Jen, I've got a friend whose rampaging, unmedicated manic-depressive husband has, for the third time in two months, gone on a tear during which he smashed her belongings, put a lock on their bedroom door, tried to get into her personal bank account and tried to shut off her cellphone and the Internet. During his previous rages, I've tried to be a good friend to her. But from experience, I say little about the husband ... I try to say that my friend deserves to be loved and to be safe, and not to live like a parolee who has to always be on her best behavior, lest she set him off. The reason I don't talk directly about him & how I feel is that after he rages, he generally becomes really penitent and then they are close again. (Until the next time he loses it & tells her how horrible she is.) And in those periods, she seems to withdraw from any negativity previously expressed about the man & the relationship. I think this time, she may have really had it. All this to say, I understand something about how you feel about your friend's husband's death.

Also, I have wondered if my problems with food & eating disorders give me any particular empathy with substance abusers. There are alcoholics in my family & I always wondered if there was some genetic component there that contributed toward my eating my way up past 257 pounds. And if that genetic component also feeds into my obsessive tendencies.

I believe so, saef. I, too, come from a line of alcoholics (father, mother, maternal grandfather who committed suicide). Here's a link about a study: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dai..._alcoholis.php

I particularly identify with the sentence about seeing alcoholics in your family can scare you into not drinking, but you're predisposed to seek the same kind of gratification with Ben & Jerry's instead. That's certainly me in a nutshell. I drink a glass of red wine a day, have only been drunk twice in my almost 60 years and really hate being out of control--except that I am out of control when I binge eat.

My father - and apparently all the men I date - have alcoholic or otherwise addicted, severely depressed, overweight fathers. Freud would have a FIELD DAY with that one.

I am adopted so I don't know my own genetic predispositions too well, but I like "uppers" and sugar, but not necessarily alcohol - I never struggle with saying "no" to a fifth or sixth drink. I do struggle with saying "no" to a first or second, which leads to nibbling and is keeping me a couple pounds higher than I'd prefer.

There are worse things. I do not want to make this about TOTAL CONTROL since we all know how that goes.

Saef, good luck with getting your complex's wall approved! You are not the only one who wants to eat when cold. For me, I find that in general when I get hungry I tend to get cold (some kind of blood sugar thing perhaps), so I think somewhere along the line I learned that cold + food = less cold. Of course the only thing that this is always true for is that if I am cold and I drink hot tea, I will be warmer.

Megan, I forgot to say congrats on your pack test!

Michele, yuck I hope Jozi is okay now!

I have food dreams occasionally, but not very often. Once I dreamed I was swimming in a giant pool of chocolate pudding! More often my dreams are along the line of wanting to eat some dessert from a big buffet and not being able to get to it somehow.

Hi everyone! As a brand new maintainer I just wanted to take some time to quickly introduce myself. I started my weight loss journey last January. I had a few restarts so I did not officially get serious until early last summer. I have kicked butt since then and ended up going from a size 18 to a size 10 in 6.5 months with diet and exercise. (I'm tall and larged framed so a size 10 is healthy for my size).

I do moderate exercise 5 - 7 days per week (powerwalking, lifting, ice skating), I practice IF (Intermittent Fasting) just about everyday and I pretty much eat what I want with portion control and planning.

Now I have to figure out how to add more calories in my day slowly without going overboard. Also I don't want to cut back on exercising because I truly enjoy working out so I need to find that balance, but it will come in time.

My mind has still not processed this new phase in my life yet. I have never lost this much weight before, but I am confident I have the tools and knowledge to make this a lifestyle.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome Sunnyside! And congrats on your loss. What is IF?
Stick around-- maintenance is a roller coaster and we are all along for the ride!

Thanks so much Michelle!

IF stands for Intermittent fasting (sorry I have updated my post with the full name). Basically I get all of my calories in for 7 hours each day and fast for 17 hours in a day.

Rollercoaster ride eh? Yikes. I've always heard weight loss was easier than maintenance, but I'm ready...I think. lol

Interesting.... don't know if I could do that. What does your typical day look like? Do you plan on continuing with it long term?

Wekcome, SummySide and congratulations on a great loss. Maintenance s a trip but we are all here to cheer each other on.

SunnySide!

Megan1982 Your bachelor dream actually made me laugh out loud. I didn't want to get eliminated bc they had a big dessert buffet with this delicious chocolate cake I totally get THAT dream!

Jen Careful with the t-band...I ignored some hip pain thinking it was muscles (internal conversation was "you can work this out") turns out it was bursitis in both hips and I had been running on it for months. Got so bad that I couldn't climb stairs (this is where I stopped running), kept thinking it was muscles so stopped running and started going to massage. Just got a cortisone shot last week and I'm not entirely 'happy' with the results but I AM going to start to 'walk' to see if it's better. A friend gave me a book (she's a fitness guru) "running injury free". I know your a super duper runner so maybe you could check out that book if you have never heard of it. (I've seen none of Walking Dead Season 3 either so no spoilers here!)

saef I want to eat when I'm cold too, but I usually just drink A LOT of warm/hot water with lemon.

SunnySide99 I'm new to these this maintainer thread and am quite new to maintaining too!

I can't get over how cold I am and here I was hoping it would change when I stopped losing weight...

You guys would love my office right now, granted you'd probably only love it for 15 minutes...the heat is broken...ON! So it's +30 C and I have the window open and its -15 C so it comes down but it can be difficult to work in. :/ When it was FIRST discovered, the lady said there were heat waves coming off her furniture. That was before Christmas, part isn't in until the 21 Jan So all the nice beautiful sweaters I bought this fall aren't being worn!

Thank you bargoo, paperclippy and Ishbel!

Ishbel - The extreme temps in your office must make a very long work day! At least the 21st is right around the corner.

traveling michele - This is a typical day for me - I wrote on another thread:

"In the mornings I start off drinking a room-temp glass of fresh lemon water with a half tsp of ACV. After about an hour I get a workout in which is anywhere between 20 mins. - 1 hour depending on how I'm feeling. Then I shower and start eating at 10 or 10:30am.

Lastly, I stop eating at 4:30/5 pm and have nothing during the fast except for water or tea. My largest meal is my lunch (1/1:30pm) and my smallest meal is dinner. This routine is perfect for my schedule. I do need to adjust my hours some days, but I still get a 17/7 or 16/8 schedule in everyday."

Mind you I do not have children and I work from home so I do have a ton of flexibility. Whether it's sustainable or not I will have to see once summer comes. I'm usually up earlier and I stay up later compared to the winter months, but for now it's great. I'm never hungry, although at first I had to get used to not eating first thing in the morning. We'll see though.

saef, good luck with the zoning board. It sounds like you have science and professional opinion on your side (not that such things are always the deciding factor). My neighborhood is having some zoning trouble as well. There's an enormous empty church (abandoned by the Catholics 20+ years ago) that the local historic foundation took over from the city a few years ago and now wants to sell to a microbrewery to use as a beer factory/bar/restaurant. Most of us are unhappy about it but I think we're going to lose.

Also, good luck with that management position. Are you the only internal candidate?

My new workplace is either freezing cold or unbearably hot. It's just ridiculously uncomfortable most of the time. I am much colder now that I've lost weight and gone through menopause, but I still prefer it to be under 75 in the office.

Jen, I too wish your friend would be mad rather than sad. I've never understood why people give their parents a free pass to be utterly horrible to them. It seems to me parents should be held to an even higher standard than others, not a lower one.

michele, there was a woman at my meetup dinner the other night who is doing Atkins so she just had coffee. None of us judged her! I hope your group will be as nice. Actually, I think people are more likely to accept "dieting" than not drinking. I don't drink (just don't like the taste) and that seems to befuddle people. (Jim Gaffigan used to do a funny bit on this. "We know you don't eat mayonnaise, but is it okay if we eat mayonnaise?")

Welcome Sunnyside!

As far as the eating when I'm cold, it's not that I'm hungry, I'm cold and want something HOT to eat. Hoping the hot food will warm me up. I was so friggin cold yesterday. When I got home I got the heating pad and cranked it up on high, and curled up on the couch with a comforter.

Thankfully, it was a bit warmer here today.

Dreams, hmm, they are, well what they are. Mine usually involve, trying to escape/save myself from harm, while seeing either my Dh or my father, (who has been gone a long time), telling me one more hill, run a little more, I'm over here, if you get over then next hill, I'll save you!

Weird!

I just have to post, today is my 9 months of being in 'maintenance' offically, but really 10 months of fluctating 5-6 lbs generally.

I'm pretty happy right now I gave myself until today to ensure that Christmas didn't do any long term damage. I knew I wouldn't be able to fix it immediately so I said "self, you have until the 17 Jan".

My fiance (VIP) has lost 50 lbs too (just recently) and together we have changed how we eat and generally our lifestyle. Just this morning we were talking about supper and I asked if he wanted some potatoes in his baked veggies and he said "nope, I would like popcorn for the movie tonight instead". Ah, how far we've come!

I know I'm a newbie (I'm generally in awe of all of you), but quite seriously I didn't care three years ago...I DID NOT CARE! I've never actually cared most of my life, I'm in grade 7 right now (I remember having to weigh myself in health class with two of my friends and I was mortified to be 162).

I love 3FC's!