If you want a better description of my event last night, check this out (the invitation with full menu): Wine Women PS

Saef I still have the turkey carcass and bones from our Thanksgiving in October - in the freezer. Planning on making a good turkey stock/soup with it. Any day now . Last year I saved the carcass too and ended up throwing it away in July. I can cook for about 30 minutes at a time and then I either lose interest or run out of time or have to go and walk a dog or feed a cat.

Dagmar

Tiredtiredtiredtired! Time to crawl down off the "I gotta get it all done" martyr pedestal and clear the decks so that I can get some heavy duty sleep time, like 9 hours. Much as I want a double dose of coffee this morning, I have to switch to green tea or I'll be up again tonight.

Warning, math dweeb stuff. Like many of us, I keep a graph of my weight. I plot the weekly averages. This morning, I've been fooling with rates of change and the trendline functions in Excel to see if I can quantify my snail's pace, and I settled on a 3rd-order polynomial with R-square values. Here's my very slow creep downward:

The important thng it is going down. Congratulations !

Thanks, bargoo! If I can get through the next couple of weeks without that little tail turning up, I will be one happy camper. For whatever it's worth, I've been so stupidly busy so far this month that temptations haven't been able to get a grip on me!

If it works, don't fix it !

That's an awfully crowded pedestal at this time of year, too, isn't it?

Smartest thing I've done for the past two nights is go to bed early to baby myself over the cold that I've come down with. I can't believe how much better I feel getting up in the morning, like I'm not doing it solely through force of will. Also, in that dead time that runs from about 2 PM - 4 PM, I am not exhausted over my keyboard.

Sleep: Such a simple gift to oneself, and yet so often denied in favor of more material pleasures.

And congratulations on that slow but steady creep downward of your weight. Wait till January. People are gonna be begging you then to share tips & secrets, and how annoyed they'll be when there's nothing dramatic to impart.

Sheesh. I forget to post on the new thread, and then it doesn't automatically email me the daily digest. This, in turn, makes me forget to log in to 3FC and the next thing I know, the thread I got to name has gone on for 4 pages without me :>)

For the record, I've been absolutely overwhelmed with work both at work and at home. I have a new dog to train, a gimped shoulder to nurse (finally gave up and made an appt. with an orthopedist after 2.5 months of non-improving pain and weakness), Chanukah presents, food, gatherings and cards to plan and buy, and children in crisis over end-of-term missing assignments and unfinished projects. And then there's my actual job-for-pay.

A couple of comments on recent posts: how come there's no "all you can eat sushi" in Michigan? Also, is the fish quality of all you can eat worse than regular sushi? How much does it cost? (can you tell I'm jealous?)

Saef- I made a pasta-less minestrone soup with leftover turkey on Saturday. Too funny- great minds think alike (or at least, dieters all realize the appeal of veggies and protein with lots of broth to satiate with few calories). Sorry you're feeling sick- my soup was just to get the dark-meat leftovers gone.

ICU- I have real respect for anyone who will go to the trouble of fitting a higher-order polynomial function to a weight-loss graph (or any other set of data). Could you come and give a motivational talk to one of my grad students, who hates analyzing data with anything more sophisticated than descriptive statistics?

And finally, I also need to state that my weight has been unrelentingly stalled above redline (125-127) for weeks now, as I battle the demons of stress-eating and pity-eating. And then, after looking at myself in the mirror, self-loathing punitive eating (can there be a more illogical reason to overeat than that?). I manage to reign myself in to a reasonable 1300 calories for only a day or two at a time before the overeating demons come back. And for my sh*tty metabolism, it doesn't take much; a few days at 1700-1800 calories is all it takes to regain a pound.

Andrea, for us short people it seems like we can gain a pound just walking to the refrigerator. Sometimes I wish I was 5'8".

andrea, welcome back! Sushi definitely isn't MI's strong suit - I saw it on a buffet at a Chinese restaurant, but that didn't exactly fire up my appetite for it. At least we do have a few stellar restaurants! Re the statistics, I am a tireless and rather annoying advocate for the field, and get my jollies out of showing how the advanced methods can give results that are completely opposite of the descriptives.

saef, agreed - very crowded pedestal! Thinking maybe I oughta just strap two on my feet, and then I could keep trying to get even more done. Not! I seriously doubt that any of us here on the thread are going to win awards with our plans. Not enough magic or flash or speed, just concerted effort day in and day out, for-evah. It IS boring! Thank goodness we have each other to talk to about it!

bargoo, yup, no fix required. Maybe this is the lowest I can get with the way I eat and (don't) move, and I'm reaching the place where I'm okay with that. I do intend to pursue a higher level of fitness on the "continuous improvement" spectrum; I just need to figure out what I can realistically commit to doing so I don't crash, burn, and give up again.

I am really looking forward to eating at home tonight. I slept 7 hours last night, which is an improvement but nowhere near where I need to be. At least my brain is working better today ...

I just read a great quote on another forum.
"What we eat in private shows in public".
Thanks, Brittany.
I am going to post that on my refrigerator.

Wow. As I sit here eating a not-so-healthy breakfast. Alone. Hmmm. Food for thought (yeah, pun, I know).

Are you feeling better today Bargoo?

Welcome back Andrea. I feel you on the red line. I'm at it today, but most days lately I've been over. I'd really love to be comfortably under it.

And I'm very sore and achy today. Praying there isn't a sickness coming my way. I missed exercise on Monday which is quite unusual these days so I'm hoping that I just stretched/exerted too much at bikram yoga yesterday.

Younger dd comes home tonight from college!
And older dd spent her first full day in team training yesterday with her service dog. They are doing beautifully and she is so happy!

michele, thanks for asking, yes do feel better today and am going to go grocery shopping a little later and not a moment too soon, my cupboard is getting bare.
I am glad your dd got her dog and hope this will give her confidence and satisfaction. What a great thing this is.

Oh I love that quote, Bargoo. As I think about the candy wrappers in my bedside table drawer and the fast food breakfasts I sneak into work sometimes....

Andrea -welcome back! I also give in to the 'I look terrible and hate my weight so must eat for comfort' demon. It makes no sense at all, does it? I hope that things level out for you soon.

Becky - a little extra sleep can work wonders, can't it? Love your graph.

I hope all the sick ones are feeling better today!

have a great day everyone!