Lol Bobby! Keep trying darlin! Eileen, 32 miles is impressive. I wish we had some of your weather right now... Good job Pam! 4.5 pounds that was fast! I think I am only down 6 pounds since the beginning of the year. But I am way healthier and my measurements are showing it. I've lost 2 inches off my waist. My pics from the beginning sickened me, but now my tummy is so much flatter! Great job FOAS (thanks Pam!) keep us informed - hope you get the exercise clearance - what a difference it makes in how you feel. Deanna, how did you survive that day? Sometimes, I think you just have to go with it and do your best. And not beat yourself up over stuff. I read recently that you should eat "clean" 80% of the time at first and the other 20% let yourself eat waht you are craving - so you don't feel deprived. There are so many darn theories out there, it confuses me. "Eat more! If you don't your metabolism slows down in starvation mode..." "The only way to lose weight is with a calorie deficit - you're eating too many calories and not working out enough!" "You're working out TOO hard - you need to lighten up a bit and let your body repair!" "All you need to do is WALK - just move." "You have to have variety in your activities - otherwise your body adapts and plateaus..." "Get all the junk food out of your house - no more junk!" "Allow yourself cheats or you will binge" sheesh. No wonder nobody can lose weight. Who was it that posted the food journal on the Daily Plate? I started using it and am curious to see if I had been eating too many calories ...or if my proportions were off (protein-carbs-fats). It is a cool site and I am enjoying entering things in and keeping track. At least it makes me more aware. I can't eat a handful of almonds 6 times a day - even if they are good for me - lol. Stacy

Week II in Hi-Energy (post "Detox"): Yesterday was my "first service" visit to the Gilbert, AZ office. (Btw, the contract states you have until 7 days or within 3 days of the first service date to cancel the program, whichever comes first.) Interviewed by a counselor regarding my first week of "Detox" whom when asked admitted to no credentials relating to nutrition, dieting or any medical field. After explaining the program guide booklet and selecting my food choices for purchase ($148.69--I bought extra boxes to accomadate food choices), she administered a 10-lead electrocardiogram. I learned this is a 5 and 1 program where I eat six (6)times a day. Five (5) times with their "Medifast" food and one (1) time, i.e. dinner from my home refrigerator. Dinner, or "Lean & Green", in one sentence is basically any lean meat, e.g., fish, chicken, pork, turkey, lamb and so on. You can go meatless with eggs. The "Green" is broken down chartwise into a low, moderate and highest carb count listing from their guide. Bottom line: After listening to the counselors about taking the upcoming urine test for Ketones, studying the guide and the Medifast food boxes, the Hi-Energy program offered here in Arizona--is the very same Medifast program offered online, or what is is offered at any Medifast facility (e.g. Texas). Online, you are offered an opportunity to start a franchise or join the program. See the link: http://www.medifast1.com/index.asp and you will know "Hi-Energy." Everything is there to include the program guides and food information. However, the this rabbit hole goes even deeper. These programs work by spilling ketones, or more simply put, changing the body metabolism to primarily burning fat stores in leiu of carbohydrates. At the deepest depth of this rabbit hole--you will find Robert C. Atkins, M.D. He wrote a #1 best seller called: "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution" 2002 latest edition for $7.99. May he rest in peace. I own this book and lost 20 pounds on the Atkins diet serveral months ago. I've kept off the weight because my girl-friend who does the cooking always has presented my dinners with lean and green! Btw, a prevailing media misconception of Atkins is that there are no carbs on this diet. Actually, the first week "limits" carbs to 20 grams to induce ketosis, and thereafter to around 40 grams per day. If you look at carb gram counts in different foods-you will notice this is an abundance of food. It's dark in this hole . . . let me get my flashlight out . . . alias Hi-Energy at $924.00 plus food, or the Atkins book at $7.99 plus the frig and sensible grocery shopping? Here is a link that might be useful: Medifast is Hi-Energy

LOL Plllog :) I'd love to meet your knob and puller heh heh Do you only knock when the red light is on? :oP I actually am greeted by name at Vintage Hardware heh heh The owner came out to meet me (they want to reproduce my ceiling medallions) last time I was in. He purchased another home we were looking at last year. They're not green :) But they're local and it's important to me to support the communities we live in whenever we can. I'm going to have him over as soon as I finish unpacking so he can go through the house. He has never been here and is dying to get a peek at the brass and the medallions and he's a wealth of period information which I really need. Are you local? And who's your tile person? I'm not sure what we're doing about tile...we have several original fireplaces that need replacement pieces or have had some made but they're badly done. Someday we'll get around to fixing them as well (mind you the kitchen comes first because I'm tired of cooking on the back porch LOL). Carbon footprints...those are always buzz words Dh gets a giggle out of. We were up on the slope in ANWAR and this dude was bragging about his carbon footprint being so much smaller than ours because he does not own a car. DH did some calculations for the dork overnight and came back to show him his real carbon footprint in comparison to someone who commutes 30 miles a day. His was way larger...see he wasn't counting the carbon footprint his FLIGHT TO WORK weekly cost :) DOH again...sometimes it's all about perception and being cool, not being green at all. Avoiding exotic woods and not driving a Hummer to work are two easy and real green steps :) Ride sharing in your Hummer...not so much :P

You all bring up great points. This is a totally voluntary weight loss challenge – informal invitations are emailed out to 3 departments comprised of about 80 people. It is not officially sanctioned by the company, but not discouraged. We have had various versions of the challenge the last 4 years, and we have found out some things that work, and some that definitely do not – regarding participation. 1st, we needed a $20.00 motivation fee and prizes. Most will not stay involved if they have nothing monetary to lose or gain. Giving it to charity did not work - got the same participation drop out rate as not having a motivation fee. Winner-take-all caused some to drop out if they knew one person was really successful – so then we had 1st, 2nd, & 3rd prizes at the end (splitting the motivation fee proportionally 1/2, 1/3, 1/6.) Furthermore, to sweeten the pot, we had an anonymous donor grant a $5 weekly bonus to the person who lost the best percentage each week. That way, you may not win one of the top three, but you could win a couple of weekly bonuses. Surprisingly, the finalist winners rarely won most of the weekly bonuses, because they were the slow and steady losers, not the quick up and down ones. 2nd, having journals, counting steps, recording exercise minutes or any other form of “measurements” did not work. There were lots of hard feelings about them – some accusations of “fudging” or being too personal. Some people were WAY too competitive – and that also caused hard feelings. We had people chose to lose the way they wished by reducing calories, increasing exercise, or both. We have only one person officially record weights, so no else would know anybody else’s actual weight. We just announce the top finalist’s losses – not current weight. 3rd, we found 4-6 weeks to be too short of a time, and some ladies did silly things to win. 12 weeks was too long and we had a lot of dropouts. 8-10 weeks seems to be the sweet spot time wise – too long for “crash dieters” and short enough not to “burn out”. Now we try to have a 10 week diet challenge, then a 6 week maintenance challenge before another 10 week weight loss challenge. (The maintenance challenge is to kick in $20 and you get double back if you do not gain anything in 6 weeks – normally held over a holiday season.) 4th, we haven’t had many men compete, so that has not been a big problem (of them losing faster). Since we have a wide range of weights (135 – 340), we have tried various versions of % loss or total loss. Last time it was the weekly % bonuses coupled with prizes for the top three total weight lost. This time the main organizers wanted it to be total percentage for the final three prizes. I think this does favor the thinner ones, but I was just asking all your opinions in the hopes to fine tune this continuing completion in the future. Personally, I have lost 35 pounds last year in several of the competitions -- and I hope to do more in the next one. They do keep me motivated. Thanks for your thoughts.