As is typical pattern for me lately, I self destructed over the weekend and fell off plan... Friday night was a milkshake after Mexican food, which I had planned for actually. Unfortunately it spread to gellato on Saturday (better than more ice cream, though...) and then my MIL made fried chicken and potatoes today. Maybe I need to just embrace the slightly higher weight and stop putting so much pressure on myself. Really, I didn't eat tons any of the three days compared to my previous life - 2700ish Friday (planned high day for the week), 2300ish Saturday, haven't totaled today yet... Hmm...

Ahh, I had a binging dream last night. Now I'm thinking about chocolate and cookies. :p I went to the gym before work and am looking at early workouts for the next 2 days, otherwise I won't have time. I hate getting up so early but I will do it! POP all weekend, healthy food planned/packed for the week, workouts planned for the week as well. The only foreseen "eating challenge" is my book club meeting tonight and I need to limit myself to 2 glasses of wine and small portions. This morning the scale finally got back to 157, or what is was reading the day before Thanksgiving.

Jessica, your shadowing program sounds like a great idea. Sometimes I wish the higher-up people in my org. would come visit us b/c they have no idea what we do. How was cooking club this weekend?

Shannon, I think it's important for a maintenance weight to be realistic for one's lifestyle, and only you can be honest and tell yourself what's really best for your body.

Pat, I could never, ever live in Alaska. I 'm sure it's wonderful and I'd like to visit but :brr:

Silver, ICU, kitty, midwife, how were everyone's weekends?

We can do it everyone! :carrot:

I've given in to the inevitable and moved my maintenance range to 123-127. We'll see if the change makes me feel better about myself. :dizzy:

Megan - good luck with the early workouts!

Megan, the cooking club was fun, but I ate way too much junk and I'm paying for it now with a gain. Hopefully it's mostly water.

I got in my 5 workouts last week though! Nearly didn't, but I went to the gym Sunday and did 30 minutes on the stairmaster. Today I went for a run on the office treadmill at lunchtime (20 minutes @5.7mph). I'm not sure what to do about my NRLW workouts this week. I wrenched my wrist during my workout last Thursday and it is still screwed up. I'm not sure if I should do the workout anyway while wearing a wrist brace (because it only hurts if I bend it, which I shouldn't do during any of the exercises anyway) or just postpone until it feels better.

Jessica, can you do the rest of the workout, or does the wrist figure in most of it? Like DBs. Maybe just concentrate on cardio and/or LBWO until the wrist is better?

I haven't got my equilibrium back after last week in London. The weekend was OK but yesterday was not good and today is not looking good either. I think it's because I am so busy or, rather, I've got too many things going on in too many locations. Brain can't cope, need a rest, rest not possible, brain suggests that food with fat and sugar would help, and we all agree! Let's have a party! Or a half a flapjack in the car. Or an egg custart tart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custard_tart Or three chocolates from the box of chocolates which does not belong to me.

In addition to the above, I am (I'll let you know as you are my friends) annoyed/angry with having to do so much. It's not at all that SO and DB don't do their fair share (we are an equal opportunities household with regard to responsibilities and chores :)) but There Is So Much To Do!! I'd better retire!

I am working at home waiting for the chimney sweep who is well known for being a bad timekeeper. He'll be here 'around lunchtime'. The choice for this task was me (I can go to the gymn and get back here) or SO (who would have to miss an adult education class completely). This means that we are both able to do something we like, in addition to work. DB was not in the running as he is 9 7/12 and at school listening to a talk on safety from a police officer and being plyed with chocolates from a giant tin by his headteacher (she was spotted this morning).

/rant over, I think. Thank you for listening.

I'd just like to add that the fat is looking jiggly. That's a good sign. Meg has told me so in the past, so it must be true. :lol: I must just stick at it.

Thanks, gang. Feeling much, much better now. :dancer: Onwards!

Personals later but I love you all.

And I'll redo that ticker as well.

Morning all. I stuck to my 2 glasses of wine and "small portions" last night at book club, but there were still many dishes so I ate too much and was uncomfortably full afterwards. You know, I always say that my ability to eat huge amounts hasn't changed but I realize it really has - it seemed I ate much less that I used to, took what I seemed were small portions, but it was too much anyway. Did a bit of powerwalking and heavy legs this AM and am sore, healthy food all packed, and am trying to flush out any bad results of last night before them become permanent (you know the flush out the fat before it sticks theory).

Silver, I also recall Meg saying jiggly fat is good. We are so funny, Meg could tell us that aliens are coming to invade and we would take it as gospel. Sorry you've got so much to do. Repairmen who will come "sometime during the day" are so annoying. Take it one thing at a time.

Jessica, if your NRLW workout involved holding a lot of dumbbells I'd suggest postponing it, doing a lower body or cardio workout instead. I don't see how holding dumbbells, even if you're not rotating or curling your wrists, could not antagonize your wrist further.

Shannon, there's no shame in changing your maintenance range! You seem like you think it's the end of the world - it's not! Our bodies do change.

Stay strong everyone! We can do it! :carrot:

Thanks guys, I decided to postpone the workout because my wrist seems to be getting worse. The workout is mostly chin ups and push ups in any case. I'm a little worried I did something worse than spraining it since it's getting worse instead of better. If it's not improved by the end of the week I'll go to the doctor. In the meantime I'm going to get started on RICE for it.

I had a breakdown of willpower at dinner last night. DH's office took us out to Ruth's Chris steakhouse. I saw their menu in advance so I made sure to specifically order my steak with no butter (who puts butter on a steak? seriously!). Did well with light dressing on the salad, snuck a couple pieces of bread, went heavy on the steamed broccoli and light on the mashed potatoes. But then it turned out that everyone got an individual LARGE dessert. I ordered bread pudding, even though I knew I should have ordered sorbet, and I ate the whole damn thing. I had a flashback to that time when I was at my high weight and went out to eat with DH's grandma and when I cleaned my plate she said, "I can't believe you ate the whole thing." Ugh. It tasted good, but was not worth it. When will I ever learn?

Ha, I stink at early workouts. Mon & Tu were pretty good workouts, but instead of my third (and final) AM workout of the week today I decided today would be my "rest day" so that I could get a full 8 hours of sleep last night. Even when I try to go to bed early, early workouts cut into my sleep time. I have more time to work out the rest of the week so I'll still get all my workouts in but it was amazingly hard to give myself permission to have a rest day so "early" in the week. Food POP.

Jessica, today is a new day. Maybe you could do some cardio that won't aggravate your wrist - I suggest that because exercise really helps me reinforce that I'm recommitted and makes me feel good if I've slipped.

Keep up the good work and steely determination everyone! :dust:

Weight was back down to 141.8 today. Totally not on track for my xmas goal at all. I think I may have to change my goal to be "not gaining too much" instead of losing.

Wrist still isn't better, and the weather is so nasty that all I want to do is curl up with a book, a blanket, and some hot tea. Exercise is not happening today. Tomorrow afternoon I'll call the doctor's office to make an appointment about my wrist just to make sure it isn't broken or anything. I'm going to bed early tonight since I have to be at "work" at 4:30am! :fr: Friday I will run on the treadmill at lunchtime at work since I'll be back in the office, and maybe Saturday I'll drive over to the gym to work out depending on my wrist.

Is it bad that I'm at the point where I'm thinking it's only a few more weeks until the new year, so I might as well give up on counting calories until then? I have so many uncountable meals coming up that it seems like it's not worth attempting. I can still make good decisions without having to type it into my tracker, right? (or maybe not :p)

No. Track it. Try to count the uncountable meals in some way. It's better to know.

Jay

Hi, everyone :wave: Sorry I've been AWOL this week ... I see that paperclippy has already thoroughly described the mindset! I look at my calendar and just choke. Short of a near-fatal illness setting in before Saturday, I have a minimum of 10 "holiday meals" before the end of the year. However ... I'm more than 20 pounds less than I was at this time last year - the good news. I'm kind of morbidly curious to write everything down -just to document for NEXT year what sort of challenges I faced.

Weather threw a wrench into the exercise - I didn't feel like risking my life for a workout last night. Now the juggling really begins, to see where the heck I can fit the replacement. Need to develop a backup and lube the treadmill. :)

I'm holding my 3 least-favorite water pounds right now (fat HANDS, for cripes' sake!). Evidence is piling up that there's a food allergy involved, and the likely culprit is an artificial color used somewhere in the M&Ms process. I like the part about getting it down to something like 8 candidates ... but the final weedout is probably going to take months. Yuck. I am encouraged, though, to potentially be eradicating one major cause of scale fluctuation.

ICU, you're in Michigan, brr! Looks terrible there on the weather channel.

ICU, Jessica, and everyone else who might be feeling "why bother tracking anything when there are so many 'temptation' meals coming up" - yes, you should track! Jessica, I know from posting together for years that you are a lot like me in some of our eating habits. If I'm "not keeping track" I "let" myself have all kinds of BLTs, extras, even in my own home, not just at those holiday meals, and I think you do too. The damage will be so much more. Even if it's impossible to figure out all the calorie counts, sometimes just writing what I ate down in my food journal is enough to keep me on track and right back on track for breakfast the next morning and working out the next day. Jay's right, it is better to know.

I ate too much fried turkey at my friend's last night and the scale is up a pound today. I'm hoping to sweat it off tonight. I have no commitments after work, so I'm hoping I'll get a good run in, my first run of the week.

Silver, Shannon, Jay, Midwife, how's it going?

Thanks everyone, I am still tracking. I'm just discouraged since my weight has gone up instead of down. 142 again this morning, although to be fair I weighed at 3am, haven't had much water the past few days, and have been kind of, uh, irregular (TMI :o ).

Trying to convince myself to go to the gym right now. I've been up since 3am and I'm pretty tired. I might do Megan's 20 minutes rule -- 20 minutes of exercise, and if I'm still tired, go straight home to sleep.

Wrist was feeling a little better this morning so I didn't call the doc yet. I've had it in a brace all day.

Paperclippy, if your wrist is fractured, it is better to find out sooner than later. It will start to heal and may heal wrong... Why not just go to the doc?

I am staying with my current plan, and my weight is stable so far--meaning hovering around the same number, more or less.

Jay