Hi Maintainers! Hope to be joining ya'll here very soon. Had a funny thing happen today at work. Since loosing 60 lbs some people are just noticing. How weird is that? But anyway, we have donuts brought in every Friday morning. So I'm in the kitchen getting coffee and one of the people that has noticed my losses says "Won't you be glad when you are off your diet and you'll be able to eat donuts again?" Bwahaha! She just doesn't get it. I just laughed and said "Yeah, not many donuts in my future".

I don't recall seeing any donuts on any of your daily maintainer menus!

Hee hee! Well, there's always free days! I haven't had any donuts per se ....but definitely a few sweets. Just in SERIOUS moderation.

I still have people surprised by my weight loss as if they never noticed. I guess it means we are usually so wrapped up in ourselves we just don't really notice other's weight (or hair color, etc).

Congrats on nearing maintenance Catlady!

Um, I may be breaking that trend. My first fun day in P4 will be Thanksgiving day and I plan on making my breakfast that morning some apple cider donuts with a dark beer. :^: Maybe I won't post it though, haha.

Meh... donuts :dz:.... On the other hand, cheesecake I will take - the New York kind, dense and without a crust. I made myself mock cheesecake for breakfast (see What are you eating thread for more later :D) so thanks to you guys for the brain ramble this morning leading from thoughts of donuts to thoughts of cheesecake and tweakability of said cheesecake.

I struck a pose in the mirror this morning :belly: and am glad to finally see a bit of the old definition in the slimmed down tummy. Bloat has been getting me down these past few weeks. So hopefully that's gone for at least another month. :dizzy:
Liana

Should've known you were a CHEESEcake girl, Liana! I know you've got dairy in your veins, lol! Glad you are feeling/looking more like yourself again!

PishPosh....pretty impressive not to have a free day until Thanksgiving! When do you start P4 officially?

I'm getting a craving for some more pumpkin/oatmeal/yogurt muffins...I know what I'm making for breakfast tomorrow!

I start P3 this Tuesday, so P4 will be Tuesday Nov. 25, two days before Thanksgiving. So, not all that impressive, haha. I considered pushing off my first fun day until I had a week of P4 under my belt, but I think that might be setting myself up for failure. I'll also be on the road that Friday so it'll be easy to do a P1 day that day.

I did four days of P4 before my free day b/c I started during week. You'll be fine. It's a huge learning curve anyway no matter where you start. At least leftover turkey is perfect for a P1 day! Welcome to P3....loved the breakfasts! I ended up cutting my protein down at lunch/dinner b/c I just wasn't hungry.

I just kinda snickered at this because there has been all kinds of stressed out P1'ers over the past few months wondering how in the heck they are going to do P1 while travelling/driving, heheheh. The maintainers think that's the easy part, eh? The actual hard part is trying to do your carb/fat dissociation while eating out all the time.
Welcome to P3 posh!! Way to go!

Liana

Posh:bravo:and welcome to P3. Youv've done awesome and worked so hard to get here.

Andrea- LOved your comment about not many donuts in future. On a fun day I will have a great but will much rather have a nice cookie or scone to a boring donut.

Liana - sounds like you are feeling happier, I'm glad that you liked what you saw in the mirror and the bloat is gone. You are beautiful inside and out.

Slip- we are having a rainy day here to. I hope you have a relaxing weekend. I just put the clean sheets on the bed so I can crawl in and maybe have a nap.

Hawaii- hope you had a good run this morning.

Eve- those muffins look good. Is the recipe in the recipe thread? The idea of baking seems like so much work to me but I'm guess way healthier than buying a muffin. At least these I could eat.

Had my WI yesterday at noon and was 158.2 after a nice P4 breakfast. I remember WI days on P1 and I wouldn't have breakfast or coffee first. My coach took an "after" picture (I had to wear her top cuz she didn't like the way my dresses bunched LOL) and I gave her a before picture. I can't believe the difference. I will try to post here if I figure it out.

Stephascope, Jen, Chip, Ruth Ann, Maili and all the other maintainers hope you are all having a great weekend.

Thanks, Jenny, for your kind thoughts! I am looking forward to your before/after pictures! Lucky for you your coach had a top on that worked, lol. Nice weigh in, even after the breakfast!

Jenny...can't wait to see your pics!!!!

As for muffins, I've posted a few on here...but keep changing. Here is my most recent version: this half recipes yields 6 whole muffins or 12 half ones.

Heat oven to 400F (I usually bake a little lower 375F)

1cup dry quick oats pureed in food processor/blender (or oat flour)
1-1 1/2 tsp (depending on taste) pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp IP or sea salt
3/4tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 can pure pumpkin
1/2 c nonfat greek yogurt
1/2c granulated splenda
1/4c brown sugar
1/2c mini semi sweet chocolate chips
1 egg

Bake for about 15 minutes. ...One mini muffin is 92.4 cal, 15.3g carbs, 1g fiber, 6.5g sugar, 2.8g fat and 3.7g protein. Would be much lower without choc chips but LOVE the choc and pumpkin together!

Ermagherd y'all. First P4 cheat meal was amazing. Wine, calamari, crab cakes and cupcakes. Still included caulimash but I don't think that mitigated the damage-Lolz. SIGH. So worth it. Glad I squeeze in the Shred today!

Tyranny, wine & crabcakes sounds awesome to me too! Glad you enjoyed P4 Funday - on to P1 tomorrow :D

Hi all, I am still lurking. I haven't been posting much as I am feeling conflicted. I did lose my weight with IP but so far in my maintenance the only rules I am following are fun day followed by P1 day so I haven't felt right contributing on the maintenance thread. IP has taught me so much and was the key to me getting the weight off. I am struggling so much with the fat carb ratios and they never seem to work for me. I am maintaining, actually losing through the week. Last weekend was more of two fun days and I was getting worried but today I'm at my lowest 153. I'm really just focusing on portions and staying at 1600 calories and trying not to overdue the carbs. I've convinced myself that just as there are lots of ways to lose weight there are just as many ways to maintain. I guess I will let the scale be my guide.

Hey Chip! I hear ya! And yes, maintenance is all about figuring out what works best for each of us as individuals. It sounds like you are doing well.

This may be a crazy question and I think I know the answer but I have had organic oatmeal with a tbsp of peanut butter and stevia for breakie then decided that I shouldn't be combining the fat with the carbs. What do you think?