Jessica, I'm the same way with water on the weekend. It seems to catch up to me in the mid to late afternoon when I suddenly feel really, really tired and I realize I haven't had ANY water since when I woke up. I usually guzzle 1-2 glasses at that time and it wakes me up. I don't know what to suggest--I'm usually at home where there is PLENTY of water. If I'm out running around, I always have a bottle of water in my car.

I had a blow-out bad day yesterday....bagel.....wine.....dinner without being hungry.....ice cream to top it off. I know my scale is only up half a pound today BUT I'm sure it will be higher tomorrow. AND besides that, the half pound puts me back higher than I've been since September. I really need to get back on track......if I don't, my size 6 won't fit much longer.

Joy~you've got to be careful with all that cleaning and climbing. Take it easy!

Pat~good luck with your knees. I sure hope my youthful sports don't put me in line for bad knees (or worse than they are now). Every movement is very loud (creaking and popping). Who knew that skiing would do that to me?

Gotta run. Everyone have a great day!

I just showered, washed my hair and dried it and got dressed to go do my banking. I get out to my vehicle and I am furious. DH and DS both drove mine yesterday. The mileage thingie shows 0 miles left to go on gas. Plus, the driver's window was left down and it rained all night. Not even enough gas to make it to the nearest store. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. I just want to smack em both.

I had to jump up to get in my son's Jeep (he has those huge mud tires on it) and use his to go to town. I was actually hoping DS would wake up and wonder where his vehicle went. LOL. DH drove mine last, so he has a mess to clean up when he gets off work and I'm gonna let him risk driving mine to town for gas. I hope he ends up having to walk.

To think , this day started out great.

On Friday, I had my quarterly appointment with my psychiatrist to check on my medication levels. Three of the four of the meds I'm on can cause permanent damage to my body so I have to have blood work and doctor visits to make sure I don't show the signs.

My doctor is concerned that I'm developing tardivdiskenesia from the 'new' medicine that has helped my 53 pound weight loss. It's a hardening of the facial muscles and can produce permanent facial ticks. Not something I want to have. She thinks she sees a tightness in my mouth area when I talk, but I don't feel a strain. I think what she's noticing is a change in how my face looks since I've lost so much weight.

Another side effect that I have from the med are Parkinson tremors. My hands, arms, and legs can start to shake at odd times for no reason. To stop the tremors, all I have to do is reposition my arms or legs. This problem doesn't bother me.

My doctor has reduced my 'new' med this week and next and then she wants me to cut the dosage in half for the next two weeks. I'm hoping at the lower dose, I will still have a very low appetite.

I was more upset about the reduction in the med then the possibility of tardivdiskenesia because I have been in such a good balance mentally this past year and did not want to have a med adjustment. So far I haven't noticed any effect from the reduction in the med. Hopefully, there won't be any issues in three weeks.

Daily summary from "Thin for Life: 10 Keys to Success from People who have Lost Weight and Kept It Off" by Anne M. Fletcher, MS, RD

Key to Success #8: Face Life Head-On

The basic premise of this chapter is to find something other than food to focus on, to stop using food to mask all emotions. "Learn to deal with life's problems in constructive ways, without turning to food."

Identify what emotion you have that triggers eating, such as loneliness, boredom, depression, anger, anxiousness, joy, etc.

"Ask yourself if emotional eating actually accomplishes anything. Does it truly cure your boredom? Does it make the loneliness go away? Does it cheer you up in the long run?"

The answer to the emotional eating questions is NO.

The chapter has good tips for dealing with each specific emotion that is a trigger for eating. Mine is boredom. Now I ask myself when I get the thought that something would be 'fun' to eat, "Am I really hungry?" and the answer is always no.

My motto for emotional eating is "Feel it, don't eat it."

The chapter also talks about binge eating which I experienced when I was on the medicine that made me constantly, extremely hungry. There were no specific steps to overcome binge eating, only examples of how some of the masters of permanent weight loss keep from binging.

Hi everyone,

Goodness, I feel like I was just here and I've already missed a few pages of the chat. I guess it's been a few days. It is HOT here - summer is finally here - and I've been out doing field work all week. Sunblock is my best friend. I have gone to the gym 2x this week so far (tonight and tomorrow, too, for sure) and my foot continues to twinge a wee bit but is still basically pain free. I'm really trying not to overdo it at the gym - this past winter, I did and I got foot problems. The winter before, I overdid it and I got knee problems. Food is still...eh... I am making some good choices and some not as good ones. I'm mostly eating healthy foods, but am sometimes eating when I'm not hungry. My weight is up because of it.

Meg, hush puppies are indeed fried cornmeal dough, with some diced onions and spices in there. Some I've had at restaurants are not very tasty...some are very tasty. Darn southern fried foods! I think I got my fix for the year, though. Congrats on being the tiny woman at the doc's office.

Lily, I would drive off and leave them without gas too! If you use a car, it's your job to fill it up for the next person.

Carolyn, I hope your meds adjustment doesn't cause any problems for you. I eat out of boredom often - probably why I end up eating more on the weekends, when I'm not working. I haven't figured out how to stop yet, even if I know I'm just eating because I'm bored.

Jessica, I also carry around a Nalgene with me on the weekends. I also work out Saturday mornings, so that sort of jumpstarts my water consumption for that day. Sorry you're still having these problems with your wrists.

I think being out in the sun all day just hit me. I need to go get a drink. Hi to everyone else!

:wave: Ugh, a 2 hour conference call this morning. At least we stayed on task and got accomplished what we needed to. Bad part is that this committee I'm on (Governor's Advisory Committee on Libraries) is "tasked" with producing a 5 year plan for spending federal funds for the state. In groups of 3 we're assigning activities and evaluation criteria for the defined goals developed by the committee as a whole. Okay, now that you're totally yawning :) we have another 2 hour conference next Tuesday to put the whole thing back together. Oh the joys of working with a committee. :lol:

On the personal front, I had a great training walk last night. I walked from the gym to the high school (~ 1 mile), then hopped onto a running trail that takes off from the high school and goes through the woods. It comes close to the athletic fields in several places, so you can do loops of various lengths. When I was a more active runner and belonged to a running club, we used it for training runs. I've been anxiously waiting for it to dry out, and now except for a few muddy spots, it has. I don't know how far I went as I our training schedule is in time, so that's where I concentrate. If possible, I measure the distance too, but yesterday wasn't possible. :) Very nice to be out in the woods though!

Jessica - water used to be an issue for me. I now drink a tall glass (12 oz?) at breakfast every morning, and like everyone else it seems, carry a water bottle or 2 with me in the car. We have Nalgene bottles in 3 sizes and several shapes, so no excuses. I love the one I have at work whichis 500 ml, with a built-in handle and a sports top. Very convenient.

Can I run something past you gals?
It's about an article in Oprah from february, I think. There was some kind of an obesity expert in there ... she said a couple of things that are bothering me and I'm not sure why.
One was about the 'small changes' thing. Something to the effect of 'stop telling people they just need to make small changes ... they need to change their lives'
The other was about fruits and vegetables 'everybody already knows that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables' ... she said something like 'if I go to another seminar where they hand out sheets with lists of fruits and vegetables, I'll scream' ... She's assuming that people know already what a balanced diet is ... after nursing a few thousand and talking to a few more ... I'm not so sure about that.

Paperclippy:
I think it was very perceptive of you to pick up on this. I've actually been thinking about whether my behavior somewhat tends toward "binge behavior", but I hadn't posted about it specifically here. I kind of see these indulgences on the weekend as giving me something to look forward to. I guess I wonder if having these planned overeating days once a week is fundamentally wrong in some way. I plan for the extra eating by not overeating during the week. It seems to make it easier to stay on plan if I have a strict rule that says "I can have ____ only on weekends". Then, I look forward to the weekend.

I actually did this eating pattern for over a year in the past. I stopped last July because I had stopped working and no longer had the Mon-Fri vs. weekend structure that played a key role in making it easy to limit the indulgences to a weekend day. During those seven months, I ate an even number of calories throughout the week, and didn't have the weekend indulgences.

I guess I don't know whether it's bad to purposely plan eat a lot of something that I like as long as the calories even out over the week. Or...am I teetering on an eating disorder?

I suppose if I had a social life and actually did interesting things with other people or went places on the weekends, that I wouldn't look forward to this as much, but right now, my life is not all that exciting, and this is kind of my "fun". Kind of sad, but true.

If I may on the water issue, thats always been a niggler of mine as well. :^:

I am a firm believer in "It's the little things in Life." Along with a desperate keeper of the K.I.S.S mentality... ( acronym for Keep It Simple Silly ). ;)

First things first after I brush my teeth, following the rinsing of my mouth and glass, I refill the glass and down my "perk" waters for the day. I don't really count these as the quotations denote they are perks and every little bit helps. :D


The other thing I do like many of you is carry a water bottle. Mine is 3/4 liter. The only problem I was having with that was... I never remebered how many times I had refilled it!! :^: I know there were many times I over counted how much I had drank... and hopefully under counted too. To rectify that I had placed 3 green rubber bands ( my must drink ones ) around my bottle along with 1 red one ( bonus drink ). Everytime I refilled the bottle I would move 1 green one up first. As stated the red one was/is a bonus! What I drank above and beyond the call of duty. :rofl: The added bonus to this lil no brainer was the rubber bands acted like grippies when the condensation would make it slippery.

I do hope either of these may be useful to someone else. :smug:

Sincerely,

sassy

Hi maintainers,

SusanB- re your question: I guess a lot of people know theoretically that you need to eat fruits & vegs, but I guess also that a lot of them do not do it in practice. The "expert" you quoted probabely also bases her opinion on the people she meets in her environment, while you, as a nurse, probabely see a much wided selection of the population (everyone gets sick once in a while, right ?)

Just my 2 cts.

Hi to all the other maintainers,
Rabbit

Following on from rabbit... SusanB You see people in the hospital when they're already sick... So maybe their limited knowledge about a healthy diet is somewhat a contributing factor (however small) to them being in the hospital....?

I've also been thinking about your question Susan. What makes this person an expert? So many different things work for different people. When I started my new lifestyle I needed and put into practice a radical change. That wouldn't work for me now. I do a lot of things that go against the common wisdom, because they work for me. I guess I think it is not so bad that there are different people giving different advice out there.

I don't trust the experts anymore. I'm even highly skeptical about applying established and reliable science to myself. So what if something works for 80% of the people if I'm in the 20%?? We can just try new things if/when we need to and see if they work for our own particular lifestyle and physiology.

Anne

Hi everyone,

Megan, thanks. DH did take my vehicle last night and fill it up with gas. Somehow he made it to the gas station with the tank registering 0 miles to go. He cleaned it all up too after I threw my little hissy fit.

Pat, that sounds like a really nice place to walk. I love being in wooded areas.

Tara, I tend to over-indulge on Thurs. nights and then get back on track on the weekend. Thurs. is payday and we always eat out. Last night it was at an Italian Restaraunt that I'd never been to. I had the veal with pasta and wine sauce and asparagus. I know my calorie limit was over and it was a planned indulgence.

sassy, that's a great idea on the rubber bands. I never remember for sure how much water I've had each day. Maybe I'll try this little tip.

SusanB, I still think that small changes are what adds up to be the lifestyle change. EX. just giving up my regular Mt. Dew that I drank a 6 pack of a day, saved me over 720 cal's a day. That in itself makes a huge difference. Plus, there are many, many people that don't regularly include fruits and veggies in their daily meal plan. I used to be bad about that myself. Not because I didn't know better, just because I thought the other junk tasted better. Now I feel like I've had a really bad day of eating (no matter how many cal's I had ) if I don't have a lot of color in my food.

Tara, I don't think there is anything wrong with looking forward to some indulgence on the weekend. I personally keep Saturday nights as my "cheat" meal for the week, and go out to a restaurant and order whatever the heck I want, including splitting a dessert. What made me concerned about your posts is that you weren't just saying "I can only have X on the weekend," but "I am going to stuff myself with X this weekend" (esp as evidenced by the cornbread overload last weekend). It's like how before you were saying you'd have PB on bread as a treat, but then eat 5 slices in a row (which, if your PB and bread are like mine, and you put 1Tbsp per slice, adds up to nearly 1000 calories). Only you can decide if you think you need to change your system, or if you feel like the overeating is becoming unhealthy binging.

I guess I just feel like it's okay to plan an indulgence and eat a high-calorie food, or even to accidentally overeat at a restaurant or eat too many slices of pizza once in a while. But I'm wary of actively planning to OVEReat, you know? We get pizza sometimes as our cheat meal, and sometimes I do indulge and eat three slices. But when we order the pizza I don't say to myself "I am going to eat the ENTIRE pizza," I say "I'm going to have some pizza, and I ate well the rest of the week to make up for it." :shrug:

Susan, I am with you 100%. Theoretically people know that fruits and veggies are healthy, and that fried foods are bad. But that is really not always true, and they don't always know the amounts that are considered good or bad. My mom was a dietician, and obviously knew what was healthy and what wasn't, but I did not realize until I started losing weight that eating at restaurants 4+ times per week was unhealthy, or that so many of the foods I grew up on were high-cal and high-fat. I knew that it was good to eat fruit and veggies but I honestly did not understand that it was bad to eat so many of the other foods I always ate (processed foods, restaurant foods, fried foods, stuff drenched in cheese, etc). I had no idea that wheat bread was supposed to be good for you and white bread wasn't. I would eat half a loaf of bread in a sitting and it never occurred to me that that was unhealthy eating -- I mean, it's bread, it's the base of many diets, right? How can it be unhealthy?

I guess what I'm saying is that having a general sense that fruits and veggies are good and some other foods are bad, and actually understanding how that applies to your life, are different things. Like, you may know that fried chicken isn't very healthy, but does that mean you can only eat it once a day? Once a week? Once a month? or once a year? THAT is the really tough part, IMO.

Susan, the "stop telling people to make small changes" statement bothers me a bit too. I think that some people can't start a lifestyle change by thinking "I'm going to change my life" because it can be really scary for them. A little change at a time can work. My sister is a bit heavier and gained quite a few pounds in college. 5 years later, she has lost about 30 lbs. with little thought but making small changes in her diet. Her reasoning - rather than going on a "diet" diet, she says, is that she needs to just do things that she can really stick with. And she is indeed much healthier today. Some people do need to change their whole mentality. I think that we are all different and we need to do what works for us, and the same approach certainly won't help us all.

As Anne said, what makes this woman an "expert" anyway?

Tara, I don't think that there is anything wrong with calorie cycling, or eating a little lighter one day because you know you will indulge (at a party, special meal, etc.) the next, and so on. I think if it works for you and allows you to maintain your weight, no problem. What worries me about what you're said is that this is kind of your "fun". I personally don't believe that food should be used to fill an emotional void (boredom, loneliness, etc.) - that is certainly where I get in trouble, and I've heard that from many others too, since food doesn't fix the problem I am trying to compensate for/distract myself from/etc. While cooking and food can be fun, and I myself look forward to having the time to cook more elaborate recipes on the weekend, are you sure you're not trying to nurse your boredom etc. with the food? That would be my only reservation. And I hope I haven't overstepped by adding my two cents.

Those are just some thoughts from a person who is by absolutely no means an "expert"! ;)

Tara, oops, Jessica posted a reply while I was typing mine. I think she has hit the nail on the head re: overeating and planning to overeat. Just wanted to say that I agree.