Hi Coaches!

Yesterday was OP. I felt like more and used my resistance skills to say no. Credit. My current distraction from reality (when my responsibilities have been accomplished) is online Sudoku. I'm getting quite good at the basic puzzles-not quite ready to move up yet. LOL

Exercise today will be shoveling snow. It's adding up as I speak. Credit.

I didn't quite follow my plan, but I saw the trap I was going to fall into ahead of time and made some adjustments to keep things as light as possible -- CREDIT! I haven't got a full plan yet today. The day will involve a trip to at least one grocery store in advance of tomorrow's snow prediction. I'll work on that menu and list next.

My paper planner arrived yesterday and it did make me happier! It helped that I'd been doing things to boost my mood in the last few days, but this was a noticeable extra bit. I told DH, "I got a new planner and now my life is perfect." He said, "I'm glad it worked!"

WI: -0.1 kg, Exercise: +40 270/1200 minutes for January, Food: 80% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes

Brief early check-in to give credit for FINALLY buying the kindle version of BDS (Pink) and now it will be much easier to haul in to work to read at lunch and get restarted with the full cycle. Not sure why I resisted ... well, no, I KNOW I didn't want to pay twice for the same information. But, it's done and I'm giving myself credit.

Credit, too, for deciding to take another vacation day today. I didn't want to lose myself in just prepping for meals/marketing/cleaning this weekend and so will devote today to menu planning, pantry organizing (prob in reverse order in case I come across anything I want to center a meal around), and marketing in the rain. Weighed and scale is two pounds below ticker and I'm going to be challenged by being HOME for three days with food nearby. We brought citrus back from Florida as the difference was amazing between what we buy here and the fresh options. Some oranges froze in the car, so we'll see how those are now that they've thawed. They feel fine. One meal will be spinach salad with orange segments, toasted almonds, cranberries and a homemade warm dressing with some sort of protein. My typical last five words on a menu listing. "with some sort of protein"

Catch everyone later in personals! Oh, we finally watched the first episode of Sherlock with Benedict C. on Netflix and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We might finally have a TV show we watch!

Good Morning, Coaches.

Credit for adjusting for food I forgot to bring to work then NOT eating the later snack because it would have been very close to dinner and I didn't NEED it. Result was weighing just 3 pounds from ticker. I breathed a little sigh of relief. Had the scale continued to climb, I would have no pants to wear to work on Monday.

Counselor suggested I make a montage of the timeline pictures I showed her. They are both incentive and reassurance that I have come very far and can do anything I want to do if I put my mind to it. Credit for visiting blow dry bar at the salon. Such a treat especially since I have been asking for pin curls to get a look I have always wanted but could never manage on my own. One of the difference in my "before" picture and "after" picture is making a habit of asking for help from quality individuals: friends, counselors, personal trainers, stylists, landscapers. What a difference. I don't have to be an expert on all things. Quite a relief.

Future Fit Chick: "Mary Ann" in my real life. Yes, menu planning gets so much easier. I made a rather complicated brown rice and chick pea dish but It proved to be four lunchs so I did nothing after the initial input. Keep going. It is so worth investing time in a healthy food life.

nationalparker: DH is willing to eat anything I prepare but he has no interest in gabbing about the food or diet particulars. Have you considered a support program with people who are committed to talking about this stuff face to face. Overeaters Anonymous is free, there are TOP groups, and of course Weight Watchers. I get a great deal of social interaction (and help with resentments like you get when dealing with your step daughter )from my weekly AA meetings. OA is exactly the same except it talks about food behavior. It is also free :)

onebyone: two bags of garbage is a terrific success.

BBE: Did not know someone was in Amelia's plane.

gardenerjoy: I started my new calendar at work yesterday. It is an easy boost and relieves that "getting start up again" anxiety.

Quick check in coaches- if I don't get to it in the morning it doesn't happen!
I never got to the gym the other day with DS, we were both tired. I don't seem to be sleeping that well and I sometimes just crawl into bed for a quick little nap instead of exercising after work, ah well!
Credit for making a fabulous chickpea soup with tahini, carrots and onions, and eating that for a few days. Healthy cooking does take time!
Credit for not snacking last night and resisting temptation.

I did have a nice talk with another colleague about how she didn't get promoted for a job that she was well qualified for, and that made me feel better job -wise since that had happened to me. Sometimes you just need to vent to someone who knows how you feel!
Nationalparker- so sorry you're going through that with your step-daughter, that situation does sound very stressful!!

Good afternoon coaches,

Just a quick check in from Washington. No real exercise yesterday, but food and calories were on plan and no alcohol. Today I got a 6 mile walk in, and helped my friend set up for her retirement party. Today will be my day for alcohol and a couple of treats. Tomorrow we're going to drive about 1 1/2 hours to see my MIL so I can keep the good daughter in law award. Sunday it will be the Seahawks game with friends here and then fly home on Monday. My goal is to have alcohol today only. I'll let you know if I can keep the resistance muscle that strong.

More later.

Hi, Coaches and Buddies.

A little down today (emotionally) compared to the last several. It was raining, so I did a workout DVD instead of walking. Credit for doing something! I sat while I ate all of my meals today. I did make an unplanned treat, but it still fit in my calorie allowance for the day. I used my dog nudging me to remind me to put my phone down at dinner. He really just wanted some of my food, but I don't feed him at the table. Also I stuck with my planned dinner instead of getting take out. Credit!

Right before Christmas, I tore my pantry apart because of a dead mouse. (Turns out he died in the wall. Ew. I hate this part of having a farm field in my back yard.) I ended up moving my dishes from the cupboards to the pantry and vice versa. The disruption has been handy, to clean out junk and break patterns I have had established. It has been a nice change up.

BillBlueEyes: someone needs to market metal teeth that can be attached to cracker boxes and spring closed when you stick your hand back in. Lots of Earhart memorabilia around the Purdue campus, as she was on faculty there.

GardenerJoy: Great job getting back on track. I am eagerly awaiting an order of planner stickers to ship myself.

Karen RN: you've got this! You can totally avoid those extra alcohol calories!!

Lexxiss: way to go on saying no. Please send snow my way. We have had none.

Mary Ann: Great job on adjusting and realizing you could wait. That is a need observation about your willingness to have others help you and how that is a characteristic of how you changed. Given our DIY culture, accepting that must be a relief. I'm getting there...

NationalParker: hang in there! You sound seriously anxious and I know how hard that is to take care of your health when there is family drama coming from all directions. Be gentle with yourself. Glad you had a good organizational day to get going.

OnebyOne: woohoo!! 55 minutes of walking!!!!

Saturday - Apple's first iPhone (2007)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – The day felt more cold than it turned out. My day was stuck inside catching up on all the stuff that falls behind. I have several really good books to be reading but I've interrupted all intelligent reading to pursue the book about Amelia Earhart. The author has no qualms reporting a dozen eye witness reports that each give a different story - yet he uses the stack of them to refute any theory he doesn't like. Obviously, I'm obsessed. Almost done.

Meals were on plan, CREDIT moi. I fell into some snacking when I was annoyed that I wasn't out and about. At one point I got a glass of water when I wanted cookies - a small step in the right direction.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – LOL at "...now my life is perfect." Yay for having a DH who can respond with a straight face.

Debbie (Lexxiss) – Yay for Sudoku - I like the ones in the daily hard copy newspaper. Good luck with your snow.

FutureFitChick – Yay for using your dog as a diet coach, LOL. I know that problem of dis-assembling a house to find the dead mouse - we had to move every item in our basement once to find the guy.

maryann - Wearing pants to work is a good thing, LOL. Congrats for staying within your bounds.

nationalparker – Kudos for buying Beck's Pink Book on Kindle despite the double jeopardy.

Karen (karenrn) - Congrats for being a good DIL. Enjoy your football weekend.

curlyjax - Kudos for dealing with your feelings about job promotions. Drooling over that "chickpea soup with tahini."

Readers -

Hi Coaches!

Yesterday OP. I took my lunch to Denver in my new lunchbox. Scale inches down another small notch. I resisted unplanned eating at home. Credit. Today is work and I have snacks packed. Cherry tomatoes and celery. Post work is High Tea. Nothing healthy. I will enjoy and not overeat. (will eat something real at home before I go.)

Must keep moving!

I am enjoying the readings from Diet Trap. I think one of the most beneficial things I have learned from BDS is to manage stress and stay focused on my food choices during those stressful times. Yay!

hi coaches- I went out to dinner last night with DH and kind of overdid it with steak tips and potatoes, but at least i avoided the bread and didn't have any dessert.
Today I will get exercise in because DD wants to go walk on an outside track and she never changes her mind:) My leg still gets sore on and off and sometimes stretching makes it worse but I can't keep babying it.

I need to make a plan for the day and get cracking!
Happy weekend everyone!

With the impending snow storm, I shopped at two different grocery stores yesterday (and made a quick stop this morning before breakfast for something I missed). With my walk, that gave me 11,000 steps yesterday--CREDIT!

Two weeks ago, the shopping would have also included foraging for treats, but not now. I had a quick thought of a treat, but a mental run-through of some of my Advantages cards made that go away and I stuck to my plan--CREDIT!

We have giant snowflakes falling right now and expect 2-4" -- enough that we'll dig out our steep drive and the street we share with three neighbors. Yesterday's chore was putting the snow plow blade on the tractor. We just canceled all of our plans with other people and I'm looking forward to a couple of days of New Year catching up and cleaning out.

The scale is up because we had stir-fry last night, including a mound of healthy broccoli, so I'm not going to let it bother me.

WI: +0.35 kg, Exercise: +40 310/1200 minutes for January, Food: 100% op, Read my Advantages and Responses: yes

Good Morning, Coaches.

Epiphany: After several days of weighing and measuring my breakfast "yogurt goody" bowl, I realized that the amount I planned for is enough. Wow. Who knew. The months prior, I "eyeballed" everything while subconsciously feeling (I realize now) that an exact measure would NOT be enough. Wow. There is definitely peace in consenting to be bound to the measuring cup and food scale.

Credit for getting into my exercise clothes two hours before I planned to go just so it would be more obvious if I bailed. Credit for continuing to count food credits in my counter ap. I am up to 86. Credit for downloading a weight loss graph ap to get ready for tomorrow's first official weigh in.

Pantry challenge continues to dovetail nicely with healthy food prep. I bought about twenty cans of nonfat evaporated milk awhile back. As I am now officially out of fresh milk, I have acquired a willingness to try the canned stuff in my milk frother. I used some in stove top mac and cheese last night. DH, who usually hates mac and cheese, liked it. DS, a passionate M&C believer, was neutral. Mostly because I didn't use grandma's velveeta. :( But the rule in our house is always try something nine times. So guess what's on today's lunch menu :)
Seeing the nutrition guide on the evaporated milk can shows that it is a great source of nonfat protein so I am also sneaking it in lunchtime smoothies.

DS ironically is at Trail to Eagle Boy Scout conference. Two of his classes are emergency preparedness and cooking. We are going to sit down and look at how to stay healthy during times of need. Hopefully, he'll never need but I know he is going to go to college and face some budget challenges. So it's all good.

Wave to all.

Good food day today - this day was how I picture our lives when we're no longer working regular jobs ... able to enjoy more of the process of cooking/food prep since i got errands done yesterday. Saturday wasn't used up with so much running around. Did a new (to me) recipe for sticky garlic noodles for lunch and made an Asian slaw. Great vegetarian meal and I used millet/brown rice noodles. That recipe moves into our rotation (not the slaw - DH liked it but I thought the sesame/ginger dressing was too "something" not sure what) ... and everything in the recipe is something we have on hand at all times except green onions and those are easy enough to snag in a hurry.

Meals have been OP - dinner for DH was sweet/spicy broiled tilapia but since I do NOT like fish, I did myself a very large salad and small serving of leftover lasagna - only a few bites. I wanted more but felt that I wasn't still hungry, so enough. Included mandarin orange segments and some almonds and bits of coconut in the salad to change it up a bit and have it "go" with DH's fish. Like varying up our ingredients and some weeks I get in a rut and don't do a great job with that.

Joy - Hope you don't get too much snow there! They keep calling for just a bit here - 1-3" or 2-5" depending on which station I listen to ... now it's still close to 50 so hard to imagine the snow will fall overnight.

Bill - That Amelia Earhart book sounds like one I'd enjoy. Thank you for sharing it. I see my library has his "Beyond the Grave" books about Butch Cassidy, John Wilkes Booth and Billy the Kid. I'm requesting this new one. Choosing water instead of cookies is more than credit - that's CREDIT.

Maryann - Kudos for measuring! Two things that I eyeball are TBSP pb and cup cereal (after years of measuring) ... every so often I re-measure and am pleased that the amounts are actually a bit under the measurement. Cheese, however, must be measured or I'll greedily take too much and count too little.

CurlyJax - Hope your leg didn't bother you after the walk. LOL at your DD not changing her mind on the activity! Do you find the weekends more challenging than weekdays or not much different?

FutureFitChick - We have a field beside our home as well - and mice get in our garage (despite two cats that love to explore in that space) and at times get into the house...then I have to try to catch them with a plastic container and a piece of cardboard to slide under them and take to edge of property. They probably beat me back home.

Lexxiss - Hope the high tea was thoroughly enjoyable. That sounds wonderful - would love to have that experience and should look into that with a friend. I would love to see the dishes, presentation, etc. I am just the most boring tea drinker - black tea only!

Fire is blazing away and will enjoy relaxing with DH the remainder of the evening. Love that we've eaten early enough to have the kitchen all cleaned up and table reset for tomorrow. I am resisting putting away my Christmas dishes and will keep them out to use for another couple of weeks - these are more "winter" than "Santa/reindeer" type. Trying to figure out how to store in the house instead of the attic so they're easier for me to pack/unpack.

Hi, Coaches and Buddies.

Food and exercise went well today, in spite of my washing machine's attempt to derail me. Spent too many hours tearing the thing apart to try and figure out why it is not behaving. Now just waiting on parts to be delivered. Had hoped to take a mini-hike with my husband, but due to the delay we didn't make it there before the rain. So I waked my usual 1.55 mile route in the neighborhood. Credit for that. Kept my calories on track, but barely. We went out to a nice French restaurant and then to a popcornless movie. Credit.

BillBlueEyes: Good job for the on track meals. Maybe you could investigate making ice in cookie shapes?

Curly Jax, good job passing on the bread. Hope you had a good workout too!

GardenerJoy: Great job avoiding snack traps. Happy shoveling!

Lexxiss: great job packing your lunch! Great reminder about stress and healthy living too.

Mary Ann: Yay for finding a trick to ensure you get your exercise in! Interesting stuff your son is being taught in scouts. So different from when my brothers went through Eagle.

NationalParker: Great job mixing up your salad. I will also have to look in to sticky noodles. Sounds like something my husband would really love.

Hello
 

Coaches

Long day today. Attended Farmer's Market and sold nothing but possible large sale at the next sale. It was good to reconnect with my stock. I need to make more. I was proud I showed up to the event even though I lost money being there. Oh well.

I did eat 4 thin cookies. Did nor pack lunch. Thought the breakfast guy would be there. Oh well.

Walked at least 30min with my stuff to set up and tear down then home for lunch then over to gallery to sit and chat with my artist friend. I couldn't work or even think straight I was so tired. Tomorrow I will paint as my carving tools for my large woodblock are lost somewhere. I think they are in the studio.

Both the studio and the apartment are feeling chaotic right now. I am anxious to get them straightened out! Credit for feeling some confidence around clean up. Unheard of for me. Wow. Awesome. Forgot to weigh-in this morning but ate salty things today (stoopid bag snax again). I may need to abstain from them once more.

Tired now. See you in the morning.