February Progress Report!

By Andrea

This has been a really fun month on here, and each member has contributed to the rising energy on this blog. Therefore, it seems fitting that we take a minute to realize just how successful we have been!

February has been a record-breaking month for our group! (Go ahead, give yourself a pat on the back). In the past twenty-eight days we have:

Put in 27 hours and 10 minutes of exercise

Lost 7.8 pounds


This is a HUGE success! I’m so excited about and proud of our progress and dedication.

Let’s see if we can beat ourselves in March!

Yawn, Stretch, Run, Fetch!

Ok y'all, it's time to shake things up here!
If ever I felt the drowsies in a project, it's here on our bloggie! Yes, I was the main contributor to the dull-drums! We all have our times, ya know!

For the first "shake", I decided to add our start weight to the front forehead of our profiles. And, as expected, it was startling. What was your reaction to seeing your start weight side-by-side with your present figure?

Michelle, you have done so well! This is very impressive! But, we are not going to be out-done by the new broom! We shall all start to sweep well and see impressive efforts at maintenance! Yes?

Welcome back to Roger and his courageous new start!

Re the Exercise Club, I have joined officially as of today. Help us all! What is this coming to? Carol-Ann actually plans to exercise? I may have to jog out to Mississauga and drag Pat out for a run. Let's see -- where could we go ... we could run over to Artisano's for a lemon-cranberry cloud and a cappuccino all dressed up with whipped cream!

Great stuff, Jeanette -- you've kept us going here lately.
Andrea, you are still below your start weight so let's kick some butt and hope that Grandma doesn't stop by to read this steel-hearted approach!

Summoning all Losers!

We have here gathered at the chicken coop to discuss our issues!

In the previous post, our Senior Blog Administrator (SBA) has called the meeting to order and appointed the Junior Blog Administrator (JBA) to bring us up to speed by reviewing the minutes from our last general meeting:

"10:15, 10:16, 10:17, 10:18, 10:19, ... adjourned at 10:45."

Thank you, Silly Goose! But why are you in with the chickens?!

New items for today's agenda are requested from the floor. Um, since there is nothing worth mentioning on the floor in this chicken coop ... the Executive decision is to keep moving right along!

Stop and think about it: there are few things in life to match the level of exhaustion provoked by trying to run down the up escalator! Yet we are faced with just such a challenge here as we strive to be winners by losing! The greatest difficulty we encounter on this moving staircase is not actually r/t to the impossibility of achieving our goals so much as to succumbing to fatigue in the process on the way down!

It is my personal observation that incredible momentum can be achieved through a great deal of flapping and squawking! We must be ready to make the feathers fly as we cheer each other on to the bottom step!

And this, dear friends, brings us to a brand new item on the agenda:

It has been suggested that each member in the sidebar be promoted from having squatter's rights to squawker's rights! There has been a lot of clucking over the summer about this.

We know that all chickens in the coop at this point are of true, pure Leghorn brand. Any posts submitted by any of the current members would certainly be up to scratch (should Mama happen to Google the site)! But .... what if a new member turns up with uncouth in their beak?

And then, there is the pecking thing to keep in mind! What if Charlie spends a great deal of time putting together his flap and two point three seconds after he posts, Esmeralda lets loose with a wide stream of chortle that moves Charlie's post clear outta sight?

No good! No good! This worm has too many twists to be swallowed whole! So, for now, your Junior and Senior, Charter Member Blog Administrators will continue to publish the posts but we are asking for submissions! We'd like to put up a new post every Tuesday morning (a goal -- not a promise!) so that with one click in a week the rest can see how the others have weighed in and can read the Flap-'n-Squawk!

Continue to submit your Monday morning weights as usual for posting by Tuesday morning and send along, by email, any submissions for front page posting as well! Suggestions for consideration as to how to make this "Squawkers' Rights" thing happen will also be welcome!

Olympic Medals are Handed Out!

Well everybody, today Barry and Jeanette left for a few days of relaxation and I am inclined to think (since I just turned around and put on a pound right after breaking down into the 150's) that we all might do well with taking a little break!

Actually, Jeanette and I have been discussing some possible changes to the format of our little connection place here, so let's just kick back for a few weeks and then start up again with a will in a month's time. I'm suggesting our next weigh-in day be September 15th. That gives us just over a month to decide what kind of a surprise we want to present on the blog on the 15th!

STOP! DON'T CLICK AWAY YET!
THERE'S ONE MORE THING TO DO:

In order to go out with a bang and come back in with a swoosh, we need predictions! Please submit your hopeful prediction for September 15th in the comment section of this post. No specific numbers! Simply state your prediction of having gained, having lost or having earned the "Elmo Award":

And to close this Olympic round, let's take a look at the scores:

Jeanette: ....Started with ... 187.4 ...... Ended with ... 182.9 ......
Total lost ... 4.5
Carol-Ann: Started with ... 164.7 ...... Ended with ... 160.8 ......
Total lost ... 3.9
Roger: .........Started with ... 233.4 ...... Ended with ... 229.4 ......
Total lost ... 4.0
Pat: ..............Started with ... 160.5 ...... Ended with ... 157.5 ......
Total lost ... 3.0
Andrea: ......Started with ... 186.4 ...... Ended with ... 182.2 ......
Total lost ... 4.2
Michelle: ...Started with ... 213.0 ...... Ended with ... 214.0 ......
Total gain ... 1.0
Elmo: ..........Started with ....... 3.8 ...... Ended with ....... 3.8 .......
Total lost ... 0.0

Three Cheers for the winners of GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE
And because the Gold medalist has been both a Canadian and American citizen at different times of her life, we are all standing at attention while both anthems are played and we are ALL WINNERS!

By a special note of encouragement, Michelle, if you look at our scores you will see that we have all taken turns going up and down! Next time we tally up for our medals you shall have more than one week's worth of points to count!

Congratulations, all! Don't forget to enter your prediction in the comment section! See you in September!

Ideas, anyone?

Well, everyone, what are we going to do? Carol-Ann has not weighed in yet, but she may be like me -- scared to get on the scale today! So far, we have not had any huge gains, just little ones that keep adding up, so I'm hoping we can come up with some ideas that will help all of us get back on track. Perhaps we could compile some of these and post them all together. I'm going to start us off. Andrea and I have a distance to go, and Carol-Ann and Pat are not all that far from their goals, so maybe the approaches need to be different.

1. Set mini-goals of 5 pounds. My last goal was to have the scale give me a number under 180 no matter what time of day I got on it. I met that, but now I will have to work on it again.
2. Come up with strategies that work to divert our attention. For example, I find that chewing gum sometimes helps me forget about chewing on actual food. I once knew a lady who decided that, instead of eating when she shouldn't, she would pray for her children until she forgot about the food. I thought that was very creative and served a very good purpose, as well. That might not work for all of us, but can we think of something helpful like that?
3. Is there a competition we can have going among us that would spur us on? Most weight loss in a month? At least a pound a week? Could we have a rewards section on the sidebar or at the top somewhere where we can earn (or lose??!) stars or points? Maybe several different kinds of little medals for different things, like consistent exercising?
4. How about giving ourselves a non-food reward for reaching our final goal, something we can look forward to? Maybe for reaching significant interim goals, too.

What do you think? We have to push each other somehow, but how? Tell me what you are thinking!

New Year's Resolutions!

EXERCISE!

I have made progress in two of my three goals, eating less and drinking more water. Now for the third one: Exercise. Carol-Ann wants to see what I am going to do about exercise, so I went to my best resource first, my husband. He graduated from college with a degree in physical education and the training to teach it to children in kindergarten through high school. Surely my ability level fits in there somewhere (probably leaning to the kindergarten side!) We also have a treadmill, a Total Gym, and a set of free weights. Today I asked Barry to consider my abilities, my time, and our equipment and help me come up with an exercise program. We discussed starting with something easy that I enjoy. This is my current plan beginning on Monday when hopefully we will all be back on our usual schedules:

1. Time: Exercise for 30 to 45 minutes before getting Coral up for the day. Mid-afternoon is my alternate workable exercise time. It might work best to do one kind of exercise in the morning and take a break mid-afternoon for the other.

2. Exercises: Start with 20 to 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill working up on speed and incline, as well as 10 to 15 minutes of free weights concentrating on upper body strength (3- to 5-pound weights to start, depending on the specific exercise).

I want to increase strength, flexibility, and overall health with no joint damage. I may have a bigger reason for this, too, in that doing this will help me care for Coral at home longer.

Okay, Carol-Ann! What is your plan? I would love to hear any suggestions from others in the comments and also figure out a way to help me stick to this right from the start.

How is everyone doing?

Our blog has been quiet this week! It's time to post again to keep in touch.

Exactly a week from now, I will be in the final throes of packing to go visit Carol-Ann and her family and our mother!! How exciting is that?!!

Here's my confession for this week -- I had wanted to break the 180 mark before this visit to Canada, but I'm not sure that will happen. There is only one more week to go, so we will have to see what happens by then.

I have been somewhat taken aback by the number of obstacles I have run into on this seemingly straightforward plan. Just three "little" things in my plan: Eat less, drink more water, and get more exercise. Suddenly we are swamped with celebrations involving food. And I am finding it is a challenge to remember to get up from my computer to get water and be active.

I work at home as a medical transcriptionist. I take the patient information recorded by the doctor and turn it into a professional printed medical record to be put into the patient's chart. This is a very challenging job. I didn't know the half of it when I was beginning this four years ago! I thought it was going to be about learning the millions of medical words and phrases and short forms, the multitude of medicines on the market with their brand names and generics, all the parts of the amazing human body. Little did I know that...

The doctor is often in a hurry, tired at the end of the day, and not speaking clearly. Sometimes he yawns loudly, talking all the time. Sometimes she is sitting by a ringing phone that no one is answering. Sometimes she drowns out her own voice with the flapping and snapping of x-ray films she is putting up onto the lighted screen. Sometimes he pronounces medications all wrong, even spells them incorrectly. Sometimes he really needs to blow his nose but instead he keeps...Well, you get the idea...!! Being able to type enough lines to make a reasonable income requires mentally fastening yourself to your computer chair and staying there for long hours each day.

This is working against me! The only things active in my office are my fingers! I get myself into the most ergonomically comfortable position I can find, one that requires the least possible movement of my arms and wrists. So this has been a big challenge to me in this current little project we are in!!

Another side to the story ... just when I am ready to give up, the doctor says something like this, "The patient lost her job recently due to her level of pain and is now without insurance. She is not being charged for today's visit," and I forget all about the irritations along the way! (Here's my paraphrase of 1 Peter 4:8 -- Admiration and respect cover a multitude of sins.)

Black Monday!

We had Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving, and I hear that today is Black Monday which is for online shopping. But for me, this is Black Monday because my weight loss slipped into reverse. I'm not too thankful for this aspect of Thanksgiving! It could have been much worse, though, so today I am climbing back up on the wagon. Kudos to Carol-Ann who is still on track with her weight loss!

My plan for the week:
1. Start writing down every morsel that I swallow.
2. Measure my water in the morning and make sure it is all gone before bed.
3. Walk every day.

Helpful hint that works for me (when I do it, that is!):
Keeping a careful log of everything I eat and the approximate number of calories. This works for me because I tend to lose my grip on exactly how much I have eaten and usually feel like it has been less than it really is. I made an Excel spreadsheet that totals everything for me, so as the day goes along, I can see how much more food I may have. It helps me to make wiser choices when I see that total mounting and know that I still actually want to be able to have some dinner without going over my limit!! I have been trying to keep the total number of calories right around 1200.

Wait? Weight?

Ready.....Set.....WAIT!
There's still another day before we have to do the weight thing!
Let's not rush this!