[pattygirl63]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL SUE!!!
HAVE A BLESSED 75TH BIRTHDAY!!!

Good for you baking the cake. Don't worry about the gain this weekend as you are just celebrating 75 yrs that you have made. Enjoy today and you can get right back OP today. Besides you do MFP and you can count it and it will just be an up day.

I decided to go back to MFP today myself. I like that I can delete foods from the lists of foods that I don't use any more. I will kind of use what I've learned from WW and just count the calories. I left the high calorie at 1500 but of course won't worry about going that high. I don't mind having to eat 1000 calories to please MFP either whether I eat that many or not. The think is that I only have to eat what I want when I want it and be more mindful of portions.

Weight this morning was down to 190 which is a 3 lb gain from when I last tracked on MFP in December. So Sunday has now become my new WI day. I haven't eaten anything so far today. I am drinking my coffee with Premier shake in it. I have decided to start measuring that as well instead of just pouring it into my coffee as I have been. I want to be more in control of what I am doing as it is my desire and goal to be successful. I seem to lose slowly so I will do it in a way that I can enjoy doing it. I won't eat just to reach 1000 calories and I don't think I have to eat meals. The only meal I have to eat is the one I cook once a day to eat with DH. If I'm not hungry at any other time during the day I won't eat but if I do I'll just count whatever calories that I do eat. This is my personal plan.

Hope everyone has a blessed Sunday.

[Wannabehealthy]

Pipsicle, thank you for the birthday wishes.

I'm glad you enjoyed skiing and advanced to intermediate. I tried skiing once. I was too cold. If it hadn't been such a cold day I might have been more enthused and might have wanted to try again.

The cake spiked my blood sugar. I forgot about that aspect, but the cake IS delicious. Unfortunately step daughter and her DH are eating healthy and don't want any. So its up to my DH from here on in. Its a one time thing.


I've just spent the day relaxing, mostly reading.

[fatmad]

carol: Many Happy Returns of the Day. I agree, make the cake you want to have the cake you want. Well done and its good to enjoy the treat.
Trish: I hope you can find a way to curb things and not lose out on your hard won weight loss. You can do it.

Pipsicle: glad you enjoyed your holiday. Was there much crowding on the slopes? You allowed yourself plenty of fun and there is nothing wrong with that, but you can get back on track.

I got back on track last week, and will keep going. The lockdown can make it easier to cheat and eat, but it also makes it easier for me to not have treats for a while. No "occasions" to attend. I hope to keep going until March and keep losing. I don't have a strong plan right now, I am a little nervous to be having big expectations, but I need to get down closer to 140 or less, for the sake of my liver and to keep my blood sugars more stable.

Blessings friends, with hopes that we will all have success.

[Wannabehealthy]

Thank you for the birthday wishes Trish and Mad. It was a nice day. I'm glad I baked the cake. It was nice getting to taste it again. I am still trying to bring my blood sugar down from that and the spaghetti. That's another thing I won't have for a while since DH isn't crazy about it.

I'm not getting on the scale today. It was bad enough seeing the blood sugar number without seeing the scale, too. Tomorrow is another day.

We are getting a wintery mix this morning and it is to continue most of the day. Not a lot of accumulation but its cold enough that the roads will be slick, so no going out today unless they treat the roads well.

Trish, it sounds like you have a good plan going forward. You will be dropping back into the 180s soon.

Mad, now that you have your fasting plan working again I have no doubt you will reach your goal. You have always done well with fasting.

[pattygirl63]

Pipsicle I think the covid restrictions is causing problems for all of us. I used to be a person who wanted to be on the go all the time and I hate having to stay home so much. It makes it difficult to want to do anything. However, I am sure as the old saying goes "this too shall pass" so I push myself to do what I need to do but seem to find it difficult lately. So we do the best we can. I've seen people on the FB diet groups saying the same thing and a lot of people have gained rather than lose.

Carol Sue I'm so glad you enjoyed your birthday and had the cake and spaghetti. I'm sure you will get the blood sugar back down.

Fatmad You seem to have a good start back OP for you and I'm sure you will get back down to 140 or below.

I'm thinking I need to just do the Simply Filling plan and not worry about counting calories or anything. Just follow the plan. As I always do I know I have more calories and go nuts. If I don't have to count but can have the food on the plan, I don't seem to eat as much. Weight was up 1.2 lbs today and that is because I did great until evening and then went nuts. I really think I need to get back to eating brunch and then main meal and have an small evening snack as needed. My blood sugar is doing pretty good right now and I don't want to mess that up.

I got a quiz to do WebMD on whether it is good to be thin as you get older. I was surprised that I scored so low. The point of the whole thing is that as we get older that we need to be working to be healthy not skinny. They stressed the fact that while weighing less is good, being thin and frail isn't healthy either. I have never thought of that too much but lately I have seen older women who are too thin who can barely get around. While I am a little slower these days to keep from falling, I don't want to be skinny and frail. I told DH the other day that if he falls he is so small that it could be bad, but if I fall, I do have some padding to protect me. Not that I couldn't get hurt but I do have less chance of getting broken bones than him. Of course, since my bone tests have shown room for improvement, I wouldn't want to test that theory.

Today is exercise day so I need to get with it. Seems like I lose and then gain some back just bounce the same lbs. I sure pray we all will have a better day and week.

[Wannabehealthy]

Trish, my friend, the one who lost weight, has very little padding now. A couple weeks ago she fell on ice in the grocery store parking lot. She didn't seem to be hurt but she reported it, just in case. Now she is having problems with her back, hips and neck. She contacted the company who owns the shopping center and is working with their insurance company. She mainly wants her medical bills paid and she sees a chiropractor. It's hope she doesn't have any lasting injuries from this. I'm scared to death of falling.

I understand eating more when you know you have calories left over. I believe its the same with points. Our minds play tricks with us. Best to go according to your hunger.

[pattygirl63]

Carol Sue I do so hope your friend doesn't have lasting problems. I have a friend back in SC who hurt her sciatic nerve (I don't remember how hers happened) and as far as I know she has never gotten any real help and of course drs don't give pain meds that really work any more. She does water aerobics which I thinks helps her some. That is why I do the exercise I do.

I had a Simply Filling breakfast for brunch. Funny thing is the lady who has the SF on FB puts pictures of her meals on there and she laughed one day and said she still plays with her food. She makes a happy face with her eggs, bacon or whatever meat she has with it and her toast and some times her fruit. When I got my eggs and bacon out, I was going to have 2 of everything and as I was getting the bacon out, I saw her plate with a slice of bacon cut in half and used as a smile on the plate and then the toast cut in half for ears and decided that I could do that. So I did. I also have gotten my 15 minutes of what I call calisthenics and 21 minutes on the bike done.

I have a notebook with paper and I am tracking my food and checking off my exercise and water that I drink to get myself back on plan. Now that I know how to eat for me, I have to find a way to make it work for me. Strange thing is that when I talked to DS and told her that if you tell me I can have a certain # of calories, pts etc, I seem to be the kind of person who pushes that and more. Not a trait I am proud of, but it is there. So I have to learn how to reel it in and get control, she said she is the same way. I'm not sure why we both have that trait unless it has something to do with raised so strictly. I don't remember having any rules about eating as it was there and we just ate it. Strange though. Anyway, I have my plan so now I just need to work it. I think at this point it is best if I don't necessarily plan ahead because if I write it down I will either eat what I planned or think I still need to eat even if it is something different. So I will track it after I eat it to see how it goes.

I used to play a game with myself to see how little I could get by with eating. Maybe I will see if I can do that one again. Will see.

[Wannabehealthy]

Trish, my friend goes to a really good Chiropractor. If she can get fixed up, he will be the one to do it. She would not take pain med other than aspirin, or maybe Tylenol in an emergency. She is very careful what she takes. But she would have surgery if it is necessary. She said when she sits it feels like her hips are moving around, and I don't know what that might be.

There were never any rules about eating when I grew up. I only remember it when I was very young. When I was a teen was when money was really tight and no one cared if I ate or not because that meant more for everyone else. I don't remember ever being hungry, but I was also never stuffed and no one was overweight. To be honest, my weight problems and eating issues began after I lost weight the first time. From then on I fought to keep from regaining and it got harder and harder. Sometimes people say you don't lose if you don't eat enough, but I know I overeat. If I eat more I gain weight, and if I eat less, I lose weight. So I know what my problem is. If I only ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was no longer hungry I would not have a weight problem.

There is a big snow storm headed toward PA, but I saw on one TV station that it is going to miss us and go toward central PA. DH says we are going to get 10 inches, so we will see who is right!! I told him I hope he's right because then we won't be able to go to the casino. LOL

[pattygirl63]

Carol Sue I never ever thought of what I was going to eat or not eat and I didn't know what it was to be on a diet or worry about weight until after I went to college. That was when I ate when not hungry etc. I was probably 22 before I ever saw a diet doctor who my aunt took me to for shots to lose weight. That is when I got on the yo-yo/merry-go-round of dieting and I've been on it ever since. I can remember when they told us that yo-yo diets were good for us and then I remember when it all changed and they decided that it was bad for us. I honestly believe that I should never have dieted at all as I'm sure the diet shots that worked at the time wasn't as good as I thought all though it did work at the time.

I've had a good day today. I didn't eat too much and I managed to not eat the snacks that called my name. I see that this is definitely a One Day at A Time and hope that I can succeed more days than not. I have drank a lot of water today and I think that helped a lot.

[Wannabehealthy]

I got on the scale today and oh boy! 193.4. I know my celebrating didn't end on my birthday but continued through yesterday. It HAS to end today.

The snow didn't come overnight so I don't know if we are getting it at all. I hope we get some.

I know I'm making lasagna today for dinner before the meat and cheese goes bad.

I think I have to go back to a smaller eating window AND stick to it better. I recently read that to stop overeating you have to eat 3 meals a day and not allow yourself to get hungry. But that doesn't work for me. When I do that I overeat. I have to allow myself to experience and get used to hunger. Not "starving like I'm going to die" hunger but "gee I haven't eaten for A while" hunger. I can get ideas and tips from others but I can't keep trying what others are doing. I have to revert back to what I know works for me. We are all different and what works for one does not necessarily work for all. We have been saying that for years, haven't we? I am going to start using my fasting app again to keep me on track with this. Now that I've successfully stopped eating breakfast every day this will be easier for me. I can eat breakfast some days and not have the same eating windows every day.

I was having really bad potty issues for a week or so, and it might have been veggies. Especially the cabbage. I love sauteed cabbage and I tend to eat mostly cruciferous vegetables rather than others like salads, green beans, corn and peas.. In the past week I have had very few vegetables and my bowel movements have returned to normal. I will have to do something about that because I want the nutrition from vegetables but maybe need to eat smaller quantities and vary them with other vegetables. Or maybe I need to take an enzyme. I feel much better not in the bathroom all the time but I think that was keeping my weight down. I'm learning new things about my body every day.

[Wannabehealthy]

I am in a very good mood all of a sudden. I think that although my weight is really up, I am in a good mood because I have a plan that I think is going to work to correct it. Also, I finished off my cabbage and turnip for lunch to see if my theory about them is true. If not, then I guess something else was going on a couple weeks back. Maybe a stomach virus.

With my planned meals for today I think I will be below 1000 calories for the day. I might stop tracking on MFP and go according to my hunger. Knowing my calorie count might be working against me. I will still go there daily to post other info and keep up my streak. Who knows, I might feel the need to track again. But I think keeping my good mood might lead to success.

[pattygirl63]

Carol Sue I agree that we can take info from what others do but take from it only what works for us and throw out what doesn't. I agree not everything applies to everyone. I have a difficult time staying within an eating window because as I remember reading in an IE/Mindful eating book says... our body's hunger doesn't follow a clock. Sometimes my eating window is 6 or7 hrs sometimes it is longer. This is why I recently decided not to worry about those things.

I am learning more and more about eating SF and I have decided to use the Points Plus counting instead of the Smart Points counting plan. I'm finding it much easier to do. We got burgers from McD's. I got a double meat burger with onions only. I brought it home and put it on the SLMG and used the sliced Velveeta chees and everything I had for lunch except for my Fiber One bar I eat every day for dessert was zero pts with the bar being only 1 pt. Using the Points Plus counts, my taquito was only 0 pts because I used 1 slice Canadian bacon rather than regular. I will have to use the bacon I have till I run out of it but the lady on the FB SF group told me that Hormel bacon is only 1/2 point for 1 sl so I will buy it when I have to buy it again. That will be a while because I have almost 2 packages of bacon and mine is 1 pt a slice.

Weight this morning was 191.0 down .2 from yesterday. I expected it to be lower but then I remembered that the pizza I had yesterday which was about 4 pts I'm sure also had a lot of sodium in the FF cheese and pizza sauce. So I realized a .2 weight loss the day after eating pizza was good since it used to always go up a couple of lbs.

We went to Walmart today since I had to get my bp medicine refilled. We didn't need much but it didn't take long to rack up almost $90. But not sure what is going to happen in the future in USA so I got some more diabetic supplies and things they during the lockdown. I'm not sure it will get that bad again here but we still don't see some things in the store yet especially at Sam's where we get most of our paper goods. Not many people at the store the day before or after SS checks come in so it easy to get in and get out. I always find it so strange that there seems to be more cars in the parking lot than there are people inside the store.

I ordered a kindle book that summarizes one of Dr. Gundry's books. I've never been interested in another diet, I thought he might have some sort of information or idea that I haven't thought of. I keep saying I'm not going to buy another book but I always get another one.

[Wannabehealthy]

My Wt is down .6 to 192.8. I'm not surprised because I didn't think the 193 was right.

Trish, I find that an eating window is helpful to me since I am an over eater. I also find that feeling a little bit hungry is a better feeling for me than feeling stuffed and I don't seem to know when I've had enough food. Before I know it I'm stuffed and feeling miserable. Often I've felt hungry but got busy doing something and the hungry feeling went away. I think when we eat on the same schedule our bodies get used to getting food at a certain time. I don't know if that's good or bad. I think sometimes its false hunger because we always eat at that time. Some people suggest varying your eating times so your body doesn't adapt. So I don't intend to have the same eating window every day. I don't want to go back to eating breakfast every day now that I know I can do just fine without it. I want to decide day by day. Sometimes have a very short window and sometimes longer. And sometimes I might have a snack in the evening for an even longer window. I just know that going to bed with an empty stomach works best for me.

I did find out that the cabbage bothered me a bit yesterday. About an hour after I ate it I had some discomfort and then had an urgent bathroom visit. It wasn't D but it wasn't normal. I want to start eating a wider variety of veggies and not as much as the ones that bother me.

We went to Wal-Mart yesterday because I had a prescription ready, too. I have been keeping well stocked on some things too, like paper products. I try to buy test strips when I open a new box instead of waiting til I'm low. Pain relief is another. The shelves at Wal-Mart are often bare so I make sure I have enough Tylenol Arthritis and DH has Advil.

Step daughter bought us a gift card to the local grocery. We don't shop there much because they are expensive and some of their products are not fresh. But we are going there today because because there are a few things that we like from there and I want to use the gift card before I forget. DH likes their bakery and I want to get a rotisserie chicken and a few other things I can't get anywhere else. The big snow storm never came and we are not expecting any until the weekend.

[pattygirl63]

I decided to go on MFP and track all the food I ate yesterday. It turns out that I ate between 1200 -1300 calories. It has worked out that way when I've gone in and tracked before doing this so if I continue eating this way the weight should move. Slow but it should at least move. I'm stuck at 191 right now but that is okay if I eventually go down like I should. I did have a lot of sodium but I drank a lot of water so no big deal. I measured to see how many ounces of water the glass I use holds and 1 only have to drink 2.5 glasses of water in it is more than 8 glasses of water but I usually dring 3 or more glasses in it. So I am probably getting closer to 90 oz of water instead of 64 plus the coffee and milk that I drink. I still of the old school that 8 oz of fluids should be water. Another good thing is my bp is closer to normal all the time no extreme lows and bs is almost always under 120. So I am happy with my progress.

Today is our 18th anniversary so I'm cooking a beef roast and this time I decided since DH isn't big on the potato except with roast and I don't want to go over eating them to just add 2 whole potatoes in to cook with the roast and I will cut them when we get ready to eat. We got some fresh corn yesterday which are now in the freezer and I will cook one a piece for us today along with a salad. I usually cook carrots which we both like but I want to use those when I make stew out of the left over meat.

Carol Sue Thanks for mentioning the roasted chicken. Now that I'm doing SFPP plan I can have that again. I quit buying it because on the newer WW plans you can't have the dark meat as 0 pts which is crazy to me since DD told me there is a lot of nutrition we need in it and then I read that the dark meat is where the iron is. I can pick up a roasted chicken sometime as the local store on Friday when we we aren't going out with DS and DBIL. He is getting more work right now so we aren't sure if he will be off Friday. I just might get one Friday if he works. I can get a lot of 0 pts meals out of the left overs. 3 or 4 oz of meat with a finger salad makes a nice 0 pts snack or evening meal.

No bad weather till the weekend means your DH will be wanting to make a trip to the casino. I hope you both win when you go.

Fatmad, Pipsicle and lurkers... Have a blessed day.

[Wannabehealthy]

Happy anniversary, Trish. The roast sounds good. I wanted to buy a rump roast today but they didn't have any. DH says he likes that better than pot roast. I did buy the chicken and we ate 1 leg and 1 breast with mashed potatoes and green peas. Tomorrow I will make a chicken sandwich with leftovers.

I still ate too much today. Tomorrow will help because we will go to the casino and I won't be around food all day. I have to get back to lighter eating.