Betsy ~ Well thats great its perfect temps normally in the summer and Un like Kansas you only get a few days of hot weather, We sometimes get a week or longer of hot weather. I guess I shouldnt complain about the rain cause we could have hot weather instead. I dont know if I've told you or not but I like cool and warm weather better then cold or hot weather.

Silent ~ Yeah I was able to go on my morning walk yesterday but I wasnt able to go on my evening walk so just in case I cant walk tonight because of the rain then Im gonna walk extra in the morning today and from today on until the rain stops so I still get my walking in like I would if I would be walking twice today. I hope all of that makes sense.

This sure doesn't seem like Monday for some reason -- of course, being retired, I do tend to sometimes forget what day of the week it is. Just doesn't seem like a major US holiday.

Terra We're sharing rain evidently. Mine is on and off so I zip outside to get things done and to let Toby out when I can. I need to run into Costco, but hate the thought of shopping while it's raining. And I agree, temperate weather is so wonderful and much preferred.
Sam Another great week. You are so on target with everything you're doing. Sounds like you and Rob are having a great weekend and congratulations on 11 years.
Silent Sorry the sun just made a sneak appearance. You've got to change your thinking about the party. Sounds like while you allowed yourself some extras that weren't on plan that you also moderated them -- one cupcake is definitely not over doing it. Yes, you had more than is on plan, but there are going to be times where life wins out over the plan. And, as you said, you definitely didn't eat as much as the old you would have.
Sugar You lost weight on vacation -- that's wonderful! Good for you. Shows that you really thought through your food choices. I love that you're taking on the communal garden. I bet once it's a nice spot to be that you'll have company out there!

I'm really working hard at staying on plan right now. These last few weeks (ok, let's be honest......it's these last few MONTHS) I'll lose and then gain and then lose etc. If it were just a pound or two that would be ok, but these are 20 pound swings. So, I'm definitely trying to keep things more under control mentally and get myself back into the swing of things.

Howdy folks! I'm dropping in quickly, before going up to my collage studio, to report that my 13-yr-old great-niece Grace and I had a marvelous time together on Saturday. For such a long time, over three years, I've been wanting to invite Grace over to see how a collage artist works. During that time my studio has gradually moved from a reconverted version of the dining room, upstairs to my former writing office. Also during that time, I've bought two sticker makers for her, since sticker makers are my principal means of applying glue to the paper I use in collage. The first one I bought her gathered dust until finally I requisitioned it for my own use, since it became convenient to have one of them downstairs where I do mail art (mostly collage on envelopes) and another upstairs where I make collages. So then I bought her a second one, and it, too, began to gather dust. A lot of the reason why I was dragging my feet, I know, was that I was so embarrassed and miserable about weighing 350 pounds.

So now, finally, when I got a chance to dust off Grace's new sticker maker and prepare a couple of other gifts for her, it felt like redemption—a sweet feeling indeed. I started our time together with a short speech about what she might (and might not) be able to learn from hanging out with me, then we went upstairs to work at sorting clippings. I had prepared a box of clippings for Grace that was a solid four inches deep: to my total amazement, she got all the way down to the bottom of it in just three and a half hours! The girl is a whiz! She was so much faster than me, so adept at grasping the concepts behind my 22 category boxes, I ended up stopping sorting clippings myself and instead went to work on a collage. This new collage requires that I do some drawing, and Grace even made constructive criticism as I worked that helped me get through some problems in the drawing.

And then, after she'd emptied the box, we went downstairs again and sat on the living room couch, and I gave her the gifts I'd put together. One of them, a blank art journal, comes with a challenge, or one might call it an assignment. Grace was thrilled by all of it, including the challenge. She jumped up and hugged me three separate times! It was really fun being in the role of teacher again, since I was once in academic medicine and did a lot of teaching then, and later I also did teaching of writing. And she was such an avid student, just sucking up everything I had to say. Wow.

Too bad this coming Saturday I have to deal with the guy who's coming to carry some 2000 books out of my house, so Grace and I won't be able to meet again for two weeks. But eventually she'll get out of school for the summer, so I hope her schedule will be more flexible then.

This is so wild, for me to be teaching art, when I've never had a single art course in my entire life. But I love it!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to start posting only on Fridays when I have my weight in. The reason for this -- as I do enjoy reading everyone's posts and posting myself -- is that I have assessed that I need to spend a lot more time doing stretching and walking and a lot less time at the computer. And, unfortunately, I realized that I spend between 2-3 hours every morning sitting here doing email, updating my eating plan for the day, etc. But the majority of that time is on 3FC.

So, as much as I love the site, I think that I need to stop using it as an excuse and use it for support. And if I see that I'm slipping too much, then I'll start posting daily again and figure out some other sort of time management approach.

Of course, this coming Friday the grands are coming for the weekend, so I may check in on thursday night.......going to try to start going more with the flow!

Brief check in looks like a LOT of us are in the same boat... time crunched and realising we tend to let time dissapear on us on this here internet Holding steady at around 291 with 4 days left in may I'm not sure my be out of the 290's by June is reasonable. 2lbs in 4 days, kinda unrealistic. Then again I can be hopeful that some of this is water retention (I ate some carby salty food last night) and that I'll have a magic WHOOSH before June 1st right? Not really holding out TRUE hope for that. Hope you all have great days.

Look forward to hearing from you on thursday or friday betsy!

Betsy— I completely understand your reasoning re. only posting once a week. I'm time-crunched myself, by the BERP of course, but my 10-lb loss last month reassures me that for the time being, my weight loss is going fine. I find that it's helping me be less panicked about the BERP to be checking in on a daily basis. And that, in turn, helps me stay on my diet. I'm still (mostly) doing my 600 leg lifts a night, so that will have to suffice for the time being...

silentarctic—Good for you that you're rooting to get out of the 290s! If it doesn't happen by June 1st, it's going to happen soon. You go girl!

The rest of this week I have to focus on getting ready for the book guy to come on Saturday, because there's a lot of unshelving and sorting of books to do before I'll know what I want to give away. Bob has promised to help me with the unshelving part today, because that activity, when I did it once in the past, caused a painful back spasm that crippled me for days. Onward we go!

Betsy ~ Yeah it seems as though we are sharing the rain. I dont like shopping while its raining either.

I was an hour late getting out to walk today, I'll do better tomorrow, I usually go for my walking in the morning at 11:00 am but today I didnt get out to walk until noon but like I said I'll do better tomorrow.

Betsy Thank you so much for the love ma'am! I feel really good and so proud of myself for making it as far as I have. I think this is the longest I've ever followed a plan so closely and making sure to take my time with what I am trying to do. I definitely understand the spending too much time on the internet. I'm on the computer all day at work so I don't really do much on here after work. I come home, will relax for a bit then usually work out and then post here after I'm finished. Then for the rest of the night I am usually with DH or maybe posting here and there if I get bored. DH is a video game nerd so I don't have too much TV time before bed, so I'll read sometimes instead.

Fi So glad to hear about your lovely time with your niece. It's nice to have a little helper and one that is ready and willing to learn something from you. I'd kill to see the smile on your face at how happy this has made you

Silent Hey don't give up hope! There is ALWAYS a chance at 2 lb loss...especially if some is that is water weight..Just keep drinking tons of water and flushing yourself out...it will help I promise!

Well I realized as I started to post here today that I didn't post yesterday...Looks like time got the best of a lot of us though DH and I had kind of a lazy day since I wasn't at work. We lost the keys to the car so that put me in a foul mood because of how DH doesn't keep his side of the room picked up and I ended up bagging up so much crap it was unreal. We ended up finding the keys though, and then all was well in the world lol...We watched a movie and then had dinner...nothing fancy, just some chicken with green beans and a 1/2 sweet potato for me.

Today I did cardio and even though my arms feel like they're going to fall off from yesterdays arms day, I feel good. I'm slowly getting to where I like working out, even if I do get winded sometimes...I always end up feeling good afterwards. I even got a dry erase board that looks like a calendar from work that no one was using and hung it up in my living room. Today I wrote out what work outs I'm going to do from the rest of the week until the end of June. That will help keep me on track, and will make sure I am switching it up constantly. I've learned the more you switch things up your body doesn't have enough time to react and get into the same groove of things so you end up shedding more pounds and inches. Seems like it makes sense to me.

Well I'm off to make some BBQ chicken breasts for dinner...Tomorrow is my rest day and also pay day so I will be going after work to do my major grocery shopping. I will try to post tomorrow if I can remember. Have a good evening all!

sam and fi - thanks for the encouragment.

Sam - Being too busy to post is a good thing if you are still staying on plan. I hope you thuroughly enjoy your rest day.

I feel like lately every day is my rest day I need to kick it back into gear. Silents being Lazy Lazy lately.

On scale news I am oh so close I think, I had dinner early last night so that might have affected the weigh in and i might have also been slightly dehydrated. But if I can keep moderate in my food intake and ramp up my activity for the next couple days I might just make my goal.

Another day of dealing with books—moving out unwanted books buried in the far corner of the dining room, dusting off books piled up in the downstairs hallway and sorting them into keepers & nonkeepers, carrying up books on the stairway that go in my collage studio, and so on. It's exhausting, of course, because books are so heavy, especially art books. But the good news is, the work Bob & I did yesterday cleared out a whole floor-to-ceiling segment of the huge built-in case that Bob built (years ago) in our living room. That means there are spaces for the recent keeper books to go. I'm especially pleased to be bringing together all my scattered books on collage, and on the Dada & Surrealism movements, since they provide me with a lot of inspiration.

This morning something happened that reminded me of how short a time it's been since I went binge-free and sugar-free. I had a number of errands to run, starting with the post office and on from there to the drugstore. As I was walking out of the P.O., I was slammed by a sudden downturn in my mood. I got in my car and sat there a while, thinking, "Why do I feel so depressed, when morning is my best time of day?" And then I realized: I used to buy candy at the drugstore, so going to that store is no idle proposition.

Even after figuring that out, I still had trouble when I got to the drugstore, because they'd rearranged everything, so I couldn't just grab what I needed quickly. I walked and walked down the rearranged aisles, looking for one elusive item. It seemed like every aisle had candy on it! I had to walk by this candy display and that candy display, where I could smell the chocolate right through the packaging. It was an ordeal, I'm telling you.

I wonder how long it'll be before encounters with cookies, candy, and donuts don't make me miserable. They don't incite cravings anymore, but they do come loaded with all those negative emotions I used to feel while binging—almost always in my car, 'cause I was ashamed to do it at home. =sigh=

Sam— Your dry-erase board idea sounds fabulous! When I was first doing mail art, I used a board like that to keep track of my incoming & outgoing mail. Now I've gotten so I keep that info in my head, but it sure helped me a lot, when the habits were new.

Terra— I hope today was a better day for your walking!

silentarctic— Good luck on your weigh-in!

By the way, I'm in Ubee and Betsy withdrawal...

Fiona ~ I should of gotten up earlier this morning to walk cause by the time I was gonna walk it had gotten too hot but Im gonna walk twice as much tonight to make up for not walking this morning

Fi - I don't think most people get what a struggle that is. <3 for you making it out with the candy sorry you have the icky feelings though.

Terra - Hope you have good walking weather today.


So don't feel like it is real but I saw 287 on the scale this AM. So I'm trending in the right directly hopefully I can maintain that for a bit. I am SO use to being 300+ that seeing these numbers is odd!

I wonder if anyone else has these feelings when they got down to weights they hadn't seen in years. If I ever make it to below 270 it will probably blow my mind. I think the lowest I've gotten in the past decade is 276ish.



PS I miss Ubee, Jane and Betsy... just saying.

Silent ~ Congrats on getting to 287, Yeah I'll have good walking weather today.

Checking in again - I have internet again after a week and a half without.

Feeling more positive and about to enter exam and final report card writing time.... I can see the light at the end of a very busy tunnel.

Can't say I've done too much about weight loss, but I've been busy packing my apartment because I move into a new one on June 26.

I did go to a beach resort last weekend with some work friends, lots of time in the pool and I feel I ate fairly balanced.

Hope you are all doing well

Sorry I haven't posted in the past two days. It's been a crazy week

Fi Sounds like things are moving right along with the BERP. So happy for you! I can definitely understand about having a hard time going into places you would so frequently buy candy and cookies. I feel lucky because most of the time that doesn't bother me anymore, but every now and then it kind of rears it's little head into my mind and I end up fighting with myself about it. Luckily I usually end up winning.

Silent I feel you!! When I weighed myself last Sunday and it said 286 it felt so good...and yesterday it made me realize that I am only 25 lbs away from the weight I had lost 4 years ago when DH was on tour...I looked and felt great!! If I can reach that mini goal in the next couple of months would be so awesome!! Great job on getting there!

Time Glad to see you check in! We've missed ya! Also happy to hear that school work is just about over for you. Congrats on the new apartment!!

It is a slow day so far at work so I thought I'd check in this morning because this afternoon is going to be busy busy for me and I wanted to make sure I post . I got a call from a friend who said she had a girl who needed a makeup artist for her wedding coming up in 2 weeks. I ended up getting the job, it's going to be the bride, the mother, and 4 bridesmaids. I'm really exctied and nervous at the same time because I've never done this big of a party before. I'm meeting the bride this weekend for a trial run so that will be good for me to get an idea of what she wants.

DH had to go back to the doctor this week to get his results of his blood sugar and other blood tests. The doctor said his sugar and cholesterol is back at normal levels so he is no longer pre-diabetic but he still wants him to be mindful so he that doesn't have it happen again. However, his white blood cell count has double from the last time that he had it checked last year. The doctor wants him to go to an oncologist again to make sure there is no cancer or other disease so we go on 6/12 to see them again. He said that if the specialist doesn't find anything then he's going to have to look at his medication and see if it is a reaction to a mix of medications. I sure hope they can find out what's wrong. DH has decided to completely quit smoking and wants to focus on juicing for most of his meals and eat small snacks and one small meal a day. I'm all for it if he thinks he can do it. I know he's going to need a lot of support to get going so I'm going to be there as much as I can.

Today I had a NSV!! I was able to get in this size 20 pair of jeans that I have been wanting to wear...I haven't been able to wear them in 4 years and they are basically brand new. It feels great to be able to wear a pair of jeans that don't fall off of me lol...

Tonight I've gotta get my makeup kit together for the trial run on Saturday so I don't know when I will be able to post again...it may not be until Sunday for my weigh in day. Lot of stuff going on and still have to make time to work out tonight and Saturday. I hope everyone has a good weekend if I don't get to post again until then..Take care everyone!