I think I've heard some people say it does for them. Food that has MSG often also has a lot of salt, though.

Yeah, it is. If there's a dropoff or something, she's very careful to always keep someone else between her and it because she just wouldn't see the edge of a deck or of a cliff. She recognizes people by their voices and then at noisy events by the general large pattern of their clothing once she's seen them. She's got an amazing memory. And she manages. She's a good cook and baker, for instance. And she'll take the kids out in the stroller on her own. She and her husband intentionally chose this particular neighborhood because we can walk to so much -- we can walk to the grocery, produce market, the library, the post office, bank, shops and salons, restaurants, even all three schools our kids attended thru 8th grade. Once she knows the way and knows about any obstacles like uneven spots in the sidewalk or whatever, she'll go out on her own.

Baby steps. You're already doing a LOT of exercise. One of these days -- maybe when it's warm and you don't have school -- you can develop the habit. :)

I agree. I think I read somewhere that their real advantage is that they force you into good form so are good for beginners, but the major disadvantage is that they target one muscle or muscle group so exactly that the surrounding muscles don't get worked out. When you do pushups, you're working out your entire upper body plus your core. When you do lunges, you work out all your leg muscles, your core, and develop your balance. So in theory you get a lot more out of the workout as long as your form is good.

Oh, I misread you to have said you 'went to play at the new PAC.' LOL, I was thinking some sort of playground-style workout center for adults. :)


Good day for you! How was the dijon chicken? I've heard Applebees has a lot of low-cal choices. I think they may even have partnered with WW at one point.

Weighed (1.8 under goal), ate VERY reasonably all day -- bar for breakfast, huge salad for lunch, veggie soup and curried cauliflower for dinner -- but didn't get on the treadmill because I remembered I'm not supposed to sweat for at least 24 hours after getting my hair straightened, which I did yesterday morning. Actually I had it straightened last Wednesday, but a little section didn't take so I had to go back for a touchup yesterday. Normally I schedule it for just after a workout so I don't have to miss one because of my hair, but this was his only free time. Also couldn't go to my class this morning because of the hair, but I can wash it in a few hours.

Hope you had another great day!

Am I missing a post by you? I'm having computer issues! Will be back tomorrow!

report: weighed (1.8 under goal), ate slowly, reasonably, sitting down. Didn't leave a bite, shoot. Went to class this morning. Meant to walk but lost track of time and then it was too late.

Hope you manage to get back on soon!

Val

That's what I've always heard about MSG.

Wow, she must have an AMAZING memory to accomplish all that. And she must be very confident, too. I like her attitude!

Today my trainer was talking about how hard he'd like to push me once school is out and I have more time. ACK. He was reminiscing today about where I started and reminding me of how far I have come. He said he never would have believed at the start that I'd ever be capable of what I am doing now. In fact, he said he thought he was in way over his head when he started training me because he had no idea how to deal with someone with such low capabilities. Like I said--Most Improved Award goes to.......MOI!

That makes perfect sense and squares with my experiences. Whenever I first use a new machine, I always try to identify precisely what muscle group is targeted, just from the way I feel, and I usually can.

LOL!!! No wonder you were confused!!


The dijon chicken was excellent (after I had them leave off the portabello mushrooms, of course!), although I was really glad I asked for the dijon sauce on the side, since it was incredibly strong. Your memory is correct regarding WW. Applebee's has both an "under 550 calories" menu AND a WW menu. The WW dishes are listed by points rather than calories. I find it confusing to have those two separate menus, though, because I wonder if one menu is somehow healthier or more appropriate than the other.

I didn't realize that you straighten your hair! And I didn't know that sweating afterward was an issue. But even without the workout, it sounds like you had a very good day.

A good day for you!

I have had two good OP days in a row now. Weight was down 1.8 this morning. Feeling in control again. Had a good personal training session today. Ate everything sitting down, slowly and mindfully. Phew!

I also saw the endodontist today for an evaluation on my tooth. He didn't think trying to redo the root canal would be helpful, and he is sending me to my periodontist for another look. But I have an infection, and he also thought he could see a crack in the tooth below the gum line, so I am most likely going to have the tooth extracted--after several years of constant procedures, costing thousands of dollars. Oh, well, move on. :(

Oops, looks like I need to let you know via email that I managed to get back on here! Had another good OP day. Weight was down another 1.6 this morning--3.4 pounds in two days! How crazy is that? Almost as crazy as gaining 3.4 pounds in one day! Feeling in control again. Ate everything slowly and mindfully and sitting down. Got only minimal spontaneous exercise, though.

Hope you had a good day!

Whoops, sorry! So yay for you, down again after the Evening O' Breakfasts. :)

Bummer about your tooth -- what a pain. Literally, I'm sure.

LOL about your trainer licking his chops over you having summers off! You'll end up running a 5K by August!

Re: the WW stuff. It used to be a pretty straight 50-calories-per-point with a bit of leeway for healthier foods (50 calories of french fries would be a point, while you might get 75 calories' worth of something like shrimp or oatmeal for a point) but they've taken that a little bit further to even more strongly encourage healthy choices, and now you need to look things up in the directory to be sure. But generally you can still assume it's -around- 50 calories per point. Only if the choices were particularly healthy (non-starchy veggies, lean proteins, whole grains) would you be getting more calories than 50 per point. So if it's 7 points, you can probably figure it's around 350 calories.

Hm...I think I forgot to weigh. Did I? Oh, wait, I did -- at 2am, when I got up. 1.8 under goal still. So-so day yesterday. I took a class in fish butchery and we ate what we prepared. Yummy, but definitely not low cal. But I ate a reasonable dinner, and I'm not up, so I guess I did okay. Class tomorrow!

Hope you had a great Sunday!

LOL!!! Evening O' Breakfasts!! I like that!

Definitely. Today was not the best day--fine, eating-wise, just not very productive due to the pain.

Aren't YOU the funny one!! ACK

The friend I was eating dinner with did WW years ago and also said she thought a point was 50 calories. Some of the Applebee's WW entrees were 12 points--not exactly low-cal! I am out of NS breakfasts at the moment (due to the Evening O' Breakfasts), so I bought some WW ones to tide me over. I had the first one this morning. It had 240 calories (compared to the 220 I normally eat) but didn't fill me up nearly as long as my usual breakfasts do. I guess there must be some truth to NS food being low on the glycemic index/

If you weighed yourself at 2AM, no wonder you don't remember! I didn't even go to bed until about 3AM last night (or this morning, actually). A class in fish butchery??? I must say that that sounds a tad unappealing--not sure I could even enjoy eating a fish after I finished butchering it!!

My weight was up .6 this morning (don't know why, but I know I didn't overeat yesterday). Had another OP day today. I'm very tired and actually planning to go to bed shortly. Tomorrow is one of my 16-hour, eat-in-the-car, days. I am definitely not looking forward to it, with a toothache.

Hope you had a terrific day!

Interesting! I don't think I've ever heard that WW items are low-glycemic, so maybe they aren't!

It was actually very cool learning how to start with a whole fish and end up with filets. We learned to do both a "round fish" (like a red snapper) and a "flat fish" (like grouper.) The benefit to starting with a whole fish is that you can tell by looking at a whole fish that it's fresh and hasn't been frozen. So it's basically a way of getting the freshest fish possible, which here in Ohio isn't easy.

:(

Report: forgot to weigh, but got up and did a yoga class with Jane this morning. She wanted to try a 6am yoga class, and I went with her instead of to my normal class. It was good, and she ended up feeling energized even though she'd had an hour less sleep than she normally would. I'm going to go to the 9:00 session of my regular class, which Giselle teaches. Ate reasonably, slowly, mindfully.

Hope your day was better than expected!

The same thing happened this morning! I have a NS BBB on the way, and I am looking forward to having those breakfasts back. The desserts? Not so much. I'm a little afraid of having those around! I used to be able to handle those. :(

Well, you're certainly right about getting fresh fish here, and I absolutely adore fresh fish. But I can't see myself butchering one, no matter what! When I was in China, the restaurants would generally have live fish swimming in tanks. You could pick out the fish you wanted to eat. It would then be brought to your table before being cooked, and the waiter would let you write something on it with oil. Then when the cooked fish was brought back to you, you could see the words you wrote cooked into the fish, so you knew it was the same fish--and definitely fresh! It wasn't butchered, though. The fish was cooked and served whole. Ugh.



Do you and Jane exercise together on a regular basis? Or is this something new? I think it's awesome. Has she recovered from the mono?

It was, actually! My meeting at the main campus was over in an hour, as opposed to the normal four hours. Works for me!! My weight was up .2. Did not have to eat in the car after all, which was nice. Stayed OP all day, ate slowly and mindfully. I'm still tired, though, and my tooth is still hurting, so I'm off to bed. Hope you had a great day!

Hope you are OK!

I had a good eating day (perfectly OP) and have had for several days in a row now, but my weight was still up .4 this morning :(. I had the most strenuous personal training session today EVER. The trainer had me in continuous motion, from treadmill to machine to machine to treadmill with no resting whatsoever. The last thing he had me do, after 50 minutes of constant, rapid motion was to run a full mile uphill at 6.5mph. Previously I'd never run more than 90 consecutive seconds, so I was amazed that I could do a full mile, especially at the end of the hour! It was a struggle, though, and I was sweating like crazy and panting so much that I couldn't talk. It just so happened that a former student was on the treadmill alongside mine, and she ran with me to help me keep the pace and kept encouraging me, while my trainer was cheering. My pulse was close to 240 after all that. Yikes. I REALLY wish I had been wearing my Exerspy, because I would love to know how many calories I burned! HAD to be a record.

I made an appointment to start counseling on 3/9. My old therapist was actually very happy to hear from me, and we had a good conversation. I also made an appointment to have my tooth extracted on 3/16--and I had to BEG to get the appointment that soon. I am hoping the pain will abate once the antibiotics do their job.

Hope you had a good day and that all is well!

I suspect you still can in any circumstance other than this particular one. And I have ZERO question that you can get past this, too. You were really sort of blindsided by this. A romantic relationship is something you haven't given a lot of thought to in years, and your feelings about it are all tied in with your weight, your weightloss, and food, plus lots of other emotional stuff on top of those things. It's not surprising that it would be THIS issue that is causing this problem. It doesn't mean you now can't handle the NS desserts when you used to be able to even when you had trauma in your life. It means THIS ISSUE is a biggie, and you need to work on it.

It's actually surprisingly not that hard! This class was specifically aimed at people who had some cooking experience -- already have basic knife skills, etc. -- and pretty much everyone in the class managed to cut pretty good filets. I'm too paranoid about bones, and what I've found when I try to eat a whole fish -- or even if I find a single bone in a filet -- is that I start combing through the fish with my fork, basically turning it into minced fish. Ruins the fish for me. I love this because I can go over my filet with a fine-toothed comb (a pair of needlenose pliers, actually) and get out EVERY BONE before cooking it. (Wednesday morning 7:31) EEEK! Just found this sitting waiting to be submitted! I'm sorry! I must have been working on it and gotten distracted and never got back online!

We've never exercised together, so this was very cool that she wanted to. I would love to get into a routine of exercising together.

Whoa, that's unheard of in my experience! God, the number of meetings I've sat through that either went longer than planned or the final twenty minutes was a race through the agenda. The person running that meeting must be good. Sorry your tooth is still hurting, but glad it was a pretty good day anyway.

From your Tuesday night post: Wow! I'm telling you...he's going to have you do a 5K run by the end of the summer. Oh, me too! You don't always wear it to work out?

Very cool. Good for you for dealing with this. Can't they give you anything for the pain until then? At least to take at night so you'd be able to sleep?

Report: weighed (1.8 under goal), ate slowly and mindfully and left a bite, went to my WW meeting yesterday and to class this morning, sorry about missing contacting my diet buddy yesterday. Hope you had a great day!

Intellectually, I know you are probably right. But, emotionally, I fear that you are wrong. Obviously I need to keep countering those sabotaging thoughts with more helpful and rational ones. The relationship issue is indeed a biggie, the biggest of the biggest of the biggies, and I need to deal with it so that my fears of regaining my protective barrier of fat won't come true. I think that, until very recently, I saw the possibility of a relationship as so utterly foreign and impossible that I essentially made it a non-issue. Then I had to go and ruin it by getting so healthy and happy that I dared to consider the possibility of "having it all".....and then I panicked at my own audacity.
I'm totally with you on the bones. In China, in my efforts to find every teensy sliver of bone, I picked at my fish until there was nothing to eat except a few shreds. So more power to you!



VERY cool. I think exercising together would be wonderful for both of you, on numerous levels. I often think it would be fun to have a friend to exercise with.

Nope, he's not particularly good. He's an administrator who has been fired and is in his last week of work, and he just isn't invested enough to care at this point. So he just barreled through the agenda. I didn't mind, though!

Yeah, sure, right after I find a cure for cancer and negotiate world peace!:D

I normally do wear my Exerspy when I go to the gym, but sometimes I just barely have time to change from my school clothes to workout clothes and just can't deal with the Exerspy.

The pain is only in my gums, not my tooth, since the tooth has had a root canal. And at the moment the gum pain isn't too bad, because the antibiotic is working.

Your weight has been steady for quite a few days in a row now--YAY! Don't worry about missing your post. Stuff happens.

My weight was unchanged this morning. This was another 16-hour, eat-in-the-car, day. (Unfortunately, this time the meeting really was 4 hours!) No exercise. Stayed OP all day. My BBB arrived, and I ate ONE dessert tonight. YAY! Off to bed for me. Tomorrow is one of my early days. I have happy hour to look forward to tomorrow evening, and then Friday morning I am leaving for upstate NY to stay with a friend for the weekend and attend a Longaberger event.

Hope you had a terrific day!

Yes, you do. What sabotaging thoughts are you having, exactly? Can you put them into words so that we can brainstorm a few countering helpful responses? We can use the CBT strategies for this just like we used them for the actual weightloss. The skills are transferable. I'm smiling at the word audacity. Not because I want to trivialize your fears! But I know you know it's not audacious to want what every human being wants -- a deep and lasting connection to one other person, one person in the world that you can say anything to and they'll be interested, someone to come home to. There's nothing greedy about wanting that in addition to the other good things you've already gotten from all your hard work.

That's the word I was looking for instead of minced. Shredded. Fish should be eaten in nice bite-sized flakes, not shreds.

[quote]VERY cool. I think exercising together would be wonderful for both of you, on numerous levels. I often think it would be fun to have a friend to exercise with. [/quotes] For me it's one of the best things about exercise classes! You see the same people regularly, and they miss you when you aren't there. That helps me keep up my motivation.

Ah! Well, maybe the person who takes over the meeting from here on will make them shorter in a positive way.

But unfortunately up today to .8 below goal. I deserved it, though, had Thai last night because I didn't feel like cooking.

Yay, you! Nice! What kind of Longaberger event?

Report: weighed, ate reasonably except for dinner, attended class yesterday but no spontaneous exercise, contacted my diet buddy! Hope you have a great time at happy hour!

I would be happy to brainstorm that when I have a little more time and am not half drunk (had two glasses of wine at happy hour, and I am a very cheap date these days!). But you have brought tears to my eyes with what you said about someone to come home to. You get it.

[QUOTE=va1erie;4236199] That's the word I was looking for instead of minced. Shredded. Fish should be eaten in nice bite-sized flakes, not shreds.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about an exercise class in terms of consistent companionship. But that is a very good point and a great reason to go to a class.

I can only hope!

I would think that Thai food would be relatively healthy?

Our team (consisting of about 20 people) is having a sale of retired Longaberger products, where we each set up a table. (My friend and I are going to share a table.) There are also games and door prizes. These events are a lot of fun.
Overall a good day!

My weight was down .6, stayed OP until the two drinks at happy hour (but didn't overeat), had a personal training session, contacted my diet buddy.

I am not going to take my computer with me over the weekend and am reluctant to use my friend's computer to post here (considering what happened after I used Bethy's computer), so will not be able to report in tomorrow or Saturday.

Also, when I got home tonight, I had a phone message from my eharmony match asking me to go on a roadtrip with him TOMORROW. It was too late to call him so I had to email to tell him (or remind him, since I had previously told him) that I was busy this weekend. HUH? I don't get it.

Hope you had a great day! Talk to you Sunday night.