Mars- sorry, I could have given more info, it was a Downton Abbey Christmas special skit, if you google it you'll find it or it should be on YouTube. Very funny.
I am in training for 30km (last 10km hills) race March 29th. It will be my longest run ever. In Sept, I hope to do a half ironman, 2km swim, 90km cycle, and 21km run. So I'll be do some intense tri athalon training this summer.

Shasta - I used MFP for most of the time I was on P1 because I wanted to be in the habit of keeping track and looking at the content of my food. Once you get the hang of it, it only takes a few minutes a day. I tend to pre-log the day the night before - helps keep me on track. You'll have to play around to see what ratios work for you when you hit maintenance. I believe in P1 it's roughly 50% protein/30% fat/20% carbs (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Slipfree - I hear you on the sodium swell. Surprising how fast it adds up. Hope you get no more snow!

Jenny - hope you're feeling better soon! But curling up in front of a fire with a good book sounds good.

Mars - It's great that you are getting information from a nutritionist. It's hard to figure out what we should be eating when we're so used to just eating before losing weight. I actually had the immersion test when I was in the Air Force many years ago - they were doing some tests for a study and a bunch of us got volunteered.

aw catlady, that's the pits! I misunderstood, I thought you had just had an off day where you were not paying attention. :hug: You will get it all straightened out - you are tough!

murrcat - Sounds like a fun weekend!

The physical therapist has released me conditional upon me finding a personal trainer. I have a few to check out, in my spare time. :) Now that we have me moving more or less normally it's time to really start making my muscles work better. It worries me getting out of physical therapy since I'm scared of hurting myself but the therapist is going to talk to the trainer and make sure I've found a good one. After 3 back surgeries, repairing a very large hernia and other assorted issues I really don't want to mess anything up!

Have a great Monday all!

Ruth Ann!! Its great that you are back. I was worried!

Just a quick check in. I need to get caught up on my reading here. Just got back from a mini ski holiday with my family. They skied, I relaxed. Very nice break. But, I was eating off my usual plan. I enjoyed it but am always ready to jump back into healthy eating. I feel so much better and have more energy. Have a great day!

Thanks Jenny. I'll check it out. Now that the series is over, that will be my fix. Gotta say I dozed off during the last 2 episodes and had to read a summary to find out what actually happened (turns out, not much happened, lol)!

Thanks for the encouragement, Ruth Ann. It feels a little over the top to pay someone to tell what to eat but I am going to give it a whirl.

I think your plan to have the PT talk to your trainer is very, very sound. There can be a gap between PT & training. Fwiw, take it slowly and listen to your body and never let a trainer push you beyond your comfort zone. I learned that the hard way.

Welcome back, Hawaii69. That sounds like the perfect R & R!

I am starting my second week of Phase 2. One word:
FEAR!

ok, BREATHE. P2 is not that different than P1 - you're just eliminating 1 packet and replacing it with a 'real' protein. It's very common for people to continue to lose weight. P3 are the breakfasts where you can really lay out what you'll eat each morning, so no guessing. When you move to P4, planning will be key but you have so much good practice already with planning your meals, you have the tools. You've got this, believe it!

Happy Monday Maintainers!

Jenny: That marathon sounds intense! I admire your determination to compete at such a high level. You go girl!

Mars: Sorry your mom isn't doing well. I did enjoy the Kitchen House. At about 320 pages I got through it fairly quickly. I would recommend it. Silly me I thought my food issues would disappear once I lost the weight. That didn't happen. Still have work to do, but I agree, doing it in a thinner body is way better. I was misinformed. I thought George Clooney was going to be in an episode. I just Googled it and here is the link to watch it:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/..._anything.html

Shasta: I started using MFP once I started P2. To get myself into the habit of doing it every day. I did the paper journal all throughout P1. There are plenty of websites to tell you what your maximum calorie intake should be to maintain weight, but I did what evemomma did and that was to up my calories by 100 every two weeks or so. At P3 I was averaging 1300 a day so I've been going up from there. I just bumped up to 1700. My settings are Carbs 30%/Fat 40% /Protein 30%. Just play with the settings in Goals. I use both the App on my Iphone and also the desk top version. The desktop is the only way that you can copy and paste the menu's into the Maintainers What are you eating today thread. Or maybe you can do it from a Ipad or notebook, I don't have one so I don't know.

Murrcat: Food peace. Kind of like Nirvana. Something to strive for.

RuthAnn: No guilt. I like that. It's kind of silly to feel guilty when I am an active participant and know what I am doing. Just move on. I wish I could get a personal trainer. I've been doing strength training on my own and I always worry I don't have the correct form and will hurt myself. I was doing some squats last week and I think I did something to my bad knee. It's been stinging and burning like when I tore my meniscus a few years ago. I had surgery for it but I also have osteoarthritis in both knees. This has happened before so I will just take it easy and hope it dies down. No squats for a while. :(

Hawaii: A ski vacation sounds lovely. Good for you for enjoying it.

Delgen: What edcslim said: Breathe. No need to panic. Just like in P1, eat the sheet, and you'll be fine. You may have a bit of trouble eating a full 8 oz of meat at both lunch and dinner. Some of us, RuthAnn, myself, and evemomma cut it back to 6 and we did just fine. And you may continue to loose. I did.

Cindy, I know that you are nervous about starting maintenance again after your reboot, but when you know better- you do better. Just take it one meal at a time and keep posting.

Hawaii, sounds like a fun weekend!


Ruth Ann, glad that you are healthy enough to be discharged from PT. Hope you find a great personal trainer.

Andrea, hope your knee is okay! Maybe you should get it checked out before you hike again?

Just shoveled again! We had a period of sleet, now back to snow. Ugh!

Hi everyone!

Jenny....you're physical fitness is AMAZING!!!! I am so proud of you!

RuthAnn....How exciting to be graduated from PT! Did you get a gown and diploma, lol! I think you will find that a good trainer can be very similar to a good PT. Take care of yourself, you sound like you still have a lot on your plate!

Delgen....You can do it! You've phased off before. Now you have MORE info to help guide you along the way as to how your body will respond to maintenance. Keep posting here, it is such a great source of support!

Andrea....I think it is a common myth that overweight people tell themselves (ourselves) about how easy and happy things will be when we are thin. Truth: life marches on in all kinds of annoying and often sad ways as it did before. But now we can use OTHER tools in our tool belt to manage those ups and downs besides just food. For me, food had become my ONLY tool to cope. Now that's a recipe for getting fat, lol!

Hawaii...Sounds like my kind of vacay!!!! I know you'll do fine getting back on track and NO GUILT ALLOWED for having a great vacation!

Mars, Murrcat, Slip, ECDCslim and friends.....Hey all! THanks for your ever-inspiring posts and encouragement!!!!

I am hanging in there but having a bit of a battle with a pan of brownies. Grrrr. Made them for the family for the SuperBowl. I find that I keep having little tastes today - tsk tsk. Having a naturally trim hubby and two young kids, I don't mind and generally do well having tempting treats around the house. But brownies must be my siren's call!

OK, putting my plan here so I am accountable: I am going to add ONE brownie to MFP as a snack and portion out what would be the rest of it on a plate that I can taste as I please. AND NO MORE!

I am feeling especially bloated today as I am ovulating (sorry, tmi) and have some pain associated with that as I have endometriosis. Blech. I think I may do a modified P1 day tomorrow just to get rid of this water bloat.

Not doing nearly as many things as I was planning to do today as I'm just feeling a bit blech. Luckily, lots of shopping this morning got my steps up to nearly 5,000 by 10am!

Take care all!!!!!

Thanks!

I plan to plan.
Phase 2 is easy.
I think I just need to maintain the structure in P3 an P4

My coach said 5 - 6 oz of precooked protein would work best for me since I am so short.

Howdy maintainers! I'm back and rather pleased that the scale only moved a bit over 1 lb. That could be from bloat (airplane flight) or just a bit too much carbs, lol. Thank goodness halfway through the vacation we stocked up at the Siriana (even better than the megaWalmarts) for good veggies and greek yogourt and some proteins other than cheese, lol. That all went into the little fridge in our room for some breakfasts and snacks. We walked all over town as we were situated just a block back of the busyness and the Marina in Cabo. We also put a lot of kms on our rental car - over 700! We did a bit of hiking to Divorce Beach and Lovers Beach (we were the only ones on them that day), as well as hiking into a biosphere reserve to go to the El Chorro Hot Springs that pour out of the cliff into a nice little rock pool next to a stream - the gatekeeper was a very old man who didn't speak a word of English but our Spanish got lots of practice. I know I didn't have my genders right some of the time and a lot of it was 'baby talk' but we all took it in stride. We also got to the Cabo Pulmo National Park for snorkeling on the only live coral reef in the Sea of Cortez. http://www.savebiogems.org/cabo/
Again we were the only ones on the beach, with a couple walking their little dogs past us and then returning to leave 20 minutes later. I had awesome fresh dorado al la Veracruzana in a little beach restaurant there. Everyone was great about my GF needs and I got handmade pure corn tortillas done on a separate comal or cleaned griddle for no extra charge at all the restaurants. I also got local blue corn tortillas at a tiny little shack with shrimp & garlic in them at the entrance to the Hot Springs park.

Jenny - I knew you'd end up doing the tri, lol. Training in earnest now, eh?
Ruth Ann - good to see you back!
Hugs to everyone else! Keep on truckin! (at the risk of sounding like Forrest Gump) :D

Liana

Thank you Ruth Ann and Cat Lady

Morning all. So happy to see RuthAnn back! Jenny38 - very impressive with the running, wow.

Sounds like we survived the weekend pretty much intact. Made it through a Super Bowl party with 1 vodka soda and a handful of cashews as my 'cheats' and the scale was very nice to me yesterday! I am learning so much from you all and from the maintainers 'what are you eating today.' I actually had a pear as a snack yesterday when I got home, it was yummy and carried me over until dinner - steamed spiced shrimp, a huge salad and some celery dipped in WF caramel. Insanity tonight, so protein gel pack in my gym bag. Have a great day!

E

Thanks for your kind words and also the link & book rec. Much appreciated. :hug:

btw, I think you are doing great in figuring out your maintenance. When I started IP I said to myself (and anyone else who would listen, lol) that it was a weight loss method and that maintenance would be a whole new ballgame. I forgot that after 7 months of ketosis, not really missing anything foodwise. The fact that maintenance has it's own set of significant challenges doesn't surprise me now. But it took months, and two 12-lb reboots to remember my initial approach.

Happy Tuesday Everyone and Food Peace to us all!