Denise, I've read a bit farther and am impressed so far. You and I are past the beginning stages of a diet, but for someone who's just starting (or thinking about it), I think it would be an awesome guide to follow. The day by day breakdown of what to do, planning and prep would be so useful and easy to follow. I'm looking forward to the chapters to come since the author says there's lots that applies to people already on a diet. Let us know what you think as you read it.

I am in the very beginning of maintaining, so I am trying to figure out how many calories I need to maintain and not gain. I upped today to a very normal breakfast and lunch and supper and am still losing. What's ironic is that I could end up eating MORE than I ever did previously, the difference being in WHAT I am eating and now I exercise. So eating more and maintaining the weight I am now, I would have never thunk it.

I added the bold.

You're right! Healthy eating instead of all that crap that made us fat to begin with!!! Think about the quantity of healthy food vs junk. You could eat cups and cups of vegetables and not even come close to the calories in a candy bar and you'd be so much fuller and healthier! And of course getting up off our couch potato duffs sure helps, too!

I'm having a pretty good week. The end of last week proved to be quite a challenge for me. First off I wasn't able to work out Thursday - Sunday. Well half didn't get to and half didn't want to! And to add insult to injury I ate 4 pieces of corn bread at Sunday dinner at my Mom's. Yeah...really out of character. More like the old Liz. This week has been better. I haven't gained any, but haven't been as diligent with the working out. I have fallen into these slumps before so I'm not worried. I have done cardio so far 3 times including tonight and strength trained twice, so not so bad. My mom was admitted to the hospital yesterday and is supposed to be let out today, as of 8 PM she was still there. She had surgery, she's doing much better. I ended up taking two days off of work. Just a strange day. Tomorrow night I'm going over to my mom's to help out with a party she's having on Sunday. I am also going over there on Saturday to clean. Then Sunday I will be there from 8 AM till God only knows! That's the day of the party. They are calling for decent weather. So that is good. I just hope all goes well. I'm a little stressed out this week. I need to chill. Major.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the tips on the pita chip substitutes. Every once in a while, I think should just spread smaller treats throughout the week, but it's so much easier to stay on track Mon-Fri and having a bigger allowance on the weekends. I just wonder if it's "normal". My dad and brother who are those naturally "eat when hungry/stop when full" type people don't spend time thinking about what they're going to look forward to eating on the weekends. They just eat what they want when they want!

I've cycled through a few weekend treat addictions (Whole Foods store cornbread, Wild Oats store muffins, and now the pita chips). The cornbread started it all, because prior to that I wasn't buying any prepared/packaged food. I decided to loosen up, and I've created a monster! Ha, ha!

The funny thing about the addictions is that I can never predict when they'll end. I'm thinking that I might break the pita chip cycle this weekend because I've realized that the salt load is probably not good for my blood pressure. My mom has hypertension, and my BP was a little borderline before I lost weight. Now it's great, and I shouldn't push it back up. We'll see if I can stay strong. It looks like my parents will probably visit one day this weekend, so that will probably make one day easy, since I won't be sitting around thinking about pita chips!

Maybe I'll make sweet potato oven fries instead! Haven't made them in a couple months.

Boy even if I never considered it this week is all the proof I need that fasting to "jump start" would be bad. When I first got sick I was sad because we had just bought all this beautiful fruit from the farmers market and I had a whole bucket of veggies from the CSA. dh wont eat veggies so most of that rotted away. I've been drooling over the fruit. Now after 4 days of darn near fasting I could give a rats-patootie about the fruits and veggies but cheeseburger and pizza ads on TV are killing me. It is going to be sooooo hard to not inhale food when this gets better.

I'm proud of me though I managed to force down 900 calories today. It only took about 5 hours of eating time. Problem is, the more I eat, the hungrier I get.

Tara - for me it isnt necessarily the weekend, but I did get used to my splurge day. It started for me because of long runs, I need to eat more, but darn if I dont want that on the weekends I DONT go long too! Actually the tougher thing is I got in the habit this summer of walking to get soft serve icecream. Its pretty much a wash calorie-wise as I dont count walking in my exercise plan. The tough thing will be stopping the icecream when school starts up and I cant walk everywhere.

Sleepy - I hit a switch on my metabolism too, I am now losing at levels that previously would have me gain. (this week better not blow that )

Today was one of those magical days that I wish I could send thru a replicator. I walk/jogged 4.35 k, I did an awesome legs work out, I went to work and ate just over 1200 cals.
I feel amazing!

Good morning! We just about got washed away yesterday with three rounds of thunderstorms. Today is just humid and blah. My weeds are loving this weather.

Susan, bottle up that fantastic feeling and remember it whenever you feel tempted to skip exercise or eat that cookie.

Ennay! DS is battling a strep throat that won't go away too. He's on his second round of antibiotics.

Tara, sweet potato oven fries are the BEST! And you can spice them up if you like them hot. I just use a spray of PAM and spices and turn them a few times while they're baking. BTW, I did pita chips in the oven a few days ago with whole wheat, 50 calorie pitas, PAM, and sea salt and they turned out really well.

Hi Liz! It sounds like your life is mega-stressful right now. You'll be back in your routine as soon as things settle down a bit. Don't sweat the corn bread -- you're not going to be faced with that every day. Some things are very hard to resist!

Pat, I'm so happy that you're getting some relief for your knees. My doctor says there's nothing I can do short of total knee replacements since the injections didn't work. I now have a lovely enormous black knee brace that I wear to try to hold me together while I stall on surgery. But I still can do leg press, stiff legged dead lifts, hack squats, squats (up to 135 pounds) and sometimes can do lunges, depending on the day. And elliptical, of course -- I'd be in bad shape without the elliptical! Bummer on the shoulder -- boy, do I hope it's not a rotator cuff problem! If it's not better in a week, try to get an MRI. It's the only way to figure out what's going on with shoulders -- everything else is just a guess.

What's everyone got planned for the weekend?

Hi dear maintainers,

This might sound funny, calling you 'dear' but it took me a long time leaving 'lurkdom' and finally becoming a member. Meanwhile i did do a lot of reading and feel pretty close to all of you. Does that make sense? As said I'm a longtime lurker, i can't remember wether i started reading 3FC first and then losing weight or the other way around but it was pretty much linked together somewhere around januari this year.

A small introduction of me can be found over in introductions (don't know how to link sorry) but in short: i'm 26, dutch and lost a little over 20 pounds since i started.

On 3FC i always felt most attracted to the maintainers for two reasons, first off; you ladies allready know how to do this weightloss-thing (despite ups and downs)! Second this might sound strange but i really don't like dieting, somehow that makes al the switches in my brains that cause icecream/ potatochips/ pizza cravings go off. So i decided that a diet wasn't the best way to go, instead i figured that i would start right off with maintainence. I started making changes that i could keep doing for the rest of my life. That seems to work pretty well for me. Verrry slowly (maybe a pound, sometimes two, a month) i'm getting to a body i like.

If you girls don't mind i'd like to join your weekly thread and share what's happening in my life. (for example i'm in the middle of moving house and my scale is 150 miles away )

Marsha

Dear Marsha - we're so happy to have you join us! I always get such a kick when people come out of lurkdom and start posting. Your plan of starting with maintenance and making livable changes is brilliant - you've obviously been doing your homework!

Good luck with the move! We all know how stressful that can be. When do you expect to be settled in your new house?

Hi Meg,

Thanx for the welcome! We (dear BF and me) bought our first home as of february. It's a real fixer-upper so we've been busy with that since then. To complicate matters i was still going to school (bachelor in communications) in our old town so i could only come up for the weekends and vacations. My BF lives here since february in the only room that we had done already. Now most of the work on the inside of the house is done and we're moving this weekend. My exercise for the last six months has been putting up drywall, breaking down ugly ceilings, painting and so on.. Did put some nice muscles on my arms though!

Morning!

Welcome Marsha ... this is our fourth old house and each time we say we'll not do that again. But they're just so awesome! This one is kinda plain ... deserves to be cuter. People who come to see us say they didn't even know this house was here. So we're putting a porch on the front and it's gorgeous! Siding, windows, bathroom, kitchen and it'll be the gem of the block!
A very productive way to burn calories!

Good morning everyone,

Hurray, it's Friday! I love not having to wake up to an alarm on the weekends. My only firm plan for the weekend is to have sushi night with the girls tonight. Yummy. It's always hard to control my portions, but 2 of the "I'll never diet!" girls are now on weight watchers so at least nobody's frying anything tonight. Plus I'll go to the gym beforehand, of course. Yesterday I got some good running in at the gym. I did chest flies two days ago for the first time in a few months, probably, and those muscles on the inside of my armpits are so sore. Anyway, other than that, I need to clean the house for my parents visit next week, and plan to hide in the AC. It's too hot to play outside.

Hi Marsha, welcome! Renovating a house is a really good workout!

Pat, Meg, sorry to hear about your shoulder and knee troubles.

Ennay, 900 yesterday, 1200 today, right! Well hopefully. I'm sure this is really frustrating for you. Try not to be too discouraged. There's not much you can do about it. I definitely would have reacted like you - the produce! Somebody must save the produce!

Tara, mmm! Sweet potato fries! I love them. I used to also allow myself weekend treats, but it slid too fast into weekend free-for-alls. My brain & body just doesn't deal with the "everything is ok in moderation" concept responsibly. Maybe it's something about the lack of daily structure on weekends, since I work Mon-Fri.

Susan, sounds like an awesome day!

Libby, hope you feel less stress this week. I know you're busy, but could you take 5 minutes to do something nice for yourself? Drink some tea or paint your nails or something that de-stresses you?

Carolyn, sounds like another great sailing trip! Your pictures are great. What beautiful sunsets (sunrises?). Reminds me to take my camera more when BF and I go out. He's still cleaning up his 28-foot boat, but it's too hot to even think about going anywhere right now - even afternoon sails are just awful right now, we just bake. We're looking forward to some September sailing, I think. Does your boat have AC?

Have a great Friday everyone!

Hi everyone,

I went to Karaoke last night with my friend Causha. She ended up getting drunk. As the non-drinker, I had to drive her home afterwards. She wanted me to let her drive herself, but I wouldn't do it. I insisted on taking her home in her car, then calling a cab to go get back to my car. Then, I went shopping at 2AM at Walmart and got the rest of the girls' school supplies. I've spent a fortune on the school supply stuff. (this yr. they are both in geometry and had to have very expensive calculators).

Our weather is miserable. 102 degrees with about 80 % humidity. Just walking outside makes me sweaty and sticky. I can't wait now for fall to get here. We are planning to go camping sometime next month if the weather gets more friendly. We've only used our camper once since buying it last Februrary.

I did really good on my eating yesterday plus walked on my treadmill. Last night the girl's wanted pizza after their first day of school. I relented and took them to eat. I ordered me a salad and a turkey sandwich. That pizza looked good, but I am determined to get back to goal once again, so I didn't take a single bite of it.

I'm definitely finding it easier now to stick to my plan with the girls back at school and DH and DS gone off to work most of the time. It's just easier not to have to watch everyone else eating all the time.

The gain I noticed yesterday is heading back down. I know some of it was water retention and "irregularity". I feel less fat and less bloated today. So, like Susan B, I'm having a good day today.

Marsha, welcome to our chat. I'm glad you came out of lurkdom and joined us.

Welcome Marsha!

Yesterday, I too had one of those days where everything just fell into place - why don't they come along more often?

My arm/shoulder is feeling better this morning, though still painful to raise above shoulder height. I slept on my back - which I never do - with a neckroll pillow under it to support it. Plus I'm taking Advil every 4 hours (which I hate to do as it causes water retention!). I have had rotator cuff problems, and an impingement (where the tendon gets "caught" in the joint between the humerus and the clavicle - ouch) in this arm. Hopefully, I've just strained something this time....

A gorgeous summer day here, wish I weren't working! We have a farmers/craft market across the street every Friday in the summer, so I'll take a walk-through at lunch time. They have more and more veggies every week, so perhaps I can find something we don't grow. The crafts don't usually attract me too much, though there is t-shirt place that has some really nice designs (like I need another t-shirt!)

Lily, - you can keep that hot/humid weather! I understand how much easier your days will be without the grazing kids and DH tempting you with food.

We're going to dinner at a friend's house tonight, but she's a diabetic, so I'm not expecting too much in the way of sweets or heavy foods. Tomorrow night is a potluck retirement party, but I'm bringing food I know will be fine to eat, plus there'll be grilled chicken as well as the burgers/hot dogs. I find the longer I can eat "clean" the easier it gets.

How are you doing with Beck, Meg? I looked at it, dipped into it here and there, but my head was not in the right place. I've since finished reading "Water with Lemon" which is a "weight-loss novel" (their words). The concept is interesting and they have a web site (same name). It's more of following some basic concepts along with intuitive eating - all sound WL practices, nothing weird, that are easily incorporated into daily life, and most which most of us do anyway.

Okay, I'm dressed in jeans for action and I'm off to send old/unused books to their final reward.

Have a great day!