:hug: and you made me :lol:

Lori, congrats on reaching your goal!!! And Jessica, congrats on making your Thanksgiving goal, too! My goal for this week ("weeks' are from Tues-Tues for me, so until Tuesday, Dec 1, my weigh-in day) was to "break even". Then PMS hit and for no reason whatsoever other than the PMS my weight jumped 3 lbs overnight, and has held there from the weekend. I'm trying to be calm, I know it's PMS and I did not do anything "wrong" to cause the gain, and now my goal through Tuesday is to get back to 157, my pre-pms weigh! . I ran out of time to exercise over the weekend with the play, but I'm back at it now, and was still pretty active w/o the exercise, and ate OP.

My first Thanksgiving is today, with my office, but I'm not in an indulgent mood this year so I think I will stick to turkey and veggies (ones not drenched in fat and sugar - I echo Jessica, who the heck puts sugar in corn?). I made a sweet potato and apple bake for that, and for Thursday's lunch with friends I need to make a pumpkin pie. I can handle those things. I'm looking forward to having Thursday & Friday off but not to having the gym closed for 2 days, eek! I'll have to work out at home.

ICU, good for you, if you don't like pie, don't eat it!

Lori, I love your new avatar! You are so pretty!

Gosh midwife, glad you could order an already-cooked bird. I don't know if we can trust you to care for one yourself... :D

Hi everyone else! Keep up the good work and willpower, everyone. Let's stick to our holiday goals, whatever they may be!

ICU - your family meal sounds like my family meal. My grandmother puts sugar in everything, and I am the only liberal in a family of long term conservatives. Can get scary. :) Good luck to you. :hug:

Hey girls,
I walked right into the aftermath of a work holiday party yesterday and helped myself to a cup or so of pineapple and grapes and then 1/2 a piece of zuc bread and then the other half. Went home and had a mostly op night (cals around 1700/day) and found myself up 1.5 this am to 126. MAN, my body is fighting those lower numbers!

and today I ate kid frozen pizza for dinner after eating their pirate booty snacks. SAVE me from myself!!!!!

Team, for the rest of the night it is tea, tea, tea. I know there are hormones involved here. They will not rule me!!!!!

midwife, as you know, I strongly support the made elsewhere turkey ;)
ICU and Shannon I cannot even drink because I am the designated driver. My DH is having shoulder surg tomorrow am.
Megan, can you also make the fruit tart I was instructed to make? Mine has 3 cups of white flour, .5 cup oil and 1.5 cups of sugar. whaaaa? uh huh! that be true. ETA: it is 1 cup oil, not .5 , hmmmmm

Has any one else been trying to convince themselves that they will not overeat on Thanksgiving? I surely have! I'm going to my inlaws house for dinner and I'm trying to plan in my head what i will eat a head of time. I'm a pescatarian , i eat clean, and I know they don't cook my kind of food. But, their cooking is real good, and you know what that means! It's made with sugar, fat and sodium and crappy stuff. I am afraid that if I eat it I will be tempted to go back to my old eating habits which I gave up 14 mo. ago. I am never tempted any other time or at home, but the longer I am maintaining the harder it is getting to resist it. I keep telling myself to be strong and continue to stick to what i believe in, eating clean is very important to me. I am doing real good right now with my binging problem and I really don't need to be tempted.

Fruitlady, I think that is the theme of this week! Argh!!

I did successfully mind my snacking last night and woke up at 125. I also got rid of a ton of extra water retention all thru the night O_O

Dh's surg just gave me the post op report- will be a longer than hoped for recovery but all went well.

We can do this Thanksgiving Challenge!!!

Megan, how did the office thanksgiving go?

Good luck with Thanksgiving everyone! My challenge for today is that I'm making pie (it has to freeze overnight). NO BLT's. NONE. You guys, as soon as I'm done pouring the filling into the crust, the mixing bowl is going straight in the sink and full of soapy water. NO LICKING THE BOWL.

I keep snacking after dinner. This is getting to be a problem -- when I rededicated myself to getting back to goal one of my rules was only one snack per day, which I eat at around 3:30 or 4pm. I've been snacking after dinner nearly every day for the past two weeks. No wonder my weight isn't budging anymore! :p I'm still under my calorie limit, but the snacking has to stop because it's mindless eating.

What's everyone's Thanksgiving day plans? What are you going to eat BEFORE dinner? What exercise are you going to do?

My plan is to eat oatmeal for breakfast, go for a run in the morning, and not eat anything else until the big meal. I'm still trying to get used to this Thanksgiving dinner at 2pm business that people do out here. My family always had Thanksgiving dinner at, well, dinner time -- 6pm. Friday morning if I get out of bed early enough I will go to the gym for their "burn off the turkey" 2-hour group fitness class.

Experimenting with Fast-5 concept
 

The office turkey lunch was ok, food-wise. I did stick to turkey and the veggie dishes that looked good. I caved and had a sliver of the pumpkin and apple pies. I ended up more full than I normally am after a meal, but not stuffed to the gills as I would have been had I really let loose and eaten large portions of everything that looked tasty. I was actually surprised I felt as full as I did b/c I really thought I was skipping a lot of dishes and taking small portions of those I did.

fruitlady, I know exactly what you mean. I always want to stick to the healthy stuff, I know what's healthy (I'm pretty good at guessing/judging what's in a dish), but sometimes when you see/smell the junky stuff you want it anyway! (read: why I ended up having pie yesterday despite my intentions of not having any!). I usually end up eating a lot less of the bad stuff, so I try to tell myself I could have done a lot worse, don't feel too guilty, and make the next meal better. I suppose if I eat well 90% of the time that's pretty good.

kitty, glad your DH came through surgery ok. That tart recipe sounds, uh, not clean! That recipe would never appear in Clean Eating magazine! Just remember, no BLTs while cooking!

Jessica, good idea to plan! I'm making pumpkin pie tonight, I will be with you in putting the filling bowl straight in the sink and not taking any BLTs. We're eating at 1:00 tomorrow, which is much later than my normal 11:00 lunch. I'm going to have to eat before hand, I'll be starving! I'm going to eat a normal breakfast (protein pancake, milk, coffee), go for a run/power walk, snack (piece of fruit), and before we go to Turkey lunch I'm guessing I'll need to eat so I'll have some raw veggies and some nuts. I'm unsure what exactly will be served, so I'm just going to try and eat sensibly, pass up on things that aren't "special", and stick with small portion sizes.

Stay strong everyone!

So a turkey update! I cancelled the order cause it was $50 and I could get a free fresh one at my local store. So I have a fresh 17 pounder sitting in my refrigerator....I'll let ya'll know!

Bright Angel, I know I have seen some threads on Fast-5 or some related programs. Since you're trying it, you may know better search terms to use than me, but you can probably find them. It's not a terribly common program, so I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.

OK, made two tarts, cannot lie, did have some BLTs, but really not too many and I am counting them. I gave one to my elderly neighbor who has a large side yard that she always lets my boys play in. She will serve it to her family this weekend. :) The other will come with us to my mother's husband's son's house -- so that is step brother's house? but they married as older adults so it feels weird to say it that way.
AND I made a red pepper tomato soup with pureed white beans. It actually tastes like the soup in an italian seafood stew, so I will put some shrimp in it and call it dinner!
stay cool :) I am feeling pretty cool myself as I just realized this is my second thanksgiving in maintenance. Looking forward to many many more :)

2700 yds last night in the pool. Gosh, it feels good to be getting stronger! And to not be afraid to be seen in my suit. Probably just do a protein shake this morning and dinner will be at about 2pm. Breathe, breathe, breathe. I think this is my first Thanksgiving with trying to make choices with the food and drink instead of just participating in the snarf-down ... it will be a very different holiday for me. :crossed:

Ok everyone. Tell me I just need to throw away the 1/6 pumpkin pie still staring at me from the kitchen.

Walked 6 miles before lunch yesterday and ate small portions. It's the darn pie I need to avoid! I've got no convenient person to thrust it upon, and I left the other pie at the house where I ate - they wouldn't let me leave both. I'm thawing out some healthy chili and have some barbecue-cranberry chicken breasts and kale planned for tomorrow. If I keep my butt moving I will be a-ok. I reminded myself this morning I need to keep moving because I've got to be a "former beauty queen" on stage in 2 months and Christmas is still coming!

ICU, great job on the swim! How was your Thanksgiving meal?

midwife, oh my, how did the turkey come out?

I hope everyone had a fun and successful turkey day.

I haven't posted in this thread in a while, though I've been reading it. Just wanted to let y'all know... as of this morning I weigh 155.5 lbs, which means I'm pretty much on my last ten pounds now (at last!). Excitement.