Have you ever flown on a Delta flight and gotten the Biscoff cookies they hand out? They make a Biscoff spread. It's really tasty, but it's totally junk food, and as calorie dense as a nut butter. I like the cookies better anyway, and they're relegated to my occasional Delta flight every other year or so. Trader Joe's made a knockoff of the Biscoff spread.

Becky- I'm sorry about your grandmother. It does sound like she lived a fantastic life, but I know that you will miss her.

Saef -I love almond butter, but have oddly never gotten it at Trader Joes's. I always got mine at Costco. Why the shortage at Trader Joe's?

Megan -unpaid overtime does suck. Sorry. The rain here is making us crazy. I need it to slow down just a little.

I've exercised every day for seven days now, counting todays five miles of walking around downtown as informal exercise. Food has been good for close to two weeks. I'm seeing very little scale movement, but I feel like I look better. We'll see what the scale says tomorrow.

Scale continues to drop although I thought I was pretty much in maintenance. Down 2.5 -3 pounds since I started this part about 4 weeks ago. I would not worry about it but I feel like I am skinny fat and want to improve my muscles not shrink more boobage. My waste measurements have been the same for a few months.

Prayers are with you Becky. Strength be yours!!

Trader Joes is evil ...too many good things. I have never tried the almond butter but my kids have tasted the cookie butter and raved about it. I should not try it :-)

Who cares what the scale says Shannon? You have been practising healthy habits for 2 weeks - that's something to about!

You Rock!

Dagmar

"Industrialised" - I like that term Silverbirch. Maybe it's my monitor but looking at that link that Bill provided I don't like the colour and wouldn't want to eat the cookie butter. I do love gingersnaps but I prefer to buy (when I very infrequently enter a local coffee shop) one of the large homebaked gingersnaps they sell there.

I'm finding, for myself, that more and more I don't like processed food with a bunch of additives. My once beloved potato chips and other crisps of this nature would now fit the term "industrialised". I never was one for "fast food", except for the occasional burger, but I tend to cringe now when seeing adverts on TV for the various things like KFC, DQ, etc. To me they look so fake that I can't imagine eating them.

Although this makes me sound like some kind of locavore foodie snob I'm finding I really DO prefer food that comes a little more from the farm and less from the factory. I wish I could afford to buy more at farmer's markets or organically grown. I think the $20 per week I'm going to save on e drinks will go towards that end. I'll go to the local farmer's market and get $20 worth of produce from someone who GREW it!

Dagmar

This is terrible. I can't get SPECULOOS COOKIE BUTTER out of my mind. Partially because 'speculoos' is such a delicious new word for me.

So, after the post by silverbirch, I've googled 'speculoos' to discover that my favorite cookie is a variety of the original - the spicy flat shortbread cookie called 'Windmills'. (Warning: behind that link is food porn.) Perhaps I'll start referring to them as speculoos to sound British which is locally interpreted as sophisticated.

DW was slightly bemused that I introduced "cookie butter" to dinner conversation. She made it clear that if any came into the house it was all mine. I've now added to my Bucket List to taste the stuff without buying a whole jar.

We don't have Trader Joe's (or it's equivalent) up here but do they hand out samples Bill? Sometimes our grocery chains have people set up with tiny spoons and crackers and various products for shoppers to taste. You could cross that one off the bucket list if Trader Joe's does this.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=specu...w=1280&bih=653

Up here these are called "speculaas". The ones the chains sell are not shortbread. I am a gingersnap, bread, boy, cake, fan and I find most of the grocery store versions to be edible but not very spicy. And they tend to leave an oily mouthfeel after you eat them.

Dagmar

That's right, of course! Generally. I'm not sure how many people here would know "speculoos" though. I do because I read all packaging in whatever language - just to be sure. (We all do that, don't we?) Bill, you're a grownup so you can make your own decisions but, should you get hooked, just think about the "loos" angle.

Must get back to sawing up wood, sophisticatedly, in the garden. The DB and I are clearing space and preparing kindling for winter. We may put in raised beds in a bid to see off the slugs and snails just a little bit.

Slugs and snails will happily (I imagine) drown themselves in a saucer of beer. I am totally squeamish about slugs and employ a much more terrible thing to eliminate them.

Dagmar

I have a terrible instrument to eliminate them, one by one, it is at the end of my leg and has five toes and it is my foot.
The foot is used for snails, slugs get a good shake from the salt shaker, I am ruthless.
PS even with all my weapons of destruction they still win.

Bill, I blame myself: You never would have craved or wanted the stuff if I hadn't informed you that it existed. Not good. We sound like a support group for people recovering from substance abuse in which a former drug addict makes a former alcoholic decide that heroin sounds rather appealing.

While Atlanta is drenched in rain, New York feels like Georgia, sweltering with heat & humidity. I cannot bear the idea of standing on a subway platform in this, so now that I'm back from the gym, I'll probably linger in my apartment today with the air conditioning going. I don't much like the idea of ironing, but it's got to be done, and then there's silver polishing (which I should've taken care of before yesterday's manicure) and other household tasks that I can catch up on. We need a term for it like snowbound: Heatbound.

We don't have a Trader Joe's anywhere near us so I've never been in one - maybe that's a good thing!!

Since my post-camping meltdown I'm doing MUCH better. I've gotten my eating almost completely under control (although Fat Jen's voice is still pretty loud in my head). I weighed in at 120.6 this morning - still 2 pounds over when I left, but only .6 above my redline, so I'm pretty hopeful that some more will come off in the next couple days.

I am LOVING the heat and humidity - sorry to those that hate it. Headed out the door this morning intending on a 10 mile run and instead did 13 because it felt so good.

My veggie garden is free of snails and slugs, but there is a certain weed that just grows like CRAZY. It seems like a never ending battle. BUT, my squash plants have their first flowers on them, and so do the snow peas, and the corn is about 4.5 feet high so it won't be long before we have some wonderful fresh veggies! Makes the hours of weeding worth it.

Jen

Sooo... I had three good days, a day where I chose to eat a reasonable amount of chocolate cake at a birthday gathering, then... a stumble the next day with some cruddy candy. But today I am pretty confident I am back on track. Well, maybe not totally6 confident, but I'll eat right today whether I aqm confident or not...

That's what maintenance is about - keeping the yo yo on a short string.

I am now on day 7 without the energy drinks and I'm finding I finally am not feeling beat in the evenings. Now I'm just .

I feel like I should have one food/drink vice allowed to me though - sugar's gone, alcohol is gone, ice cream is pretty much gone, and now caffeine too? So what will the remaining indulgence be?

Dagmar

Chris, Dagmar , this is what I, a confirmed sugarholic do. I know I dare not have an entire pie or cake in the house as I have no willpower. When I go to do my grocery shopping, usually once a week. I buy one piece of cake, one , but the important thing there is just one. I allow that once a week it is usually about $3 and a good size piece, lots of calories, no doubt, but one is all I can have and since I have only one that takes care of it.
One slice not one cake !!