My stair step days of weight loss are in effect. I'm down another 1.2 pounds this morning.

Dh wants to go to a particular restaurant on Monday for his birthday and the menu online does not look good for me. He has to keep sodium down and the restaurant looks terrible for him too, but I don't manage his choices. I'm not sure what I'll do.

Karen, good to read you're having a nice trip. I'm just a bit south of you. :wave:

Beth, I'll write the book title down, thanks! I started Bright Line Eating, which seems to incorporate cognitive therapy too. Are you noticing that every book starts out like an infomercial and claims to be the only one with this innovative approach, creating lasting results for the first time EVER?:lol:

Bill, Voltaire knew what was up. Haha! Credit for getting past the food carts.

Gardenerjoy, congrats on making progress with your application!

Hi everyone!

I got through my challenging food day. I had a shake before we went to the Farmer's Market, and then ordered well at brunch. I ate a bit too much pancake--but only had 1. I exercised portion control and only ate half of my omelette and didn't finish my fruit either. Then 2 more products later in the day, just as I had planned.

After brunch, DD and her girlfriend went off into the city and so I went for my walk. DH and I have started doing some of the packing and while in the basement, I found all the coats that no longer fit--and discovered that I have a spring jacket (which I could wear in the fall), a wool coat, and a parka in my current size. Those will need to go to the cleaners but at least I won't be buying new coats right away. I'd been holding the too-big coats to give them away in the fall rather than the spring. They'll definitely be given away before we move next month! (We close on our new house on Thursday and then we're having some work done before we move in.)

We went to a party tonight and the hostess was asking me about my Optifast plan. One of the other guests, who'd I only met one other time, said "you're not overweight!". WOW!! By BMI, I am still obese, but it sure felt good to hear that--I think I look like I could stand to lose a few pounds, but being 35 pounds overweight, which I am now, is way different than being 105 pounds overweight, which is where I started!

Penny: Bright Line Eating is on my to-read list. My weight loss doctor recommended it. I've visited the author's website and she's definitely pretty 'over the top'--but I guess that's what sells. The concept of there being bright lines you can't cross makes sense to me, though--I just don't like any of the bright lines I think I have to draw. However, I think of this, and it probably applies to many of us: I struggled with planning, and now it's easy. I struggled with even starting exercise, and now I look forward to my walks and am thinking about adding stretching and strength work in. Maybe bright lines will be the same thing for me?

Joy: Recognizing a pattern is the first step if changing it, I think. I'm not sure eating treats is ever self-care--but sometimes it feels to me that it is. Complex.

karenrn: Your trip sounds amazing. Are you finding that being with a friend who is on WW is helping you eat the way you want to be eating?

BillBlueEyes: I am jealous of those of you who didn't wear glasses for years. It sounds like you had a fantastic day--and made good food choices. Adults can have dinosaurs. That's one of the advantages of being an adult--you can get something without having to convince someone else to get it for you.

G'night, all!

--Beth

http://health.bweiss.com/cardimages/...20exercise.JPG

Sunday - Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show - above hips (1956)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Caught up on reading for my first class that starts on Tuesday. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee starts out with the history of Darwin and Mendel trying to solve the mysteries that have been discussed since Aristotle and Plato - How do we inherit traits. It's good to be reminded of how vehemently different beliefs were held. My favorite it the homunculus where the sperm contains a fully formed tiny human. That tiny human had to contain its sperm of fully formed tiny humans. And each of them, theirs - all the way back to Adam. It was a warming theory since each of us previously existed in the garden of Eden albeit somewhat tiny. Hopefully the course will take us into modern stuff including the recently documented horizontal gene jumping - a phenomenon that's just hard to believe: bacteria swap genes with each other, not just with their descendents. It's a wonderful world, it is.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi. I had a zero calorie can of flavored fizzy water when my brain yelled for a snack. Fizzy water works for me because it takes me a while to drink the whole can. I recall with awe the memory of working construction in high school when we'd each buy a full six pack of Pepsi to drink after a long day. Long time ago.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – So interesting that the feelings about the next thing on the to-do list become the trigger. Kudos for working this stuff.

Karen (karenrn) – Yay for find good weather in Seattle. Neat that your friend is conscious of eating by a food plan.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Neat that your friend observed, "you're not overweight!" Kudos for being on top of your coat options for the winter.

Penny. – Yay for more scale movement - at its own pace. Good luck with your restaurant choices.

Readers -

Good morning!

This is my work weekend and major credit to myself for pushing off lunch until I got home. I often get a low cal fast food salad but I wanted to avoid the sodium. Plus, I took a water bottle, which I often forget.
Weight plateaued.

Bill, the class sounds very interesting! Fully formed tiny humans within a single sperm is a fascinating bit of historical theory. It seems perfectly apropos to the patriarch to believe all of humanity is tucked into a man's nutsack. (pardon my vulgarity lol)

Beth, lots of good bits in the Bright Line Eating book. I'm not sure about going that route but it is worth having the bits of knowledge in the back of my mind to guide choices.

Good Morning, Coaches.

I have not caught up on postings but I decided to check in anyway even though it is a struggle to stay positive.

I am in the middle of chronic medical issues that make each day "one day at a time" right now. For the first time in my life, I have to force myself to eat. I am at goal weight but taking little satisfaction from it. Here are the Beck strategies I am using to help with a positive program of living:

Find outside interests. I am going to work on developing new goals that have nothing to do with physical issues. The piano comes to mind first. I will develop a deeper connection to my church. I will support all DS's activities.

Spend time in the solution with my food plan. I have to completely rethink how I am eating. I have a GI appt in the future. For now, I am going to try and stay away from gluten, lactose, HFCs and too much sugar. I will focus on healthy fats, healthy smoothies and protein.

Oh Well. So I didn't sleep the night before. So my back is flaring up. Oh well. I will get onto the business of the day, 1 step at a time.

BBE: I always admire you continuing search for knowledge.
Beth: terrific to remember where you have started.
Penny: Yeah for small victories like bringing water and avoiding sodium.

Checking in late, so I don't mess up my streak! I'm in a better place mentally, although I haven't fully fixed my food choices yet. Still, I'm taking credit for my off-trackness showing up in one place -- my snack choices. So many worse things that I could be doing -- I could be making much worse choices or I could be eating many more snacks. And, I'm determined to fix this sooner rather than later.

Credits:

• posted forty days in a row

Hi everyone.

My dad is in town--and absolutely amazed at how great I look. I last saw him in March and had lost about 20 lbs but it didn't really show that much. We went to dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousin--to an Italian restaurant. I decided on the way over that I wouldn't have any bread. I can't do "one piece only"--if I had one, I knew I'd have three or four--so I had none. Since I'd already decided and wasn't make a choice, it wasn't that hard. I think deciding it and voicing it in the car on the way over really made a difference. I made a good dinner decision, exercised good portion control, and DH has the leftovers to enjoy. Then the server mentioned the dessert special. I somehow justified "no drink" into "dessert is okay". It was a small slice, and DH and I split it, but now I know that I need to draw that bright line in advance, too. It's a decision--no dessert--and I need to make it before going into the restaurant. Fortunately, a restaurant dessert is a controlled portion size.

Exercise was a lovely walk around the forest preserve lake--it was bright and sunny and not too hot. I have to add a few minutes on each day now--what used to be a 41-42 minute walk for two laps around the park is now about 37 minutes.

Morning weight was exactly 75 lbs less than I started the first of the year--that's pretty darned exciting.

Joy: Credit for identifying what's going on--and what parts of if you are controlling. Fill us in if you want suggestions.

maryann: I'm so sorry you're struggling with health issues. <<hugs>>

penny: Where do you get the best fast food salads? It often seems that it'd be helpful if there was a place or two I was willing to go to when we're en route somewhere and have to eat quickly.

BillBlueEyes: You do such interesting things--I learn so much from your posts! Credit for fizzy water.

Accountability time: Here's my chart for the week.
http://bweiss.com/pictures/tracking/2018-09-09.JPG

So, one binge day. The other 6 days, even with the cheesecake tonight, was on target. I want to walk 4-6 days a week, with the goal of never missing two days in a row when I'm home. Done. Everything else is doing okay.

And meals for next week are planned. We close on our house Thursday morning and head to Tucson Thursday night for the weekend. Busy week!

G'night all!

--Beth

A good and smooth weekend with some excellent things going on. I've almost finished filling our kindling store for the winter which is a great achievement and gives me peace of mind. I also saw my trainer/fixer yesterday morning and we are on the road to sorting out what's going awry. I'm seeing him again on Tuesday.

Food was pretty good.
Exercise - also quite good. I'm trying out this idea to get more walking in: whenever I arrive back in the car I walk to the end of the road and back, about a mile. Credit.
Lessons for the future - prepare salad ahead of time, prepare lunch ahead of time whenever possible.

Beth, lovely to hear how your dad thought you looked great! And credit for 'no bread'.

Joy, credit for checking in.

maryann, I'm sorry to hear that your medical issues are continuing. Credit for being positive and moving forward. I hope the GI appointment is helpful.

Penny, credit for remembering your water bottle!

Bill, interesting idea about flavoured fizzy water as a snack. Thanks - and credit!

karen, credit for checking in.

Monday - Pablo Picasso’s monumental anti-war mural Guernica returned to Spain (1981)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Walked, CREDIT moi, to my favorite Greek restaurant for a lamb shank dinner. I'd planned this since DW first told me that she was going away. It's not her favorite restaurant so I make my pilgrimage whenever she's away. I ordered double green salad instead of rice and salad; their serving of rice would feed an Asian army, LOL. I left the house in a long-sleeved shirt - but turned around and put on a jacket. An unexpected cool day didn't register on my brain.

Even with the restaurant dinner, I'll take CREDIT moi for my food day. My great achievement was to decline a whole table of fresh cooked foods from a breakfast that I walked in on after it was ending. My friends urged me to gobble some of the food so they didn't have to pack it up. I actually thought of the Beck craving strategies to help me decide that NONE was a better choice than just-a-small-something. Later, at community hour, I had a second chance at the same foods and deliberately chose to make my lunch from them and to have nothing at home later. It was good enough calorie-wise and a seriously good choice for my head. I felt that I'd make good choices. I have drifted into having a snack at community hour on Sunday and then having my planned lunch at home - double dipping. I'm upping my game to stop that. It only takes a few hundred calories a day to keep me from losing the put-back-on pounds that I want to ditch.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – I do admire that you so clearly identify snacks as a problem area that can be addressed.

silverbirch – Yay for getting your kindling ready for winter even while I'm trying to deny that it's coming this year.

maryann – Kudos for fighting the chronic stuff head on. "Find outside interests" is always a great strategy.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Kudos for being so clear about your no bread choice in advance. Sorry that Guernica wasn't in New York for your recent visit even though it's terrific that Spain met Picasso's requirement to be democratic for its return.

Penny. – LOL at your vulgarity; methinks Voltaire is creeping into your brain. Kudos for solving your lunch choice on a working weekend day.

Readers -

I've got a good plan today to break my cycle of off-plan snacking. It's timed around my activities and I've planned the kitchen chores that are required to make it all work.

I'm not sure if this is helpful thinking, but I'm considering the notion of cycles of good and not-so-good eating. I'd like to think that I could get to a place where my eating goes well and stays that way forever. But, that's probably not realistic and it's certainly not my experience. So, what if I accept that I have cycles of good and not-so-good eating. Then, the game is to make the good cycles last as long as possible and to make the not-so-good cycles be as short as possible. So, today, I'm aiming to cut off a not-so-good cycle that's been going about three days. That would be a quicker end than I often have.

Credits:

• posted forty-one days in a row

Weigh-in: NA kgs, Exercise: +40, 340/1200 minutes for September

Good morning!

Yesterday was good. My prepared food is winding down and I managed to get the meat out of the freezer in a timely fashion. Weight holding. I finished the Bright Line Eating book and will probably work on a Roberto Boloño book still unfinished on the Kindle. Of course, there's always the 6000+ pages of Voltare on my Kindle but he will need to be snacked on between meals. :lol:

Dh birthday outing tonight. I'll stay on plan, whatever we decide to do.

Gardenerjoy, those little runs of bad days are insidious and have left me stunned by how much I pack on in a few months. Recognizing my "addictive voice" and telling it no, has gotten me through this time. No choice! as Beck says. Credit for checking in and staying mindful of it.

Maryann, I'm so sorry the health issues have continued. Are still teaching, or did you have to take some time off?

Silver, credit for the walking plan and the kindling! Dh does the kindling and hates it. Getting it all done now is a great idea.

Bill, kudos for enjoying the Greek restaurant but keeping mindful of your plan. It can be hard not to slip into that all or nothing mindset.

Beth, 75 pounds is fantastic! I did enjoy the Bright Line Eating ideas, and I do use a lot of the suggestions already: no sugar, 3 meals only, and track quantities, but I have one piece of toast for my egg on toast breakfast each morning and I'm not going to eliminate it. It's nice to know the science behind the food struggle! By the way, it's a free library digital download if you have an e-book.

Good afternoon coaches,

Today my friend and I went for a nice hike in Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma. It's the largest city park besides Central Park from what I hear. It is in the woods with views of the Puget Sound all around. Another friend joined us and it was nice to see her. She has a place in Scottsdale so I imagine I will begin to see her there too. Food is good although I'm not tracking it much. I have my jeans on and they skinny legged jeans which wouldn't fit if I were up much, but they still fit fine so I'm thinking I'm doing okay. I also wore some hiking shorts this morning that had plenty of room. I'm so used to measuring and tracking my food and weighing myself pretty regularly that it seems odd, but I'm going to try to continue being somewhat mindful and hope it is working.

Penny You are doing so well, I'm glad your weight started heading down again after a short little flat spot.

GardenerJoy I agree shortening those not so good cycles is the way to go. For me I consider getting back on the wagon and as long as I never quit getting back on the wagon I will be okay.

Bill I love lamb shanks too. There is actually a prepared one at Costco that I purchase occasionally. Dh isn't much a fan, but will eat it occasionally.

Silver birch I would imagine filling the kindling store would be quite a lot of work. Do you chop the wood?

Beth I bet your Dad was so proud of how well you have done. That is quite a weight loss. Great job and it is a job I know.

Maryann I am so sorry that you aren't feeling well. What a bummer that you are at your goal and aren't really able to enjoy that. You didn't used to have all the food sensitivities, did you? Do you think it is medication related?
I guess you will be finding out. It's probably pretty difficult to try to ignore feeling lousy. My neighbor in Scottsdale had a GI thing going on before I left. She took Prilosec and an anti nausea med, had an upper endoscopy that showed nothing and it passed. Then my friend in Seattle was feeling the same way. She told me she had felt that way for several weeks. She is feeling better to, but I'm worried hers may be gallbladder. I hope your stuff
passes and soon.

Waving to Curlyjax. I will be leaving here in two days for my backpacking trip but hopefully I can post again before then.

Karen

Hi everyone!

An OP food day for me--with one tiny blip. Dinner was done. I was waiting for DH to get home and I filched a small piece of cooked Italian sausage from the pan (and ate it standing up). It then became much more difficult to not have a second one--but I didn't, which is why the blip was a tiny one. I bought a spiralizer and we had zoodles tonight--they were really easy to do, it was a delicious meal, and I didn't miss the pasta at all. I love zucchini, so this was a total win.

Exercise was a walk to the library to return DD's books and pick up one she had on hold. I don't go through regular books as quickly as she does, so I'm glad she gives me an excuse for walking to the library.

I'm changing my "read 5 cards each day" rule to "read at least 5 cards in the morning"--it's better to start my day that way. I also am going to read another set in the late afternoon on days we're going to be eating out--it'll help me be in the right frame of mind.

Penny: I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure one of the libraries I belong to has it as an e-book. Libraries are great :-) Or, I could, you know, actually check out my own books at the library! I'll add it to my list for after I finish The Obesity Code.


G'night all!

--Beth

No formal exercise yesterday as agreed with my trainer/fixer (who I'm seeing again today). Food was going fine until I got petrol. The old petrol station has been revamped into something more suitable for the trans-European highway where it's located (Moscow - Galway, I think). Anyway, it's terrible and I bought two bars of chocolate. For heaven's sake. Credits? I moved on with wood and the outdoors whilst the weather was OK.

Beth, thanks for reminding me about spiralisers. I might give one a try.

Karen, yes, I saw and chop all the kindling. Much of it is bits and pieces gathered through the year. This latest lot came from the loft of a decluttering client - bits left over from old DIY projects, bits of skirting board, that kind of thing.

Penny, hope the birthday outing went well! Quite a few years ago I realised that having a store would do away with the need to chop chopping every night, often in the rain or snow. This way I can get it ready when the weather is nice and at my own pace.

Joy, good luck with breaking the cycle, and thanks for introducing the idea of a not-so-good cycle to me. I'm back on salads for lunch now and am feeling quite a lot better.

Bill, definitely take credit for your food day. Good work. And good lamb shanks are wonderful.

Tuesday - Benjamin Franklin writes "There never was a good war or bad peace" (1773)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – Wasn't a good eating day - Ouch! I was on plan until the evening when I sat for two hours in a group around a table laden with good cheeses and crackers. Usually I ignore the nibbles completely since that's easier for me than it is for me to try to design a small amount. Last night I had more than an evening snack; I nibbled as if I'd never been fed before and had never had good cheese before. It was good cheese, but good cheese is common in my life. Oh, Well. I'll be watchful today to get back on plan.

Had a wonderful afternoon hearing from DW how her four days went and sharing mine. It's refreshing to spend some time apart. When I discussed this with a friend last night, she assured me that the best marriages keep separate friendships as well as common friendships. I was a tad jealous that she had Maine lobster for dinner one night - in Maine where it's just the best.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Your notion of accepting the cycles is so interesting. If I accepted my cycles, then I'd have much more energy to think of ways to minimize the off-plan snacking when it raises up.

silverbirch – Neat that you continue to gather your wood for the winter.

Karen (karenrn) – Your Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma looks really neat - adding it to my Bucket List. Yay for feeling comfortable in your hiking clothes.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Super Kudos for not having a second taste of Italian sausage from the pan. It's the second one that's hard for me. (And the third . . .)

Penny. – 6000+ pages is a whole lot of Voltaire - perhaps you'll share a quote from time to time as you find it fitting. Kudos for the determination to stay on-plan at your DH's birthday dinner.

Readers -