Hi Kallie,
Welcome to the forum, and good for you for taking the first steps towards reaching your goals!!

I wanted to mention something I read this morning about burning calories and walking - a slower pace is not altogether a "bad" thing. Taking the occasional stop actually increases your caloric burn because you are stopping, then starting, whereas in running or fast walking, you have momentum moving you along. Going much faster didn't seem to effect the overall calories used.

That said, it's cheap and readily available

I walk every morning and I *love* it! It keeps me focused throughout the day and willing to make sure I follow my goals and plans.

As for fast food, for the most part, I've given that up (as well as soda and coffee), but I have to say, the reason I love counting calories is because I can make room for a fast food stop if necessary.

I have stopped in Taco Bell, asked for their nutritional information and picked items off the chart that fit into how many calories I still had left for the day.

I was full, had the emergency fast food and didn't go over my 1200-1500 calories for the day.

Because this has to be a life style change for me, I have to be able to be on a "diet" that I (and my family) can live with. I won't live like a failure, and I would feel like I was failing if I used a set plan.

Good luck with your loss - we're on a team challenge together!! And see you when you get home.

Welcome Miss Kallie! We're on the same challenge team - GO TEAM 4!!!

You seem to be off to a great start! Regarding the athsma, I've heard of many people whose asthma gradually goes away as they lose weight. I think starting out with walking is a great start! You'll be running and cycling and doing kickboxing before you know it!

Keep it up and drop the fast food entirely - you'll be happy you did.

Hey, you've gotta eat regularly. It is better for your metabolism, better for your pancreas, better for shrinking your stomach size and making portion control easier. And most of all, it's better for our team!

I have asthma, too. Walking is my biggest exercise right now. I did pretty well at water aerobics a few years ago. I think the high humidity at the pool really helped with my breathing. I also like the bike at the gym, and the elliptical wasn't too bad. I tried it for the first time the other day. I can do those and concentrate on regular breathing, and they go pretty well. But, our teammates are right - walking is really about the best thing you can do, so feel good about doing that!

Just checking in to see how your weekend went. And to mention that I'm so glad you joined the challenge. I think it's going to be great fun as well as motivational.

Keep up the good work!!!

Hi guys,

My weekend went better than I thought it would as I was at the InLaws and they eat mostly crap all the time and never eat 3 regular meals, let alone 5 small ones like I'm trying to do.

On Saterday we left at about 10am (had a late night finishing up some painting and cleaning) and the trip is a 3 hour drive and on the way for lunch we had subway. I only ever have a veggie sub with no dressings. Then as soon as we got to his parent's, we decided to go fishing and we were gone until almost 10pm, so obviously I didn't have my 3 pm snack or supper until way to late. They caught 10 fish (northern pike) and when we got home they fried some up. I tried a little bit but I didn't think it would be smart to eat fried fish, so instead I ate some cut up strawberries, bananas and then I had a tuna (plain) sandwhich on whole wheat bread.

Sunday, for breakfast, I had 2 slices of brown bread with a tsp of peanut butter. I missed morning snack (outside playing with my son) and then for lunch I had 2 bbqed chicken bobs and a baked potatoe (plain). Then for supper, I had a baked chicken breast and a plain baked potatoe. After supper we left to come home and we didn't get home until 11pm.

OK, so I've completely taken out regular pop, but I still have diet pepsi or coke zero way more often then I should. I did drink quite a bit of water this weekend, but I think I could stand to drink more water, less everything else.

I also had chips this weekend in the car(an hour drive one way) on the way to fishing. It's so fusterating. I said no thank you I don't know how many times trying not to have any and they kept putting them right in my face and I am only human. I was disappointed in myself but that is what brought about my talk with my husband about supporting me.

We talked about how he can support me by not bringing that kind of stuff home and don't eat it in front of me, but mainly don't bring it home and I told him to kick my butt when I need it because sometimes I just need it to get going and do my stuff. He said he would so I really hope he follows through with this.

This week is going to be awesome. I know I'm going to do good for this challange.

Wow- it sounds like you did a fantastic job at your in-laws. And I agree with everyone else- walking is your best bet at this point. And it really does help shed the pounds! If you check out Cannon's diary, I am pretty sure walking is his exercise of choice and he's been doing a good job losing weight. Good luck on the challenge!

I think the husbands have a hard time with wives who are losing weight. They often don't know how to be. You're smart to lay it all out for him. Good job! Keep it up!

Go Belly Busters!!!

That's great about your conversation with your husband. I hope he is super supportive the whole way to your goal!

Hey Kallie. I'm glad to see that you're doing good. Don't beat yourself up everytime you make a little mistake. Just ask yourself what you can do better next time. I'm glad you had that talk with your husband. Hopefully he understands about supporting you, and it'll help you out a lot. If I was you, I would definately cut down on the soda, but I wouldn't do it all at once. I mean, if you drink soda a whole lot your body is really used to the caffeine, and you'll get major headaches if you just cut it out all together. Try going down to like, maybe 1 soda every other day or something.

I'm glad to hear that you're doing good, and you're really excited about the challenge! You'll do awesome~

OK, so over the weekend I started thinking about the reasons why I want to loose weight and become healthy and I decided to make a list for myself so that I can come look at it whenever I feel discouraged.

In no particular order:

I DON"T WANT TO LIVE LIKE I'M ALREADY DEAD ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want more engery
I want to be able to run with my son
I want to be able to take dancing classes and actually be able to participate.
I want to know that I am doing everything I can to take care of myself
I want to have a better body image of myself (I wanna think I'm hott )
I want to pass on a healthier lifestyle for my son
I want to be able to ride fair rides again
I want to see my toes and be able to touch them
I don't want to worry about seat belts fitting in cars or planes
I don't want to worry about my weight breaking something
I don't want to run out of breathe from being out of shape
I want to be able to participate in a tri-atholon ( I can't spell)
I want to have confidence in my apperance
I want to have sexy clothes
I want to be able to go to the pool and not be embarrassed
I want to take some coaching clinics and head after school sports when I am teacher.
I want to look great for my grad in 3 years.
I want my outside to reflect the inside.
I don't want my life to revolve around food


This is just my short list. I'll add more as they come to me.

Sounds like you're off to a good start! It's always hard when the husband doesn't understand. I've just finally got mine mostly trained. :P
If you like salsa, you might try it on your baked potato, I love it that way. It seems a little dry otherwise for me. Keep up the good food choices!!!

OK, so I am about to go for groceries but I am already having cravings for bad things and I just had that kind of thing on the weekend. GGGGrrrr.

I want it so bad and then I get it and then when I'm eating it, it doesn't even taste good to me anymore. How screwed up is that????????

How do you guys get through your cravings if you have any???????

Oh yea and anything and almost everything triggers cravings for me. LOL typing this I got one for pizza and wings. I get them from seeing t.v. comercials for things, seeing them in stores and times like that. Some last a couple minutes and others last for days or as long as I can hold out.

I've also decided to post daily goals, weekly goals and monthly goals as well as a schedual for myself.

Tomorrow my schedual is:

1. Wake up at 8am have breakfast
2. Go for walk with my son at 8:30 - 9:15 or 30.
3. Have snack at 10 am
4. Lunch at 12:30 pm
5. Clean up house (another form of exercise for me)
6. Have afternoon snack at 3pm
7. Start preparing supper for 6 pm.
8. Go for a family walk around 8pm (after Big Brother hehe)

My goals for tomorrow are:

1. Get in the two walks tomorrow for intentional exercise
2. Eat all 5 small meals at the appointed times
3. No binging
4. Stay away from the scale all day

My weekly goals are (to be posted every monday):

1. To loose atleast 2 lbs a week.
2. Make and maintain meal plan and exercise.

I'll post my monthly goals on the first of every month. I'm using July as a trial period to see how things go.

great list of goals... something to strive for...

I like your daily goal.. taking it one day at a time is the best way to do it... you've got support and tons of encouragement here if you need it... Good luck

I just wanted to thank everyone who's taken time out of their day to read and comment in my journal. Thank you!

I also just want to let you all know that I am working hard to read your diaries from beginning to end so I can post in yours too. It's going to take me a while just to let you know, but I will do it.


Ok so today was groceries day and I stayed under the amount of calories I was told by my doctor to intake (to start 1800/day). I definately didn't eat good today (way to start off the challange) but it could have been worse.


I had 3 yogurt cups (@ 40 cals/cup),

1 serving of carrots this morning @ 35 cals

and one whopper sandwhich from Burger King @ 650 cals.

Grand total for the day is 805 calories.


I was wondering how to count calories from fruit??? Like how do you know??

I like counting and I want to, but I need some advice.