I'm heading to bed. I can't say it was easy not to eat anything else today after coming home. I got very hungry to night, but I have over a week of no nighttime eating and I was afraid to eat anything because I don't want to mess up the 21 days of no snacking. If I can make it this week, I will have 14 days of no evening snacks. I also have done only 1 meal today. This is a biggy for me because I figure if I could do this today then that means that I can do this. This will give me one day this week that was just 1 meal. Now that I have no commitments of anything except going to see Daddy 2 days a week and one of those is when I go to the beauty shop on Fridays, maybe I can do OMAD 2 days a week. That would be a great accomplishment for me. I will also work at getting carbs down between 70 and 100 grams.

Carol Sue I hope your TG dinner etc was good to you and you are pain free from all that work.

Goodnight.

Wt 197.5 up one lb over Thanksgiving. Acceptable. FBG 134

Pipsicle, I am so sorry you have to deal with these issues with the in-laws. I hope you can control the stress eating from this. It sounds like they are not worth ruining your diet over. At least you don't have to see them that often. Try to let it roll off your back and keep going as best you can. Everyone has off days.

Trish, I am so proud of you and jealous of how well you are doing with your eating. Keeping to your eating window and avoiding the evening snacks. That is such a plus. I think I could aim for sticking to a smaller eating window and an occasional OMAD. I hope you are able to continue to control blood sugar without meds. It's so much better to do that. I am thankful that my doctor is satisfied with my A1c so he won't add/increase meds, and in the meantime I can work at getting it lower. I CAN do it, with diligence.

My step daughter did not leave to go shopping. We had a nice visit and she did all the cleanup. DH scrubbed the roasting pans, as he always does. There wasn't a lot to clean up because I clean up as I go along cooking, so just the dishes we ate on and the serving bowls. I was so exhausted and once I hit my recliner I didn't move. I was very happy that I did not have any pain Wed or Thurs. and that allowed me to get everything done, but the had pain is back today. I am examining what I ate and drank to look for a cause. It might be the diet soda. I didn't have any all week then had one yesterday. I will look to see what sweetener is in it. I don't use much sweetener, except for in my occasional cup of tea. I switched that to Splenda. Otherwise, the only thing I had was too much carb.

This year the cornbread and sausage dressing was a big hit and the other stuffing was barely touched. Who knows what changed their mind. LOL They also liked my yams, and they are going to make that at home. It was the easiest thing in the world. I took a taste, but it's much too sweet for me. DH didn't go near it. The only vegetable I had was corn. No one was interested in vegetables. LOL

Step daughter took most of the leftovers home except some turkey and pie. I will try my best to stay away from the pie. It's mostly the Reddi Whip on top of it that I like. I can put that on my SF Jello.

I found out that my SIL and BIL stayed home and cooked. I don't know if they had people over. The less I know about it, the less I will feel guilty about not inviting them. I realize that once I cook the food it doesn't really matter how many people are here to eat it, but I can no longer handle the stress of company. And my house is really too small for it. I will try to just let it go. I might invite them for Christmas. That is a much more informal day here for us, not a sit down dinner. I have a month to decide. I need to down size.

I just ate some scrambled eggs and they were refreshing after all the carbs and rich food.

A quick flyby as I'm running late to beauty shop. Weight only up 1.4 lbs and FBS up 6 from yesterday at 149. So that is acceptable. Low carb breakfast and out the door. BBL to read and answer.

Pipsicle, I hope things went ok in the end and you didn't need a comfort food binge to get through your time with the in-laws. Its easy to say "ignore the judgements" but another thing to live it.

Glad you did well Carol and Trish, a good day for you both overall. I was still 158 today, and am starting another fast after 3 days of regular eating, with no weight gain. I did eat liberally. Perhaps a bit too liberal like the apple crisp the other night. And some ice cream the night after. I managed last night without a dessert. I think I need to eat more main course instead. Dr. Fung talks about second stomach, and its a desire for something else. That can be a different thing, like a salad instead of dessert.

Sadly, work is not busy yet. I was supposed to have a client getting induced, so thinking I would be working I planned this fast. Its harder when I am not busy.
I did get out for a walk today, and should meditate/nap, do weights/ do yoga etc. All the "shoulds".

But I will try that nap.

Pipsicle I am so sorry you had such a stressful TG with your DH family. I went some of that with DH#2 family. As long as it was just us with his Mother and her Hubby and DH brothers we had a great time together with no problems. His Mother and Dad were divorced many times he was there when she and DH were there and we had a blast. However, when we would come to Waco to DH Grandmothers and his aunt and cousins were there the whole atmosphere changed. I often wondered why we went. They always had the attitude that they were better than us and things were strained. DH many times would be found laying on his grandparents bed asleep and I sat and felt out of place because I was made to feel inferior. We didn't agree with their politics, but we never discussed that or our faith with them. Of course, I don't think any of us had problems with each others beliefs as we were all in different faiths. But DH grandmother would let you know if you didn't think like she did about politics and some other things, you were stupid. There were times I just set off alone and just listened to all of them or I would go in and help in the kitchen. Even DH aunt thought she was better than his Mother so this was what set the tone of the whole place. So I really understand what you are going through. I think the only thing that kept me from over eating was that I wasn't one to eat a lot in front of people. I was a secret eater. Sad to say, but DH and dreaded going to those family functions and we were so glad when we could leave and go home.

Carol Sue Sounds like everyone had a good visit at your dinner. That makes the work you put into it so worth it. I saw on FB a picture shared by baby sister's second sons daughters of everyone at her grandfathers TG dinner gathering and evidently baby sister and BIL went there for the day instead of his family. They were in the picture. None of her other son's were there. Turns out 2 of them went to their brother's ex-wife's although they didn't get there until after Daddy went home.

I got to thinking last night when I went to bed and although I did good with the eating yesterday, it didn't fit the 1 hr CAD RM rule because everybody ate so much at the meal they didn't want desserts until about an hour after we ate so my eating window was just an IF not a CAD eating window which was problem an eating window of 1 1/2 to 2 hr window. So by the time ate again this morning before going to the beauty shop was an 18 hr fast. If I hadn't had to go to the beauty shop and to see Daddy, I could have made this another OMAD. I don't want to do OMAD on a regular basis because I read on FB where Dr. Fung suggests not doing that all the time when losing weight because it seems to make it harder to lose when you hit a plateau.

fatmad I think this is why you do so well with the weight loss because of the way you mix up your eating window with your fasting.

Oh Carol Sue. I wanted to share with you what we learned about Daddy and his hands and the numbness and pain. He has corpal tunnel syndrome. The doctor ordered splints for both hands. You can get them at CVS or some other drugstore. It even causes the pain up into the elbow according to the neurologist. He said for Daddy to wear them when he sleeps at night. I don't know if that will help you are not. I think I bought one years ago from Walmart and I'm going to see if I can find it and also get another one and see if that helps. Also Daddy exercises his hands a lot and I asked the doctor about that and he said it was good to keep them moving.

I got fish out for our lunch today and saving the turkey for another time. Trying to stay within a 6 to 8 hr window today because I had to eat early.

Trish I have one of those wrist splints I got at Goodwill. Looked new in the package. It is for either hand. I wear it to bed sometimes if the pain is bad. I don't wear it during the day because it makes it hard to do things. I don't know if mine is carpel tunnel. DH took vit b6 and it cured his carpet tunnel. It took time. I have some but don't remember to take it daily.

My pain went away after a while. We were out and I had 2 diet pepsiS. The pain seems to come the next day so i will see what happens.

I agree that you should vary your eating schedule.

Carol Sue The doctor said to wear the splint only at night to keep him from moving his hands so much during the night while he sleeps. I didn't know about the Vitamin B6. I never really thought about the diet drinks. I have to admit that my hands have been hurting today which is rare these days and it is either caused from the sugar in the pies and the tea I had yesterday or from the diet drinks I have drank this past week. I won't be eating sugar any more and I will have to not leave the diet drinks alone and see what happens.

Editied : to correct... I mean I will leave the diet drinks alone for a while to see what happens. Diet drinks are something I enjoy on occasion but don't have to have all the time.

No scale yet. FBG 167.

Trish I am just suspecting the diet soda because that was what I did different. I will stop it again and see. I am actually gettin g tired of sodas and have been preferring sparkling water. And it only brought back the hand pain not the feet or legs. .it is worst when I get up and improves as the day goes on.

B6 is commonly used for nerve issues, and swelling like carpal tunnel. The splints help by hold the wrist in a good position so that the nerves are not so easily compressed. They are compressed as they pass through a small "tunnel" in the wrist bones. (like up the hand bones on line, its fascinating, so many small bones fitted together the give us the dextrous hands we have, if you believe in miracles, the human hand is one of them, IMHO) and anything that causes the hands and wrists to swell can cause this temporarily or longer.
I have broken my latest fast, just 36 hours, not too long, just supper Thursday to breakfast today, and I say its broken because I put cream in my tea. I will make a nice frittata or something for brunch, and will have a yummy supper. We will go to the market today and buy food for the next few days. So that requires that I plan meals for a few days, and maybe a fast in there.
Was great fasting while working yesterday and last night, easier than figuring out about eating and whether I am eating "right" etc. I expect at least one more delivery this weekend. So that would be another good day to fast, Sunday if that works out. Not sure about during the week. If I do 2MAD on Monday and Tuesday and fast on Wednesday that may be enough. I want the weight to go down, but not to fast too much. Maybe one 66 or two 36 hour fasts in a week.
Trish, the Fung sites do really encourage mixing it up with the fasts, OMAD and 2MAD so we keep the body guessing and don't slow down with starvation hormones etc. Like we get a lot of people who do OMAD too regularly, and their bodies start reacting like they are on a calorie restricted diet, which of course they are now. Its so fun to hear people say, "you have to eat more if you want to lose weight". Its so true. When I eat I don't worry about calories, and while I don't have a lot of carbs, even the carbs I enjoyed last week when I "caved" and had the apple crisp etc did not have much impact.
I am pretty much off the diet sodas too Carol. I do like the schweppes diet ginger ale though. Especially with a little unsweetened cranberry juice in it. I only have it for a treat (about once a week) and with a meal, because we see that all sweeteners trigger insulin, so I have it when I would have eaten and released insulin anyhow. Sticking to plain sparkling water outside of meal times, or just water. Flavourings, even unsweetened things like lemon juice etc are supposed to cause insulin to release too. Which is what we want to avoid with IF. I am wondering about having regular (non diet) ginger ale instead.
I am really happy to have broken this plateau, and I think the waist measurement will follow the pounds I am down. Today it was a smidge under 35 inches. It seems to take a few days for that to happen after weight loss, but I feel it already. I "feel" skinnier. Thats a nice thing to have happen, and for years I NEVER felt that way, even if I lost some weight. Interesting times for sure.
I did get a walk in yesterday, and a meditation/nap. I need to start the weights for my arms though. I did some "before" pics the other night, and I want to do a little every day and see the difference at Christmas, if there is one.
Have a good weekend friends.

fatmad I found your facelift pic on the FB site and you look great. I saw you with your DD too and she is very pretty. You have really got this IF thing down.

Carol Sue I edited my previous message because I meant to say I am not going to be drinking the diet drinks. While I do enjoy one once in a while, I'm not one of those people who thinks I have to drink one everyday. I can be satisfied with water, tea and coffee. However, I haven't given up my sweetener as of yet and really don't want to, but that might be the next thing that has to go. If so, I will wait until after the holidays.

I agree about the sugar may be a problem for pain too as I also noticed that my hand pain returned only after eating all that sugar TG day. The tea was sweetened with s ugar and then I ate those desserts. Although I didn't really have a lot, it was a lot to hit my system with all at once in such a short time to stay within the 2 hr window. I do get a little sugar in my dark chocolate, but not that much.

There used to be a network that our doctor's office had on their tv all the time called Everyday Health. I joined it recently online so I could get info from them. They help you with eating healthy and I used to watch them tell people with diabetes, heart disease etc how to cook for whatever problem they had to be healthy.

Last night I was reading a diet plan they suggested to follow that sounds a lot like South Beach Diet. I really like that plan except I never liked having to go Fat Free. However, this plan stresses the importance of healthy fats and healthy carbs even grains. It is so easy to follow and eat healthy that I think I am going to just use it for my food choices and not do CAD.

My idea is to just eat within the 8:16 IF window and make good healthy choices like this plan suggests. It really doesn't have a name. What drew me to the article about it was the title said something like "The best diet to follow without stressing out". I had just read that stress raises our blood sugar which I saw that if we are stressed out about food as to when am I eating the right food and not etc, then we aren't really helping solve our problem. This may be why I have a difficult time getting my FBS where I want it.

So as part of my de-stressing, I will use this plan along with IF and just use the 8:16 for now. The main thing is don't get back in the habit of snacking. I like the 2MAD, but I think I will throw in some 3 meals once in a while just to keep things shook up.

Y'all have a good day.

I just found this article online and thought someone else might like to read it. I don't think I could get DH to go back to full fat milk because it was such a struggle to get him to stop. Now he really likes the skim milk. One time he bought regular milk by mistake and thought it had gone bad. Anyway, I eat full fat cheese and like the full fat yogurt, so that will be my full fat dairy.

https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/sp...ic-health.html

Mad, I don't know if you had your liver tested yet, but this article says that dairy fat reduces fat in the liver. Interesting how things have changed.

I would like to see your pics. I will have to look into that. I am not good with Facebook and that's why I don't spend much time on it. I have seen your picture in your profile, but want to see you before/after.

Trish, when do you have your sweetener? I drink my coffee black and only use Splenda in my tea when I drink it. I recently bought some Bigelow Salted Caramel tea and it is less bitter than other tea, and I can drink it without sweetener. It doesn't taste sweet, just not as bitter. I still don't drink tea very often. I don't know why because I like it. It's just not my first go-to.

I am going to look into the Everday Health site. I can never learn too much about healthy eating. DH went out to pick up a fish sandwich. I will eat one piece of fish on a dish. DH will eat the other piece of fish, the bun and the french fries.

We had 2 pumpkin pies left. We gave one to my BIL and DH will eat the other one. It will probably be gone by tomorrow. Bye bye sugar laden junk food!!

I have been very lazy today, just resting, taking short naps, and reading. I have a sweater on as I'm very cold. I don't think I'm getting sick, but just need some rest after Thanksgiving.

Carol Sue I drink my coffee with sweetener in the morning before breakfast. I usually have another cup after lunch in my Pecan coffee, but today I drank it black and I was fine. I am starting to drink a variety of teas and am trying to drink them w/o it too. I used to drink all my coffee black, but when the sweeteners and flavored creamers came out, I started using them.

I found the article very interesting. I was fairly thin when I went to live with my aunt when I quit college. I always thought the fact that I ate more meals when I was in college was why I started putting on weight. Although I did gain some then, I really didn't gain weight until I went to live with her. I really put on the weight when I went to live with her and blamed her making me go from eating 2 meals a day to 3. However, throughout the years, I thought about how she only bought skim milk. I must have gone through almost 2 gallons of it a week because I just couldn't get enough of it and often wondered why. I had problems and she took me to this Nature Path friend of hers (she was really into health food stores and vitamins etc) and he said I needed calcium. That sounded crazy to me since I drank so much milk. But then I had never eaten anything low fat and we always drank full fat milk. After reading that I realized that could have contributed to a lot of problems.

Also makes me wonder about DH. He never drank lowfat or skim milk until he married me. Could that have let to him being diabetic. I hope we can stay on top of these studies.

Thanks for the link, Carol. My brief foray into low fat was VERY short lived. It lasted about 2 weeks. I read about it in a book from the library, but quickly found I was starving hungry and ate way too much. I gained weight immediately, tried calorie counting to counteract that, and was hungry and miserable and quit that. Gained about 5 pounds in 2 weeks, that took about 6 months to take off.
I was never one who changed eating habits based on one off studies, so I don't know why I bit into that one, the scientific case was never strong. I never stopped eating eggs for instance, with all the "heart health" baloney out there. Of course they were later proven to have no negative effect on blood cholesterol. I have stuck to regular milk, although its harder and quite a bit more expensive to by full fat milk. We are virtually never buying milk now. When we have tea we now have cream in it (or plain if I am not taking it with food) I may arrange to share with my neighbours who buy lactose free milk. I think they buy the bags, so maybe I can get one bag from them a month. Because we don't eat cereal for breakfast, DH has almost no use for it. I don't have milk with meals anymore. Although maybe that would be a way to add some calories when I am doing 2MAD. I eat lots of dairy though, yogurt, kefir, cheese etc. and use butter a lot.

To answer your question Carol, my blood work showed no major concern about my liver, although my LDL (bad) cholesterol is high. This is very common for people doing IF or IDM with significant weight loss. So I am not worried. I didn't get my ultrasound yet, that will be on Friday morning. I think I told you I had the wrong day written down somehow. The doc's office had the 19th, and so did I, but the hospital had the 15th. Not sure how that happened, but I got rebooked to the 30th, so will have that information in about 10 days. They usually get the report pretty quickly and will call based on that.

I the meantime, I am staying at 158, although i ate way too carb-y yesterday. Made loaded nachos for supper. I had lots of leftover beef, from steaks with DD was here, and a pot roast the other night. I cut it up in small chunks, reheated with my homemade taco seasoning, and the put it on tortilla chips with chopped pepper, cheese and had salsa on the side. DH love it, even though he thought he would like the beef on it. SO funny.
I am planning alternate day fasting this week, so this will not be an eating day for me. That may be harder than usual since I had so many carbs yesterday. Will see.
I still feel a little bloated from it, and didn't measure this morning. I should quit the scale but just can't. At least we are all at the age where we don't have to worry about hormone cycles giving us ups and downs.

Have a good Sunday

Wt 193.5 I don't know how that happened! I didn't weigh yesterday. Maybe my water pill started working. FBG 150. I woke up at 3AM and FBG was 150. Now high enough to take meds since I was going back to bed. Got up at 9AM and it was 150. I probably spiked around 5-6 and then came back down again. I have now taken meds.

Mad, I really don't like weighing every day but so many people recommend it for different reasons, so I am trying to get myself used to it. It seems to be working, although I sometimes forget until after I've had food and coffee. The fluctuations can be very depressing, unless you realize that they are normal and everyone has them. Before I wouldn't weigh unless I "felt" lighter. I didn't feel lighter today but I am somehow.
I'm surprised that you wrote that full fat milk is more expensive. All milk is the same price around here. I have never really followed low fat. Products labeled low fat don't usually taste good to me. When DH had his heart attack in 1993 they gave him skim milk in the hospital, so we grandually switched to it at home. 2%, then 1%, then one store had 1/2%. Now he is used to it and probably wouldn't understand if I told him to increase the fat. When he hears discussions about "Eat Fat, Lose Weight" he scoffs. He says there's no way you can lose weight by eating fat. He says this while eating copius amounts of baked goods. LOL

I sometimes use Pam spray to cook my eggs but I do that because it is non-stick. Otherwise, I use a lot of butter, and actually eat it straight. I like the taste of butter. I don't go so far as to add extra fat to my food, but I don't avoid it.

Trish, I checked the Bigelow Salted Caramel tea online because I wondered if it had any sweetener in it, but it doesn't. Everything says 0 except for Vit C and Potassium, so I can get some potassium from that. It doesn't taste sweet, but it is not bitter so I can drink it without any sweetener. It also doesn't taste like caramel.

For a while I was drinking the Aldi's SF coffee creamer but I finally stopped. I still have 1 1/2 cannisters of it and might drink it once in a while. For some reason, when I'm eating eggs, my coffee has to be black. Also, if I have black coffee, it has to be very hot. If it cools, I dump it out and pour new.

DH just made scrambled eggs. His scrambled eggs are so good. They are soft and fluffy, and very buttery. It has ruined me for scrambled eggs in a restaurant. Theirs seem hard and rubbery by comparison. I always tell him they need him to show them how to cook scrambled eggs. There is a woman on the LC forum who pours melted butter over her eggs, even hard boiled eggs. That is one good way to add fat.

I have a small list written for Walmart so I will probably be going there today. I will have to find out what time the football game is. DH doesn't like to go during the football game, but I like to, because it's not as crowded when people are home watching football.

Tomorrow we have to take our car for inspection. Our appointment is for 11. I like going there because they have free WIFI for their customers. I can go there and get online while I'm waiting. They also have free doughnuts, but we won't talk about that! LOL We are supposed to get a snow storm later in the day so I hope we get home before that.

My weight was up a 2 lbs today and my FBS was 156. All because I was starving last night and ended up eating things I know I cannot eat at night. The #1 good thing about weighing everyday and then averaging the weekly loss is what saves me from giving up. Although it looks like I gained a lb this week, when I averaged out the weekly loss, I actually lost .5 lb this week. I can accept that and hope to do better next wee.

I shared with DH about the article about the full fat milk and his 1st response was "Here we go again", but then he said when we go to the store tomorrow for me to get regular full fat milk. In fact, I am going to eventually get rid of all my low fat foods even light. I use that stuff to eat less calories and I have always been told I don't eat enough fat. I'm thinking that if you just eat normal food that you probably won't eat more calories because as they have learned the fat keeps you from being hungry all the time so you will eat less. Besides the thing I've always hated about the fat free/low fat foods is that they are always full of salt.

I began wondering about some of this stuff recently when Daddy and I were talking about soybeans. I love soybeans but not necessarily some of the foods made from it. I stopped eating edeme (sorry can't spell it right now) and soy milk, but gave it up when I read that women past menopause should not use it because they think it causes breast cancer. I asked my niece who works for the Cancer Association about it and she said they weren't sure if it caused cancer in women my age or not and advised me not to use it. When I told my Daddy about it he said, "We never heard of soybean when I was young on the farm until they started using it to make plastic". It made me remember the story of the margarine which we are made to believe is good for us. I read in a nutrition article one that the government made it to fatten up cattle or hogs, can't remember which, but the animals would not touch it. The investors didn't want to lose their money so they decided to color it yellow and sell it as margarine and told people it was good for them.

Since that conversation, I have been wondering just how all these diet, low fat, fat free, etc stuff is for us. It is amazing to me how we have been duped into believing that a lot of things we did that was healthy for us growing up before we had weight problems are suddenly supposed to be our problem.

For years I ate only when hungry... sometimes 1MAD and sometime 2 and an occasionally 3. It was when I started following someone else's my aunt's "supposedly healthy" way of eating that I started having weight problems. I have a book written about people who successfully lost weight and kept it off for 3 yrs or longer. I remember how one man in particular said "Break all the rules". That was how he got control and lost weight and kept it off. I have to wonder if that isn't the right way to look at it. I'm just not sure I have the nerve or faith to try it.
I mean low carb works for so many and then Dr. Fung comes along and literally goes against all the rules and I find that the way I ate before I started following "diet" rules was the healthiest and best way to eat. That was even the way DH ate until I married him and told him he needed to follow the rules. So sad.

I do want to eat foods to lower my bad cholesterol and triglycerides and that is easy to do with the nuts mentioned and exercise. Also I am going to include oatmeal in my plan at least 2 or 3 days a week.

Wasn't able to get Daddy on the phone yesterday. So going to try to talk to him today.

Y'all have a great day.