger, craving, tiredness, boredom, or a negative emotion) and tolerate it without eating. In the short-run, have a list of powerful distractions to turn your attention away from food.
9. Regularize your eating with a set plan of meals and snacks. Some people do well with no snacks, some with a snack after each meal, some with two snacks after dinner. Eat only when it’s time to eat; not when you feel like eating.
10. Tell yourself that every time matters. It’s not necessarily the calories (after all, cookie crumbs are not very fattening); it’s the HABIT. Every time you eat something you weren’t supposed to, you strengthen your giving in muscle, which makes it more likely that the next time you’ll give in and the time after that and the time after that. Every time you stick to your plan when you’re tempted to eat something else, you strengthen your resistance muscle, which makes it more likely that the next time you’ll resist, and the time after that and the time after that.

Patty...AWESOME!!!
Each one of them makes so much sense, and thank heavens I'm following them or I'd never have lost my 50lbs.
I'm someone who has to write down what I eat, and the points to go with it, and calculate what I can snack on at night.
If I just go merrily on my way, eating what I THINK is okay, that it isn't adding up to much, I'm always way off, and eating not so much, too much, as the wrong things. Yes, I can eat anything I want, but in moderation and at the right time...when the points allow me to do that. Tonight there's another bowl game and I will have a good portion of light buttery popcorn!

Excellent post, Patty!!! Thank you for the reminders.

OH! One other thing I don't do, is determine my weight-loss ahead of time. I won't tell myself that I will lose "this much weight" by "this time" because it's too much pressure for me. If I'm not moving fast enough, I'm upset. If I plateau, I panic.
All I look at when I weight myself each week, is: is the number smaller than last week?
If they are, then I'm fine.

[bargain_hunter_lola]

I love the idea of writing down why you want to lose weight and reading that everyday. That would be super motivating for me! Going to add that in to my plan

[Lynn49]

Went to the gym to sign up today.
they REFUSED to tell me the monthly cost or membership fee UNLESS I went into a membership office and signed a contract.
Like hell I am going to do that!
Monday when the kids are back at school I am gong to go to Fit4less and pay $150 for the year. I will just go to the recreation centre for the pool and see where else I can try the Zumba and Yoga classes.

Good for you!!! I'm an old lady, with lots of aches and pains, so basically I can't exercise or I'll pull something else out of whack. All I do is walk when the weather permits. And the weight slid off. The "new" news seems to be that exercise isn't the holy grail it was once thought to be...at least not the way we were told it should be....so many hours a day, days a week...
I just saw a Dr Oz show the other day with someone who demonstrated some exercises to yank the weight off certain areas and to tone, as well as get our hearts pumping, all in very little time! Perhaps it's now on his website!
Good luck!!

[Lynn49]

[Mia001]

couldn't exercise for the last few days.....my cold is killing me ....

[i_forget]

Good for you!!! I'm an old lady, with lots of aches and pains, so basically I can't exercise or I'll pull something else out of whack. All I do is walk when the weather permits. And the weight slid off. The "new" news seems to be that exercise isn't the holy grail it was once thought to be...at least not the way we were told it should be....so many hours a day, days a week...
I just saw a Dr Oz show the other day with someone who demonstrated some exercises to yank the weight off certain areas and to tone, as well as get our hearts pumping, all in very little time! Perhaps it's now on his website!
Good luck!!

I have lost a lot of weight and gained a lot of weight over the past 12 years ( thanks kids!) and the only reason I want to go to a Gym is for a warm clean place where I can tone.

it is a lot easier to choose to not eat that 400 calorie piece of cheesecake ( or whatever your poison lol) than it is to sweat your butt off for an hour at the gym to "burn" it off.
If anything,exercise makes you hungrier!

[Mia001]

I have lost a lot of weight and gained a lot of weight over the past 12 years ( thanks kids!) and the only reason I want to go to a Gym is for a warm clean place where I can tone.

it is a lot easier to choose to not eat that 400 calorie piece of cheesecake ( or whatever your poison lol) than it is to sweat your butt off for an hour at the gym to "burn" it off.
If anything,exercise makes you hungrier!

[Patty Smyth]

I am really disappointed that I have only lost 5 lbs since September(total 35 since May). No excuses really except that I am not being careful enough. I don't think 1 pound a week is asking too much . Just have to get all the crap out of the house that came in in the last few weeks. Even though we don't do xmas I still had junk in the house. Mostly for the kids but then who ends up eating it too. Not good. Next Monday they go back to school so it will all go out come Monday.

I bought so much stuff at the farm in the fall, time to really get creative with all the winter squash , cabbage and potatoes. Plus all the stuff I froze during the summer to use now.

[Abby5]

Fell off the wagon hard today
nacho dip. Spinach dip with bread, pizza and ice cream
My stomach is on fire....that means my ass will be soon too

[i_forget]

I bought so much stuff at the farm in the fall, time to really get creative with all the winter squash , cabbage and potatoes. Plus all the stuff I froze during the summer to use now.

i look forward to hearing about those creations!

And Abby, it is okay, tomorrow is a new day

I am such an emotional eater that if I have those things in the house and I have a crappy day, I am all up into the junk, even though it makes me feel like garbage.
That is why I put on so much over Christmas. It was in the house for entertaining and I could not stop myself from it.

Time to crawl out of bed and see how I did his week.

[i_forget]

Week 1.
5.6/40

[Abby5]

Week 1.
5.6/40

You did great
Great job!