[xty]

indiblue - congrats on 126!!! victory and way to resist a trigger, double victory.

Dorian5 - love your attitude about bringing lunch…I still have the mentality that it is a bit of a chore, but it does usually taste better (and sets me up for success because it is protein dense)…going to try to reframe based on your comments though.

lackadaisy - yaaaaaaay for exams being over. I feel relieved for you! and moms can be a tough subject, you are at that age where you get to fully assert your freedom. if you are on your on dime, I say do what you think is best. India sounds awesome.

lolmonstervictoria - welcome to the thread, Im relatively new to the thread myself. and migraines suck, oi.

krampus - yay for weigh in and feeling so on top of the world.

Yesterday I had a very high protein/low carb/low sodium day and weighed in today (slightly) under my redline, whew. Still high, but down from 131.4 to 129.8. Worked out with a short walk last night + trainer this am + short walk after. Pain is easing up a slight bit, but workouts are still at low/moderate intensity. At least Im feeling up to doing them I suppose

Was feeling hungrier than I wanted to feel today, but did pretty well with a 'normal on plan day'. ~1350 cal, 65 total carbs and kept the sodium low (man that is a real struggle! cant believe I never monitored before). Fingers crossed the scale will stay below redline weight tomorrow.

[Dorian5]

Good morning feathers! I'm at 131.2 lbs this morning -- down .2 lbs. As long as it's down, I'll take it! Bikini shopping is in order in a month or so, I hope I'm feeling confident enough by then to buy one! I don't ever recall having a good time shopping for a swim suit.

Going out with a friend tonight for drinks. I haven't seen her since I weighed about 140, so I'm a little worried about it -- she's one of those friends that tries one up everything (once I got 3 free shots from people in a bar and she didn't get any and the threw a drunk tantrum about it later, I had no idea we were competing) Anyway, I'm hoping we're not doing dinner, I hate ordering food in restaurants because I can't figure out the nutrition. And hopefully she doesn't put a burger into her skinny face just to spite me.

---

skinnyelle Exactly! Girlfriends can try to sabotage! Case in point above! I hate that sometimes, some girls try to beat each other down to feel better. I am so guilty of it too, I have definitely pressed another female trying to eat healthy to eat Taco Bell with me so I would feel better about myself.

lackadaisy I think the worst thing would be for you not to do what you truly want, and then wonder how it would have been if you had. You can only live for you, not anyone else, and vice versa. My mother is also very learned in the ways of guilt-trips and passive/aggressive behavior, so I understand. We're each separate adult human beings and are free to make our own choices/mistakes/decisions. Kudos for not de-stressing with cookies!

lilmonstervictoria Welcome! YAY two piece! Can't wait to be there with ya! Hope you feel ridiculously hot in it on Friday!

indiblue I bet 126 is feeling awesome! I have only had barley once, in soup. I was not digging it, but it could have just been the soup. Haven't given it another try -- let me know if you find a good recipe!

xty 129! Awesome!! Nice job with the workouts -- And I hear you about the sodium! It's disgusting how much you cna consume in a day if you're not paying attention!

krampus I am totally intrigued with your seaweed snack. I'm wondering if I can find it in Whole Foods? Maybe the Asian Market?

Off subject, I went to the Asian Market last weekend and got a bubble tea from the cafe and a box of Pocky. The boyfriend had 1 (ONE!!) stick. I offered him another and he was like "No, one is good." ...when he said that I had at least 6 in my mouth. Not to mention, we got back home and as I was finishing the bubble tea I looked up the calories in one and nearly choked on the last tapioca pearl. It was like a 400 calorie drink, might as well have bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's! Oi. /rant

[krampus]

Yet another on-plan day, not totally sure of calories but I'm guessing ~1400 for the day. I had a bit of dessert today - 2 bite size mini chocolates from a coworker and a soft ice cream cone - and it didn't make me feel like a psycho, which was nice. I have gotten awfully stodgy with calories/nutrition though; tomorrow I will aim to get the most possible bang for my buck.

I know throughout the journey it's normal to feel hungry sometimes, but is it normal to feel almost light-headed? I can handle the hunger/empty stomach feeling, but at some points it feels impossible to multitask and my thinking seems a bit foggy. Lately I have had a very small breakfast and lunch and dinner at ~600 calories each, without much in the way of snacks. Yesterday at my checkup my blood pressure came in pretty low, 89/54, so I have been wondering if I need to worry.

*+*+*+*

Dorian5 What's your fav Pocky? I like "Men's Pocky" and all the ridiculous whip-dessert concoction ones. Dried seaweed/nori should be available at mainstream U.S. grocery stores in the "Asian" section, but as expected you'll find more choices at Asian markets. I buy "Korean style" nori which is cooked in corn oil and sesame oil and tastes a little richer than regular sushi-rolling sheets.

xty Feeling hungry sucks; I hope tomorrow is easier for you. Good news that weight is going down and pain is ebbing away.

lackadaisy While it's great that you didn't stuff down the stress with cookies, that's a drag that your mom is trying to pull guilt garbage on you. There's legitimate worrying about safety, and then there's just plain passive aggressive manipulation. Have you had these kinds of problems before?

indiblue No barley recipes, but I'm glad you are finding new life with pressure cooking things and lifting. Beans are great but I find whenever I eat them I really need to be alone in the evenings...haven't found Japanese Beano yet...

[Dorian5]

krampus I unfortunately don't see very many different choices here in the market in NC. I've never had the Men's Pocky but I know it would be one of my favorites. We usually just have the regular chocolate in the red box generic Pocky, and strawberry, and the almond. I like ALL Pocky! But my favorite was once I had a strawberry shortcake kind of Pocky and it was just.. omg. A religious experience or something. On my last trip to the asian market I also bought a couple of small boxes of those Koala's March cookies, they only had strawberry but I'm big on the chocolate ones. My boyfriend hates them all but insists that he gets to see each koala picture before I eat them. Which I guess helps me not cram all of them in my mouth.

I am definitely going to try out the nori, I crave salty and sweet snack equally. It's all fair game. Nom nom.

Also, the lightheadedness is a little worrisome? I feel like you would have to be really, really hungry before you started to get lightheaded, but you seem to be eating enough calories? :/

[kat999]

Not quite caught up reading as I was mostly absent from computers yesterday, so I wish everybody success and good luck!

I'm back and forth between 117 and 118 right now, despite doing a lot of long-distance (well, long for ME ) running the past two days. I think perhaps my training is making me more hungry than usual. Considering just staying "maintenance" until after my race, or at least not stressing about not losing right now.

[claire0412]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to featherweights, but I thought a daily thread could be a good motivation! I don't calorie count or weigh myself with any regularity (i'm shooting for once a month) to get myself out of the obsessively tracking everything / falling off the wagon / eating everything in sight trap. I do try and eat mainly healthy choices (nothing is banned anymore), and only when I'm hungry.

Today was a good day! All my meals were really healthy, but I ate a few too many black bean brownies mid-afternoon when I wasn't really hungry, just a bit peckish and fancied a snack... Will have to work on that! Exercise wise, I am doing a 1/2 marathon on Sunday, so I'm resting. I might go for a 5-10k run tomorrow to get my legs in motion. I rode my bike to and from work (40mins round trip) though, which was good.

daisy - well done for the exams! I've got one on Friday

Krampus - mmm I love dried seaweed! Cool name by the way. I live in Austria and the kids love Krampus more than St Nicolaus. Always a hit when he comes into school and chases the naughty ones (and a useful discipline tool for me ;-) )

[krampus]

Morning feathers! I feel like a spaced-out zombie from not getting enough sleep, but I'm pleased to report I've dropped 0.3 kg, putting me back in the 50s kilo-decade. 59.7 kg is 131.6 lbs and it feels great to be back here. Hopefully this will keep up - I can't expect such big losses daily for weeks straight of course, but it is very encouraging for now.

***

MiniFluffy You haven't undone everything and you can get back in control! Don't weigh if it will make you feel worse; sometimes I think that can perpetuate "bad" cycles.

claire Ahh man I love Austria...have only been once for a couple days but I am so fascinated by the country. I went to Salzburg a couple years ago and actually went around asking shopkeepers if there was anywhere I could buy Krampus-related baubles, but it was August and festival time so I had no luck. Are you a native English speaker teaching there? I dream of going back and eating an entire Sachertorte by myself. Glad you're feeling sane about food, it's the best way!

Dorian5 Ah those koala things! I know it would be counterproductive but I'm so tempted to mail you a selection of the "best" snack food from Japan, haha. Yeah I dunno, maybe I just need an adjustment period to get used to eating so little. It's quite rare for me to eat under 1500 for more than two days in a row...

[lackadaisy]

Krampus, awesome job!!

Minifluffy, I think I'm starting to face the same problem as you... albeit at a higher weight...

Right after making it past 120, sticking to my daily limits started to be difficult again. I feel like I've burned out, somehow... I'm eating way too much in the morning, leaving no calories for the evening at all... eating when not even hungry... resentful for the first time that I can't eat muffins, and then eating them, and suffering the consequences.

Today I binged on Fiber One bars and a dinner of so much beans, corn, chickpeas, and spinach (of all things) that I exceeded 500 calories. Yeah, that makes me the queen of impractical binges, and I completely failed at being low-carb. So my food intake was 1700 today, and I feel full and gross. I actually hurt just looking at that number. It's not even that my appetite has grown -- I'm not even enjoying the food -- I just want to eat more as if to prove to myself I can.

At least I ran ~2 miles and did 30 minutes on the elliptical just now. I'm planning another 30 minutes elliptical at least and maybe another run before bed if the weather clears up... I have to atone for this ridiculousness somehow.

[krampus]

With all due respect lackadaisy is it really healthy or normal to do 4 cardio workout sessions in a day just because you overate a bit? I can smell your perfectionism/ambition from halfway around the world; do you think taking the "can't have X" out of your plan would make it any easier for you? For example, telling yourself you can eat 1500 calories per day of whatever you want? 1700 is probably just maintenance calories, maybe even under, for you - I think it's normal (if scary) to simply require more food on some days than others.

[lackadaisy]

I see your point, but the way I got those calories was scary -- I just kept eating stupid fiber bars I don't even like that much, finishing almost an entire box in the space of an hour. And I definitely may have undercounted all the beans at dinner because I didn't weigh them.

The running/elliptical I should do quite apart from weight loss because I haven't done cardio since hiking... I have a race next Monday, after all. But you're right, I'm losing perspective a bit... it's just really scary to be all over the place this week after two weeks of perfectly level 1300-1400 eating with awesome macronutrient ratios. Today was not only too much, it was definitely too many carbs.

[Dorian5]

lackadaisy I think the red-flag word you used was "atone" and it comes across as a little disordered when people use it in the form of exercising off calories -- I know what you meant though. That out-of-control, why-am-I-shoving-this-into-my-mouth feeling is god awful and doing something to help undo it is reaction #1. I hope that the binge doesn't stress you out -- you've been doing an excellent job! And I hope all of that fiber doesn't affect you negatively.

krampus I just looked up what krampus is, and that is totally interesting, if not slightly terrifying. I also looked up a sachertorte and wish I had not. Um, yes please. I think the candy I would binge on the hardest in Japan would be kit kats. I love them so so much, and from what I hear there are some crazy flavors over there.

claire Welcome! I am intrigued by these black bean brownies you speak of? (I sound like a 100% fat kid today, harassing everyone about their snacks, haha) I don't ban anything either, I try to eat whole foods but sometimes you just have to scratch an itch, you know? If I can fit it into my calories for the day, it's in.

minifluffy you get back on that horse! Would happen to be close to your TOM? I have particularly bad sugar binges when it's about that time and try to forgive myself a little more.

---

A quick NSV before bed. A little background - I am covered with tattoos everywhere that my clothes cover. No sleeves or leg tattoos cause I have an office job, but my back and torso I have at least 30 hours of ink. Anyway, I have a red tailed hawk tattoo on my ribs, it spans from my armpit to below my hip bone. I weighed about 120lbs (at most) when I received said tattoo about 3 years ago.

Now, back in January (150lbs) I was looking at my tattoo. I noticed that the hawks belly is exactly on my (rather jiggly) love handle. It looked less like a hawk and more like... well, a chicken. A chunky chicken. Mortifying!

Anyway I caught a glimpse in the mirror before jumping in the shower tonight and it's definitely back to looking more like a sexy hawk and not a chunky chicken. Yay!

[indiblue]

dorian big kudos on the NSV! Your tattoo sounds pretty impressive- would love to see a pic of it you ever feel like posting!

Krampus congrats on the 50s kg decade and for your awesome perspective on weight loss expectations... slow and steady and all that.

Minifluffy sorry the last few days and such have been challenging. No need to beat yourself up and no need to weigh yourself if you don't want to. You already know what you need to do to get back to your healthy diet again so go for it

lackadaisy I hear you on being scared about the manner in which food was consumed- the out-of-control binge aspects. But exercising like a madwoman isn't a step towards normalizing that behavior- it's taking it even further to the extremes. You seem to usually have a very balanced and rational approach towards health, which is admirable. Hopefully that rational side will kick in and remind you perhaps you ate larger portions than you had hoped today but that in the larger scheme of things extra FiberOne bars and beans one day are not going to sabotage your overall health goals

--

So the bad news is I feel like a complete IDIOT because I just reviewed a few cover letters I sent out over the last week and I had at least 2-3 typos in a couple of them. One was egregious- the wrong date . One was extremely embarrassingly egregious- the wrong organization mentioned in one place . How awful. There's no excuse for a typo on a cover letter, especially ones that bad. I used to hire entry-level staff and interns and that was one of my biggest pet peeves when reviewing apps. UGH. I may try to resubmit the one with the wrong organization mentioned. I can't believe I did that- it's been one of my worst work-related fears and it actually happened because of nothing but carelessness. ARG!!!

Good news is I've been feeling wonderful about where I am weight- and health-wise. My body feels smaller and leaner, my clothes fit a bit better. My boyfriend said he couldn't really tell a difference, but he said he noticed I have a lot more energy these days, which is wonderful. Yesterday's eating was very on-plan, even including a lunch out at a Thai restaurant, until I ate about 1/2 c extremely unnecessary chocolate ice cream. Still 126 today, but I can NOT eat ice cream again tonight. Made pumpkin bread and pumpkin protein cookies yesterday so I have no excuse for curing my sweet tooth with full-fat ice cream.

[claire0412]

lacksadaisy be careful about overtraining... Especially before a race! I have a 1/2 marathon on Sunday and haven't done any cardio at all this week, except for cycling to and from work (about 45mins a day) and a gentle 5k this evening. If you do too much, your legs will be tired on race day! I know hwo you feel about carbs though. I've spent the last 3 months on Atkins or South Beach, and the idea that I can now eat carbs seems a bit strange. I do need them this week though, a bit of carboloading before Sunday!

Dorian - Black bean brownies are the best things ever! Here is the link http://www.nomeatathlete.com/black-bean-brownies/ I halved the amount of sugar they suggest (which is completely not necessary!), 1 cup of sugar and added 100g of chocolate and 100g cherries. I didn't use hazelnuts, I used walnut halves. They turned out great! I will take a pic next time and put them on my blog. Obvs I can't now, my boyfriend scoffed the lot!

Krampus - yep i'm British, teaching English in a primary school here in Vienna. I'm going back home to London in September to finish my teacher training (primary with German). I'll end up here again though because I love Vienna and my boyfriend is Viennese. We might go via California though, he has a potential job there after his Phd. Sachertorte is good, mmmm! The kids bring it to school when they celebrate their birthdays, I love birthdays at school!

Here it is raining I'm trying to learn about international management for an exam tomorrow (I study alongside teaching). I want to kill myself out of boredom though, I study History and Politics so this Economics stuff does not interest me at all! Still, I've got some lentils with goat's cheese for lunch (when it is finished cooking), so something to look forward to! Smells yummy!

Have a nice day

[indiblue]

Claire the brownies look great. I tried to make chickpea brownies once and was not really happy with how they turned out. However it was a gluten-free recipe so the chickpeas were substituting for flour, and yours look MUCH better . Love me some flour...

Are you vegan?

[claire0412]

No, i'm not even veggie! I love me some meat! I just wanted to find a recipe to sub the butter for something healthier. I tried baking with apple sauce, but it didn't really work with brownies! One of my fav hobbies is healthy baking, but it is very hit and miss! No meat athlete has cool recipes though

Chickpea brownies sound good, what went wrong?