Hi, Everyone,
It's great to catch up with you all.
Judy, you are such an inspiration. I love the way you analyzed your pattern and see that, even if it's not seemed successful in the short term, overall, you're getting to your goal. That's what turtlin' is all about. Great going!
Our GS area does something way cool if you want to help the Girl Scouts but don't want cookies in the house. You simply mark that you want to donate them to retirement communities or whoever they have made arrangements with, pay your money, and they deliver the cookies to the recipients of your donation. That's a win-win for us.
Cherry, it's great to have you back posting. Posting is one of the most important things for me, since I don't go to meetings. More on that later. Good luck to you in making progress. I think you can use an old cliche--Progress, not perfection, is the name of the game. I need that one, too.
Bandit, hang in there. You do know what works for you. But, like all of us, you get bored with the same old thing, so you try to make it interesting. Sometimes, though, interesting isn't in our best interests. Making it interesting is important, but has to be done in a thoughtful, well-planned way. Good luck to you this week.
Lauren, I hope things are going better with your parents. And with dealing with your stressful life. Keeping your eye on the prize is a great attitude. One we can all use to our advantage. Thanks for the reminder.
Time for me to 'fess up. I've been totally out-of-control this past couple of weeks. My weight is up to 209 and this is where that trend stops. I'm posting because I realize that posting really helps me stay on track. Not so much posting my stuff, but reading and responding to your posts. You guys always come up with things that I need to hear, too.
I've noticed that my attitude has changed. I've been in rebellious mode--bored with counting points, not wanting to do all this work, tired of nitpicking every bite and worrying about how much I'm moving today, etc. I'm feeling a bit whiny--the "it's not fair that I have to do this much work just to end up at a normal weight. Why can't I just BE normal?" "And all that jazz...", as the song goes. (I believe there's a song for every occasion and one of my choirs is singing that one, so it's on my mind.)
I've also been super stressed out at work. Yesterday I realized why. I've been trying to do my job with the Chamber Orchestra the same way I always have done, but I've added a second job on top of that. But getting the second job done is really hard because I often work extra hours for the first one that I take later as comp time. I realized that I can't keep doing that because there are only so many hours in the day. And if I just work more hours, I have to give up my regular life. I'm not going to do that. I would, if it were my life's dream, my passion, but it isn't. It's office work, necessary work that I'm good at, but not my passion. So, I'm setting a schedule for my hours, setting priorities for the work, and if it doesn't all get done, at least the most important, urgent work will. I can catch up on the rest when it's slow, and in this business, there are always slower times. Now, it's just a matter of sitting down and working out the overall schedule, and adjusting as the concert seasons change.
I haven't been tracking, deliberately. I didn't want to face the music. But I weighed myself this morning and tracked breakfast. I'm ready to start again from where I am and see a loss next week. WW lowered my points by one when I switched back from filling foods to points. Points works better for me, despite that I hate the extra work involved in figuring out the points for recipes and so on.
Eating a lot of filling foods is important for me. I lose better when I do that, but there are details in how filling foods as a plan work that don't fit my life. The bread thing. The nonfat dairy thing. And that if one ingredient in a recipe is not a filling food, the whole recipe has to count as points, plus the limit of 35 points in a week makes it really hard for me. That's especially true if I end up in restaurants. You cannot get filling foods in restaurants, not if you count it the way you're supposed to because of the fat they use to cook it. So, I just try to get a lot of green diamonds in my recipe ingredient lists or food lists.
Anyway, this week I'm counting points and activity. I'm planning to post at least every other day, if not every day.
Keep on turtlin'!
--Let's get back to partyin' with a healthy lifestyle.
: next week.
and 
coming along?
: and 
