I'm here. :) I don't have any stellar successes or failures to report, beyond the success of just holding the line. I started a thread that has a link to the 1913's menu ... if you wanna see some serious food porn, go there! :lol: And I'd still love some more input on what buzzwords in the menu set off your alarm bells. I'm thinking I'm going to go with the beet salad and the vegetarian entree ... and the forbidden apple. :D Maybe if I walk the 150 miles back from Grand Rapids???

I'm here! :wave: Trying to keep the balance between food, exercise and sleep; between cardio, weights and stretching; between work, home and the rest; between Christmas stuff, school holidays and stuff just to do with me.

Worn out! :hug: for myself!

Making tea now: salmon en papillote (you know, those little paper parcels with veg and protein which I've just discovered you can staple together and the steam will not escape, unlike folding and twisting), brown rice and cabbage.

And caring for the DB who has a held-it-off-but-now-I've-got-it virus. He's weary but conversational.

Work day for me tomorrow whilst SO keeps the home fires burning.

Good to see you all around and about.

PS Have just eaten a few choc or yog covered nuts and fruit - meant for little bags on the tree but unfortunately we just had to try them out. I didn't, I suppose, but the Christmas card writing had shot away that part of my brain. Here's hoping it will grow back.

I guess so! We slackers who had 15+ lbs to lose still have some work to do. :p

Thanks for checking in everyone! But where's midwife? :?:

:wave: I totally gave up and slunk away. My 15 pounds will be attached to my a$$ until January and probably joined by a few others. :o

Ward, come back and join us again! If nothing else, maybe it will help keep those 15 pounds from turning into 20 over the holidays. ;)

I do have two POP days under my belt. I can make it three! :carrot:

I'm here too :) cannot be succinct just now. so bummed that my family's dinner tastes yuck. Ima gonna hear it :(

I'm here guys! I'm just a big loser right now, and I'm not talking about weight! Just sooo busy. Too busy. I don't like it.The running's been hit or miss. I only go in the morning if I've committed to DD or my running partner and they've not been going often, so I roll over and go back to bed. I lifted twice last week. Food has been spectacularly on or spectacularly off, as usual. I'll weigh in the morning. Egads....

I had 2 small chocolates and 2 small cookies from the treat table at work today. I'm a mess with stress. SIL had a surgery today and I think that is what is putting me on edge. Plus work stress.....

If anyone stopped checking in cause they dropped their 5-10, my hat's off to them. I'm just.....blah....

I'm muddling along. Not giving up, but that's the most important key, isn't it?

Sorry dinner's yuk, Kitty.

Oh hey.. I just don't check in because I spend all my time at the 20-somethings... :lol: 9 pounds to go though! :)

Yes you can! Go Ward, go ward, it's your birthday, get busy, go go go!

Kitty, sorry dinner's yucky.

Midwife, the holidays are especially busy. Nothing wrong with just trying to get through them and re-energize weight loss after the craziness has died down.

Silver, you sound very busy too. The salmon sounds delicious. Mmm, maybe I'll make some salmon this weekend. :drool:

Aww, megwini, we're fun too! Lol, just giving you a hard time. Glad you're still sticking with it!

Another day, another workout, another set of clean meals... I don't mean to sound blah, but given my schedule it's all pretty routine right now (good routine, not bad routine). Yesterday a huge batch of Christmas cookies appeared in the work kitchen's fridge, so I'm keeping my lunch in the lab fridge (don't worry, no chemicals or anything bad kept in there) so I don't have to look at them.

Keep it up everyone!!! :carrot::dancer::dust::cheer3::cheer2:

:waves: Good morning! The "puff 3" is back off. I think this 149 is what I weigh when I don't eat stuff that triggers inflammation. I've got it down to 2 colors now, a red and a green (I think).

I'm in the same mood as a lot of you - Let's just get this holiday over with and go back to normal business. :)

Ward, you can do it! :cheer:

Midwife, :hug: I hope the stress level goes down soon. Probably after the holidays?

Kitty, sorry your dinner was no good.

Megwini, hey, some of us here are still 20-somethings too! :lol: Actually Megan and I met originally on the 20-somethings forum but are both on Maintainers mostly nowadays.

ICU, I don't get it, what are the colors?

I'm grumpy this morning because I made myself tea, but I didn't double-check the water temperature and apparently the hot water spout on our coffee maker wasn't nearly as hot as usual. Lukewarm tea is pretty gross. What a waste of tea! I'm drinking it anyway but it's just not good. :p

Less than a week until my trip to LA! I'm excited! But bummed that my weight is still bouncing around. Even though I've been POP the past two days, my weight is up 2lbs since Sunday. How does that work?

paperclippy - "ew" about the tea. Been there once or twice - you're absolutely right about yuck. Re the colors - I finally made the connection that when I get into artificial colorants, I add 3# in water overnight. It's inflammation - an allergy or sensitivity. I've only noticed it recently after I had one of those spikes, and the only thing I'd eaten that wasn't clean was a handful of M&Ms. I flushed it out after a few days ... and then tried a half-cup serving of my HUGE fave ice cream - peppermint stick. Spike again next morning. Checked the label, and there are 2 colors used in the candy chunks. It's better than the big long list in the M&Ms, but now I have to locate a new brand of ice cream. :P I always wondered, because salt doesn't make me swell up anything like this - it's eyelids, backs of hands, stiff joints, and that infernal extra 3 pounds.

Count me in! I can't say that I've lost more than 1 or 2 lbs in the last month, but I still consider it a success. I am getting real tired of every party (too many) centered around food and I am going to one at lunchtime today too!

I've been reading here, but have been running crazy for over a week and haven't updated... I'm still working on the same three pounds I started out wanting to get rid of, but haven't worried about it as much since i adjusted my maintenance range.

It seems like a lot of us are stressed out right now, hope things settle down for all of us! :)