Good morning!

Yesterday was on plan for calories, but I'm getting tired of the IF and missing evening meal. I had a bowl of sliced tomatoes, the last of the garden tomatoes not nibbled by grubs, with feta and balsamic. Weight is holding.

Beth, the usb plugs are so nice! Good job crossing more things off the to-do list.

Karen, kudos for getting exercise in and enjoy your company free hours.

Bill, even though it is an elected class, does it still give you a rush to get an unexpected day off?:lol: credit for resisting the cheese and crackers.

Curly, it sounds like a nice weekend and yay for no crowds.

Joy will probably post at the same time. Waving at you and hoping your day was less stressful.

I'm still not feeling that great. My current theory is allergy-induced sinus congestion combined with stress.

Daily weighing streak: 6, Weigh-in: +0.1 kgs, Exercise: +35, 260/1200 minutes for October

karenrn: I'm thinking tension in the neck and shoulders is contributing to my headache. I have some yoga routines that would likely help, but getting up and down off the floor isn't appealing when my head hurts every time I change levels. I'll try it today, anyway.

Good morning coaches,

I did get to the Y for an hour on the elliptical yesterday afternoon and my food was perfectly on plan. I also sat down and wrote out some goals and some of the things I need to do to get there. I'm not putting a time limitation on weight loss because I know it is not very fast at my age. As one of the very successful gals on the Colorado trip said, "I don't want to do anything that isn't sustainable." It sure is working for her. I am a tad annoyed because I stayed home from a hike to wait for a phone call from a friend who said she would call on Tuesday morning at 7:30. I haven't talked to her in some time even though we used to be pretty good friends. I would have to say she is a flake, which is why I don't keep up with her much anymore. I am mad at myself for not just heading out for the hike and pulling over to chat if she did call. I did walk Otis and I guess I'll go to the Y again this afternoon, after a trip to Costco.

GardenerJoy I found some exercises on YouTube that I did in front of the computer as the physical therapist described them. I recall that they helped. I hope your feeling better soon.
Penny I'm afraid I would get tired of IF too. I really like my three meals a day. I can leave the snacks when I'm being diligent.
Curlyjax It sounds like a beautiful drive. I would love to get back there again in the fall.
Bill Did you even know the hikers who were texting you? Or was it just a wrong number? I bet they were relieved to get a response, so they could contact the right people.
Beth After a slip up you seem to do well getting back on track. One of these days it will be back on track to regular food.

I need to be sure my annoyance doesn't provoke eating off plan. I guess just saying it out loud helps. My plan is another perfectly on plan food day.
You all have a great day.

Karen

Hi everyone.

Today was a 5 product day--no slips. I am going to bed hungry but that won't hurt me any. Hunger is not an emergency.

Exercise was visiting and walking around all 3 major home center stores--Menards, Lowe's, Home Depot. Spent too much money :-) but things are coming together for the house. The rooms have doors now! All the trim is in and they're doing touch up painting. There is some additional painting to do--we dropped off two more gallons of paint for them to use tomorrow. DD, DH, and I all did some packing tonight--I guess it will all get done. I skipped my weight management class tonight because of the pre-move craziness. However, I did go in and do my weekly weigh-in--which was up. So, the 5 product day for a few days is a good idea for me.

I do seem to be recovering from my slips--but I also keep slipping--sometimes badly.

A cool thing about this move is that I'm not moving any clothes that don't fit--I don't have any. I've gotten rid of everything that is too big and I don't have anything in sizes smaller than I am right now. That's kind of cool :-)

karenrn: I admire you being able to spend an hour on an elliptical. Machines are just drudgery for me--do you have any tips?

joy: I hope tomorrow finds you feeling better.

penny: Fresh tomatoes--they are the wonder of the summer!

curlyjax: Counting backwards from 5? I may have to try that as well.

BillBlueEyes: Credit for avoiding the brie and crackers--it's hard to have small amounts of that--but as you point out, they'll be around other times!

G'night all.

--Beth

Wednesday - Neptune's moon Triton discovered by William Lassell (1846)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies – In my Gene course, we discussed the 1978 discovery by Walter Gilbert that the DNA sequence of a gene for encoding a protein isn't contiguous. There are huge sequences of base pairs right in the middle of instructions for making a protein that aren't instructions; they have to be spliced out to make a protein. It absolutely surprised everybody at the time - another unexpected complexity inside the precious nucleus of our cells. 1978 seems so recent for such a major discovery. It's hard to ponder the really big stuff like Dark Matter in the Universe when we don't even know how our little bitty cells work.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, with snacks. Dinner was (sustainably caught!) swordfish. I'm so dubious of Whole Foods' claim that a swordfish can be sustainably removed from the ocean. DW believes, so continues to buy it several times a year. I so feel like I'm eating the last one before someone notices that they're all gone.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – Do hope your head gets back to normal soon.

Karen (karenrn) – Ouch for getting ignored by a friend who promised to call. Glad you could get out with Otis. [Nope, I didn't know the hikers who sent messages. And don't know if they ever found the right number. A minor mystery in life, LOL.]

curlyjax – Welcome back. Don't tell folks how beautiful the Green Mountains are so that Vermont doesn't get swamped. I'm glad that I read Unbroken, but not sure that I could listen to it read aloud.

Beth (bethturnaround) – Congrats for pulling off a full cycle of the home improvement stores. Only taking clothes that fix is a big deal; Kudos.

Penny. – Drooling over your "the last of the garden tomatoes with feta and balsamic" - doesn't get better than that.

Readers -

Really busy day at work yesterday which was good. I did get into the mini candy but stopped after 3 pieces. I felt really hungry after dinner so did have a snack, too much so. I can deal with some hunger but when it gets into having a headache I figure i really haven't had enough to eat.
I've gotten into this habit of watching tv while i eat dinner .DS disappears downstairs to do his own thing which is fine, he needs his down time. But some nights i get lazy and i just keep watching instead of doing something productive. Its okay to do that once in awhile but not every night. I'm falling apart on self discipline in many aspects. Maybe if i listen to a podcast instead of tv, that would be easier to stop.
i just lost the other half of my post!! but i need to get going-

Good morning coaches,

This morning I'll be picking up my niece and her husband at the airport at 9:40 a.m. They'll be here for a week. We love having them and they are quite self sufficient in our home, so that helps. Otis loves having company too. Justine (my niece) is pregnant and due in March, so I will follow her lead and not drink. She will still be going to Crossfit and hiking with me cause she is really fit.
My friend did call yesterday morning, but it was at about 8:45. We visited on the phone for a LONG time. She told me she is so depressed that it took her a couple of hours to pick up the phone. I am not sure what to do about this relationship. On the one hand I feel I should try to keep up the communication, but even when she was not depressed she isn't good about communicating on any regular basis. I'm leaning towards calling on a somewhat regular basis to see if I can help, but I know she needs professional help, not just a few phone calls from me.
I had another good day on the food plan yesterday, but the exercise was just another longer walk with Otis. Not sure what today will bring, but I'm sure we'll hike tomorrow.
Beth I much prefer to walk or hike outdoors over the elliptical but in the summer it isn't possible, so I get used to it by either listening to music or podcasts. It is a lot more work that a walk in our flat area . . so that is the draw for me. I need to have at least two hours to get in a hike here. It's a very short drive, but then 90 minutes or so on the trail to do one with a hill.
Curlyjax I started watching a few PhitnPhat YouTube videos and podcasts. I go thru a lot of them sporadically to keep myself motivated. She has lost over 100 pounds and kept it off for years. She does swear though, which I don't mind, but some would. The things I like about her are that I agree with her on choosing a diet that is sustainable, weight loss is 90% diet but exercise is to keep us healthy and able to get up off the floor when we get older. She also uses principles of the Beck Diet, such as "Hunger is not an Emergency".
Bill As I read your post about your Gene class I am thinking about a post I read from a friend on Sunday. She recently had a stem cell transplant from a donor for Stage 4, ALCL Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Her PET/CT and bone marrow biopsy show no signs of cancer now. Prior to the transplant her blood type was O+, and now it is AB. Isn't it just amazing what our bodies can do?
Waving to GardenerJoy, Penny and Maryann. I am going to spend a little time focusing on food plans and how I am going to make this a successful week before doing a few last minute things around the house. You all have a great day!

I stretched my daily weighing streak to a whole week!

My headache improved all day yesterday. I was able to do the yoga without pain, even getting up and down off the floor. It was back a bit this morning, but a steamy shower chased it away again.

karenrn reminded me that these two videos using self-massage to open up sinuses so they drain have worked before, so I'll do them today:
https://youtu.be/QA-wi0d7-Ro

https://youtu.be/vAs9uFYvcrk

Daily weighing streak: 7, Weigh-in: +0.35 kgs, Exercise: +50, 310/1200 minutes for October

Good morning!

Yesterday was on plan. I tried not to worry about the IF 8 hour window, but ended up hungry at the usual times for it. I think dinner was still early but pushed up just a little. Anyway, it was enough of a spread that I felt much better about it. Weight was down today, after a six day holding pattern.

Beth, kudos on the 5 product day.

Curly, do you think the shorter days are zapping the motivation? I have my SAD light going to ward off the hibernation draw.

Bill, the class sounds fascinating! I don't think I've had swordfish, that I know of. I'm craving fish for dinner now, though.

Karen, enjoy your company!

Joy, credit for doing the yoga, and I'm glad the headache is easing up.

Hi all,

Another 5 product day for me. I had some temptations but reminded myself that I chose this--and it's the right way to get myself back on track and away from the sugar junk I love so much :-(.

Tonight was all about packing and running partial errands because I didn't have myself organized enough. We're now down to the last stuff for packing--all the cabinets and drawers are empty and we can see everything that still needs to be packed. We're about done and tomorrow and Friday we'll take apart furniture. We'll also go over to the new house and put up the new smoke/CO alarms--we removed all the ones that were there since they were old and various owners kept adding new ones--without removing the ones that were there. There were even a bunch of low voltage ones connected to a system that had been abandoned. We took everything down and the contractors patched all of the holes. The new ones are all the same and are much sleeker looking.

Tomorrow they start cleaning up--the trash and tools and floor protection will all get taken away and the contractors will clean the floors/walls/etc. I've got someone coming in Friday afternoon to clean the inside of all of the cabinets and do the bathrooms and such so it's all clean when we move in. I've put aside the two packed boxes of cleaning supplies and I bought a new broom--brooms don't travel from house to house :-)

I'm not sure if tomorrow is a 5 product day or not--it might be a 3 product day with one meal, given that it's my birthday--but then, food is not a reward.

G'night all!

--Beth

Thursday - Albert Einstein informs FDR of the possibilities of an atomic bomb (1939)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Exercise was chased the (3 yo) DGD day, CREDIT moi. She carefully lectured her doll, "Baby," about how to walk down the stairs. "Baby" didn't leave her side all day. The big event was to reveal the remaining eight dinosaurs of the set of a dozen we bought for her birthday last month. They immediately needed to have play-dough girls made to ride on their backs. DW, a stickler for biology, tried to explain that humans and dinosaurs didn't exist at the same time. This notion was soundly rejected. So, our kitchen was filled with happy play-dough girls riding dinosaurs. Then the dinosaurs went outside to the sandbox. Then back to the kitchen sink to have the sand washed off. The triumph came when DW convinced her that T-Rex was a friendly dinosaur so he could go home with her. They were last seen proudly being shown to her father when we dropped her off.

Eating was good enough, CREDIT moi, partially because I went out to a lecture for the evening where food wasn't served. If I planned an evening event without food every day, staying on plan would be easier. It seems like I could just learn 'adulting' where I made good food choices without depending on external circumstances. Breakfast included the last of our peaches; we don't plan to buy more because they've reached the end of their goodness. I substitute dried figs for peaches on my cereal during the winter months. Peaches are healthy; dried figs are concentrated sugar, despite their noble origin. Have to be careful.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Yay for the retreat of your headache.

Karen (karenrn) - Self-sufficient house guests are a joy - that should be taught in high school home-ec courses. (Good grief, when was home-ec last taught in schools?) Neat story about your friend's stem cell transplant.

curlyjax - It's always Kudos for stopping when mini-candy is involved.

Beth (bethturnaround) - Happy Birthday! I get tired just thinking about all you have to do to get moved. Love the notion of entirely new smoke/CO detectors. I spent a month changing batteries in a detector that would work then complain that the battery was low. Turns out that I didn't know that they had a seven-year life-span and whining about the battery was the signal that it was time to replace the entire unit.

Penny. - I would imagine that setting dinner time is a challenge with a full family to get onboard. Yay for scale movement.

Readers -

I had choir practice last night which was lovely. We practice in this musty old church where I feel very peaceful. I had a glass of wine when I came home at 9:30 but I did not eat anything. I had made a healthy dinner of quinoa, beans, carrots onions and pepper, and it did fill me up. DS ate this plus a sausage and was happy. I had also bought him half a pineapple pie which I can stay out of:) I should incorporate beans in my meals more often!
PT also yesterday confirmed that I have gained some strength and range of motion in my hip, so I am pleased. It still hurts but I can tell the difference. The drudgery of daily stretches has paid off! Now I need to apply that discipline to my eating.

karen- thanks for the PhitnPhat videos, that looks good! I like to hear from people who have done this and continue to keep off the weight, and who are older than 25:)
Penny-I have never used those lights but i know a lot of folks do. Usually I have energy in the fall but this year I am just dragging in the evening.

Credit for a successful 6-month visit to the dentist. I didn't used to be as rigorous but it seems to be paying off for my teeth.

Daily weighing streak: 8, Weigh-in: +0.05 kgs, Exercise: +30, 340/1200 minutes for October

Good morning!

Food was on plan and the darn weight went right back up to where it had been stalled. Ha!

Yesterday was quite a circus with cleaning out the catch-all room and moving beds around. We are having new flooring put in, the lower half of our split level, and the kids are playing musical rooms at that point. So, now I have a bunch of toys and clothes in the living room to sort and purge today.

Dh and I are upgrading back to a king bed,from a queen. I gave the queen away to one of the kids so we are sleeping on side-by-side twins until the king is delivered. We find it quite fun! Lol I declared myself Ernie, him Bert, of course.

Beth, how exciting to be getting so close! Kudos for the on plan day.

Bill, kudos for "good enough". I love the dinosaur play.

Curly, choir practice and a glass of wine sounds like a great evening. Credit for the healthy eating!

Karen, that blood type transition was interesting to me too. My mom had it and now I'm wondering if it affected her blood type. I believe her cancer was the same type, and she is 20 years in remission.

Joy, credit for getting the daily weights!

Good morning coaches,

This will be a short check in. Food was 100% on plan yesterday. I announced to my pregnant niece that I will go alcohol free along with her this week. I doubt she really cares, but it helps me. We just got back from a 4 mile strenuous hike. I need to keep at it, I am not fast.
However, even though she is pregnant I have to remind myself that she is 29 and extremely fit. She'll be going to Crossfit this afternoon. I need to get going on some strength training, since I'm not going to Crossfit. You all have a great day!