Parsp, I am LOL at "FOG." LOL That's GREAT!!!! I love it!

Of course! I hope my tragedy inspires you all. LOL Of course it wasn't tragic... it just felt that way. It was the height of ridiculousness, which is why it worked. Just so silly!

Totally agree!!

I'm one of those horrible hostesses. I don't drink coffee and neither does my husband. So, we don't have a coffee maker or even a jar of instant coffee (although I do have a bunch of BistroMD protein cocoas now. LOL). Luckily, we're very close to coffee houses, but I always forget that folks who stay over might like to have coffee!

Good for you! So far, so good this week for me. Weigh-in in two days and my "unofficial" numbers are looking good, so that feels great. Trying to have a 100% on-plan day today, not even a handful of nuts off the program, but we'll see. Being too rigid can be a bad idea sometimes, so I'll just see how it all flows. But being good is on my mind. That's a good thing.

Woo hoo!!!!! It's so hard, isn't it? But it feels empowering too. Good for you! And good for your hubby too! It's nice to have allies in-house.

Not sure how you feel about supplements, but I've found melatonin is a nice thing to take about an hour before bed. Really puts me at ease and allows for good "lulling" when there's not the wine for that.

Glad you're finding it to be a turning point!! I figure every day has the potential of being one! I'm glad we're in this together and I'm glad you enjoyed the bonus of not going over points, due to that habit. Yay!

Even if that's just ONE day of success and then tomorrow you buy a bottle of wine, that's ONE day you did it and that shows you that you CAN do it again and again. And that's how we build success. By knowing it's possible! Yay!

Yep. And I make myself walk to the market if I really crave the booze in the house. And I take the long way. So that way I'm adding in some more incidental exercise to "earn" that booze. Also, I won't buy a ton because I have to schlep it home on foot!

Yup. I say that to myself a lot. "If I cut it out altogether, I'd be in Onederland by now." Yep. I would. But I might also hit Onederland and balloon back up to over 210 or something due to the "reaction" to being so strict for so long. So, let's just take this path. It's the one I'm on. That's what I say the most.

And without being "all or nothing," I feel more "normal." I can socialize with my friends and not feel like I'm punishing myself, not allowing anything to drink while others can have, etc.

It's better for me, for sure. I just know how "absolute" I've behaved in the past and that's always been met with a reaction of rebellion. I don't need to do that to myself this time. This is better. This feels better.

So far so good!

Glad to have you folks on the journey with me. Really glad.

FOG thanks for the thought on the supplement, I tried some once and they did not do anything for me except keep me more awake would you beleive? My body always tends to act wierd around medications and suppliments.

But I want to say no wine last night and I did manage to sleep a bit until our phone rang at 1am this morning! One of our daughters girlfriends--going to have to do a bit of mom stuff to the caller when I see her -- I get up at 5am to go to work!
ah here I go wine wine wine LOL

OK. Had a .60 loss this week, so of course I'll take anything that is going in the right direction, but I'm going to redouble my efforts to have less alcohol points this week and more activity points. My new focus is to have at least more points at dinner than I have alcohol, cause I like pp have been guilty of saving points for alcohol at the expense of real food, milk servings and oil servings which are higher in points than other things I could be eatting. Thanks for the continued support. I'm expecting one day to say I've made it to where the healthy guideline of one drink of day will satisfy me.... but I'm not there yet!

Oh Parsp you can do and and congrats on the .60 loss this week. My weigh in is not until Monday and so far I am feeling good too.
You are going to make it ya know parsp! just curious though with the alcholol points how many are you allowed per week. I am following the points but just don't know all the in's and out's of the program.

Thanks for the support. According to the WW Healthy guidelines women should limit alcohol to no more than 1 drink per day and men no more than 2. I serving of wine (about 4 or 5 oz) is 2 pts. Most liquors are 1 pt per oz, I believe, so that would be about 14 pts per week. Of course, for those of us consuming more than that we would have to count the points for whatever we have, but we would technically not be on program since we'd not be in compliance with the healthy guidelines.

Thank you parsp that helps me alot. Well for now I am going to do without, I know my personality and once I start all my hard work goes down the drain. In Jan I was 25lbs lighter than I am now and thought I could have those few drinks of wine each night and now here I am back at square one (for the 3rd time) you would think I was blond or something

Oh, bummer. It's a nice, gentle "sleepy" for me. *sigh*

Yowza! Yeah, that's a talk to have for sure! Wow!!

Good for you, Parsp! I lost 1.4 pounds this week and I am THRILLED. I definitely had my cocktails, but exercised every single day and always stayed within my calories. Woo hoo!

Me too. I'm not on WW, but I'm basically doing a modified BistroMD (which is 1200 to 1500 calories per day) and I will always "leave out" something I'm supposed to eat on the BistroMD menu in order to earn up my "booze calories." And those just aren't the BEST calories, so I need to do that more sparingly than I have been.

But hey, I'm a work in progress and I'm headed in the right direction, so I'll take it! Every little bit!!

Hang in there, Nancy! You'll get there! We all will!! It's a matter of finding balance--and a GOOD level of balance that works for each of us--and then sticking within that "balanced" place on all issues of food, drink, exercise, and self-image. I think.

Keep up the good work, everyone!!

I am now getting excited as it is getting closer to a full 7 days without my wine and my first weigh in. I am not worried about Fri and Sat as far as wine is concerned I am more worried about the food thing LOL. Anyway sleep patterns are starting to return to normal ( I think it is normal lol) Everyone seems to be doing a great job. I just love how everyone sticks together

Yay!!

This is great, Nancy. I do hope you are still having a good run.

I drank more this past long weekend than I might have liked to have had, but I've recovered nicely (and my waist is down another half-inch somehow, so I'm pretty dang happy).

Hope we're headed into a GOOD weekend with lots of balance.

All of us!

Hi all, I ended up in the hospital with a bad infection and intravenous antibiotics, so I've not been around much. I'm on the mend so I haven't had any alcohol, but I want to keep up here because when I feel 100% I'll surely want a chardonnay.

Parsp- Good job with the loss! its good never to be discouraged by a slower loss it's easier for your body to adjust to when it's slower.

Full of grace- Also congrats on the loss, and the smaller waist!

Nancy- I thought I could add a few drinks to my evenings too... this is #3 regain for me as well, the other times I cut alcohol out completely and started drinking again not having learned to fit it in to my diet.

...you would think I was blond or something...lol

Hope you are getting some good sleep. It does feel good to weigh in when you've been faithful to yourself.

Well so far no drinking but last night I really wanted that wine! I am trying to find my trigger points and the one thing that keep jumping out at me is: when I am tired and hungry is when I most want that wine. For me that was an eye opener!

With that knowledge I am now armed and ready to avoid the hungry part, not sure how I am going to deal with the tired part--got other issues going with that but it is a start

Ooh, so sorry to hear about your hospital trip! I hope you're a 100% now (and that you've had that chardonnay to celebrate).

Right ON!!!

Thank you. I'm so excited!

HOWL!!!!!! Heeeeeeeeeeee!

Good luck, Nancy! Let us know what strategies you've found/tried and how things are working.

I had champagne at dinner with the hubby tonight. It was fun! We were in a place of celebration "for no reason" and we didn't even finish the bottle... left sips in our glasses. And I didn't come home and then find myself looking for something else to drink to "keep the buzz going." I instead logged on here, caught up on some TV, drank some water, and basked in the afterglow of both our lovely meal out AND my ability to "cut out the booze" after just a couple of glasses.

Awesome progress!

Previously, I'd have been hitting the liquor store on the way home, just to "keep the party hopping" and all that. This feels much better... on lots of levels.

Keep up the good work, everyone!

FOG, funny you posted about coming home looking for more liquer cause that's exactly what I did Sunday night. I played Bunco with the neighborhood girls and had plenty of wine to drink there and when I walked in the door, DS (24) was there and the first thing I said was, "Is there no alcohol in this house?" He had beer in the fridge and that's what I had even though it's not my drink of choice. I purposefully had not bought wine knowing I'd have plenty at Bunco, but you know what we've been saying about an open bottle, or in this case an available bottle.

Well it all ended up OK since I had another .6 loss and that after spending the week at the beach with college friends and drinking every night. The only thing I can attribute a loss to is that we walked everyday and drank a lot of water out on the dock during the day and I paid attention to what all those skinny friends ate and tried to copy them. As I was spreading my sandwich, they were eatting cottage cheese and fruit so I only made half a sandwich. Besides I heard a comedian say once that only fat people ate cottage cheese. Must not be true.

Hello old drinking friends I haven't posted on here for a long time and came looking for this thread to post the new found comittment I have to weight loss and to tell you about my new trick. After months of gaining and losing the same few lbs and fooling myself that I could count the points for wine and still lose, I did some soul searching. I realized I will not stop at one 4 oz glass of wine per night... who does that?... and that it was not realistic for me to cut out drinking altogehter, so I decided to try a new tactic. i went looking for the lowest calory alcohol I could drink in QUANTITY. For a week now I have been having 2 MGD64's by pouring them 1/2 at a time into my 6 oz wine glass and I had a 4.8 lb loss this week! I know I am a creature of habit and that I drink 3 or 4 glasses of something between walking in the door at night and bedtime. Surprisingly I have been satisfied, I even left 1/2 bottle unused one day(she said agasht)! It's only been a week so I'm not ready to write a best seller about my revelations, but I'm happy and motivated. I've been sleeping a lot better at night too, and even wake up in time to hit the old iron torture machine... the treadmill. Oh, and I plan to take my 2 MGD64's to Drunco this Sunday night! Wish me continued success!

Looks like I'm the only one still posting to this thread, but wanted to report that I kept to my new plan and had another 1 lbs loss this week and received my 10 lb star! Even resisted wine a guest left in my fridge Friday night and enjoyed a fun evening of bunco with a bunch of wine drinkers while I enjoyed my two MGD64's and got in a size smaller skirt I had hanging in my closet. Who hoo!