Welcome! 20 lbs is a great goal, but you'll have to work it--April is just around the corner.

Make sure to post your info in the Check-in thread so we can all keep track.

Regards,
Michael

May I join? I'm shooting for 20lbs too!

SW: 193lbs
GW: 173lbs

ofcourse you can join! I wish you the best of luck! do you have a plan of action for dropping the pounds?

I've been on a smoothie kick since Christmas. The day after I felt sluggish and tired and just plain bad from all the holiday garbage I was eating - which was much less than in years past, let me tell you.

For the most part, I have been doing green smoothies every day for lunch. I make them with is fruits, leafy greans and water. Really good, even if it doesn't look real appitizing. I find them really filling and refreshing. No bloating, which has been a real prolem for me the last couple of years. Tonight I had a pear and raspberry smoothie with dinner. Yum.

Just updated my Check-in and wow, some of you are "cooking with gas"!

This is just great--I'm going to be very interested to see how many pounds combined we lose and how many of us reach our 10% goal.

My loss has been a little sluggish since Christmas, but still happening. I've increased my daily walk some more--haven't GPS'd it yet, but I've got to be close to 1.5 miles in 20 minutes. It was well under 20F out yesterday and I still ended up soaked w/sweat when I got back. :eek: Hard to believe that FitDay says that's only good for slightly over 100 calories!

Anyweigh, the scale read 293 this morning, so that's OK. I really like "instant gratification" but I know that even a couple pounds a week is good and probably more healthy in the long run than a faster pace.

Have a great day everyone!

Regards,
Michael

Welcome new fools! I hope everyone has a tremendously successful challenge.

Michael, boy, if that's sluggish loss, I hope to stay as sluggish as you! I noticed on the chart that you didn't put down your pre-new year's eve weigh in of 297, so I added it for you, but unless I'm missing something you lost 4lbs in the last 8 days. Sounds awesome to me!

I was pleasantly surprised to have lost 3 lbs for the week. I spent several days sick where I still forced myself to go to work, so just didn't have it in me to work out those days. Maybe I burned a little more with my fever. Also, I ordered a number of new snack foods because I felt like I wanted a little variety, and while I didn't badly over indulge from a calories per day perspective, I did find that I fell out of my normal meal timing and lost a lot of the really good clean foods that I have been enjoying. I'll call it a snack binge that I survived, and try to get back to more balanced choices this week.

And now, back to the gym! I haven't been able to work out for a few days, so I'm going to have some breakfast and get a big workout in.

Have a happy and health week everyone!

Matt

Matt, thanks. Well, my loss works out to ~2.3 lbs a week from Dec. 18 (300) to today (293). I was averaging around 4 a week, then down to 3 a week.

I realize that my body takes a lot less to keep it going these days--when I was 400 and my calorie burn was 4K a day the weight just peeled off.

Now, I'm not complaining--I'll take 293 over 400 any day! :D

And I realize that losing more slowly is good--perhaps my extra skin will keep up with the fat loss better this time. I know it will never totally go away, but if there's any way to minimize it....

Great to see you're making good progress and feeling better--keep it up!

Regards,
Michael

Thanks, Michael. I think what I'm saying is that I think everyone expects the holidays to be a bit of a bust for what we're doing. So maybe you had a couple of weeks where the weight loss slowed down, but since New Year's you're down 4lbs. So, I think you can count that holiday period in the past and you are already right back into the swing.

Thanks for all the continued motivation!

Micheal,

I know that at the beginning of a diet regime, not matter what you use, you always enjoy the biggest weight loss. Not very many people give up in the first month, unless the diet is restrictive, just because of the big jumps in the scale.

I am not done yet because I woke up this morning to evidence in my arm that I am still retaining water. It has been an hour and I still see the indentation of where the pillow was against my wrist.

So for now, it is going to come off fast with little effort on my part, but when I get past this, I am really going to need friends here.

Annette, you're doing great! I hear ya' about the fluid retention--I used to be able to leave nice thumb prints in my legs, hands, you name it :eek:

And I am in no way discouraged--I know I could drop the calories and lose more quickly. I made a decision to lose at a reasonable rate this time, and keep my cals at a point that I could easily live with--no "will power" needed.

It's just kind of a Catch 22--we want to lose fast, yet we want our bodies (and minds) to adjust and to lose in a healthy way.

Have a great day and stay healthy!

Regards,
Michael