neurodoc - I'm SO GLAD to hear you're doing better. Just knowing you're "allowed" to have more calories does wonders for your head, I think, and I'm happy to hear you've managed to keep yourself away from the dangerous obsession zone.
Yay Neurodoc!
Midwife, chef salad is one of my most favorites! Have not made that in ages. Thx for the reminder
Allison, I am doing baby steps but gained a pound from yesterday. Pretty sure it's sodium. Still, always unsettling to see gain when you're behaving mostly well...
Becky, how's your unwarranted gain- gone yet?
Kramp, Jess, broke my dessert pledge w/in record time. But nor the last bit of mint chip is gone.
Silver, how're u holding up?? Feel the intercontinental love
And for me, I was thinking about getting some grapes into the freezer. Unfortunately my yen for something sweet after dinner is pretty strong. That might get the job done
Silver, how're u holding up?? Feel the intercontinental love
KC, Thank you. Only a short time lag to bounce off the satellite and it's here. Pinging it back to you. And telling you to get moving.
Neuro - so glad you're sounding more the thing.
Midwife - scales aren't strictly necessary, I don't think. People get pretty wound up about numbers, as you know. You could try the pantsometer? But a plan is a good idea. You'll probably laugh but I have no idea what a chef salad is so I'll go and look that up.
Krampus You're ahead of me over there in Japan. Do you think that Japanese street fashion is more 'untidy' (for want of a better word) than Korean? It's a theory a friend of mine who lives in Australia with a Japanese partner has, and it seems to hold good with students here. What do you think?
Allison - oh yes, baby steps! Such a good idea.
Becky? Hello? Hope you're OK, post trip.
Friends, I am down in weight. In weight, I'm down. 149 in American and 10 stone 9 in British. Some of that may be because of the tummy upset I've just had but not all. I am holding firm and holding my smaller tummy in. But also feeling rather relaxed about things.
The baby steps are working to a degree. I'm much more in control, yet the weight is not fluctuating. Let's hope for a change tomorrow morning.
So I'm trying a new breakfast this morning. I often have an egg-white mcmuffin on a 100% whole wheat English muffin with Trader Joe's "healthy" Canadian bacon (20 cals/slice). I should, but don't, skimp on the cheddar slice. I just can't seem to find a good reduced fat cheddar...will continue my search. Anyway, I saw a recipe for egg salad with avocado. It sounded good and since I always use fat free mayo, I thought I'd try it. Boiled the eggs last night. I'm thinking 1 egg, 1/4 avocado on a 100% whole wheat "thin". It should come in at fewer calories and be a total taste change.
Well I haven't broken my no dessert on weekdays pledge but it depends how you define dessert. DH made a "banana milkshake" last night and I had half, but it's not really a milkshake. 1 banana + 1 C milk in the blender = banana "milkshake." Sometimes he adds a little vanilla extract. I don't really count it as dessert since if I had had a banana and a glass of milk it wouldn't have been dessert.
I have been tempted though! Luckily I have been working from home on the days that they're having bake sales at work.
In any case I haven't been posting on this thread but I have been reading. My weight is at 136 right now. For a while there after two weeks of stressing about whether my dog was going to make it or not I was actually down to 131. Then he started recovering and since my pants were falling off I said "it's okay for me to gain some weight." Which led to chocolate malts, cake, cookies, ice cream, donuts, chocolate bars, cadbury eggs...and putting back on the 5lbs I lost.
What I really want to do is have my maintenance range be 133-138. 133 on my current scale is 130 on my old scale, so 133 is the weight I was when I originally hit my "goal" using an inaccurate scale. I feel pretty darn slim at 133. 131 was nice for a few days but I do not want to buy a new wardrobe and even my "skinny" pants were slipping down.
In any case I need to short circuit this gain. It was okay to gain some weight back, but it should have stopped at 135. I don't really want to actively calorie count and restrict just to go from 136 to 133 but I need to avoid getting any higher. Thus the no dessert on weekdays pledge.
No dessert on weekdays--I'll take that pledge too!
Allinell, I put avocado in my egg salad. The breakfast sandwich sounds like a great start to the day.
Neurodoc, I'm glad you're finding a positive balance.
Becky, wassup?
Kitty, I need to get more exercise in. Remember my writing goal? I'm doing tons of writing, but dropping the ball on exercise. A couple of my friends are thinking about signing up for a boot camp and that sounds fun, but I feel like I need to lose weight and get in shape before I do the bootcamp. This mentality also explains why I don't hire a housekeeper, because I would need to clean and declutter my house before he or she came over. Sigh.
SB and Krampus, way to slender and sleeken up! (I think I invented a word!).
Jessica, isn't it funny (not!) how easy it is to put back on 5 lbs?
SB, a chef salad (to me!) is mixed greens with tomato, ham or turkey, cheese and hard-boiled eggs. So it can get out of control calorically if one is not careful. I made it my way, so it had mushrooms and avocado in it, to which both my DH and DS#1 objected. But I like mushrooms and avocado!
I feel like I need to lose weight and get in shape before I do the bootcamp. This mentality also explains why I don't hire a housekeeper, because I would need to clean and declutter my house before he or she came over. Sigh.
You mirror my exercise thoughts to a tee. (unfortunately)
But I do have a housekeeper. She comes every other week, so I still have to do some work myself. I clean up the kitchen every day when I come home because I'm not entirely sure that little Mr. Ringo really stays off the kitchen counters when I'm gone. Today, he got into some catnip and was having a "high" time and jumped from the family room couch to the tabletop where I was on my computer. He immediately knew (by his body language) that he wasn't supposed to be there but had a hard time deciding to jump back to the couch. Other than that an occasional vacuuming to get rid of dog/cat hair on the tile, that's about all I do until "the day" she comes. At that point all I do is pick up toys from the floor and make sure DS picks up clothes and stuff in his room.
I've been reading but not posting as faithfully here, either.
I've had several higher than planned days lately that I blame on raisins. I got a big container of raisins this time versus the little individual boxes. They are so much fresher that I was stunned. I find myself grabbing a fingerful of soft, delicious raisins here and there all day long, every time I pass the cabinet. Well, 300 calories of raisins is so much easier than I thought... So, I have to get the 'its okay, raisins are good for me' mentality out of my head and get back to the 'weigh all raisins regardless' mindframe.
Midwife - DH's EX took a boot camp and loved it for the first six days, but then started to have hip pain from the running. I think with your running base you would be just fine. But I understand the get in shape first mentality, I think I would be the same way.
Good job avoiding the cake Midwife! And you should totally go for the boot camp class. I took one once and it was great. It doesn't matter if you're in shape or not because it will kick your butt either way. I *thought* I was in good shape when I signed up for the boot camp class, but I was wrong! It's good to get a challenge though.
I'm thinking about signing up for a class called "extreme strength" that they're offering at work. I'm a little concerned about all my various injuries messing it up though. My feet are still screwed up from the plantar fasciitis acquired in DECEMBER (WTF, why do they still hurt???), and my tailbone is still messed up (going to PT tomorrow to try to fix it). Plus as usual my wrist tendinitis never goes away.
Shannon, raisins are surprisingly high in calories! If you think about it though they are basically grapes with the water removed, so the sugars are distilled into a very dense concentration.
Allison, when I was a kid I totally didn't understand the "I have to clean for the housekeeper" thing that my grandma used to do. Now I feel like if I were to get a housekeeper, I would have to pick up before they came, but my grandma used to do ridiculous stuff like vacuuming because the housekeeper was coming. We do not have a housekeeper but I don't keep up on the chores either so our house is kind of a pit. Especially the bathrooms.
And yes, it is SO EASY to put on 5lbs. OMG. In 11 days I went from 131.2 to 136.8.
kitty - Yes, the wagon is waiting for me to board. And I am staring at it.
midwife - nice plan! Chef salads rock. Depending on the chef, one can find just about anything in there. Finely diced bacon and avocado, cheese, egg ... mmmm! I am a fellow mushroom-lover too! I have housekeepers, every other week. They're quite open about clutter - they'll just clean around it! I honestly think I would give up my cable and internet before I got rid of the housekeepers - DH and DS are freakin' useless on this front, and I ain't gonna do it all by myself.
alinnell - every step is a step closer. I need to take a clue and think like you do. Maybe just a half glass of wine tonight? And no pound cake! The breakfast yummy should be terrific - I'd add some hot salsa on mine.
krampus - Isn't it cool how just a couple of pounds can have such an awesome effect? Ditto, how going the other direction can do the opposite?
neuro - glad you're getting your feet back under you - and finding that a little more intake is helping. None of this should be miserable.
silver - yes, doing OK, thank you! I seemed to have aggravated my neck/shoulder thing with the wheelchair-pushing, but a trip to the chiro has brought it back 80%. Planning to follow up again today to make sure it's all in line before I see the personal trainer.
Jessica - I've been following Carter's progress on the chat thread - hooray for his ongoing recovery!
Still here - also reading more than posting. The mystery pounds are leaving at a rate of one per day, which would seem to indicate I got into something. Yes, that would be sugar. Don't know why, but I too have been eating dessert. That was the first thing I cut when I was losing weight - is it any wonder that putting it back in the lineup caused the opposite? DH was up to his usual tricks in the kitchen and concocted a dark chocolate devil's food pound cake, with bittersweet ganache. I failed to resist. No, I actively chose not to resist. I would like to join the no-weekday-dessert challenge, as a baby step toward the wagon. If I approach it mindfully and carefully like Alinnell, perhaps it will not flee?
I received some sweet souvenirs from a friend and they're all gone, but the total damage for all of them was probably less than 350 calories. Ate half yesterday and the other half today. Today is a "two lunches" day where I have two different salads: one storebought with ham and potato salad at 105 calories, and one homemade with a whole apple chopped, beans, spinach and cheddar cheese at ~380 calories. Planning for a protein-rich dinner. Probably salmon and an omelette. Aaaand a zero-calorie jello dessert.
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silverbirch Korean v. Japanese fashion, hmm. I cannot speak for the whole of Korea, but comparing fashion in Seoul vs. Tokyo, Korean women go for "classy" while Japanese women go for "cute." Congrats on the loss!
ICUWishing Glad the mystery pounds are leaving. Dark chocolate pound cake sounds far too good to pass up, argh!
paperclippy "Extreme Strength" - what does that entail?
midwife Ah you are stronger than I am on the desserts.
Shannon Raisins are really easy to overdo. I went through a 500+ calorie bag in less than four days last week.
alinnell Glad the baby steps are working. Control is the most important thing.
I'm in deep, deep trouble, folks. Spouse's next kitchen event is going to be:
"A gougère, in French cuisine, is a savory choux pastry with cheese. Grated cheese may be mixed into the batter, cubes of cheese may be pushed into the top, or both.
Gougères can be made as small, finger-sized pastries, or filled with ingredients such as mushrooms, beef, or ham. In the latter case, the gougère is usually made using a ring or pie tin. Traditionally, gougères are made with Gruyère, but other cheeses are sometimes used. Gougère is a specialty of the Burgundy region. Gougères are sometimes dipped in colouring to put an effect on them."
The pound cake was one thing. It was good ... but it was still a dessert-thingy, and wouldn't drive me to mindlessness. I have awful issues with savory, cheesy foods! So, I'm going to at least ATTEMPT to go into it with knowledge. I'll put the recipe into the LoseIt, and figure out exactly what the damage from one of these (or four, or ten) will do. I swear to document each and every last one of them in the food journal. And I will do my very best to eat them among witnesses, plated beautifully, and with zero distractions. Please send strength for Sunday afternoon!
You're ahead of me over there in Japan. Do you think that Japanese street fashion is more 'untidy' (for want of a better word) than Korean? It's a theory a friend of mine who lives in Australia with a Japanese partner has, and it seems to hold good with students here. What do you think? 
DH made a "banana milkshake" last night and I had half, but it's not really a milkshake. 1 banana + 1 C milk in the blender = banana "milkshake." Sometimes he adds a little vanilla extract. I don't really count it as dessert since if I had had a banana and a glass of milk it wouldn't have been dessert.
It's good to get a challenge though.
