It feels good to be here:)
And for starting a new habit I try to post daily - or at least often, as recommended. (apart from the next two weeks where I'll be away on holiday -finally and much needed)
Today is a good day - it started with cake (:) - I love calorie counting, when there are enough for cake and fruits in the moring), and finally the headache because of menstruation faded and I'm not craving for tons of salty and fat food anymore. I hope my scale will not be too upset on saturday.
There is a lot of running around today as I have to see my doctor because of my appointment with the University Clinic tomorrow (nothing dangerous, just the dermatologists) and need to get a new pair of sport shoes:)

Fiona - yes, I was born and raised and spoiled in Germany. :) [ I hope that is nothing that speaks against me?]
And would you please explain the breathing trick again?!
I love the BERP Idea - hope you have a great day with it.

Ubee - I'm not afraid to go to the gym, I actually really like my gym and the people there - at least I did that when I was there at the beginning of last year. It's just that for the first time at being overweight I have health and breathing problems because of the weight, no condition (?) and I just feel the need to start with normal slow steps before I go there...
I have to walk before I can start to run again.

Sam - I really liked the 1x - congratulations. Was there any success in repairing the ballance ball?


Restless - when you finally figured everything out - could you please give me a short summary?:)

I wish us all a good and healthy day and lot of inner strengh when needed.

Back from the graduation!

Had a wonderful time, saw family, many events revolved around food, but I tried to moderate my eating...

I've got blueberry coffee brewing this morning!

Have a great day!

Dean

Good Morning!
Fi the BERP sounds like weight loss, maybe you should take before and after pictures for yourself.
Betsy, Bill is going away for a month!!! I hope he is going on a fun vacation. Becky and Toby will have you trim in no time. As for food, I bought smaller plates now I need smaller bowls. Maybe we should just live in a screen suit and the mouth part only opens for certain foods and only so much. This overeating is getting old and I just want it to stop.
Terra when I went for my walk yesterday I had on a t-shirt, flannel shirt and a heavier spring jacket. I'll take that anyday instead of your heat. Be safe.
Sam I am so happy you felt good in your clothes. I think this is important. I need to work on that. When I stalled I started dressing like a frump again. I know when I get my water in my food is so much better. Good job catching yourself on that!
Sugar2go whoops sorry I misunderstood about the gym. Enjoy your holiday! Care to share something about it? I don't get out much so I like to hear about others adventures.
Dean you get a gold star for being around family and food and using moderation. Blueberry coffee sounds like the best yet.
Today is kinda full. Errands, a meeting at my daughters school, and a dish to pass for a funeral of a neighbor/friend. She was older and had cancer so it was peaceful.
I am struggling with the fear of "Can I do this." I just feel so powerless over food.
Thanks for being here.

The BERP goes on, progressing very slowly. I've been scissoring images out of magazines & junk mail, what I call "clipping," for three weeks now, and thus have cleared about 10 square feet of floor in the living room. 'Doesn't seem like much for several hours of hard labor a day, six days a week. Maybe a square foot every two days? But I am working on the most difficult part of the project first, the harvesting of my raw material for collage.

I'm thinking about hiring my 13-yr-old grand-niece to help me with sorting the thick piles of clippings into the 18 big low boxes I have in the bookshelves in my collage studio. But the clippings don't have to get sorted before the fur-kids arrive.

The reason I'm focusing on the piles in the living room first is that Bob would like to build a wooden "cat condo" of sorts, so they can climb and hang out up high...sort of like a cat tree, but more modernistic in design. Living as we do, in the best of circumstances, in an environment filled with lots of visual stimulation (books, art, colorful Mexican rugs), it's nice, whenever possible, to have some objects with very clean, modern lines. Anyway, the piles have to go before he can measure the space for the cat furniture and design the project.

sugar2go— It's terrific that you're German—born, raised, & spoiled! =grin= I have a friend originally from South Africa who lives in Regensburg. And I used to have a German friend—kinda out of touch with her now—who moved to the U.S. Not only that, but my best friend, who lives in Minnesota, is a self-employed German-to-English translator. OK, here's the slow belly breathing that's been shown to activate the part of the brain involved in willpower: what you do is, lie down comfortably on your side or your back, and start by totally relaxing your belly muscles. Then imagine that your belly is a balloon that you slooooowly inflate when you breathe in. Hold it completely inflated for a count of 3, then slooooowly allow it to deflate. If it's deflating too fast, try exhaling through pursed lips. It may take a dozen breaths or so before you get the hang of it. Your aim is to get your breathing rate down to 4 breaths a minute, or 15 seconds a breath, but even if you don't achieve that, slowing your breathing rate way down will still work. Do the exercise for about 10-15 minutes. The best time to do this is shortly before you're going to be facing a willpower challenge: before dinner, for example, or before your tempted-to-nibble time in the evening. But Betsy, it doesn't have to be right before the meal: a few hours before is OK, I think.

Sam— I'm amazed that you're into size 16 leggings! Congrats! When I get down to size 16 pants, I'll be only 2 sizes away from my goal weight. What I've been very impressed with, in hanging out on this group, is how differently shaped we all are, not to mention our wide range of heights. I'm sort of a cross between a pear shape and an hourglass—or as I've been known to put it, "an hourglass where it's pretty late in the day." My waist is always 12"-13" smaller than my hips, no matter where I am in my weight range. Elastic waists are a godsend for me: I can get pants & skirts that fit my hips, and then the elastic waist contracts down to fit my waist. As for your galaxy leggings that are getting loose around the ankles, can't you just move them into the stretchy pants category? That's what I do when I have leggings that are too big: I just wear them as pants—until the baggy waist becomes impossible, of course.

That's all I have time to write today. Warm greetings to everyone else!

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick check in...

Today was OK, I've been having really bad lower abdominal pain for 2 days now....It goes from dull pain near my left ovary to really sharp at times...I think it might be a bladder infection but I'm not sure because I've never had one before...the sharp pain will start near my ovary and then move up and across my belly...Who knows maybe it's just bad gas lol but I've never felt anything like this before..I bought some cranberry/pomegranate juice just in case and have been sipping on that a bit this evening...Wasn't going to work out but I did anyway...Just did 20 mins of HIIT and then lifted weights for about 45 minutes...still a good work out..

Thanks everyone for all the kind words as always! Love you guys!

Have a great night!

Ubee ~ Yeah I hate hot weather and cold weather, I love spring and fall when the temp is not too hot or too cold.

I got two walks in today and my eating has been going good too.

Started the day with hazelnut coffee. Mmmm...

CRAZY day yesterday with work, repairs to the house, and a landscaper planting a flowering crabapple and a crepe myrtle(sp?) for us... Trying to juggle a bunch of different priorities makes for a wild day.

Hope everyone can get out and enjoy the weather today, even if its after work.

Have a great day!

Dean

I just want to complain that Bob is a colossal grump when he's sick. He's had a bad cold, both nose & chest, for a couple of weeks now. Every time I try to interact with him about something urgent, he ends up chewing my head off. I'm sympathetic, of course, with the fact that he feels so bad, but he's really getting on my nerves. And I could use his help with moving things around for the BERP, too, but of course he can't do anything physical. =big sigh=

I should be counting my blessings, though: at least it's evident by now that I'm not going to catch it from him. I had a sore throat one night, but I gargled with salt water and that was the end of that.

Another blessing: I got an email from my breeder saying the kittens are doing really well. She didn't have time to send new photos—because she's a special ed teacher, and the upcoming end of the school year means lots of paperwork to do—but she'll be more in touch with me soon. =smile=

Good morning all. We're on a roll here -- two days in a row without rain, rain, rain. I realize that many would welcome some rain, but we had already had the normal rainfall for the entire month by the 3rd of May. I may even be able to get the grass cut today! Sorry I missed yesterday -- took my BIL to the airport and left here at 5:15 AM, then went grocery, Home Depot (plant stuff), and Costco shopping as long as I was in town.

Fi Hope Bob feels better soon. It's been decades since I had a sick husband to contend with, but I do remember that he, too, was a poor patient. Glad you're making progress on the BERP and the cat tower sounds really neat. Thanks for the update on the breathing exercise timing. A couple of hours in advance I can handle.
Dean Congrats on leaping the graduation hurdles and your blueberry coffee sounds yummy. Sounds like you've got a lot going on -- wish that crepe myrtles did well out here as I miss them.
Terra What part of Kansas do you hail from? (what a horribly constructed sentence!) We lived in Lawrence for a year while my husband was in grad school and absolutely loved it. Good for you to keep walking in all the heat you're having -- hope this isn't how your entire summer is going to be.
Sam Congrats on the leggings -- you are definitely rockin' it. Hope that abdominal pain goes away. Definitely go see a doctor if it doesn't.
Restless If there's an expert who says that 2 hours of sleep is enough, I think I would question his/her credentials. Sounds like a bad night. Hope your blood sugar is stabilizing -- not something to mess with as you well know (didn't mean that to sound like I was preaching to the choir).
Ubee I had another disaster eating day yesterday so I think the screen suit idea is a sound one. Bill is going to the bi-annual sibling reunion and on his annual fishing trip with his buddies from grade school. They're been fishing together for 68 years! I've decided I need to focus on doing fun things more and on all the work to keep this place going less.....maybe that will get my mind where it needs to be.
Sugar Sounds like you've got this calorie counting thing working well for you. I am in awe of how easily you communicate in English including the idioms. Learning a second language (except for Fi) is one of the great shortcomings of our education system here in the US.

Eating plans for the day are all mapped out, going to the gym and then to cut the grass and get some trimming done. Later I've got to go to the Co-op and see if I can get the cash register to communicate with the laptop. Have a great day everyone!

Good Afternoon!
Betsy did I hear you mention co-op??? Thanks for the Bill update. I feel like I know him. I think we both need to work on doing more fun things. I went to a funeral taday and it was a nice time. Yikes!
Fi can not wait for new pictures. Hope Bob is better soon.
Dean good job on getting so much done. When I see you and your coffee post it makes the world seem a little more under control.
Terra I LOVE fall and spring but they are always so short.
Sam take care and don't be shy about going to the doctor.
Restless I am such a sleep baby. If I don't get 8 hours I feel very sick. I like cashews too much and struggle with portion control.
My scale is up and I am really over eating. It is like if I think if I get enough to eat I will stop. Like that has worked in the past.

Howdy folks! I have two new pictures of the kittens: one and two. They will be three weeks old on Friday. If you happen to notice that their ears look rather too large for their heads, well, that's because they're entering what I call "the bat stage." Oriental shorthairs have large ears as adults: those ears develop way faster than their heads, so orientals go through a phase where they have these little faces and huge ears, making them look like bats. One person who saw our last pair said, "They're space aliens!" Whatever....it all comes together eventually, and they end up, as adults, looking very much like the cats in ancient Egyptian statues. That's because they're descended more directly from the North African desert cats that the ancient Egyptians domesticated, than are the domestic or American shorthairs most people have as pets.

And if that's not enough of the kittens for you, here's a little snatch of video. They're just starting to explore their environment, so the birthing box has been moved into a pen, to keep them out of trouble.

By the way, I think it's very sweet of y'all to be interested in my kittens...=big smile=

Betsy ~ Im from Wichita, Kansas, I hope the temps we are getting now isnt what the rest of the summer is gonna be but I will keep up with my walking no matter what

Ubee ~ Thats cool that you like spring and fall too, Yeah I agree about them always being short.

I got my walks in today, I hope to see a nice loss when I get weighed at the doctor's on Tues.

Hi All:wave:

Just a quick check in to let everyone one know that I am still on the green side of the grass. :D I have had a breathing test, urinalysis and extensive blood work this week but I have no results yet. I am waiting, sometimes impatiently for an answer. I even had a podiatrist appointment for a painful left foot.

I have learned recently what my grandfather ment when he used to say that old age was not for cowards. :D:D

Good Evening!
Larry I am so happy to see your post! I just got done praying for you and your wife.
Terra good luck with the weigh in. Will you also be having any bloodwork?
Fi LOVE the kitty video and pictures! They look so curious and playful!
I realized that part of my struggle may be due to a few things. First I am a little sad because I am realizing that my life will not have the opportunities I had hoped for. Life has been busy/odd and I am not getting a good nights sleep lately.
I will just push through with the oddness, try to get a more peaceful sleep and appreciate all my MANY blessings.
On to a better outlook on life!