saef, I have been on that path with the caffeine. Not an easy thing to break. I'm now finding I have to keep it to 16oz or less, and get it consumed by 10am, or it will keep me up at night. I'm trying to find a decaf I can live with (yuck). Good luck tomorrow with the random-number generating machine!

Allison, the mushrooms are my favorite part! This one used the little portabellos - pffft, who needs the beef? ;) I surprised myself with how little I was able to get away with eating. Not that I didn't want more - I WANTED to be face-down in the serving bowl - but it was okay to have less and to spend more time eating it instead.

Tomorrow - ZZ Top and Kid Rock! Woohoo!

Thursday report

I think I'll have a concerted go at exercise and weight loss for eight weeks or so which will take me up to mid-October. I have three things lined up around then. None of them are firm arrangements but it would be nice to be in better shape, if any of them should come off. In no particular order: present some research findings to a conference, meet some Italian friends, have a week's holiday abroad.

The number was down this morning. Then I did my MBF routine which I find very fatiguing. (I did write 'hard' but I can do it. I'm just wiped out and have to rest after each part. So 'fatiguing' is more accurate.)

Becky, part of the movement-based flexibility work involves 3 minute exercises standing on each leg. I began by working up to standing on one leg for 3 mins and am now doing single-legged toe touches with weight and single-legged glute squats with weight. I think having flexible and unknotty feet really makes all the difference to balance (as well as lack of knots in other parts of the body). So I massage my feet a little bit every morning and evening.

Saef, good luck with the weigh-in. Do you think all the fruit could be helping with lack of water retention? Or is the coffee just dehydrating you? Like Becky, I can't drink it beyond, in my case, 12 noon or I can't sleep at night. I think this illustrates rather nicely how it *is* a drug.

Story of my life saef, story of my life.

Becky I've tried to kick caffeine for about 15 years now but I can't. If I don't have some in the early a.m. my eyes won't focus :eek: and a bit more around lunch (that's 10 a.m. for me) I just can't make it through the last afternoon dog walk. I'm finding drinking coffee ::coffee2:, rather than diet cola or energy drinks, seems to be less upsetting to my sleep and definitely less likely to make me binge eat.

I hate the idea of being dependent on ANY drug but I haven't been able to find another way to live yet. Reducing my workload is not in the cards yet (I was hoping I could do so last year but it's not possible with DH's work/lack of same) so I soldier on.

Dagmar :tired: vs :coffee:

Not a good morning. I overslept. I've had coffee but I'm still dragging, as though I just got out of bed. My weight is back up, nearly at what it was before I left on my business trip. I've got my gym clothes on, but I'm pretty sure I am not going to drag myself to the gym until my lunch hour or even after work tonight. I hate working out on Friday nights, when the gym is nearly empty & street outside the gym is full of people headed for the restaurants and the bars -- and I feel like the sole being sentenced to abstinence and hard work, yet a lot of them are thinner and fitter-looking than me. But if I can't get going, that's what tonight looks like.

Yes, it's the 3 PM or 4 PM coffee that seems to have an endless afterlife that interferes with my sleep.

Friday report

70% excellence? Spot where I could have done better.

Weighed in. Ate good (as in 'correct') breakfast. Had good mid-morning snack. Ate olive bread etc before making lunch as a Rebellion Against Having To Make Lunch For Two Of Us. You can probably see straightaway how silly that was. Even I can see that. Ate a small lunch. Very thirsty so drank two huge glasses of cordial (I sometimes call this 'sugar water' but at least it's only one or two tsps of sugar per glass rather than the ten in Coca Cola). All the same. Too full for mid-afternoon snack. 2-3 hours chopping wood, mowing longish grass with push mower, raking etc. Small tea of cod caramba.

I think the cordial was because I was thirsty but also in an attempt to keep going. Other people might have used caffeine, I suppose. Anyway, it worked as you can see.

Saef, I hope your day's improved.

Dagmar, good news about the garden.

I'm curious to see if the lack of bread and margarine sandwich in the evening will make a difference to my weigh-in Monday. I'm managed that 5 nights in a row.

We're going to a movie tonite - even WE have to take a bit of time off from the house and everything else - and I'm going to request a small drink and popcorn. These are still quite huge :yikes: but nowhere near the vast quantities DH usually buys for me.

Good weekend all!

Dagmar :dance:

Saturday report

Dagmar, I'm very interested in what happens too.

Not a bad day. Weighed myself. Worked at the office and took packed food. Had two nice walks in the drizzle. Had a small tea. NO bread - the SO made tea so I didn't have to stage my own rebellion. But my insides feel jammed up.

Like Allison, my post travel weight has scared me. I hope enough to really get serious. I'm so unhappy about my continued weight gain. Dh leaves for China for three weeks and I'm going to really focus on my food. Exercise is there, food is the issue now. I know I've got a lot of excess water weight so I'm hoping to flush some of the weight out. I'm off to drive dh to the airport and then to trader joes. I'm debating two bikram classes today if I have time to try to sweat out some of this water.

I'm back to work tomorrow. I know I have mountains of work waiting for me. I also will meet my new principal and vice principal tomorrow. I'm nervous about that! I also hate to see my colleagues with my weight obviously up. Those who knew me heavy have been watching me to regain for years. I wish I had a couple more weeks to get some weight off! Oh well....

Was at the mall - fabric samples again. Lunch time - but what to eat? Food court had choices that even looked disgusting on the photos to me. Saw a Jugo Juice and had a mango smoothie instead - 175 cals and cool and yummy (it's summer in Toronto again). Nice that they have a booklet with nutritional info on every choice at the pick up counter. Would have been even nicer to see it before I ordered but no harm done.

I'm finding that photos and commercials for fast food are really turning me off. The food looks SO artificial to me suddenly - aren't I the precious one! :p

Dagmar :sunny:

JayzeeJay, lovely to hear of your refound interest in Stain Glass. Talk about an opportunity to put lovely colors next to each other with light coming through - big bonus.

Seaf and Coffee lovers - I was drinking one or two coffees a day plus Mate and chocolate. I agree with Birch - it was like a drug, requiring more. I think my energy is better without coffee and no jittery feeling, plus better to get to sleep at night. I will occasionally enjoy a cup and still like my Dove dk choc bites after a meal, so not perfect but better.

Pizza Fri. night(no weight gain), Mexican at a restuarant last night and two pounds up this am. I feel bloated so am hoping this gain is because of salt and maybe sugar in the food, ugh. Gotta figure out what to make for dinner tonight and food just doesn't sound good right now.

Two mile walk this am with my dog. Will go drink more water after posting. Have a good Sunday everyone!

Sunday report

Weighed in. Have eaten sensibly apart from small piece of bread, butter & peanut butter as we were running late for tea. And apart from ...

Stupid things section: had two mugs of low calorie hot chocolate with double cream. On reflection, this was probably because I'd offered to wash up after tea so the SO could ring his dad. Really, I wanted to go out for a walk. Result: I have indigestion and am drinking bicarb in water before bed.

Have worked quite hard to get about 9k steps in today, despite other things going on. Aiming for 10,000 steps on my non-formal-exercise days is a good thing to do.

Working, mate is pretty hardcore.

Dagmar, some (many) of those pictures are very unappetising. Nothing precious about seeing it how it is. (It's meant to be quite hard to get food to look good in photos, I thinK.)

Good luck at work, Michele.

That is by and large true for me as well. I haven't eaten ANY fast food - since July of 2010!!! I was just thinking yesterday about how I have not had french fries (except the ones I cut from potatoes and BAKE at home) in 3 years!

The exception to this is the new PRETZEL buns that everyone seems to be offering. I have to literally turn the channel they look so freaking good! I may break down and buy one of the ones that Dunkin' Donuts is offering - 430 cals isn't disastrous for one meal!

Jen

Michelle, I don't do yoga so any suggestion I make is probably not helpful, having said that I hear your frustration . I have found in my many diet attempts over the years that if I shake things up a bit it often will get things going again .Is it possible that you are concentrating too much on yoga ? Is there something else you can change ? Just some ideas , for what they are worth.

Okay, next time I make a recipe on the Internet, I have to remember to read the user comments appended below it, which are often as useful as the recipe itself. I made what looked like a nice Thai lemongrass chicken recipe. Thought after following the recipe with the requisite number of tablespoons full of fish sauce and the soy sauce that it was rather salty, but hey, I am no expert in ethnic seasoning. And it's too damn salty. So then I look at the comments and everyone is saying the same thing, that it's too salty, reduce the seasonings.

This was a not particularly fun weekend of cleaning, laundering and cooking. And realizing I have too many clothes, nice ones, so I'm hesitant about just stuffing them into a Salvation Army box. Of course, since I was in my apartment all weekend, I snacked too much, though at least it was almost entirely fruit.

Now I'm trying to gear up mentally for the coming week, in which I'll lose out on two work-from-home days as I need to be training a new hire. I'll have to figure out how to juggle my schedule, since that means losing four good hours from the week to the commute to CT & back.

Weight is the same two days in a row, which isn't bad but I don't like it. I've been applying the points and am far from the 100 for a "reward."