[curlyjax]

I was mindful to eat lots of healthy things yesterday, and did quite well until I stress ate some peanut butter mixed with brown sugar, as there was nothing else in the house that was sweet. I did do my weights and a bit of stationary bicycling. I watched more of the declutter class and they have good ideas.
Nationalparker- I’m exactly the same as you- I need to get my 2nd booster and shingles. I’m kind of waiting at this point on the booster as they’re talking about another potential one in the fall but maybe that’s not the right approach. Thanks for your offer on DD I know I am at fault for some of our tension as well.
Karen-I hear you, we just can’t let covid stop us at this point as it sounds like it will be with us for a long time. It’s always a challenge to get those PT exercises in!
I woke up early and went for a walk, yay. We’re in for a hot streak so this was the only time.

[maryann]

Good Morning,

Hail from the center of the Earth! Literally in Ecuador it is 0 degrees latitude and the highest elevation on the equator. We went to a museum where GPS read 0 degrees.
Two more days. We have snorkeled and mudrucked, kayaked and ogles penguins . Food is good and my pants are looser which is all I wanted.

wave to all

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

I had an extra snack of some air popped popcorn last night, but it was a small portion and weight is steady. I dropped my car off at the shop yesterday afternoon so today's exercise will be housework and PT exercises.

Maryann Good to hear from you. That would be really something to see that reading on the GPS.

Curlyjax Good for you getting an early walk in today. Yes, at this point I figure it's just risk management as far as Covid goes. I know we each have different risk tolerance just like investing.

Bill Implants are pretty cool; expensive but cool. I just had my annual visit with the periodontist who did mine and now it's guaranteed for life. Just to clarify, I have no qualms going to PT. That is not my issue with Covid . . . it's the travel that has some risk, but the other risk is losing my mind. So I will be careful and travel.

Nationalparker I think it's amazing how much weight can fluctuate with sodium, changes to activity, constipation, whatever. It's hard not to be all or nothing, but in any case I know I'll need to be mindful until the end of my days. I think my friends think they contracted Covid during their travels home because their symptoms started not long after being home. Both were in Italy, but one in the southern part and the other in the northern part. Both did go through London on the way home. I think it's so fun that you have your rock painting for a creative outlet.

Penny Too bad that the reverse diet isn't just maintenance. I was thinking about adding some calories after I reach my goal to help with muscle gains with strength training when I get to goal. It's the getting to goal part that I haven't achieved yet.

GardenerJoy Good luck with your presentation today. I'm sure it will go well as you are a pro.

Well on with the day. I guess I had better make a to do list or who knows what might or might not get done.

[gardenerjoy]

My presentation went well. It's a relief to have that done. They used three laptops and a fancy microphone / speaker system to make a hybrid meeting work, effectively, with about a dozen people in the room and half that at home on Zoom. I see why many organizations fail at conducting good hybrid meetings -- it takes a lot. Even with all of that, the Zoom folks couldn't really be heard in the room.

This was my first in-person meeting since early 2020. I half-joked to people that I was most worried about having a panic attack just from being in a room with that many people. It was a church with strict rules -- masked, vaccinated, no food or drink. So, it was as good of a first meeting as I was going to get.

I forget that I sometimes indulge in relief-eating that can be as bad or worse than stress-eating. So here's my reminder that I have other ways of winding down. This afternoon will be about catching up on paperwork because that's such a low-key activities and about planning the rest of the week now that the big event is completed.

Exercise +40, 940/1600 minutes for July

maryann: Good to hear from you! GPS 0 is pretty cool.

nationalparker: I read Devil in the White City while we were in Chicago the last time -- that was fun. The Splendid and the Vile is one of my favorite audiobooks. I'm still kind of new to audiobooks and discovering their delights. The rationing book sounds interesting -- I've been paying attention to articles on rationing in the Washington Post when I'm researching, but that's kind of a slow way to get the full story.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Moved about slowly in the 90+ degree Fahrenheit heat - quite warm for us. We're predicted to have a string of five days of this. Because of being in a rush, I went to the supermarket without a list. Worked just fine. Standard issue was choosing bananas with just the right range of ripeness to last a week.

Excitement was dinner at my favorite Greek Restaurant to celebrate my birthday. I had a baked lamb shank with red sauce and rice and green salad with a Hunk of feta cheese. Think I'm addicted to their large chunk of feta cheese. We had a window table a bit distanced from the other diners. The big crush was pickup. The front counter was mobbed with folks all in shorts, many in flip flops, few in masks, picking up their orders. Just super busy. I upped the tip because our waitress was actually running to try to keep up. It was a large meal; the closest thing I came to sane eating was having rice instead of French fries. They're know for a large plate of fries. Was promised ice cream today when we pick up the (6 yo) DGD from summer camp anticipating that it'll be too hot for a playground so we'll take her to their local ice cream parlor.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Congrats for a presentation well done. Yep, the hybrid meeting format is a super challenge. So hard for the Zoom folks to feel part of the group.

maryann - Waving back to Ecuador at the center of the earth. Have you adjusted to 12 hour days and 12 hour nights? Congrats on pants feeling good.

Karen (karenrn) - Do hope that your mechanic finds nothing serious wrong with your car. Thanks for "I know I'll need to be mindful until the end of my days."

curlyjax - Great to get in your exercise despite the hot weather. Hope your DD is surviving with her COVID.

MommaMeli - Continue to send supportive thoughts to you and your family.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

challenging situation skills

At the Event

8. Find an ally. Is there someone at the event in whom you can confide? Alert your ally in advance that you might need help if you have an intense craving. He/she could leave the room with you or distract you with conversation. Often just declaring aloud, "I'm not having any dessert," can be enough to exert the control you need to follow your plan.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 135.

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

Food was on plan yesterday although watermelon portion was a bit large. I felt pretty full after that and was sure weight would be up this morning but yay it is not. Car is still in the shop. I don't think it's a huge deal, just that they were busy. So again no hiking today. Being forced to stay home isn't all bad, but I sure wouldn't want it forever. I got out and walked Otis this morning and did a set of PT exercises. I've always got some housework I can do and puttering. I had a nice FaceTime visit with ds yesterday. They are remodeling the hamburger stand so he was able to show me what they are doing.

Bill A belated Happy Birthday to you! Your dinner at the Greek restaurant sounds good. Do you have air conditioning at your home? In Washington we didn't at our last house which was built in like 1926 but we could get a circulating breeze if we opened the basement door. The heat seems to be a problem almost everywhere right now.

GardenerJoy I'm glad your presentation went well. I'm sure the hybrid meeting would make it quite a bit more complicated.

Waving to everyone and sending good thoughts to MommaMeli.

[gardenerjoy]

We're on the first of a 5-day streak of highs around 100. Possibly 104 on Saturday -- as hot as it was in England, yesterday. That was a record for them. It wouldn't be for us, but it's still pretty hot! We may cancel our usual Saturday activity. We've never canceled due to heat, but we've never had a 104-degree day for it, either.

I went to the grocery store this morning. I have some other errands to run today, and a dentist appoint tomorrow morning. Other than that, I think I can just stay home for the duration, doing YouTube workouts for exercise.

Exercise +70, 1010/1600 minutes for July

BillBlueEyes: Happy Birthday! I hope you enjoy your birthday ice cream on a hot day!

karenrn: I worried about the folks in England without air conditioning. We stayed in three different hotels on our trip and only the last one had air conditioning. It was unseasonably warm for them that September and we thought it was too hot! Most places in Missouri have a/c now. Although that was less true when I was growing up.

[nationalparker]

Today has been a scramble to get the house clean (enough) and get misc. stuff done for my sister's visit. Her flight arrives close to 2 a.m., which saved about $100. I'm fine with driving to the airport and picking her up then, but will try to get a nap beforehand since I only got about three hours of sleep last night. My body just didn't seem tired. Even after Benadryl and melatonin and a warm bath. Just have the kitchen to finish and I'll do that after dinner. Our AC is having trouble keeping up with the hot sun and heat today, but it's still cooler than outside. bleh. DH is out of town, selling the tractors from his parents' estate, hopefully all going smoothly. I keep checking the thermostat to make sure the AC unit isn't losing much ground.

The zoo yesterday was hot and as expected, many of the smart animals were snoozing. DGS mainly wanted to see the small shark exhibit and stepdaughter, instead of starting and ending there as I like to do when there is a favorite spot, made him wait the whole dang day to enjoy it. {eyeroll} ... i keep thinking, not my kid, not my deal, as I'd suggested that from the start but she didn't want to walk much. Day went as well as expected, though. I did end up with poison ivy or oak or something on my shins.

I dropped off my snow tires and extra rims at the tire shop to get mounted and balanced and they set me up for an appt for this afternoon. She said we'll call when they're done. Huh? I said Oh, I thought I'd just wait for them since I had an appt. (Gas!) She said, oh, no, it'll be a few hours. We'll just call. So I went and picked up extra fruit, picked up our goodwill dropoff and got that done, and finished the DGS birthday shopping. I've realized that we need to "up" our game on our home toys as the kids get older, so the kinetic sand supplemental set will stay here and not be given as birthday.

Bill - Happy Birthday! That's quite a credit to skip the large plate of fries. I don't think I could...that is a guilty pleasure of mine. Especially good ones, not Ore-Ida type.

Karen - Whew - I'm just sweltering and it's only in the mid-90s here. The humidity just wallops you. I know they say, it's a dry heat, but you have some brutal temps. We have been buying A LOT of watermelons this summer, much more than usual. DH and I are knocking one out every few days. I said I am not going to worry about overeating watermelon. They're not like the HUGE seeded ones we got as kids.

Joy - I'm so glad all went well on your presentation! I can't imagine the roads buckling over there - i want to look up the news this evening to just see what they're going through. I saw a woman on the news this morning who was just so matter-of-fact about it - do what you can she said ahhh... those English I love it.

Joy - When we lived in Italy and Spain, we didn't have AC but they built the homes much wiser for cross ventilation, and we lived next to the beach so you got that breeze. The churches remained very cool but boy, the buses and everything else was just sweltering. My mom was such a trooper through all of that. We'd have hot summers, but not at all these triple digit days. .

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Excitement was picking up the (6 yo) DGD from summer camp. She was just bursting with stories of what was happening. 93 degrees F was much too hot to take her to a playground so we did the ice cream place in her town that she knows well and loves. I celebrated it as my "deserved" birthday ice cream, at least being aware that I was going to the effort to justify eating it. Ordered the smallest cups; got huge servings. Later learned from my DD that you have to order "Baby" cups to get a smallish size. Took half of mine away. Put it in the DD's freezer while we were dropping off the DGD and was sent home with it in an insulated lunch bag with a freezer pack. (My DD is so organized.) It arrived home in reasonable shape. Had it for evening snack. Call it planned since DW and I had agreed to do this ice cream parlor trip a few days ago.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, enough - even with the ice cream excursion. Dinner was eaten on the kitchen table inside since the outside air just wasn't inviting. DW saved a page from the New York Times with pictures of 100 summer salad ideas. "Think I'll up our salad game this summer," she suggested.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Ouch for 40 degree Celsius weather (doesn't sound as hot in Celsius, LOL). At least your dental appointment will be air conditioned.

nationalparker – Hope you get some sleep all with driving to the airport in the middle of the night. You do get the benefit of a cleaned house. Kudos for keeping your thoughts to yourself instead of becoming the evil-step-mother of lore. Alas, I know that notion of a house filling with toys just for the occasional visitor.

Karen (karenrn) - If one is to have a larger portion of some food, watermelon is the one. It's so neat that you can casually face-time with your DS all the way in Thailand. Our 1872 built Mansard-roof Victorian has no air conditioning. We use lots of fans.

MommaMeli - Continue to think of you guys and send supportive thoughts.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

challenging situation skills

At the Event

9. Use Resistance Techniques. At the event, if you are tempted by unplanned food, do the following: . . .

• Label what you're feeling at that moment: I'm just craving/hungry/thirsty/tired/upset/stressed/celebrating/happy.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 135.

[curlyjax]

I woke up early yesterday and went for a walk again. I had to get to work early, as I went as a chaperone on a loooong trip. We went up to Maine for a lobster bake and a show. Lobster was great but the venue was so hot, no a/c. I hadn’t slept well the night before and was miserable, I ended up sitting outside during the singing where it was breezy. Fortunately I was able to snooze a bit on the way home because I then had to zip off to Boston to bring DD the covid tests that were sent to my home instead of hers. On the way home I treated myself to ice cream, and then overate later because i was still a little hungry/wanting a treat. Total of 6 hours in a bus/car. I thought I would sleep like a log but no.
Back to sane eating today.
Gardenerjoy-glad your presentation went well. I feel for the folks in England too.
Nationalparker- you are a saint for picking someone up at that hour. Does DH have to bring the tractors to sell them, or photos?
Maryann- I would love to ogle penguins, how fun!
Karen-so awesome you can see what DS is doing. I wish I liked watermelon, seems like a nice cooling treat.
Bill-Happy Belated birthday too! My son chatted about having little girls climb on him yesterday at camp where he is a supervisor-no doubt DGD would be one of them if she were there.

[gardenerjoy]

Today's excitement is the first of two appointments to get a crown for the molar that I broke a few weeks ago. I have no clue what the rules will be about eating after, so I have no plan, which is dangerous. Here's my reminder that I can cope with one day without a plan but I want to get right back to it tomorrow.

Exercise +40, 1050/1600 minutes for July

BillBlueEyes: Happy Birthday, Central Park! I'm a fan of Frederick Law Olmsted.

[Penny.]

Good morning!

I'm struggling to get back to weightloss because my mental health is so much better when I don't have to worry about it. Tennis is still going and we practiced serves this week. My arm is sore!

Bill, happy birthday! The Greek restaurant sounds like a great choice for your celebratory meal.

Nationalparker, what a great story about the bull rug project in Spain! My project is a 30" square I've traced out from a work of digital art my son created. Very hard to describe but his style is whimsical with lots of colors and a bit of a scifi theme that leaves you wondering. Two of his pieces have already been made into paintings. If only I could figure out photo attatchments.

edit to see if I can attach the digital art. See, hard to describe. Lol

Stay cool, everyone!

[karenrn]

Good morning coaches,

Food was on plan yesterday except the too large portion was canteloup. I don't figure that is so bad either. Weight is the same. I picked up the car from the shop yesterday so I did head out for an early morning hike this morning. It was plenty warm, but overcast even when the sun came up so that was a good thing. Of course it's still over 90 degrees when I hike. The car repair shop changed the oil and tried to find the rattle but weren't able to discern the source. They did have it up on the rack and all and said they don't think it's anything serious. I will take it back in after I've returned from my trip. I don't feel like being without a car right now, nor do I feel like renting one.

Dn sent ultrasound photos of the baby this morning that certainly shows he is a boy and also a cute little foot. She saw a specialist who will follow her until after the baby is viable and then a different OB/Gyn will deliver. So for now she is seeing both. She's feeling great and we are so thrilled for them.

Penny I love the art. How do you transfer the photo to do the piece?

GardenerJoy I hope you have minimal restrictions with your dental procedure. My dentist does it in one appointment and I'm very grateful for that.

Curlyjax Sounds like you had a very busy day. Yes, I really love that I can see ds and what he's doing. It honestly makes me feel like he isn't that far away and that I see him frequently.

Bill I'm glad you didn't know to ask for the baby cup. A little larger portion of ice cream for your birthday seems like it's perfectly in order. I hope the fans work well to keep you cool enough. It's just terrible how often it is just too hot in places where it didn't used to be.

Nationalparker I am exhausted just hearing about how little sleep you are getting. I hope your sister likes to sleep and you can get caught up even with her there. Really our dry heat is totally different. I'm not saying it isn't bad, but I can feel it when I go outside and we do have higher humidity. I wish my dh liked watermelon. I have to only get enough that I will finish it. He is a produce broker and almost anything he has sold he doesn't want to eat because he has had to taste it too often years ago. That includes pineapple and cantaloup too.

I guess I had better get moving. I need to do my PT exercises.

[BillBlueEyes]

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was consumed inside to stay cool. Rather the opposite of what the temperatures called for, it was dahl - a warming winter meal. But I made a large green salad with our garden cukes and cherry tomatoes.

Excitement was a trip to Trader Joe's since I desperately needed roasted pecans for my peanut butter sandwich for lunch. I dawdled about the store in its air-conditioning as long as I could get away with before being arrested for vagrancy. Picked up two packages of their shrimp and veggies stir fry, immediately putting them in an insulated bag. Felt good to be prepared for that. And a month's worth of their dark roast coffee - which has become my favorite coffee. Resisted, with great effort, the dark chocolate covered roasted almonds. If they came home with me, they'd be an absolute addition to my calorie intake - they substitute for nothing, just add on. Did succumb to a prominently displayed bag of cranberry-orange scones. DW likes them, I told myself. Alas, so do I. At least they replace breakfast cereal so it's a swap not a total addition.


Joy (gardenerjoy) - Do hope you're allowed to eat after your dental work. I'd be a shame to lose weight on the "Crown Replacement Diet," LOL. Ah, Yes, around here we're also big fans of Frederick Law Olmsted for Boston's Emerald Necklace.

Karen (karenrn) - Glad that your car didn't have an unexpected major expense. Rattles take a bit of luck to get disclosed.

curlyjax - A lobster bake in Maine is just the best, although Maine is, indeed, a long drive for a good lobster. Hope your DD is recovering from her COVID.

Penny. - Enjoyed seeing your DS's whimsical digital art. And, Super Congrats to you for figuring out how to post the picture. I do wish it'd stop staring at me.

MommaMeli - Thinking about you and your family. Hope you are able to keep the kids cool in the current Texas heat.

Readers -

Chapter 6 Stage 3 - The Challenging Situations Plan

challenging situation skills

At the Event

9. Use Resistance Techniques. At the event, if you are tempted by unplanned food, do the following: . . .

• Stand firm; tell yourself, NO CHOICE . . . I'm not going to eat this food.

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., The Complete Beck Diet for Life (Green book), Pg 135.

[curlyjax]

I got into some junk at work yesterday, ugh. Once I started I just kept going. There are some hidden chocolates that I found out about and I ate so many of them over time I think I’ll have to replace them! I think its boredom. I have one sticky up on my desk to stay on plan but clearly I need another.
Today after work I am going to an open house type thing at a craft place, with some new folks at a meetup. I’m psyched to have something different to do. I was feeling lonely last night so I arranged to go to the movies tomorrow with a friend to see Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, so that will be fun and a good thing to do in the ongoing heatwave.
DD is feeling better with covid but still testing positive so can’t go to class. I do feel for her in this heat.
Gardenerjoy- good luck with the dentist. DH had lots of problems with his teeth and had crowns etc.
Penny- I’m struggling to get back to weightloss too. Very cool design!
Karen- so glad DN is doing well. So interesting about DH being a produce broker and having to taste fruit.
Bill-I think the scones are a good swap, its only one time after all.