Hi SusanB, hi maintainers,

Yay for the lightbulb moment!

Ennay - too bad about the roof! I feel for you with the maintenance issues. i feel like I have been in house maintenance for the past 2 years, since XH went out. he said that he did the house maintenance & garden, and my job was to do the kids, clean & cook...and now I find out why it always looked like it was easier for him. let's summarise to say 10 years of backlog in maintenance. i am now putting in the heard work to make up. I installed a gutter screen last autumn...we have a walnut tree rigth over the garage gutter.

Good luck!

Rabbit

Yes, Susan, I agree with you - it's certainly about getting it ALL together and for me it's about CONSISTIENCY as well. Seeing it through in other words. Sometimes is seems so simple to string many good days/weeks together, almost easy in fact, other times it one big STRUGGLE. And all too often lately, it's the latter.

Hi everyone,

I'm also struggling right now to get back to my goal. Seems like I'm missing part of that puzzle. I'm not being consistent. Having really good days and somewhat bad days. Exercise is good for now. But, too much eating of junky high carb foods that always cause me to gain.(such as crackers, graham crackers and lowfat dip). It seems everytime I have an off day, it takes several days to get back on track. It's almost seems I'm rewarding myself with extra food for doing the exercise. Which doesn't make sense at all. I need to get my butt back in gear.

I haven't screwed up yet today since all I have had is coffee. I'm gonna make a real effort to eat clean today. Get my exercise and get these lbs. to dropping again. Wt. this morning was back up to 149. Made bad choices yesterday and the scale was not forgiving. Uggggggggh

sznn, when I'm struggling I avoid any alcohol, no so much for the calories involved, but because even small amounts make any resolve I have for eating well pretty much useless. Is this something you could try?

ennay, sounds like you are having an enormously bad week. I hope it gets better for you soon. Personally, I'm glad you are around here, even on your bad days.

SusanB, I'm really glad you got into a groove!

Yesterday was a terrible day for me. I had nightmares two nights ago that really shook me up, all parenting/loss related (imagine that!). I got on the scale--always a BAD idea within a week of a medical procedure and about had a heart attack on the spot. Plus we had a meeting at work with cookies and humongous chocolate muffins. I was aware I was eating for comfort, but frankly, I just didn't care yesterday, because I needed a way to get through the day and well, that was it. Only so much I can ask of myself being a hormonal mess working on about 4 hrs of sleep and dealing with too much time on my hands at work with short intense bursts of stress spattered around. And another surprise, I'm being nice to myself about this for once.

Anyway, I slept well last night, and I am going to try to get through today the best I can. I may try to employ the 15 minute delay rule today, but other than that, my plan is to survive into next week and then try to get it more completely back on track. I get to drink lots and lot of full strength coffee if I want, and Thursday I can go for a run. Looking forward to that.

Anne

Oh yeah, catching up from last week, and Lily, I've been meaning to tell you I'm so glad your son gets to come home before he is deployed. I can't imagine.

Anne

LOVE that quotation, wndranne!

I ate a lot yesterday, too. What I got out of it was some bile duct discomfort. I have no gall bladder anymore, so sometimes when I eat too much oil or an unusual combination, things get irritated or something.

Lilybelle, I hope you can get things back in line soon!

I'm doing OK overall--it's only my second week on maintenance. One thing I'm afraid to do (other than eat) is to lessen my amount of exercise--but I need to do that because my body is really overstressed.

Hope you all stay with it!

Jay

ennay~your DH and mine must be blood brothers LOL! In our last house, DH wanted, from the day we moved in, to replace the side lite window beside our front door. At one point he had the front door replaced, but it wasn't until the WEEK WE MOVED OUT of the house that he replaced the side lite! He didn't like the one we had (it was a yellow window) and he replaced it with a bronze window with a nice pattern in the glass--all for the new owners. Nothing should take 11 years to get done!

Allison and Ennay, count my DH as a brother too. I repainted the hallway about 2 yrs. ago. DH has still put up only about 3/4 of the wooden Molding (I think that is what it's called around it). He repaired a leak in our hallway bathroom which required cutting a hole in the wall behind the tub and left the hole. I'd really be throwing a fit if the hole wasn't inside the cabinet and can't be seen with cabinet closed. Lately everything he touches he breaks. Last week I had trouble with our riding mower so he tried to fix it. Big mistake, he tried to take the starter off and broke a bolt to it and now it has to be replaced. He accidentally cut his mothers A/C line while trying to weedeat around it 2weeks ago. To top it all off, he borrowed our next door neighbors riding mower last night to mow around my garden, hit a metal pole to the fence surrounding the garden and bent the mower blades (which we had to replace). I'm thinking seriously that he is a disaster waiting to happen. I don't want to ask him to "fix" anything, let him do any work for anyone else or let him borrow a darn thing from anybody. Seriously I need to hire someone to do odd jobs around here, but I know that would offend him greatly. But everything he tries to fix ends up costing me more than hiring someone.

Anne, thanks it is so nice having my son home. I don't know how long he'll get to stay home, but he is a joy to have around.

Jay, thanks. I am determined to stay on plan today. So far, so good.

Enay-sorry about the roof, I've had those spells where it seems everything breaks/needs repair at once.

SusanB-Glad you're feeling more in control.

Anne-Just more hugs.

I finally got Rethinking Thin from the library to read, but haven't had time yet. I managed to get in a two mile walk with the puppy this morning because it had cooled off. My hips are really hurting though so I'm not sure that was such a good idea. My food choices right now seem to be fruit, fruit and more fruit. I finally made myself eat a salad with some cheese last night because I just hadn't eaten anything but melon, strawberries and cherries all day. I need to get back to my 'pattern' of eating.

Hmmm, I'm thinking that maybe I'll keep my DH after all! He does get things fixed, and while he occasionally breaks things, he's really good overall. He replaced our back door a few weeks ago, and it's totally trimmed and painted (and he even agreed with my color choice!) Mind you, he has plenty of other faults.....

Pat, you're a lucky woman. Want to trade. LOL.

I got my packet filled out today for NWCR and mailed it off. I felt kinda like a fraud filling this out today since I'm currently 4 lbs.above my goal. Oh well, I have maintained more than the 30 lbs. necessary and I'll get these others off. I am Very determined and motivated again today.

I'm off now for my 3 mile walk with my SD. That should brighten my day.

Just stopped in to say hello. I've been so bad about posting here regularly lately. I've been doing ok. Weight was a little up until today due to some reindulgence in the fried pita chips from the Wild Oats store on Saturday and Sunday. They are good, and you can definitely taste the difference between those and the baked ones. The baked ones are good, too, but it is just a completely different flavor. I've been eating the pita chips with fresh salsa, and they are soooo yummy. I ate too many on Sunday, so hopefully this weekend I will keep things other control or switch to a different lunch. However, I seem to have this need to purposefully indulge in something on the weekends.

A month or so ago, my plan was to try to have little indulgences throughout the week rather than waiting to the weekends and overindulging a bit, but I don't seem to be heading that way! However, I have upped my daily calories a little -- eating more cream of wheat for breakfast, and having frozen small cans of pineapple for dessert. Yum!

Lily~I could fill out the form myself (I've been this weight for a year) but I feel like a fraud, too, because I'm not at my goal.

I'm restructuring again......figured out my problem is finishing leftover food. DD didn't finish her pasta last night and I just couldn't let it go to waste. No more of that!!

I woke up feeling thin this morning for the first time in a while. My tummy was definitely flatter. Last night after my walk, I starting diuresing a lot. Up about 4 times during the night to urinate. This morning my scale shows I'm down 4 lbs.from my high wt. yesterday morning. (I weighed 3 times cause I just couldn't believe I could go down that much in 1 day). So, I guess that means my big gain was water weight? I'm wondering if that gain was from eating so much carbs and maybe from being out in the sun so much. Either way, I'm totally relieved that it went away. One yr. out on maintenance now and I actually think I was happier to see that 145 lbs. this morning on the scale than the day I reached my goal. I am totally determined to stay on plan now. Going to the pool again today with the girls. I feel like I'm tired of screwing up for a while and tired of regaining, so I'm gonna be good and stick to strict 1400 cal's a day and try to maintain this weight.

Tara, it's good to see you post again. I've never tried freezing my cans of pineapple, but it sounds good. Also, I just got a recipe on here to make home-made salsa, I'm gonna give it a try.

Allison, I found that one of my triggers is packing food for my kids or my DH late at night. It definitely makes me want a snack. I'm tempted to tell them to make it themselves. After all, how hard could it be to make sandwiches.

Allison - I have mixed feelings about leftover food. When I was a kid, I was never taught to clean my plate. Leftovers either went back in the fridge for later or down the garbage disposal. However, my fiance was taught very firmly to always eat everything on his plate, even if he was full. He also doesn't trust that our garbage disposal is capable of handling food (??? no idea why) so he almost never uses it and doesn't want me to use it either because he's afraid it will break. In any case, since I've been with him (7 years now, OMG) I have started cleaning my plate too. It's really bad. I try to take a smaller serving at first and go back for seconds if I'm still hungry, but I do have many times I pile a big serving on my plate and end up eating it all even though I was full halfway through. I still do okay with restaurants though, and I've actually gotten my fiance to start taking leftovers home.

Tara - good to hear from you!

I had a "thin" day yesterday like Lily's having today. We had what seemed to be a major disaster with our wedding planning (but I got it sorted out this morning, now it's ok) and I was really really upset. Then I walked into the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror and thought "You know what? I don't look half bad." It sure improved my mood! Let's hope I'm having a "thin" day next Tuesday when I go for my wedding dress fittings.