Well done, Jessica!!! Wow, that is an amazing accomplishment!!!
Tiny goals: continue stretches, 2 alcoholic drink allowance for the week, 2/3-portion at dinner. Do the 15-min abs section of the Navy Seal workout 3 times this week. The scale was scary and reflects TOM plus the indiscretions in the dining room.
Bigger goals directed to more movement - I ordered our Xbox Kinect today, along with the Shape Evolve 2012 game. I'm doing tiny exercise goals now so that in a month when we open it for Christmas, I'm not sidelined with injuries all over my brittle, stiff, out-of-shape self!
Many congratulations, Jessica, especially as you've had all the health stuff to contend with this year. You are so determined which I admire greatly.
Monday
Only 7.5 hours sleep which made me slow this morning, run late and forget my towel.
Did not weigh myself as I was running late.
Excellent focused exercise (abs) at the gymn. Even forgetting my towel did not dim the excellence.
Tiny goals. So far, I think, 100% eating has been sitting down, with my mind at least 60% switched on and focused on the food.
Food. Good except for a bar of chocolate. I do not understand what happened, your honour. One minute I did not have a bar of chocolate and the next minute I did. And then I snarfed it, as I believe our American cousins say. Otherwise good and I have just said I am having nothing to do with supper tonight, thus body swerving newly baked bread.
I am also trying out less choice which I gather means you eat less. For example, people eat fewer biscuits (cookies) if there is only one kind. If there is a choice, people eat more. (Sorry, no source as I'm on the phone. I think I read about this on the Beck board. Possibly Bill posted it.) I know that the reverse does apply with raw veg: I eat much more if there is a choice.
Joining this board until I'm back down to 120-ish (I never seem to get all the way there; I'll settle for 121...). Since this morning was 125.4, I'm officially in the "5 to 10" club.
Mini-goals: 1. track every bite until I'm back below red-line. Aim for 1300 cal/day or less. 2. get an hour of effortful movement daily (7 days/week) until I'm allowed to do real exercise.
Jessica, that's fantastic, and shows a serious, consistent effort. And it's a lesson to me, with my quasi-superstitious belief that if I miss even one day of exercise, yes, even one, I'm in grave danger, and very soon, I'm going to fall in the gutter and lie there, wallowing, abandoning the whole effort, ballooning back up to where I was & then beyond.
saef, could I borrow that belief for a while? As much as I have plenty of my own disordered, weird thoughts, I have never developed a compulsive need to exercise. As much as I like the way it feels when I 'm done, I still like being lazy more. I'm thinking it may have to do with different histories - I never made it to the obese category and my 20 pounds lost is trivial to everyone but me, so I literally never had as much "skin in the game."
silver, I firmly believe that teleportation does exist, and occasionally foods do teleport themselves into my hands or mouth. Figuring out what makes me vulnerable to being on the receiving end has been a long battle - I first tried the tinfoil hat, and then I found out that the teleportation is short-range - they can only "get me" if I'm in the kitchen itself. It also seems to help if I take a witness along into the kitchen, as no one I've ever talked to who's experienced this phenomenon has had a corroboration from another party that the teleportation actually occurred.
Tiny goals for yesterday were on the mark. Tonight is my first crack at a true abs workout. A few pounds of puff went back into hiding - never truly lost, but in "stealth" mode waiting for an opportunity. Where, oh where, did that infernal phrase "lose weight" ever originate? It's never "lost" - we know exactly where we can find it, dang it!
Becky~I know I've said this before, but I swear you and I are made of the same cloth. Yep, never been obese (except while pregnant and somehow the weight I gained then shouldn't have been referred in this manner IMO). 30ish pounds lost on my part is a huge thing to me, but as you said, trivial to others. And lazy? I'd much prefer holding down the couch than spending half an hour on the elliptical. That said, I need to erase that funk from my brain. I know I need to exercise. I just don't want to. Never did like to except for one strange period when I'd get up at o'dark thirty and go running with the dog. But these days, my fear of the dark (and strangers I might meet) has curtailed that obsession. That and the fact that the dog is injured, but that's just an excuse as I can still use the treadmill or elliptical--except that we've turned the exercise room into the cat room and the smell from the litterbox isn't one you want when doing heavy breathing.
Saef - safe travels! Glad you've got someone going with you for company and perspective. Old friends are good for that.
Becky - teleportation, eh? That is very peculiar. Is it just in your kitchen? Could it be something to do with radio frequencies? You might need to work out some kind of ritual to keep it at bay. Gosh, I would! It's actually quite weird, what's happening to you. How about an exercise-type ritual? Just an idea but you've got to do something, you know. Seriously.
Allison - I agree with you about heavy breathing in the cat room. Not good.
Tuesday
Only 7.5 hours sleep. Headache on waking which lasted all day. Perhaps I slept in a draught as the wind has been very strong. Down 0.6kg on Sunday. Focused exercise (legs) at the gymn but it felt like hard work. And all food was eaten sitting down. I'm pleased about that.
Just in from a school concert. I concentrated on the company and did not eat any of the the food afterwards. Hurray!
It's been an odd day but it has helped me to feel that I might be getting the ball rolling again.
Congrats Jessica and thanks for being an inspiration!
I still haven't found a good way to work exercise into my new, hectic work schedule. But I get some good exercise on weekends, at least.
The new guy I started dating last month has turned out to be fantastic. Now I'm starting to stress out about the getting physical part. I wish I felt better about my body. The last time I started a new relationship was ten years ago, when I was in much better shape. I think what I really wish is that my confidence wasn't so closely tied to my self image.
Any smell from a cat box is quite directly related to how often it's scooped, and totally cleaned out and the litter changed. I have been complimented by 3 service people who have come into my home on how there is no "cat box smell". I scoop every time I go down to the basement (about 3-4 times daily) and we wash out the boxes and replace all the litter every week, alternating boxes. And we now have 2 boxes for 2 cats.
I have clients who treat this chore very differently and it's quite evident from the moment you walk in that they have cats. They are also the ones whose yard is covered in dog poop.
I'm hoping the human toilets in thier home get flushed more often.
Dagmar~I have the automatic boxes that scoop away the messes into a sealed container, so we don't get much smell. The only smell comes during the 5 minutes before the scooper does it's work. And I empty the containers every other day (daily when we had 4 cats here!) and completely clean the boxes every other week. We also pick up dog poop daily. There's nothing worse than a yard full of poop, IMO. But you know how cats are--kind of "scheduled". As soon as they get up, they pee, then eat, then poop. DH got up to exercise this morning and locked the cats out of the cat room and didn't bother opening the bathroom in the master bedroom where the other cat box is. Poor Ringo was waiting outside the door when I exited from my shower. Louie was waiting patiently for James to let him back in the cat room. I told DH that if he gets up to exercise he has to open the bathroom door so the cats have a box to use!
silver - I giggled my way through your response re the teleportation issue. Indeed, ritualistic behavior is the key - and it is simply "eat meals carefully and for pleasure, but snack exclusively for fuel." Personal finding, even!
allison - I've had brief periods of structured exercise that weren't awful, too. I trained for several 10 mile runs, and I did prepare for the swimming event in Atlanta in 2010. Ever since, I've been trying to get that mojo back, and it just ain't happening. Which led to the purchase of the XBox Kinect and the concept of "if I gotta play, I gotta get up off the couch to do it." I think my basic intent is that if I can accidentally get myself into a basic level of fitness by having a good time, I'll like the way I feel so much that I'll want to do some more. We're going into winter, and the urge to move is even less.
Re litterboxes - fresh bunny pee can make a catbox smell like beautiful perfume. Fortunately (and strangely) the litter does a great job of absorbing the smell, right up until you're in the process of emptying it. Then it takes a few hours to get the imprint out of your nose!
Moseying along and keeping my eyes on my tiny goals. I did fail to do the ab workout last night, but have pledged not to go to bed until I have it done tonight. C'mon, Becky, it's a lousy 15 minutes out of your life. Not like you can't spare it!!!
I had a cup of coffee in a cafe (alliteration!) this morning but no cake or biscuit with it. I rarely go there. I always used *never* to eat anything there but then started to, when I was going through a not enough sleep/far too much to do/very tired phase. The food there is not my kind of thing, really, so I'm making sure that's how I frame it to myself once again. "Silverbirch, this food is really *not* your kind of thing." Thinking of you all helped me to get to this point this morning. Thank you all very much, all present and all lurkers!
Tiny goals. 100% eating sitting down! Mind about 60% switched on and focused on the food.
And. Another run in with badly fitting clothes: trousers, skirt, simple tops. I thought today might be the Day of The Trousers but it was not to be. I do not have the body required by the (medium) tops nor the (small) tops. But I met a little round-necked cashmere cardi in sludgy purple which makes me look very English rose-like and adorable. I bought it - camouflage!
Oh yes, sorry, the point of this ramble is that the clothes debacle means that I am *completely* recommitted to the Cause. So I'm going to bed slightly hungry. Losing weight may help my back too which I'd appreciate.
Allison Automatic cat boxes that scoop themselves - TELL ME MORE! Pleaase give me a name so I can look them up - will recommend them to my less "motivated" clients.
Watched 3 labrador retrievers sliding along on their noses through fresh snow today, butts in the air and tails a'wagging. Oh yeah, I do still love my job.
Weighed in under redline today- just barely, but I'll take it. Unfortunately, the kids had a snow day, which I meant I never got a chance to do even the brisk 1hour walk that passes for my exercise since surgery. And, I stole a slice of the kids' pizza after eating my own dinner tonight (350 calories), so I'm not optimistic about weigh-in tomorrow.
I find it weird that so few of you on this forum have children, while so many of you have pets. It's hard for me to relate sometimes. OTOH, many of your pet issues are also my kid issues, esp. with regard to misbehavior. And instead of scooping cat boxes, I get to go around flushing dirty toilets that NONE of my 3 boys seem capable of managing on their own. And, Dagmar, I watched my 3 boys sliding along on sleds through the fresh snow here today (admittedly, not on their noses), gleefully hollering. I bet the euphoria and energy were almost identical :>)
The scale was scary and reflects TOM plus the indiscretions in the dining room. 
