Hey! I was just wondering if you are interested in having a buddy? I have a member who also wants to lose over 200 pounds who needs one. Your buddy would be someone you would be accountable to and you would keep tabs on them while you both offer support to each other. Let me know!

yea it always amazed me how much i could spend at the store when i started a diet. I normally bypass the diet food section. Its just so expensive and dosent really taste all that. I look for the lower end things on the shelf. Now i get the spices and raw materials and make my own. Ill normally buy abunch of frozen food. Its things like the meats and frozen veggies. Now that i have that stocked up ill just replace the things that go bad like the fresh fruits and veggies. Thats what i end up buying most now. Now im not throwing it away its just gone. let me know if you do get a good scale, Im still dragging my feet on getting mine...........

I think I could do that Hypo. I guess I'd like a little more information on what's involved, but I'm always willing to lend support and always looking for it too.

Well, there is a thread under the club section that is about doing "buddy challenges." The person who started that is no longer here but many people still wanted buddies, so I took it over. I still don't know about doing the challenges yet. If we do them, it will probably be stuff like drinking a certain amount of water, or getting in a certain number of fruits and veggies, or maybe even which two buddies lose the highest percentage of weight in a week. Even if we don't do those, the biggest thing about a buddy is because there are so many people who post on here that sometimes it is hard for lots of us to get to all of the diaries and hard to keep up with everyone. Your buddy will be someone who you will be accountable too and you should keep up with what your buddy is doing. You can post with each other or whatever. It is someone who will be there for you and provide support and vice versa. We try to pair up buddies who have similar amounts of weight to lose so that it is someone that you can relate to. And I think the person that is looking for a buddy is someone who is already posting in your diary. If you have any more questions, let me know!

Sure I can do that!

Great! The person I have in mind is Maleficient. I'll run it by her and let both of you know. It will be posted in the thread "buddy system to have challenges" or something like that in the club section.

Day 2

Not a major breakthrough, but I got up and did the walk and now I'm here with a yogurt and water for breakfast. I would have had more, but I'm saving a few calories for dinner tonight and I have a huge salad planned for lunch. Tonight I'm meeting a friend at Bennigans and I'll have the Turkey O'Toole which I know isn't terrific, but I can certainly stay under my calorie goal.

My friend John and I had a college radio show back in the day. He's now in St. Louis an has his own show on food. Its on Tuesdays at 11AM Central and as I've never been able to listen to it before with work, I'm excited to finally hear it.

I do reallize the one problem with my food purchases. A lot of what I got is fresh meaning it has a 3-5 day expiration date. I definitely will get more frozen stuff next time.

For the first time in my life I bought a whole wheat bread product and ate it for myself. Lunch was a turkey sandwhich on a wheat bagle and an orange.

You are making some great changes. I just read your journal and you seem to be on the right track. Forget all those past attempts. The only reason you will fail is if you don't try! We're all here for you.

Thanks for your kind words Sillygirl. It sounds like you're on the right track as well, but I definitely share your distaste for scales right now.

Great for you, trying new things. I am doing a bit of that myself. I think it is important to try new foods if we are going to make lifestyle changes. Who knows what good stuff we might find!

So far today

Dannon Fruit on the Bottom Yogurt - 140
Turkey Sandwich - 410
Orange - 60
Caesar's Salad - 255

That puts me at 865 heading into Bennigans. I haven't found a lot of nutritional info on Bennigans, but I think I'll get a Turkey O'Toole and a light beer. I just need to find a side that won't kill me. Assuming I get out of there at under 800 calories I'm looking at about 1650 calories and 250 burned walking. Now looking at what I did last year (On an especially bad day) -

2 Hot Dogs - 540
2 Chicken Sand w/ provolone - 817 Calories
6 potato chips – 50 Calories

The calories are up, but Geez, the quality of food is getting a lot better.

Your doing great!

/me shudders at light beer...

looks like you're off to a great start.. great day you've had there... congratulations...

hey thats great. Dont worry about the beer sometimes we need things to remind us we are still alive. Just remember If you dont get your calories real low you can still lose weight because you were taking in alot more to start with. If you start feeling starved just up them a little. Just up them on good things.......