Laurie, even with your bounce I am so round of you and I know you guys are right which is why I'm refusing to let myself have a mini meltdown.

Jenni, I hope it clears up, soon. Feel better!


So sick of people telling me how tired I look. I feel my exhaustion just fine without people having to point it out. The scale finally gave a little today. Back down to 198.

Jenni--sorry about the RA. I have been tested for it a couple of times. I have tested negative for it, thus far, but have other autoimmune issues. I completely sympathize. Take good care of yourself and I hope the stress lessens for you.

Oh Jenni - so sorry about your RA diagnosis, my aunty has its not nice when it flares up. Hopefully it calms down for you soon

Well I was so stoked at myself, I rowed 1km on the rower last night! Considering I was struggling to do 500m at the start of the month my fitness has obviously improved. But my bubble was burst as I walked down to the supermarket for milk, some lovely guy rolled down his window and actually yelled 'give up you fat b**ch!' Why would someone do that?! I know I should let it go over my head, but it makes me think how other people see me. Erg, and I was feeling so great.

Jenni So sorry about the RA. My sister-in-law has it... am happy to say that in her case, it onset with pregnancy, got much worse at that time and with her next pregnancy, but over time it has gotten so much better! Please do take it easy and I'm sure you're right about the scale-- guess what inflammation is? It's retained water, of course! Nothing like stress to make an auto-immune disorder flare up.

Laurie I just wanted to say I laughed when you said "just typing that made me feel like I had gained 20 lbs!) So, this was actually part of what I wrote in my looooooong accidentally deleted post yesterday. I have only just realized that I actually had a crazily wrong idea of what it took to make me gain weight. I think I've been operating under the assumption all my life that one single episode of overeating would pretty much erase any weight loss efforts.

So, I think it went something like this most of the time.

1. Go on a super strict calorie counting diet where I not only count calories, but I also stop eating all foods that I really like and substitute things like sugar free jello and hard-boiled eggs.

2. Lose somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 lbs.

3. Get hungry/stressed/sick of it or some combo of above.

4. Mini-binge

5. Weigh-in. Scale up 3 or so pounds.

6. Vow to knuckle back down, but also feel like the whole thing is hopeless.

6. Big binge

7. Never step on the scale again until I finally talk myself into restarting. (by then I have regained all 10 and then some.)

Now, when I lost 110 lbs I managed to stay more or less in step 1 until I had lost all the weight. And I managed to maintain by never going into binge or mini-binge and tightening down calories when I started to inch up....

But the big revelation this time was definitely my August vacation-- for a good week of that vacation I was really out of control... but I managed to see it through, figure out that once i had shed the bloat, the one week off only added a pound or two, and then keep on trucking!! Hooray!!!

In short, I realize now that one of the biggest things holding me back all these years was mistakenly thinking that I couldn't recover from a detour. I've only ever had 3 modes:

1. On the way down
2. On the way up
3. I don't care (sometimes I maintained for long periods of time in stage 3 but it was always at a much higher weight than I wanted to be.)

Which is a LOOOOOONG way of saying Laurie that it's perfectly fine to eat a dinner like that from time to time, and if you are going to, you might as well enjoy it!

MissLoud Showing my regional Americanness, but I'll definitely "get" your progress better if you post in pounds-- but it is completely up to you!

Jessica How is Will????Worried!

Lotus I do understand where you are coming from about relationships with food.

Martini On plan and puttering is good, good, GOOD! And look at you in the mid 260s! You define awesomeness!

MissLoud--sorry that happened. I'm willing to bet that something similar has happened to everyone here. It has happened to me and I remember each and everything that was said, even though some of the heckling was years ago. Keep your head up! Your progress on the rowing machine is fantastic.

Uber--as usual, you nailed it with your post. It is amazing how, even though we all have different experiences, I can relate to so much of what is said here. When it comes to weight loss, I am very black and white in my thinking and I similarly have the three modes you describe. I have thrown in the towel so many times because I had one minor detour and the next thing you know, any progress I made is gone. I once read something where Jillian Michaels was addressing this way of thinking: she said, if your car got a flat tire, would you flatten the other three just because one is flat?

Must get back to work, but just wanted to chime in and also send my support to MissLoud.

You guys.

I have to confess.

I had a bunch of cookies today. I had one of those super calorie laden soft and chewy and delicious loft house cookies. The cinnamon bun flavor. SO GOOD.

Then I got the itch to bake something. But it was already 10:30 at night, so I went with a cookie mix my husband picked up (maple bacon)... it made 23 cookies... they are 125 calories each. I ate 2 of those.

And I'm not sorry.

But... Those hookers are going in the freezer until the other cookies are gone. I don't need 4 dozen cookies sitting around my house for me to eat, especially in flavors I could just gobble down.

I also took a nearly 3 mile walk earlier, and Fitbit tells me I've earned over 200 calories via exercise today. And before the 2 maple bacon cookies I was only at 1200... SO I should be okay calorie-wise. Maybe a little water retention from the carbs, but I usually am better at limiting my sweets.

In other news, Sunday will be my 2nd charity 5k walk (eventually I'll be able to run them). And my birthday, on Thursday, will be spent hiking in a state park. Then dinner (Italian!) out with some new friends we've made locally. Kinda excited. Hoping all the exercise will help with all the food I'm gonna eat. No rules Thursday night for dinner!

Oh. And. Tomorrow? I'm getting my hair chopped off. The ends will be to my newly emerging collar bones. It will be somewhere between 15 and 18 inches depending on where you measure. CAN'T WAIT.

Also, I have to take a drivers test tomorrow for my Indiana Driver's License. They put weights on their IDs here. Hookers. I'm writing 247, I don't care that it's currently a lie. That was the lowest weight I saw the last time, and I'll get past it this time!

Jessica, Jenni, Miss Loud... Hugs to you guys! Those are all tough situations to deal with.

Jessica - I can totally relate to how you're feeling about Will... I was a basket case when my fur baby was having her bladder issue and we couldn't get it resolved.

Miss Loud - I'm so sorry you had to deal with a jerk like that. My favorite cliche in those situations is you are working to change your figure... he'll always be a jackass. Also, post in the units you are comfortable with using... Though I will admit when it comes to kgs, I usually just use the number times 2 to get a rough pounds estimate.

Laurie - I have been craving pizza for LITERALLY (meant for real, not sarcastically!) weeks now. I'm gonna blame Blake Shelton for telling me that bacon has been stuffed in a crust every time a Pizza Hut commercial comes on... Or the the Little Caesar's hot n ready pretzel crust thing, it just looks so good! I might cave and give into my craving for my birthday. We shall see. :)

Mandy I hope you really enjoyed those cookies! I think one of the great things about generally trying to keep calories pretty low is that the occasional slip up doesn't push us over the edge. Maple bacon?? Yum!

Lotus Yes. Very black and white. Me too. It's all good or it's all bad.

I feel like I'm losing SOOOOOO Slowly, but I'm not, really, and this fun group of ladies really keeps me going!

Hey everyone, I'm finally all caught up with you guys AND I mean :carrot::carrot::carrot::carrot: Shout out to my shrinking peeps in the new lower clothing sizes!!! Well done on all your hard work and it's so awesome and inspiring to hear it's showing on the outside too. Yay also on cooperating scales and sliding downwards in the right direction!! I'm not in that zone yet, but you guys inspire me and fill me with the faith to keep on keeping on.

FeraFilia: You're beautiful!!! You have the most amazing eyes! Ever!!! I barely remembered to check out your progress! But wow on that score as well! Also yay on a successful carnival trip!

MissLoud: I agree with you. If that's the way your mom is, don't invite her into your weight loss journey and turn on the white noise on her whenever she starts. I have no qualms holding the phone away from my ear to protect my sanity from certain people. I never tell anyone when I'm trying to lose weight. I didn't my first go around, and I don't now. Only you guys on 3FC. Telling people seems to invite policing, watching and those annoying unsolicited looks and comments that can be really grating, however well-intentioned they are.

Okay so all of the above I wrote since Tuesday and it's all old news now, I'm sure. I actually haven't shut off my computer or closed my browser because I keep meaning to come back to finish it and so here I am 3 days later, once again anticipating catching up on all I've missed. (I'm sure it's good).

So to do a quick update. I hit a 5-month low of 183.5 this week, which has since bounce up to 185 being that it's time of month and I'm craving carbs in the worst way. But TOM always brings an upward bounce of up to 4-5 lbs so if my TOM bounce is just 185, I'm beyond impressed and this could mean great things post-TOM. Anyho, work has been busy. We have a couple of days of Islamic public holidays next week and I have to work one of them AND a Saturday so I'm a little bitter because there's very little I like more than a public holiday or a weekend... well I like food more... but other than food... okay and a good romance novel, a day off work is one of my favourite things. I don't get these extra days made up to me either, it's just what it is. So I'm still sulking and whining. I'll get over it though. Work has been really busy and hectic but I've missed you guys and just really wanted to complete this post... And it's not just so I can update my browser which is slow and crashing and has been prompting me for a couple of days now...

Toasted - Look at you and your scale progress. Can't wait to see the post-TOM weight update. And yay for your browser finally making you update, even if it wasn't as detailed as perhaps you had wanted. We just love hearing from you and knowing you're around.

MissLoud - Blarg. That's the worst. I'm so sorry that they were so rude to you. I am doing these "Trainer Boy" challenges because the trainer at my gym said some fat-shaming things to me that, while well-intentioned, were pretty reprehensible. It's a long story, but the part that I wanted to tell was that while he was saying all of these things to me about how I was just making excuses and how much better I could look, I really wanted to engage him in a dialogue about his entire life. How's his career going? If he's making appointments to fat-shame me into signing up for training with him, I wonder if he's really making it. That kind of thing. Because he can see that I'm still struggling with my weight. I can't necessarily see the areas where he's struggling, but I know he's got them. Because we all do. Why should I be ashamed that I haven't solved the weight loss puzzle? Also, I don't know if you've ever read the following link, but I LOVE it.

http://flintland.blogspot.com/2012/05/hey-fat-girl.html

Uber - You are so completely right. It's weird. As you probably know, I do a version of intermittent fasting where I typically eat little during the day so that I can have a more generous dinner. Even when I know I've been on plan all day, and even though I have been doing this for months now, I still can't shake the "I'm so full right now that I'll have a bad scale result in the morning" thoughts. I am actually relieved, almost nightly, when I start feeling a bit hungry again before I go to sleep. But yes, your vacation experience and your consistent loss on a more moderate eating plan at least show me where sanity is, even if I can't quite make my way over there quite yet. =)

Mandy - I cannot keep that quantity of sweets in the house. CANNOT. Especially if I spent much time in the house by myself. Like you, I tend to eat in secret, and there's a part of me that really loves doing it. The freezer's a great idea, though. And I actually love that cookies or ice cream sandwiches are a part of your regular eating plan. It's that "You won't gain 10 pounds by looking at a cookie" mentality that Uber referenced.

LotusMama - The "If you have one flat tire" thing really reverberates with me, not just with a weight loss plan but a way of life. I get so sad when people say they are "disgusted with themselves," or even worse, "hate themselves" because they are fat. As though the shape of our bodies define our entire existence. It's just one of the pieces of our lives, and often times, it's one that we can fix with some hard work and consistency.

Jessica - Yes. When did the, "You look so tired" thing become okay? My boss told me that yesterday morning. I wanted him to think it was because I had worked so hard on the brief the previous evening. Really, it was because I didn't feel like wearing makeup that day. =) Glad the two jobs thing is temporary, but I hope it makes a permanent difference because it gives you the cash to move into your own apartment. Or that the boarding with the horses thing works out. Also hope Will is improving.

Jenni - RA sounds like the absolute worst. And now my admiration for you has even increased. Six kids, including some challenging ones and very young ones, a military husband who can't be around much, a job search, and now this. My mind goes back to our excuses discussion. You are making it work despite all of your obstacles. How amazing are you? Hope the RA gets better very quickly.

205.4. I'm up again, this time undeniably above my trampoline weight. And I was very faithfully on plan yesterday. So you know what? I am officially not caring about getting below 200. I am going to enjoy being the smallest I have been in almost two years and fitting clothes that I really love. I am going to enjoy the fact that I can run 3 miles at once and do actual, real push-ups. I am going to embrace the fact that, despite blips, I am usually not a slave to my food addiction right now. And I am going to embrace the fact that I have no embarrassment about my food choices. Onederland will be there when my body decides that it's time to get there.

I am up way, way, way past my bedtime (and not even for the right reasons as I'm stone cold sober and alone in bed) but I just had to pop in and say how amazingly beautiful and uplifting this sentiment is. Absolutely gorgeous.

I have a LOT of catching up to do since I was MIA for most of September. I regained 20lbs of the 30lbs I lost after having our baby. 20 POUNDS!!!

No more sidetracking, I have committed myself to a full year of accountability. I know I will have slip ups along the way but I will hold myself accountable no matter what. I created a thread for it in 100 lb club, thanks to LaurieDawn for the inspiration of her accountability thread from before!

Toasted - Down to 183 without the post TOM whoosh? You are doing great!

MissLoud I didn't comment on the mean comment-- but just wanted to add to the chorus of NOT OKAY!

Laurie - Ha! Twins! Last night, I made spaghetti for dinner. It's an on plan meal that feels like a cheat. I was totally satisfied but I felt horribly guilty. By about 10 pm I was slightly hungry again and felt a huge sense of relief. I am MUCH happier when I limit my eating strictly to two meals plus coffee in the morning. I am completely satisfied by a 500 or 600 calorie meal.. and if you only eat twice a day, you can eat that much at lunch and dinner and still stay on plan. And YES about the secret eating... I mean, it's a real thing for me...there is something about the secret binge that became my go-to coping strategy. And if I go out for a social meal? I'm the girl who is so busy talking she forgets to eat.

Mandy - Hope the frozen cookies have proven less tempting! (I've been known to gnaw on them..)

LotusMama It's so true about the "one flat tire..." and yet, I still think that dieting is presented as an all or nothing kind of thing. I was reading one of those PEOPLE MAGAZINE articles about people who lose a whole bunch of weight. (I could have been one of those people back in 2010 and 2011) and they had this thing called :What they eat now And in each case, the person was eating in a way that appeared to be mostly abnormal. Nobody was just eating normal food in reasonable portions. Sigh.

Jessica How is that horsey?

Jenni - really hope that you're feeling better and that the doctor had something helpful for you.

Diane Hope you're hanging in there!

Martini Up in the middle of the night? What better place to be than here for a visit!

I'm doing okay. Waiting for some scale love to happen, but I figure I must be due for a whoosh soon!!!!!

I just want to repeat AGAIN how much it means to me that we have this little group. I feel so supported and there is so much collective wisdom here! It REALLY HELPS!! Last time, there was a group of us all losing around the same time who really helped, and it was seriously hard for me when I was struggling because a lot of my old 3FC buddies had moved along and I wasn't getting the same support. Here, the support is AMAZING and I think that's why we are all doing so well!

I can really relate, Laurie, to the sense of feeling relief when you are hungry at night. I do that as well, although I don't remember doing it in my previous weight loss attempts.

Uber--I agree entirely that dieting is presented as an all or nothing proposition. My goal is to really get comfortable with eating "normally" whatever that means. I am tired of feeling like certain things are off limits and that there are "good" and "bad" foods. Amazing how deeply ingrained all of this thinking can be.

Toasted--way to go! You must feel amazing!

Have a great weekend everyone. I will try to check in, if I am able.

Thank you so much for all of your support that means so much to me! Well my doctor ran more blood test basically he is going to diagnose me all OVER again. He said since I was overseas and diagnosed oversees the rheumatoid doctor may look at it like it was not real because they do not understand that most doctor's in South Korea get training in the U.S. It just sucks because the diagnose happened on the military base...uggg! Oh well it is what it is and I will have to deal with it...

I have read ALL of your posts I am just so exhausted that I can't do individual's today :( I love you all and I think I hit the lottery finding this forum with this group <3!!!!

SigH!!! Okay now I'm caught up with everyone. I found the "relationship with food" discussion really interesting. I think I have realized that my relationship with food will never be "normal." I'm the sort of person that is thinking of breakfast even when I'm stuffed at dinner. I'm almost ALWAYS thinking about food. Heck, I'm the sort of person that "it's not the last time you'll ever have xyz food, put the 2nd helping down" actually hits emotionally.

I don't necessarily think one kind of food is good or bad... I mean I've lost weight having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner but keeping the day around 1200 calories. Yes some foods are more nutritious than others, but still I think for me, food is more than just fuel, whether that's good or bad, I don't know. That said, I think of myself as good or bad depending on how much food I've consumed on a day. So a day I'm on plan, I'm a good person, a bingey day, I'm not. And then I get into a cycle of feeling like a bad person, which digs a deeper hole of "well, I'm already knee-deep in much, might as well stick around, tomorrow I'll clean up and be good again," and I think it's THAT relationship that for me is unhealthy and that I need to work on. And for me, it's a tough line between being kind to myself and moving on AND also developping self-discipline and impulse control and holding myself accountable. Too much on either side is not a good thing for me and I'm still working on finding that balance.

ubergirl: I'm a fellow slow loser. It took me nearly 3 years to lose 120 lbs and now, it's taken me 5-6 months to lose 10 lbs. Now probably, we could do better and lose more quickly if we were more extreme but having gone through the disappointment of regain, it's not worth it to do something unsustainable. Slow and steady wins the race. Thank goodness for this group though!

Ferafilia: Wait what!!! Are you cutting off your long hair!!! Eeeeeeeeehhhh!!! So excited for you! I shaved my head and started over when I got to goal 2 years ago and I never regretted it. I'm all for change. Go you! Let us see how it turns out. (I haven't forgotten Italy pictures, they're just still on my camera where vacation pics live unfortunately.) And also I vote to get rid of those 24s. With any luck, they'll even be too big to be maternity pants when the time comes. I have complete faith! Part of the reason the Great Baking Weight Gain of 2013 wasn't much worse is because I gave away all my clothes and literally had nothing bigger than a 12. I don't like tight clothes at the best of times but when your largest pair work pants are cutting in, and leggings become more than something you wear on casual Fridays, you kind of sit up and take note of what you need to be doing. I'm not saying that it's made me lose the regain because obviously, it hasn't, but I think it has halted things from getting much worse, because I have neither the budget nor the inclination to get a whole new wardrobe of bigger clothes again.

martini: The Great Baking Weight Gain of 2013 is more than worthy of its lofty title. 40 lbs gained in 3 months at the rate of 1 cake eaten by myself every 2 days and let's not forget all the gluten-free cookies and bars and brownies as well. It was a mess. And a never to be forgotten era. I think plugging away day by day is all we can do sometimes. The first time around, I was sooo goal-driven. If I set a mini-goal, I would race like ghostbusters to meet it ASAP. Now that doesn't work anymore. Maybe like you, I should sweeten the pot a little with something I would really like urgently... hmmm...

LaurieDawn: Yay on a new low weight since 2008!! You are still my workout idol and in my book deserve EVERY success and more for that alone. I feel better when I work out but yet I don't do it as I should. Every single time I'm working out, I feel like "gee I see why someone would want to do this for a living" but it's like I can't hold that sentiment more than a day or two before falling off. Diet is easier in my book, because you can't choose not to eat and since you must eat, you can make a good decision or not. Working out is not something you have to do even though you should, so the get up and go and do something good for your body, I think it puts your mind in the right place and to have the commitment to take time out to be that good to your body and mind so regularly, that's the sort of person I want to be so that's why I'm filled with admiration.

MissLoud: Sorry you had that happen to you. In my 2nd year of undergraduate study, I lived on the ground floor of my dorm and two peeping toms looked in and one said to the other "what a waste, she's sooo fat!" It is terrible. Even knowing they're stupid, adolescent boys, even knowing they're criminals, even knowing their opinions shouldn't mean anything because their internal ugliness and problems go beyond weight, it still hurts. A lot. So I'm sorry you had to go through that. :HUG: On lbs vs kg, I grew up and currently live in the metric land of kgs but I've only ever attempted to lose weight in lbs so either or works for me.

I was going to have a whinge about my schedule next week and how my public holiday and day off are being taken away and the next couple of weeks isn't really any better but garnetrising, you seem to really be going through the wringer with your two jobs so I'm taking 2 seats and piping down. I'm thinking of you and hoping that gets better.

Again here's another post I wrote this afternoon at lunch before getting side-tracked. Now it's 11pm and I'm sure I'm out of date again but oh well. I'll try to catch up/check in tomorrow. It IS the weekend... dun dun dun!