Hi gang! I have arrived and, on behalf of you all, have just eaten a fabbo salad (spinach, frisee lettuce, apple, sundried tomato, ginger Stilton - cheese, pecan nuts). The best I've had in ages. It will tide me over until I get to my friends who are just not very good cooks who eat a bit late. This way, I shan't be ravenous and will be able to be sensible not desperate at the table.

Have had my hair cut. What a relief! Hairdresser & I go back at least 25 yrs altho' I've never lived in London. Bought a lovely bra at a swish and friendly lingerie shop by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen. (Bet we have different taste in underwear though!) About to look for new leather gloves and then head off to my friends.

Tomorrow is the work meeting in Greenwich. Thrillingly, it is practically on the Greenwich Meridian (0 longitude) so I can have a foot in E and W. I'll look at a bit of architecture (latest project). Then home, tired, happy and Not One Jot heavier. I'm concentrating very hard on this.

:wave:

Oh, thanks for the salad - sounds delicious! :) My DH loved Greenwich, and did stand straddling the line. :lo: His favorite London place was a lovely little steam engine museum we found near Kew Gardens. We spent a great afternoon there, but had an, um, interesting time getting back to our hotel which involved swapping trains/tube several times.

ICU - I've never tried hand paddles, and am not inclined to after hearing that. I've had enough problems with my right shoulder in my life.....

Ooh, ooh, pick me too! I want to go shopping London! I've never been to England but would love to go. I can't get anyone in my family or BF to take a vacation with me, though, and I'd rather not travel alone - it's just more fun to me to have friends around. Stinkers.

Silver, that salad sounds really delicious! The haircut and shopping sound very lovely too. Believe me, I understand about needing to take advantage of opportunity when going to "the big city"! I live in the boonies and the city is 1 1/2 hours away, and it's not even a really big city. I stop at the store when I go there for a work meeting, too!

3 1/2 days and counting POP... onward and downward (scale-wise, I mean)!

Writing this down to wrap my mind around it. Challenge schedule:
Friday 12/4 - lunch meeting at work
Saturday 12/5 - cooking club holiday party
Monday 12/7 - dinner @Ruth's Chris for Ben's work
Tuesday-Thursday 12/8-12/10 - job shadowing program, working funny hours
Saturday 12/12 - dinner @Thai restaurant for Ben's birthday
Sunday 12/13 - Hannukah party + Ben's birthday dinner part two
Friday 12/18 - lunch meeting at work
12/22 - 12/29 in LA for xmas, all bets are off.

Jessica - that looks like a tough month food-wise. Good luck... :)

Thanks Shannon, I think I just need to make sure that all of my regular meals are super-OP since I'm basically having two "cheat" meals per week this month instead of one.

Guys, I'm on track with my exercise! 4 workouts so far this week, 1 to go. I'm planning to do my run tomorrow and take today as a rest day. So far I'm really liking stage 6 of NRLW, mostly because the workout is only 30 minutes instead of an hour! :lol: But I screwed up my wrist a bit by using a dumbell that was too heavy yesterday. Wearing a brace today, hopefully it will be better in a day or two.

Good morning!
So I rescheduled a NYC appt and cut my 8 mile run short to a 6 so I could be on time to a breakfast date which my friend totally flaked on!!! She has 5 children incl. twin boys who are 20months, so I cannot be too upset with her. Still, I called her mobile and said, you suck!! Am now sitting in diner waiting for another friend. She just showed!

I have been POP every day this week and I've exercised every day, so of course that means that the scale is back UP again today... 126.7 Monday, down to 124.2 by Wednesday, back to 126.2 today.... I know I had one of my saltier meals last night, but geez!

Kitty - annoying about the no show!

Eee. A trip to London would be just what I need.....That would be soooo fun! Sounds like a yummy salad, Silver! I spent 1 day in London in June and it was not nearly long enough. DH jokes about moving to England. Maybe we should have an adventure and just do it someday! The weather might kill me though!

It was 18 degrees F here at 8:30 this morning. Brrrrr!!!!!

Kitty, I'm sorry you got stood up! Have a fun weekend!

Jessica, how come you're job shadowing? Sounds like lots of challenges! I have a work party (that we ordered a spinach salad for just for meeeee!!!!!), 2 birthdays, and then Christmas Eve/Day, NY Eve/Day....I need to get a grip on all the other days!

I'm in trouble today. I'm off (yea!), need to clean (boo!) and am already feeling "munchy" which I know is just a distraction from what I need to do. I think I'll plan my food out on the No Excuses thread to help me keep from eating for no good reason.

Almost POP yesterday, but I needed to eat a snack (like needed to, blood sugar bottomed out after working out and then giving blood and stupid chicken wasn't going to finish cooking for a while longer). I had planned a snack anyway and when I got home BF had left a pizza in the fridge, so my snack was a piece of pizza. It tided me over until dinner anyway and didn't prompt any munchies, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it not being the cleanest food out there...

This weekend I am going to 1) work out; 2) stay OP with food and 3) finish cleaning and prepare for next week, which will be very busy.

Jessica, you do have a lot of social events and food events coming up. Did you ever get to talk to the person who orders the food for your work lunch about ordering salads etc.? You're doing great sticking to your workout goals, keep it up!

Shannon, don't stress out too much. You know you've been POP so what's going on with your weight can't be anything but water fluctuations. Sometimes it takes more than a few days for our bodies to even out.

Kitty, I hope you have fun w/ your friend at the diner! Annoying about the no-show but you're right, 5 kids, wowsa that's gotta take a lot of time!

midwife, sorry about the stress from work. Munching won't make it any better though! How about you tell yourself that if you whip through your cleaning you can do something fun afterwards?

I hope everyone has a fun (and OP) weekend! Stay strong everyone! :carrot:

OK, bkfst with other friend very rewarding. She is 11 weeks preggo at age 41 and giving up on fertility! Had egg white with feta spinach and tomato with tomato and russian dsg on side.

Midwife, love the special order :)
Shannon, keep the faith in the power of POP. I had 2 days POP and went over by 500 cals yesterday -my op dinner was just too darn good and then I had dessert...
saw a loss this am bringing scale back to 126. So I am .5 up from Thksgiving and want to be several pounds lower for New Years.
That's right scale gods, do you hear me?????

Jessica, that is challenging but you are on it! :)
Silver, enjoy the work holiday ;)
Megan, ICU, all you fabu maintainers, :carrot::cheer2::wave: go us!

silver - what a yummy-sounding salad! I have some pear/ginger Stilton in the fridge - you've inspired me!!!

WaterRat - 18F is ... ouch. I'm only facing 32-33 in the morning, and I'm already turning on my heated seat all the way to work! I'm totally amazed that I'm getting away with hand paddles myself - I battled shoulder tendonitis for 7 years (the 7 years I tried to run instead of swim), including PT, steroid shots, even an MRI. Some of it helped but nothing fixed it - til a chiropractor took an x-ray of my neck. C7/T1 vertebra- the shoulders. It was so screwed up that even I could see there was an issue! In 3 months I was at 100% again, except for all the weakness from not doing anything for years. I go back once a month to make sure it's still right. I can totally relate to not wanting to do ANYTHING that might aggravate it - ever!

kitty - nice work recovering the morning's fun! I don't consider myself a true "maintainer" yet because I'm still tippytoeing my way down-scale, but I guess since I do want to maintain the 25# off no matter what ... I can get a great headstart here.

paperclippy - that's a scary schedule! My sympathies. You will overcome!

shannon - The plan works. It's the salt. Tomorrow's a new day! I think Megan said it just right. :)

I've been into my pistachio stash today, not to the point of being off-plan, and I have kept count of them. It's just unscheduled nibbling, which could be considered off-plan. I think I'll just be happy I was smart enough to have something worth nibbling on in my desk, and not making furtive, desperate moves toward the vending machines! :)

Flying visit - well, from the train.

0715 large bowl of muesli as I knew am snack wd not be possible. Tea. Coffee.
1000 coffee
1330 tomato, mozzarella & basil salad (small); lasagne (small); sparkling water; white coffee
1600 indigestion; lots of water
1730 apple, walnuts
Now (1835) indigestion. I have an apple & more walnuts. Perhaps I'll just tough it out until I can go to bed. It's that long morning session without food that's done for me.

Midwife - there is a shortage of midwives in the UK as older ones retire. There was a glitch in training numbers somewhere along the line.

:wave: all. Tomorrow is another day.

Midwife, we spent 3 weeks in UK in 2005, about 1 week in London (not continuous), 1 week in or close to Wales, and the other in various places. We too have contemplated a longer - several month - stay there. It's the exchange rate that's the killer at the moment. :)

You were colder than us this morning!! We had 20F which is my ideal for winter - nothing melts, but it's warm enough to do stuff outdoors (unlike -20F which is too cold to walk to your car! :brr: )

SB - glad you had a good - if fleeting - trip. Sorry about the indigestion.

Midwife, the job shadowing program is for us to get to know our customers better. My company produces clinical diagnostics instruments (hematology analyzers, immunoassay, chemistry, etc), so our end users are often hospital medical technicians. The idea is that we will make better products if we understand what their day is like better!

Megan, funny you should ask that, because today's work lunch was the gross sandwiches again but she did make sure to order a salad for me! Of course the salad had salami and cheese on it, but I was able to pick it out well enough, and there was a packet of fat free dressing. I had brought a backup lunch from home just in case, so I ended up having a small salad, then eating my lunch from home later, and skipping the apple I had intended for a snack.

Winter has finally arrived here in Indy -- it was in the low 20's this morning. DH went running with the dog and they were pretty funny to see. DH had on a base layer top, running tights, running pants, a mid-layer top, and an outer layer top, gloves, and a hat. The dog had on his regular collar, his collar with the LED light on it, his fleece coat, and his reflective vest. Even with all the gear DH was pretty frozen when he got back. I told him when it's that cold outside he should go for shorter runs to reduce his exposure time.

We're supposed to get some real snow next week though! Should be exciting (the first snow of the season always is, the subsequent ones not so much).