Good day in class today. Came home way short on calories and protein - thank goodness for tilapia. MIL also made stir-fried onions with scrambled egg and ham (might sound nasty, doesn't look great, tastes *wonderful*) for me for dinner, and I think it had way more oil in it than I estimated, because I'm still short on calories by my guess but I feel like I've eaten enough. Still a bit short on protein (15g or so), but I'm undecided as to whether to have a proteiny snack or just go to bed.

Loving the pedometer. Knees not really loving my enthusiasm for the pedometer.

Going to sleep in tomorrow. Only one more week before vacation, and sooooo much work to do before we go. DD's Nutcracker performance is Sunday, so tomorrow is the only sleeping in day.

Oh, and my new scale, which weighed 1.5 pounds heavier than the old scale last night? Weighed exactly the same as the old scale this morning - at least as much as the old scale ever gives a good weight. Old scale = more broken than I thought, maybe.

Hi Phoebe

I hate it when scales dont tell the truth for any reason. I suspect that my scale was naughty when we went away a few weeks ago. I think that the different location made it flatter me a little. It is confusing and makes you not know where you stand.

Remember to put your pedometer on as you get dressed and leave it on until bedtime. It is the only logical way because all those steps burn calories.

Well done for doing the exercise and resisting the doughnuts.

You are such an asset to our team.

Take care
Love
Margaret

You're showing a great attitude and determination in the way that you're getting your exercise in despite the timing challenges. Good for you.

Margaret: Thanks for the reminder! I actually hadn't put mine on for the day - oops. I know I miss my morning exercise steps, because I do that in my underwear, but there's no point in missing the ones once I'm dressed.

Oh, and the scales today - the new one weighed lighter than the old by 0.3 pounds or so. At least both of them were under the weigh-in goal for the challenge - that would have been a dilemma!

Felici: Thanks! I'm really enjoying the challenges, being competitive that way.

Hi Phoebe

Well I will admit something to you that I havent mentioned on this forum (or any other for that matter!!!) if I find that I am wandering around the house in my underwear and not immediately putting on outer clothing - I clip the pedometer to my knickers. I dont capture all the steps - but it does get a decent proportion of them.

It sounds like a joke - but this is totally true.

It is really odd the way that your scales are going. Are you being sure to place them in the same place on a hard surface because both those factors are supposed to cause problems. My bathroom floor is tiled so I line two sides with one of the tiles every time.

Well done again for maintaining your 100% in the challenge. You havent slipped up once in 4 weeks.

Take care
Love
Margaret

At a gurl Margaret!

OooO I just love that story!

*****

Hi ya Phoebe!

Yer doin' Super Great!

Have A Great Night.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Bleah. 10:30pm, and I'm ravenously hungry, plus have a caffeine-withdrawal headache. No caffeine for me this late at night, so hopefully the ibuprofen will help it.

Ravenously hungry maybe = stressed about the busy day tomorrow. Not looking forward to getting up early, or to going to church, or to getting DD fed and her hair done in the hour between church being over and her being required to be at the performance venue. She's supposed to have curly hair, which she doesn't want at all - she let me put curlers on her tonight, but then howled whenever I tried to dry her hair. (I knew there would be no getting her to sleep on them.) So at 2 hours past her bedtime, I took them back out, and as expected, she has sticky-up curly bangs (which need to be slicked back flat) and no curl in the back (which needs to be curly). So I get to be the bad mom whose kid isn't meeting expectations twice tomorrow. :P

So far, I've tried chocolate and bread-and-butter, and neither have made me less ravenously hungry. Maybe will have some leftover pork tenderloin from dinner and see if that helps. I've already had a gallon of water today, so probably not thirsty. And while I think stress is making me want to eat, identifying stress as the trigger normally makes it go away, and today it isn't. Hmm.

What in the world does she HAVE to have curly hair for? Can't they let her play the part with straight hair? I mean, come on people, she's 4!

Margaret, when I work out and my gym pants have no pockets, I put my pedometer in the pocket of my bra that is meant for the little boosting pads that I took out of them!

Amber

That is brilliant!

Finally I have found someone as eccentric as me!

And we admit it all in Phoebe's diary!!!

Phoebe

I agree with Amber. They should let the kid be comfortable and happy with straight hair. Some people just look to invent problems. No wonder you get headaches, feel stressed and want to eat. I bet most people on this forum find their natural inclination is to want to eat if they feel stressed.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Apparently, I walk a bunch before I get dressed in the morning. Like 1,100 steps! That underwear trick works!

DD is currently having her hair curled by MIL, at DD's request. (Oops - she just reappeared with the same stick-straight hair - her hair is thick enough that the weight pulls the curl right out.)

Hi Phoebe

It sounds really silly - I know - but if you are doing the steps and burning the calories / fat - you might as well know that you have done it and feel good about doing it. When you think about it that way it would be selling yourself short not to recognise that you do those steps.

As far as your daughter is concerned - some people are just naturally supposed to have straight hair. Generally they look absolutely great with straight hair too. I hope that she is happy with her hair today - and that no-one makes her feel that it should be at all different to how it is.

I hope that you are not suffering from headaches, stress or inexplicable hunger today.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Her hair was fine! One of the little girls playing the same part (she was a Baby Party Girl) had bangs, so they obviously weren't too concerned about hair for the little kids.

Last night must have been stress hunger after all - I stopped being hungry about 15 minutes later. Good thing I decided to forgo additional eating. Today is shaping up to be a good day, nutritionally.

Had to drop DD off an hour before the performance, so I spent 40+ minutes walking in the empty area outside the balcony seating to pass that time. Pedometer clings to jeans great, but isn't too steady on belted khakis (the pocket on these pants is too angled for the pedometer to pick up on steps). 7500+ steps so far today.

Hi Phoebe

I am pleased her hair and the stress hunger all sorted out ok in the end.

Stress plays some funny tricks on us at times.

Well done for getting the walking in. 7,500 steps is a good achievement. I understand that the British average step count is 5,000 steps so anything above that can be considered above average.

There is a bit of a knack in knowing how to wear a pedometer with some clothes.

Mine sometimes counts low if it is wrapped up too much.
For a while at first my boobs hung low and acted as shock absorbers. A more supportive bra fixed that.
A few days this week it was counting low and it was because I am wearing a T shirt, sweatshirt and jacket and the layers were covering it. I pulled the sweatshirt away today and it counted better.
Different shoes seem to produce a different step length sometimes. Now I would not recalibrate it every time I changed shoes - but I did when I wore a huge hole in the sole of my favourite walking sandals in the summer and had to wave them a fond farewell and also when weather caused my to change from walking sandals to shoes for the foreseeable future.
I hope that you find a knack with your khakis.

Take care
Love
Margaret

I love this. I'm considering buying a booster bra just to so I can copy this one!

Wow! Way to go on making the most of the moment. That is the kind of challenge I was thinking of earlier - the way you can be so busy, but find a way to fit in some extra movement. It's really interesting to me to hear how your pedometer might be really helping to motivate you.

It's good to see all these pedometer stories in here. I have had 2-3 goes with them but always ended up finding they were too hard to reset for the next day. I don't remember if they started out that way, or if it was because I kept crashing them on the bathroom floor because I'd forget they were clipped on to my pants when I went to the toilet! Maybe that's why I find Ambalove's trick so appealing.

I feel for you about getting DD ready for her performance. I am in the throes of my girl's latest dance concert. Some bits get easier and others get harder!! I remember the first year we did her hair in rags to make ringlets which took hours and with trying to put eyeliner on her little bitty eyes and so on was mucho stess!! My friend tried rags with her girl but her hair just would not curl, no matter what. When we got to the dress rehearsal we found that all the older girls just had little wiglets pinned onto their hair. We had individually sewn on sequins where other mum's had glued them and they looked just as good on stage - generally we had just stressed too much!! It certainly makes it harder for me to find the time for myself too. Overall though it's worth it. Years on, my girl has so much fun with it (and singing concerts), and I'm sure all the participation is very healthy for them in more ways than one.

It's good to hear that you're savvy about the way you respond to your perceived hunger. The fact that it went away after about 15 minutes might suggest that there was a need for a little healthy food. Waiting a while sometimes makes a difference because although it might give a sense of volume in the stomach right away, it takes a while for the body to absorb it and adjust your hormone levels to register that things are ok again. I've heard that 20 minutes is a good amount of time to wait.

Anyway, it sounds like you're really conscious and careful about everything you're doing and met your weigh in goal!! Good for you!

Thing I like best about mine: it resets automatically at midnight. And remembers 7 days of readings, so I don't have to remember to write them down.

DD is going to have to grow her hair out longer if she wants to stick with ballet, I think. I'm used to being the mom of a long-haired kid (she insisted we cut it all off over the summer), and there are no ballet hairdos that go with short hair and bangs! The bigger kids (who did all have their hair done as suggested) all had those rag-rolled "sausage" curls, but I have no idea how to "do" hair in rags. I'm such a hair-challenged mom. :P

As far as squeezing the exercise in - there's no way I'd have bothered walking without the pedometer. I couldn't go fast enough to count it as challenge exercise (in part because my nice comfy dress shoes gave me blisters from trying to walk fast!), so I probably would have just sat around bored. Or snacking. I'm hoping it'll help me get in a little extra movement during tax season, too.

Aha! I was wearing a tunic-length heavy shirt today, and it kept dragging on mine. So maybe that was part of the problem.

I think my solution to this particular pair of pants will be to shrink out of them. Since I've got another 23 pounds to go, and they're on the loose side now, I think that will be doable.

This particular pedometer doesn't let you set step length, which is the only thing I'd add to it. I figure the miles number is overstated, because my legs are short, but it's not like I have a miles goal.