Hello,
a quick drive by. DBF and 3 dogs just left, I am exhausted. He had his grand kids lab while they are in Disney. She loved the yard, and played ball all day. We took her a few places to get pictures to send to the kids so they could see she was also having a fun vacation.

I got my truck registered and this afternoon I am getting it inspected, also going to the dump. I need to start packing, I head back to Vt on Sunday and we leave for NY on Monday, back on Thursday to Vt, then home here on Friday. I have so much to do. I am a bit overwhelmed as usual. Eating has been good and except for Tuesday where it rained and snowed, I got in 6500-10k steps every day,

Wow, Ann, you have been busy and have a lot coming up.
I am hoping to paint the kitchen ceiling today. I have nothing else on except doing a couple of loads of laundry.
I have not managed to fast more than 22 hrs since the Easter weekend.
a couple of days of OMAD for that 22 hrs, but mostly 2MAD. Not always on plan.
Weight is 159 this am.
Its a rainy day so Buddy and I did not walk far, but will have a nicer walk later this afternoon I think, the rain looks to move off.
Have a good day everyone.

Ann, You are one busy lady. Hope you enjoy your trips.

Fatmad, Sounds like the remodeling of your kitchen is coming along nicely.

Carol Sue, We used to carry all kinds of goodies in the car especially on long trips. Now I just keep water in the car but then we don't go vey far from home any more. I hope you hand feels better soon.

Weight is up to 185.2 which is a blessing that it wasn't worse. I talked to babysister yesterday and she said they had gotten so busy moving into the place they are renting that they had ended up eating only OMAD. She said when she got on the scale she was shocked that she weighed only 100 lbs. I think it even scared her. You know she is the one the doctor told her to stop losing weight. I told DS today that the one thing BS never did was eat the way we were taught to eat. If I had done what she did and just eat when hungry and not eat when I'm not, I would never have gained weight in the first place.

I decided today to go back to eating that way again. If I am hungry and can figure out what I am hungry for, I will eat. If not, I'm not going to eat. If I think I'm hungry and don't know what I want, I will take that as "Not really hungry" but thirsty and drink water. I still like the original rules of Intuitive Eating and will go back to doing it the way I did before I ever heard the term Intuitive Eating. I don't even want to think about Intermittent Fasting either because I am bad about trying to fit my life into a box that doesn't work. I think it just makes me eat just to stay within that time frame.

Edited to correct this story I just re-read. I saw a woman on FB IF group who said she weighed the most she's weighed 6 yrs ago. Took her 2 yrs to lose 75 lbs although she doesn't say how she lost it. The 4 yrs ago she stalled and was stalled for 2 years stalled before she started losing again. Then she started doing IF and has now lost 30 more lbs.

I think my problem is that I don't have the patients stick to one way of eating with no results at all. I still will do low carb/low fat woe, but no window. Right now I am fasting so will have my 5:2 fast, but no other rules. I will try to learn to eat only when I am really hungry. If it ends up being a longer fast fine, if not fine. I just want to stop letting a diet or some type of food rule my life. Sorry for the rant. I just feel like I'm in a rut right now that isn't really working for me. One thing I do know is that I do not want to get back into the 190s because it is too close to 200 lbs.

Hope everybody has a great day.

Trish, I wish I could be like your sister. I think I could be like that if I lived alone but DH is always eating 3 meals a day plus snacks, but his meals are very small, and he never eats it all. I understand what you meant about fitting your meals in your window. That's why I don't have a set window. I try to have it start when I eat my first meal whatever time that is and stop when I eat dinner, which is at 3 or 4. It is anywhere up to 8 hours. I still eat when not hungry. That is a very hard habit for me to break but I will continue to work on it. I think when you eat at a certain time your body gets used to getting food at that time and you get hungry at that time. You can change it. I think if I ate like it did when DH was in the hospital I would be good. Breakfast lunch and no dinner. I didn't bother eating dinner when I lived alone either. But dinner is a big deal to DH. This is why I delay breakfast now and eat brunch and dinner, trying to keep it small. 3 meals is just too much for me.

Today a woman on the LC forum asked me what I'm doing different that I am now bouncing in the 180s instead of the 190s. I couldn't really give her an answer. I feel that I'm doing the same thing for the past several years. Every once in a while my weight drops down to another decade and I don't know why. It just takes a while for my body to let go of weight but once it does it stays gone. Some of the people on the LC forum fight to get the weight off but then they regain. I feel that slow loss can be discouraging but it stays gone.

I don't think you should worry about a bump up. You get them occasionally and they never stay. In a couple days you will be back down. I feel assured that you and I are headed in the right direction.

Carol Sue, I too know that we are going to have our main meal around 3ish everyday unless we go out with my sisters. I am finding it easier to go without eating in the mornings. I actually didn't get hungry until 2 pm and wanted a banana so I ate one giving me a 17 1/2 hrs of fasting. Since I don't go to bed until between 12:30 and 1 am, I would like to change my time to 2 meals between 3ish and 7ish. I will probably try to see if I can work myself into that type of routine, but don't have any desire to make it the norm. We had fried swai for dinner and I think I will have oatmeal around 7ish if I am hungry for it.

I agree that we are headed in the right direction. Funny thing is I always thought when I got my FBG under control that the weight loss would be easier. However, I do agree with you that losing slowly is better because I think those lbs don't come back so easily. And if we are right, let's face it, maybe our slow weight loss and stall in the 180s could mean we won't find it so easy to get back up to 200 lbs. I sure hope that is true.

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I actually did a 4 hr eating window today. The oatmeal actually helped curb my appetite tonight. I didn't track.

HI everyone: down to 158 after two days of OMAD. With the painting yesterday, I worked up an appetite and did not have the heart or energy to continue the fast, so I ate carefully Keto and did ok.
I had a really great sleep. Going on to an early zoom meeting at 730 am, for a leadership workshop. I feel like I am fumbling a bit in my little part time job, so wanted something to kick start it.
There are other things coming up that might be good as well, I just have to figure out what is best for me. This kitchen reno and the timing will affect so much of my life.
The painting was good. I got the ceiling paint that goes on pink and dries white. This morning there seem to be no places I missed. A couple of small touch ups should do it. I am delighted about that, but never want to do that again. Much harder than painting walls. I decided to bring the white down the walls a bit, so that there is no colour seam above the new cupboards. For many reasons we are not putting up molding above the cupboards to reach the ceiling, so there will be space above, but instead of painting that the light blue of the rest of the kitchen, I am having it "ceiling white". So there was no colour seam to worry about. That is only going to be in one small spot, so I can do that carefully on the weekend.
Must go have a good day.

Mad, that's interesting about the paint that goes on pink but dries white. DH would panic seeing pink. Lots of work for you.

Trish, I think healthier eating and IF brought your blood sugar down. That's what did it for me when DH was in the hospital. I think you and I are twins from different mothers! :lol: We are around the same age, height and weight. When our weight goes down we both go down. And when it goes up we both go up. I don't think we would go back to 200 unless we really lose control of our eating. I no longer enjoy eating the way I did, and it causes high blood sugar. I do believe in set point. We have been in this range for a while and it is now our set point. As we continue pushing toward a lower weight, the more often we drop down that will become our new set point. If we gain and don't get it right back off then we will have a higher set point. We were not meant to be over 200 lbs and gradually we will get down to the weight that is right for us.

I think by lowering your blood sugar so well you have lowered your insulin and that is the fat storage hormone. I need to do that too. Only a doctor can measure your insulin but I just read an article by Ben Bikman that if you are in ketosis your insulin is low and I believe only low carb and fasting will get me there. So I have to make that my goal.

DH wants to go to Wal-Mart for car stuff and I don't want to go. I want to do laundry. The only way I will go is when we go out to eat later. He could go alone but I bet he won't.

Fatmad in this house and the one we had in SC there's no trim at the top of the kitchen cabinets. There is enough room between ceiling and cabinets that we have kitchen decor on top of the cabinets just to keep it from looking so bare. Every once in a while, DH will take them down for us to wash the dust off of them. It will be really nice when you are finished. Enjoy your busy day.

Carol Sue, it is interesting to me how we always seem to stay neck in neck with our weight loss. I like the twins from different mothers. :lol: Our personalities are pretty similar.

Woke up feeling better. Even decided to do the exercises that I usually do while dressing. Don't know if I will do more or not. I was even hungry so about 11ish had 2 boiled eggs with celery and radishes. Kind of a CAD breakfast/brunch. I am planning tacos for dinner with the leftover meat that I thought was chili. I figure I will sprinkle some more taco seasoning in it and I'll make mine as a salad. BS told me she doesn't want to give up chips so she is going to take low carb tortilla and cut into triangles and cook them and sprinkle with popcorn cheese. I saw some cheese wraps at Walmart the last time we were there that I will get next week. One of the FB keto or low carb groups had taken them and cut them into triangles and baked them and made keto chips. They would go great with my taco salads. So I'll keep them on hand. One of my problems lately is that I miss some of the things I like such as chips so if I can find a keto/low carb alternative that will be great.

I rested really good and woke up in such a good mood ready to exercise and get back OP whatever that will turn out to be. I just hope I can do this long enough to get back into losing mode. I'm just kind of going with the flow Intuitively because I think I will finally fall into a lifestyle routine. I know some form of low carb, low fat and IF will be a part of it.

Have a great day everybody.

I have not been sleeping well the past couple nights. It might be because I'm not eating properly. Last night I finally fell asleep at 4 or so and got up at 9.

I have been trying to get back to my good eating habits. My blood sugar has been spiking lately. That has to stop. I got off track having this ham in the house, wanting sandwiches. The ham is about gone. I have also been eating breakfast rather than brunch and not getting my longer fasting time. DH is cooking breakfast right now but I won't eat til later. One good thing about the sandwiches I have the SL bread that is small, lower calorie and net carbs. My carbs have been slightly higher than I like but mostly under 100. Still bad for my blood sugar.

Our kitchen cabinets have a bulkhead above them that was built in when we moved in. When we redid them we kept it the same. House was built in 1971. Its painted the same as the ceiling. Not much wall showing.

Our temps are going into the 80s this weekend. :woohoo: This has been quite an April.. Snow one week and 80s the next! ​​​​​​

I want to continue laundry today. I only got sheets done yesterday.

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I was just thinking about when I was single and lived alone. I would fall asleep and stay asleep until the alarm clock woke me. I never woke up during the night unless something woke me like the phone. Sometimes a car was parked outside my window and that person must have started work early because I would wake up when they started their car. It would be heaven to sleep right through the night.

Carol Sue, I am having the opposite problem when it comes to sleeping. I slept good night before last and got up yesterday morning ready to get up and even exercised. Then around noon I was sleepy and got a cat nap. After dinner all I wanted to do was sleep. I finally woke up around 5ish and was awake and around midnight I was still wide awake so I had to drink my chamomile tea so I could go to bed. I slept good last night but tired and sleepy today. Not sure what is going on. I told DH that I refuse to believe that it is because I am older. I'm wondering if it is boredom.

Fasting this morning. Clean fast so far. I plan BBQ chicken leg quarters cooked in air-fryer for dinner today. I would like to do OMAD for a while and attempting to start that today. I always have a good plan when I start the day but it seems to fall by the way side as the day goes by. My drag today is the clean fast without much caffeine because I can't seem to drink my coffee without the creamer. I can remember not having anything but water in the mornings and full of energy but then I was in my 40s or 50s then. I saw a recipe for a snack food on FB WW group that would be 0 pts on SF and I want to make them since I have all the ingredients. Trying to talk myself out of doing it because they will call my name. So it will be interesting to see how today plays out.

My weight has bounced up to 185.2 and stuck there all this past week. I'm hoping I can do a CAD OMD long enough to break the stall, but I'm not sure my mind is set there yet. Sorry, I'm not very encouraging today. Hope everybody has a good day.

I have been sleeping ok, but was really tired today none the less. I had two really busy days on Thursday and Friday, so I think I am just a little dragged out from that.
I feel like I fit a weeks worth of activities into those 2 days. So I will be gentle with myself today.
Weight is 157. Still only fasting 24 hrs. I did not fast yesterday at all. Or today. Plan for OMAD tomorrow.
I think the physical work of getting the kitchen ready means I need the food energy for the work. Thats ok, I am not gaining.

Carol and Trish, I hope you can get back on plan and get back to normal too.
I hope to nap a bit now.
have a good day.

Trish, I have camomile tea but never think to drink it at bedtime. I will have to try to remember.

I put my tops in the dryer and then left the laundry room door and the cellar door open so I could hear the buzzer. If they aren't taken out right away they wrinkle. When DH came upstairs he closed both doors. :tantrum: So helpful. He can hear the buzzer so he told me when it buzzed. Sometimes he will tell me the buzzer buzzed 20 minutes ago!

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Today I had 1150 cals and 78 grams of carb. More than I like but ok. My exercise was up and down the cellar steps several times to the laundry room. I still have 1 more load of whites I want to do, Tomorrow or Monday.

I have not had a nap yet today and I hope not to. I want to drink tea before bed and sleep better tonight. According to Fitbit I woke up 10 time last night. I really hate when I'm lying there wide awake.

It finally got warm enough to put the air conditioner on, 82 degrees but overcast. This morning we had the windows open letting out some winter germs. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer and I hope to spend some time outside getting someVit D.

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Well DH wore himself out rotating the tires on his car. He went to bed at 8 o'clock! I tell him not to do it. He can afford to pay to have it done. He just insists that he has to do it, doesn't want to face that he has to stop at some point. I don't know what I'm going to do with him.

Today went okay. I ate within 8 hr ended with 1387 calories and way too many carbs. But not going to worry about that right now. I'm just thankful to have made it through today. Not going to worry carbs too much right now. Just want to get through the day.

My sleep was greatly improved last night. I don't know if the tea helped or not. I will try to continue it.

DH says he feels much better today. He slept well too.

Trish, my carbs are up and down. I don't want every day to be the same. I look thru my food logs on MFP and look at the higher carb items to see which ones I am willing to change and which ones I want to keep. I still need to lower my insulin and therefore blood sugar and A1c. You are already there and can probably handle more carbs. The type of carb matters, too. I doubt if you are consuming sweets and baked goods. They are probably complex carbs. Remember, vegetables are carbs. But no one ever got fat or unhealthy from eating too much broccoli.

After washing all my tops I realize I still have too many. I go through them periodically and purge a few but its never enough. The thing is, I still like them. I have a tendency to wear the same ones over and over. I need to vary them more. I even have some for a smaller me, and a few that will be too big soon. I'm glad that I can soon wear summer things!

Carol Sue, No I don't eat sugar at all unless it is in some foods and I don't know it. However, I do like artificially sweetened foods but don't eat those because of DH. In fact, I have the makings for 2 diet cherry pies and 2 diet cakes and diet brownies I haven't made because they give me diarrhea and raise DH bs. I need to give them to baby sister. My carbs are usually healthy carbs.

hI am beginning to wonder if I should even be doing IF. Not sure it is the right way for me to lose weight or not. I think I would do better just eating Intuitively only when hungry. I think trying to time things to stay within an eating window causes me problems. I am eating when I'm not hungry to stay within those hours so I won't get hungry when the window closes. Ten I have a problem later when I really do get hungry and have to either choose to break the fast and feel guilty because I've ruined my fast or just go hungry which sets me up for some other problems later. Example, I got hungry last night for some nuts around 11 something and decided to eat them. I put a serving in a small bowl and I realized while eating them that I didn't want a whole serving. I just wanted a few bites so I stopped and put the rest back in the container because I was satisfied. That is how I ate most of my "thinner life" and I realized that I want to be able to do that again. I'm not sure it can be done with Intermittent Fasting. I think IF is good and there is a place for it but I'm not sure it is the best way for me. In fact, I think I ate this way along with IE because when I normally ate intuitively, there were times I would go 6 hrs or longer before I would eat anything.

The problem I always had with the Intuitive Eating groups is that they didn't think you should do it to lose weight. The first IE group I was in told me i should never go more than 5 hrs without eating something. I was personally attacked on one for commenting on weight loss. For me personally that means they just want to eat what they want and then get upset because they don't lose anything. I still think it can be used to lose weight if done correctly because I lived thin doing it for years. Intuitive Eating doesn't feel like dieting because it puts me in control Instead of diet rule because I'm eating normal. So it is just my opinion from my experience.

Weight down .8 ls this morning. Don't know if it is real or not. Time will tell. I still eat fairly healthy, just can't always eat at the right times. However, it had been a good 4 hrs since I had eaten last. I think I said I ate within 8 hrs when I wrote earlier, but I really had not eaten my 1st meal until dinner but I read that anything over 30 calories breaks a fast. I added my collagen to my coffee that I had around 11ish and that made it 40 calories. My SF creamer has 15 calories in 1 T so I've been measuring 1 tsp in each cup to keep my fasts clean and add the collagen to break the fast.

I did make the snack bites yesterday and had them with a meal but didn't like them so threw them out. The only actual off thing about my plan yesterday was the nuts. I really shouldn't eat nuts at night because they cause FBG to be higher the next day. The only thing I seem to be able to eat at night that doesn't mess with my FBG is popcorn and I don't always want that.