Toasted - Just to echo what Laurie was saying... based on the wedding/bridesmaid photo with the purple dress, 5'7" and 184 looks really good on you.

Laurie - Your weight really is weird. That whole thing with 17lb in 15 days blows my mind. What is amazing and wonderful, though, is that you're within spitting distance of onederland. That blows my mind as well. You've come so far in such a short period of time and I feel lucky to have been a witness to it. It's remarkable stuff.

Jenni - omg I love the snails!!

Lotus - Hey hey!!

Mandy - I vote for getting rid of the size 24 clothing in some sort of ceremony. It's got to be a thing or else it isn't nearly as fun. The Cutting of the Pants or some such event. Please do take photos.

Uber - I am so amazed sometimes by some of the young women that I know. They are so cool and interesting and together that it's such an inspiration. It sounds like your daughters are pretty awesome as well.

With what Uber was saying about eating like normal people... Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I don't think that eating like a normal person has been my biggest problem. Every time I counted calories and stayed under 2000 calories a day I was technically eating like a normal person. What I do struggle with is my relationship with food. Separating nutrition from moral value from psychological coping mechanisms is hard.

A lot of times I feel I should be the receptacle for "badness" (for lack of a better word) that can't exist elsewhere and has to have a home. I'd eat food no one else wanted. I'd open myself up to pain or responsibility that no one else could handle. It's taught me a lot about strength and endurance, but the underlying message I think I've been sending myself is that my job in life is to be leftover, unwanted, unloved. Food reinforces that message, but it also gives me the strength to hunker down and take that abuse.

I've never really looked at things this way before. I'll have to let this sit for a bit and mull it over later. I understand where this comes from (my parents!!! argh!!!), but I don't quite know what to do with this new perspective on things.

Thank you everyone for the support on what's going on with me at work. Now that I'm fighting back I think the situation with the bullying/harassment is going to get much worse before it gets better. That's ok. I understand the dynamics and I'm ready for it. Worst case scenario is I lose my job and go off and do something else. That's something that I can live with.

I see what you're saying about eating like a normal person not being quite the right way of explaining it. Maybe the difference is not what it looks like from the outside, but how it feels on the inside. I can for sure say that I can't separate nutrition from moral value from psychological coping mechanisms.... and not surprising really, since "NUTRITION" was defined for me as "never ever eating what you want or as much as you want" which is perhaps not the best way to learn to define it.

Uber - I like that "what it looks like" versus "what it feels like" distinction a lot. I think that separation gets overlooked. When I or someone else post here about a hard day/week/month with food, it's really easy to look at it as simply having more calories than our bodies need. It feels crazy-awful, though, and it takes people who have been there to know that eating a cookie isn't always just eating a cookie.

And these legacies about food that get inherited are terrible. I'm sorry you learned that food exists only on a good/bad continuum. I don't know how to unlearn these things, but awareness and effort to think differently has got to be a step in the right direction.

Hi all. Quick post. I'm still here, just have been having issues at work and then just out of energy when I get home.

Just wanted to say hi!!

Good morning, everyone!

Jenni - You are absolutely right. I actually thought about that at the gym yesterday. I was watching myself do shoulder presses with 20-pound weights, and, usually, I am able to focus on how much more sculpted my arms are starting to look or how my boobs stick out farther than my stomach (which wasn't always the case) while I'm also trying to make sure I use correct form. Instead, I noticed the size of my thighs and (again) my calves. But I also thought, "I will never have a 'perfect' body. This is enough of making myself feel bad." I also loved your snails. It's what I tried to communicate to 'trainer boy.' Even though I hadn't moved fast in the right direction (and in fact, had gained a bit of weight) over the previous year, I had never completely lost focus. If I had gained back all of my weight, I would be at 240ish right now instead of knocking on Onederland's door. I didn't "waste time," as he tried to convince me. I invested time working on figuring out long-term solutions.

Martini - Per usual, you have me thinking about this. I, too, am a big eater of left-over food. The Pizza Incident of 2014 with my hubby--where I desperately hoped that some pizza would be left over for me (because I had eaten very little so I could save calories for pizza) when my son and his friends came over, and my husband ate the last slice when I went out to say goodbye to my son, even though he had already eaten and specifically told me not to buy him pizza--may be an example of this. I could have simply asserted my right to have a warm slice of pizza with my son, and been okay with the fact that maybe someone would have had a single slice less than they wanted. I have had genuine food insecurity in the past, and that has also created a desperation to eat food when it's available. It's just so complicated! And, yes, thank you for acknowledging the weight weirdness. I'm in a Biggest Loser competition that started last Wednesday. The first week of it, I lost 8.2 pounds. I worry that they will think that I am inaccurately self-reporting. =)

Diane - Hope the issues at work get better and that all is going well in exercise and nutrition world for you!

Mandy - I love Martini's suggestion that you ceremonially rid yourself of those way-too-big size 24s! But I also like the idea of pregnant Mandy climbing into them. You know what, though? When you get pregnant, I have no doubt that you will remain nutrition-conscious and exercise-conscious (probably even moreso than now), and you will not even approach being able to use the 24s. With my first pregnancy, I was wearing my regular clothes until about 7 1/2 months. You're just getting so small!

Uber - I hate the holding pattern between whooshes. But it sounds like you are there. And I totally get the weighing on two scales. It would make me crazy-crazy, but there's still a good chance I would do it. =) Soon enough, you'll see the whoosh and neither scale will get even close to 250 again.

MissLoud - Here's to both you and I putting our trampoline weights behind us! Hoping the New Zealand weather returns to being gorgeous soon.

202.4. Up 0.4. No complaints, given that yesterday's weigh-in was down 3.2. I also was deep down hungry after lifting weights yesterday. I am wary of those moments because I can easily overeat. And though the calories are absolutely of concern, I have also found that when I am on plan consistently, overeating is very uncomfortable. Though it doesn't seem as bad as what I have heard weight loss surgery patients describe as dumping symptoms, it does incentivize me to stay reasonable, and I'm grateful for that. I did eat quite a bit, but I felt good about it. I really felt like my body needed it yesterday, and as Mandy's voice in my head frequently reminds me, food is not the enemy.

It's gloomy outside today. Was hard to make myself come to work, and may be hard to make myself do my run today. But it's slugging through the slightly hard days that bridge together the easier days and give me the results that make it all worth it when faced with the really hard days.

Have a fantastic day, everyone! Hump day!

I was thinking about my previous weights and how these goals are so important to me:

I haven't been below 210 in over 4 years!
I haven't been below 200 in over 6 years!
I haven't been below 190 in over 10 years!

This got me really thinking all those years of trying but never really understanding or getting in tune to what really made me balloon up each time other than becoming pregnant. It's not all that, it's more emotional connections to food as UBER was saying. If I do not fix this emotional connection to food (which often lies in getting depressed and eating) than I will never really heal. I look at this as an addiction. Alcoholics have alcohol, drug addicts turn to drugs, I am a food addict I have a bad connection with food and really need to fix it so I can be healthy the rest of my life! Interesting when I really think about things what pops up!

Food for thought....okay that was a really bad pun!

Some really great posts here--all of them thought provoking. Jenni--I also see myself as a food addict. I have always wondered about it, but lately, I have been thinking about it a lot.

The food addiction side of thing is not something I have really thought about in the past but reading this forum really has made me think about it. I watch my boys eat and stop when they have had enough, why have I never been able to do that! I feel like blaming it in my mother is a bit of a copout but I do think it started there. I'm a grown woman now with kids of my own, its time I grew up about food and stop acting like a teenager who doesn't like being told what to do!

Diane - I'm sorry you're having issues at work, we spend so much time there its horrible when its not the place you want to be!

Ladies do you think I should post in pounds?

I love my husband. He's a doll. He brought home cookies saying "I know you're trying to lose weight, but I thought you'd like to try these as a change up from ice cream bars at night"... One flavor is apple caramel, the other is cinnamon roll. Not a single pumpkin flavor in sight. He knows me well.

But... 1 cookie is 170 calories. HOW DO THEY DO THAT?! How does one cookie have as many calories as a freakin candy bar?! And now I have 2 dozen super calorie heavy cookies in my cookie jar. Limiting myself to JUST ONE is going to be tough.

Anyway, today is mostly a fasting day because hubby found a recipe he really liked and wanted to try, so it's "Mexican Lasagna" night. It's layered like a lasagna, but with tortillas instead of noodles, and instead of Italian flavored meat sauce, it's taco seasoned meat and enchilada sauce. And of course, cheese. I'm gonna chop up some onions to go in it, throw in some corn and black beans. And it will be topped with shredded lettuce and sour cream when it comes out of oven. If it's good, I'll see how it fares with shredded chicken next time.

Going with the discussion here, I'm really working on changing my outlook when it comes to food. There are no off-limits meals, just meals we can't have all the time. We stick to mostly fish or chicken as our main proteins, but we do throw in a good amount of pork and beef, and also smoked sausage of various meats because my husband loves them. I try very hard not to stress the sodium in a meal that my husband likes (he does love his processed meats lol), because 1 day of high sodium or high calories or high fat in one meal isn't going to derail everything I've done. I've lost almost 50 pounds. It's not going to all come rushing back if I indulge for one meal. I am approaching this in a slightly different way than I did previously, because I REALLY want to be able to continue to lose weight and not feel like I'm completely depriving myself.

Food used to be something I felt embarrassed to consume, especially in front of others. Obviously I'd already had more than I needed, or I wouldn't have been so big, right? So it would be a little nibble here or there when I was around people, and then stash the food away and stuff my face when nobody was around to see it. I would go all day at school without eating a thing, and feel like I'd accomplished something. Especially if I made it through after school activities without getting something from the snack machines. Oh, and Wednesdays when I was there until 8pm? I'd eat pretty much nothing all day, then like a slice of pizza before my 5:30pm practice, and then get home and raid the pantry as soon as nobody was paying attention. I think this history with food had become so ingrained that once I lived alone, eating became my hobby. Nobody was around to see me do it, I finally had freedom to eat when I wanted! So I did. All the time. And went from 200 to 300 in about 5 years. Once I hit 300, it was the constant yo-yo dieting, and again I fell back into that "the less I can eat in a day the better, giving into hunger and eating means failure" state of mind. It's not a good place to be.

I think I'm getting better with it, but I still have to fight the urge to snack a lot when my husband isn't home... simply because I'm alone and nobody would see it. Just like doing some kind of drugs, I still sometimes feel like eating is shameful, and I have to hide it when I need my fix. It's a struggle when you can't just drop your addiction, you have to see it every day. And not only see it, you have to really work to control it. Nobody asks a recovering alcoholic to just have a small glass of wine and stop, whereas a recovering food addict still has to eat to survive.

It's tough. Really tough. And that's why you should not over-burden yourself with guilt if you mess up. That makes continuing forward SO MUCH harder. Just acknowledge the slip, realize it happened, figure out why it happened, and try to deal with that "why" better in the future. Don't hate the food for existing, the food didn't jump down your throat. That leads to a really bad relationship with food, on the other end of the spectrum.

Food is not the enemy! (For Laurie)

Whew. That was longer than I really intended it to be, but I hope anyone who made it through all that can maybe get something out of it that helps them or makes them think.

Hope you all are having a great day!!

Well said Mandy!

Only got a few minutes. I'm stuffing my face with dinner, gonna take Luna for her walk, grab some coffee and try to relax a little before I have to jump back on the road again for Home Depot. I'm going to try and make both jobs work as long as I can. If I can manage it, I might just be able to save up enough to get my own apartment by the first of the year. Three months is still such a long time to live with my brother, especially on his moody days, but it's not like I'll be home much to really have to interact with him anyway.

Will might have pneumonia. The lady who boards him is supposed to pick up a full spectrum anti-biotic/anti-viral and see if that fixes the problem. I'm praying it does. Poor guy's looked so miserable the last few times I've been out there and he weight still isn't going back on yet.

The scale has more or less been at 200 for the last 3 days. It hasn't gone above 200, but I'd much rather it be in the 190's. I'm not going to let myself panic, though. I can't afford to panic... It'll only stress me out which will cause more problems with the scale, so on and so forth. I think as much as I was hoping not to experience something like this, I've known it was coming. You can't have a perfect run when you've got over 100-lbs to lose, you're going to end up going slow or stalling at some point... It just sucks that it's at the Onederland border.

Also, fingers crossed, but I think I'm going to be able to get Sundays off from both jobs. As of right now, I definitely have it off from both jobs for this coming Sunday and it better stay that way, 'cause I've got a coffee date with a fellow geek who managed to snag the supervisor position he was up for.

Hi Everybody.

I posted an UBERLONG post earlier today... and then POOF! It vanished... really Mandy said so many smart things that I can just quote her!

I didn't have a terrific day-- I nibbled a little-- not enough to really add calories to my day, but that is a behavior that can sometimes start to escalate for me, and I went over calories, not from bingeing but just overdoing it a little. Felt antsy this afternoon so I went for a walk.

Not a bad day, but tomorrow, I need to make sure that I rein it back in.

See you tomorrow!

Laurie - Good job doing what you need to do even when you're not feeling it!! Hurrah for the continued scale love as well!!

Jenni & Lotus - I know exactly what both of you are saying about that relationship to food.

MissLoud - Pounds, kilos... whatever works best for you. I'm fine following either.

Mandy - So much of what you wrote is the same for me as well. Thank you for the reminder that food is not the enemy.

Jessica - It sounds like you're busy but doing well. Hurrah!!

Uber - Nice one with handling your antsy feelings by going for a walk!!

I'm on plan and puttering along. Hope everyone continues to do well!

Good morning!

Martini - On plan and puttering along! Sometimes, that's the best place to be.

Jenni, LotusMama, Mandy, MissLoud - I loved reading your discussion about food relationships. Part of me wants to rebel and be mad that we have to think so much about it, but that's the same part of me that gets upset that my brilliant, successful friend with the perfect body routinely eats entire pizzas and brags about not exercising. Acknowledging and dealing with these things is part of what I need to do to improve my life. Jenni, you totally nailed it. I also have to address the mental and emotional issues surrounding food. Like Mandy, I am trying to shake the shame that accompanies food. And it is really hard.

Jessica - Hovering right on the cusp. Ugh. But you know what? You are freaking 200 pounds! In Uber's immortal words - do you have any idea how tiny you are right now? Can you imagine telling 260-pound Jessica that you are unhappy that you are hovering at 200 pounds? Hope your coffee date is AWESOME, my tiny friend.

Uber - Every time you say a post has been deleted, I mourn a little for the dead post. I love reading what you have to say about these topics. Rarely do you post something that I had never considered, since I have spent forever thinking about these things, but you often discuss it in ways that are so helpful to me in visualizing them in ways that are helpful for me to actually deal with them. I do think that part of the process is learning how to deal with off-days. And you totally did.

204.6. A little bounce. A little trampoline action. And not unexpected. I made the mistake of bringing "dinner" food to work. I significantly limit my calories during the day to give me the freedom to eat more in the evening, so it was on plan for dinner, but not prior to dinner. Then, I had an unexpected "emergency" project that my boss handed me at 3:00. Missed my work-out, and ended up eating pizza, cookies, and a donut for dinner. Just typing that makes me shocked that I didn't go up 20 pounds. =) And I wouldn't even call it a binge, really. I just was hungry, and I had the "work adrenaline" pumping through that reminded me of law school, and all of a sudden, it just felt familiar and right to eat high calorie items.

Interesting. Unexpected. As Mandy said, the key here is to acknowledge it happened, identify why it happened (which I think I did), and then recognize that next time I do a late-night work project, I need to better prepare. Rather than walk to the convenience store across the street, I need to drive to the grocery store five minutes away and buy food that I can eat in volume (read veggies and a bit of fruit) for the munchies I get when I have a workday like that.

But now, it's time to move on. Lifting day. No off-plan food at work. It's gonna be a good day, my friends!

So I finally realized what is going on with me. I don't know if I shared before. I am 35 and last year I was diagnosed with RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis). Unlike regular arthritis this attacks your joints breaks them down and also attacks your auto immune system. Well it took me long enough to realize I am having a flare up. Today my wrists are KILLING me, my fingers are swelled, my toes and ankles are swelled, and my neck...uggg....these flares are caused my multiple things could be food, stress, not enough sleep....well I have been under extreme stress with the step daughter.

I drink over a gallon of water a day and have barely peed Where is it going besides retaining???? I don't know what to do can't get into the doctor until Wednesday!

At least I know what is going on!