I want a kitten and a puppy, scratches, pink stuff, and all The towel and leather glove method is the only one I've ever come up with that works with a recalcitrant cat or kitten, too.
Meg, sorry to depress you or scare the poop out of you with that remark! Didn't mean to, but maybe it got you through a Starbucks moment
All is well here- actually doing so well I afraid something is wrong. I've eaten totally on plan ( I won't use the "clean" word anymore except at the gym ) for 32 days and haven't missed a single workout. I'm down about 4 1/2 pounds from my "maintenance weight", which is the smallest I've been in 23 years when healthy and lifting.
So far I've totally ignore the looming holidays, and other than making hotel reservations, my dd's college graduation. Maybe staying out of malls and stores has kept me on track! I think I may do some very limited on-line shopping today, and that will be it. It's been a rough year financially so I'm better off staying out of stores anyway And definitely no baking going on here! I made double pies at T'giving which I'll take to my brother's house at Christmas along with a big salad and some steamed shrimp. Half my family is Jewish, so we'll have a first night dinner with them next week (yikes! I need to look at the calendar more often!)
Meg, about kitten... One of mine is Siamese and if you do not know what does it mean, it means needy and vocal. Anyways, as a kitten he was always sick. I found out that drops are not really good for kittens, my vet was giving me a salve - you put it on your finger and simply smear it into his eyes. Worked fine and it is not messy - next time ask them if they can do it for you. How to give any oral medication to kittens/cats is still a question for me. When we were moving, my Siamese went crazy and was attacking my other cat. So we had to put both cats on something like Prozak. I had to pay extra to put medication into the plastic capsules in my Safeway store, and than I would just spend 10 minutes trying to push this capsule down their throats (BTW, you can just go to Safeway now and ask them to give you capsules and measure the dosage into the capsules of course if your dosage is small enough and it fits in). At least it was not messy plus I was sure at the end that dosage is correct.
On the bright note - my puppy and cats started to sniffle each other. Cats started to eat in puppy's presense (my siamese lost half of his weight I guess after hiding for 5 days). Today I saw that puppy and Siamese were eating side by side... My next challenge is to teach the puppy not to whine when we leave - I still want my neighbours to like me....
About malls - this year I decided to shop online. I found that it is much easier, faster plus temptations are under control.
Meg ~~ I have to take back those words, I do realise that loosing 100 or 18# IS an EXTREME battle... I also have to rephrase this : "... it's been awful food wise 2 out of 7 days have been NOT good" it should read "2 out of 7 days have been GOOD"... Meg knows how bad my math can be ... I should also never post before I put my eyes in, in the morning, I can't see a dang thing! It isn't the first time I make that kind of mistake
I've shopped at Amazon this Christmas too, I must say that I LOVED it! No muss, no fuss, no crowds! AND cheaper too even with the S&H... :thumb:
Sash ~~ Oh the things we do for our animals... even putting them on Prozak for an adjustment time... Imagine, who would've thunk! You seem to kind hearted...
Mel ~~ WOW!! You're really on track, Congrats to you!
Anne ~~ Great post... I'm going to re-track myself as of NOW!
Robin ~~ I will breath more deeply, I should've read your post this morning I had some candy at work today... BREATH Ilene BREATH!!!
Karenleigh ~~ Maybe we can BREATH together? Hang in there WE can do it...
Ok... I'm off to the gym, will jog there do chest then jog back... I may take a long way there because it's so beautiful and sunny at the moment...Althought pretty cool -6C or 21F , but ya know I preffer this weather to the heat of the summer...
In August I had two weeks of time scheduled out of town and was kind of panicked about maintaining. I had been reading the Zone books and decided that this way of eating was pretty adaptable to business travel. I exercised daily and roughly followed the Zone plan. It worked! I actually lost a few pounds. At the breakfast buffet, I either had scrambled eggs and oatmeal or eggs and fruit. For lunch I would have a lean protein, vegetables, and fruit. Sometimes this was a chicken caesar salad with very little dressing and an apple after lunch that I had picked up at breakfast. For dinner, there was usually a grilled fish available. I asked the waiter to substitute vegetables for any potatoes or rice and had a glass of wine. If I thought there were not enough carbs, I'd eat from my fruit stash back in the room. I took some Almond Brownie Balance bars and some almonds. I ate half a balance bar in the afternoons when all the tempting snacks were placed out at my meeting and had another half before bed. If any of my meals seemed too low on fat, I dipped into my almonds. I drank tons of water and took my own green tea bags. Having a plan defintely helped!
Sounds like you are planning for success!
I have three parties this weekend, and hope that my party will not rear up! My thought is that I'll drink pretty of sparkling water, drink some red wine, have some cheese and shrimp if available. I want to be able to partake, and I think this plan will allow me to do so without feeling deprived. I'll probably have one of my homemade 30/30/40 muffins before each event just to take the edge off my hunger.
Thanks for all the encouragement and updates on your own efforts
Hi, not a maintainer - yet - but wanted to address the kitten medication issue. What works for us with liquid meds is either (a) mix it into food, but that requires a cat that eats all its food at once or (b) using two people, have one hold the cat wrapped in a towel. The second person administers the meds using a dropper. This is usually me! I use my left hand to open the cat's mouth (pressure on both sides of jaw hinge) and then put the dropper into the cat's mouth and squirt the whole thing in as fast and as far back as I can manage. close the mouth and massage the throat. This is all done in a closed bathroom btw. We have two Siamese daughters and have developed this process over the years. And the salve is a great idea for the eyes. I'm currently giving my older cat thyroid medication by rubbing a measure dose of a cream on the inside of her ear twice a day. Of course, this involves catching her, putting her in the closed bathroom, putting a rubber glove finger on my hand (I don't need the meds!) and then rubbing it on her ear. No pain at all, just the aggravation of catching her!
Hi Ilene, WR and all, I am not at goal either, but am now more than half way there (?), and have maintained a 35# wl for several years. When I was looking all over for a place for helpful, informative wl support, this group fit my needs more than any other I found. The people here are friendly, generous, knowledgable, not to mention successful. Most are living breathing Thin for Lifers.
Years ago I read that if you want to learn a particular skill, learn from those who have actually done it.
Ack, I just received an invitation to a Christmas cookie exchange later this month from a good friend who lives just down the street. I really want to go for the social part of the event, but dont especially want either to bake, or to receive any. Not sure what I am going to do yet. I used to bake (and eat) lots and lots of good C. Cookies every year. No more. This one is going to require some strong visualizations. I guess I should worry more about the other holiday events that precede that one and see how those go first.
Christmas cookies! Jansan, aren’t you just the timely one! I just sat down here at the computer with a cup of tea after baking six kinds of cookies this morning and read your post about cookies (more about my baking later). About your cookie exchange invitation – why not tell the hostess exactly what you said to us? You’d love to come to socialize but you don’t want to receive cookies and would prefer not to bake them. Hopefully she’ll say sure, come anyway and have a cup of coffee and chat with everyone (of course, there will be cookies there but you can come up with a strategy for them, right?) If she still wants you to bring something to share, how about purchased cookies? Or maybe those individually wrapped Lindt truffles in place of cookies? (I like to put a few of those on a cookie plate - makes it pretty)
My intent was to do minimal cookie baking this year but then my sweet DH signed us up to bake cookies for his office Christmas party. In his defense, I‘ve always done it in the past and the office was clamoring for cookies, so I just didn’t have the heart to say no. When I woke up this morning, I felt like today was a good day for dealing with cookies and baked my little heart out (there are definitely times when I know better than to bake, but today was an easy day to resist temptation). Now I have dozens of cookies cooling all over the kitchen and my plan is to package them all up (some for the office, some for us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners). I like to wrap the containers up with yards of masking tape so that they look like little mummies – it keeps me out (sometimes I even write messages to myself on the masking tape ).
Thanks for all the kitten advice – we’re getting a little better at the pink stuff. I’ll definitely ask about the eye salve – sounds much easier than drops. Sophie is still really snuffly – she tries to sneak up on the older cat but right when she’s about to pounce, she’ll sneeze ah-choo and give herself away. DH says that it’s hard to be a predator with a head cold! I love Siamese’s – they're so intelligent and so vocal! I had a Siamese kitten for a brief time in college and had to give him away when I moved (but the family who adopted him had just lost their Siamese, so they adored him and I didn’t feel quite so bad).
Pat/Water Rat – please stick around and keep posting with us! You don’t have to be at goal to post here, like the others said. And if I’m remembering right, you’ve lost, regained some, and lost again so there’s probably lots that WE can learn from YOU!
Ilene, that’s sweet of you to remember about DD! She’s lost 45# now and looks wonderful! She’s in size 8 or 10 jeans now and had a blast trying on her old jeans that she had left here at home and watching them fall down without unzipping them. We did some preliminary clothes shopping while she was home but are going to wait for the after-Christmas sales and hit them hard.
OK, time to get the cookies out of sight and out of mind.
Glad you were able to bake your cookies without a problem. The cookie exchange isnt until the 19th so there is time to decide what to do. And yes, I could go without taking cookies. I have always taken a plate of cookies to a family and friends Christmas eve buffet, and think I would like to take them again this year. They would not be my cookies but those from the exchange. Fortunately (?) its only my own cookies that tempt me, and more specifically the raw dough that's the biggest problem. I am considering baking the morning of the exchange. Or not. It depends on my mood at the time and how I have been able to handle other Christmas events.
You have made me think about cookies and the 3 oatmeal raisins (my favorite) that have been in my freezer for over a month now. There were 4 to begin with I should just get rid of those. Its sometimes hard for me to just toss perfectly good food, but then what is the alternative? Eating them myself? I dont especially want to do that - they were from a friend and while they are good, they are not excellent. So what am I keeping them for? Posterity? My heirs? An oatmeal cookie emergency???? My trash man collects on Friday.
I've finally gotten to the point where I have ZERO guilt about throwing food away - since, as you say, what's the alternative? Wearing it on my butt? I tell myself that I'm acting like a trash can if I eat it, so I'm better off throwing it in the real trash can. Gotta say, though, there have been times that I've had to squirt dishwashing liquid all over the offending item to really make sure I don't eat it.
I'm just like you - if I'm going to spend the calories on a treat, I want it to be the best - the best chocolate, the best piece of cake etc - and feel cheated if it wasn't worth the calorie 'price tag'.
Speaking of baking, DH and I were planning Christmas dinner while we were eating tonight and he jokingly asked if I would be making figgy pudding (as in 'bring us some figgy pudding ... ' from 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas') so now I have to satisfy my curiousity and find out what IS figgy pudding?
I've finally gotten to the point where I have ZERO guilt about throwing food away - since, as you say, what's the alternative? Wearing it on my butt? I tell myself that I'm acting like a trash can if I eat it, so I'm better off throwing it in the real trash can. Gotta say, though, there have been times that I've had to squirt dishwashing liquid all over the offending item to really make sure I don't eat it.
I'm just like you - if I'm going to spend the calories on a treat, I want it to be the best - the best chocolate, the best piece of cake etc - and feel cheated if it wasn't worth the calorie 'price tag'.
I still have trouble throwing away edible food. Even though I know I dont want to eat it. This is one of those old family learned things that's hard to just not do. I am getting better, but still have a long way to go. I can easily throw away really substandard foods because I know I will never eat them. But good food I jsut dont want to eat, such as cake or cookies or something really fatty is more difficult for me even though I know I should. What I will frequently do is render them inedible by either letting them rot in the frig, or putting them in to the freezer and letting them get too old or unrecognizable. Silly really. I have practiced throwing food away, but still find it difficult. Sounds like something I need to work on this coming year. I want to also feel zero guilt! Ask me come Friday what has happened to those 3 cookies.
And forget leaving food on my plate. Have I tried to do that to no avail. I have learned to serve myself less to begin with so I dont have to go thru that angst 3 times/day. Whatever works.
I have also had a problem with 'free' food or really good deals in the store. Same family learned 'waste not (waist?), want not' thing. In most areas being frugal has served me well, but with food, not always. I now rarely buy things just because they are inexpensive. What really helped here was teaching myself to eat only the best low cal. foods that are available, within frugal reason of course. Even shrimp goes on sale. Free food such as at parties or at work or after tennis has always been a problem too. Making headway here too, but I can be still vulnerable.
I totally agree about treats. If its not absolutely wonderful, its not a treat. So why eat it? This has not always been the case.
Jan, becoming ever more discriminating as time goes by.
The towel and leather glove method is the only one I've ever come up with that works with a recalcitrant cat or kitten, too.
I've eaten totally on plan ( I won't use the "clean" word anymore except at the gym ) for 32 days and haven't missed a single workout. I'm down about 4 1/2 pounds from my "maintenance weight", which is the smallest I've been in 23 years when healthy and lifting. 
... I should also never post before I put my eyes in, in the morning, I can't see a dang thing! It isn't the first time I make that kind of mistake 
I just sat down here at the computer with a cup of tea after baking six kinds of cookies this morning and read your post about cookies (more about my baking later). About your cookie exchange invitation – why not tell the hostess exactly what you said to us? You’d love to come to socialize but you don’t want to receive cookies and would prefer not to bake them. Hopefully she’ll say sure, come anyway and have a cup of coffee and chat with everyone (of course, there will be cookies there but you can come up with a strategy for them, right?) If she still wants you to bring something to share, how about purchased cookies? Or maybe those individually wrapped Lindt truffles in place of cookies? (I like to put a few of those on a cookie plate - makes it pretty)
). 
