(Hideous weight this morning.)

My weight does go up over the school summer holidays (almost 8 weeks here) with all its unpredictability and challenging demands. It then tends to drop as my life becomes more regular during the autumn. I'd like to work with this tendency to drop even further down than usual.

Saef, your comment made me laugh! My view is that I take absolutely forever to commit to anything (waited til 32 to have DS, spent 6 years planning a 5x11 bathroom remodel, 4 years to decide to lose 10 pounds, approximately 12 years to join another team ...). I spent way too much time overthinking it. With DS entering high school and soon enough driving, there is a window of opportunity to claim some territory for ME.

Dagmar, pools are patient. :). Gotta watch that 70-74 age group, though ... they can be tough! ;)

Silver, I like the routine days too. When "Recurring" can be used for lots of calendar entries, and it's easy to know what's next on the agenda. It makes meal planning ever so much easier, too. Patience/persistence!

Down a mere .4 this week. I can be optimistic about next week as I'm not seeing the usual start-of-week spike that I spend Mon-Fri battling.

So I bought myself a Jawbone Up wrist band (got it Friday) and signed up for a 30 day yoga "challenge." I've exercised at least 40 minutes both Saturday and Sunday (and will do so again today). I've logged all my food (although the "real" diet starts tomorrow because of the holiday!). And what do I have to show for my efforts? A 3 pound gain as of this morning.

I do like my Up band--especially for the "sleep pattern" part. For instance, last night I was in bed for 8 hours and 3 minutes, fell asleep in 23 minutes, was awake for 40 minutes (around 1 AM), was in deep sleep for 2 hours 53 minutes and light sleep for 4 hours and 30 minutes. I think I need more deep sleep. I think some of those light sleep segments are actually waking moments as I do remember being awake more than just once. I think the band only recognizes waking up when I physically get up to use the bathroom.

Monday

Learning point: get up to start the day. Even my very rare lie-ins mean that I drag for the first few hours.

I'm working on only eating when sitting down (a Beck thing) but I'm certainly not there yet. More work needed.

Off to google "Jawbone Up". Allison, when you mentioned it before I thought it was a chin-up bar, even though I thought it didn't sound quite like you! I'd better find out.

Busy day. DS and I ran for 3.3 this morning, and then there was much, much weeding. I think I will be sore tomorrow, and that's an okay thing. I need to get used to it for a while. :)

Becky Should you feel the need to do more weeding I have 4 yards full available . . . :p

Dagmar :yoga:

Dagmar, I look around my own yard and nearly :barf:! The full bag that I pulled up yesterday represents, literally, about 1/20th of what needs to be done. I've decided to face it much like weight loss - let's fill this bag (lose this pound). Deal with this bag (pound). When done with this bag (pound), move on to the next one. Farmer's Almanac predicts a long fall, I was told, and I definitely need it.

Allison - your new device sounds intriguing! The 3# gain, not so much. :p It'll be back off quick - holiday weekends are notorious. So glad there's no more til Thanksgiving! :)

Silver, I too strive to eat only at my dining room table. I think my family is better at it than most - but we are truly food-centric and that probably makes us "weird". We devote a tremendous amount of time to food - growing it, maintaining gardens, canning, cooking, fishing, hunting ... and eating. :chin: I also force the issue somewhat because of the country living and the inevitable mice that force their way in; it's far easier to only have to deal with rigorous cleaning in two rooms. :D

I did make it through the weekend without a weight spike, so I'm feeling optimistic about what I may be able to do this week. Onward!

Becky I really admire that you put so much effort into sourcing what you eat yourselves. You have a much better idea of what exactly you're putting into your bodies. Certainly not "weird" in my book.

Dagmar :cool:

Becky, you may take a long time to commit, but once you do, you are ALL IN.

Weird in the place where you live, right? In that particular context? Because you wouldn't be weird here, or in Manhattan, or Brooklyn. Far from it. You'd be pretty typical, in fact. It would take a lot more fervency about food to be weird here. You seem in some ways rather like certain of my foodie friends who have given up on asking me to go noshing with them on weekends.

I like them so much ... and I get the appeal: For them, it's like museum going or reading or attending events. It is, in short, a requirement for cultural literacy of a sort: You have to know your food origins & the culture it expresses & the artistry involved in its creation & service.

For me, with my binge-eating history, that way lies madness: If I partake like a gourmand of the wonderful food around here, I will revert eventually back to a fat girl, to whom the physical sensations of food & eating and complete were the best thing in life, then beat myself up inwardly afterward, saying things silently to myself that I'd never say to anyone else. I'd spend days exercising it off, only to do it again a few days later, thus illustrating the definition of insanity.

If I were a more moderate person, this could happen. But I've decided to be more ascetic. Which is also an acceptable way to live down here: Eschew foodie-ism, do yoga, live in a minimalistic loft, throw yourself into your job, whatever. It's all good.

saef I only ever binge eat in private. If I am out with other people I am able to partake of modest amounts of food and drink, go to tasting and take only a bite, etc. I bank calories for several days before and eat less for a couple of days after the event so I CAN try almost everything.

Do you think that might work for you so you can go grazing with your "foodie" friends?

Dagmar :dizzy:

saef, I don't know if what we do qualifies as "foodie" by Manhattan standards! We're probably more in line with a Joel Salatin level of involvement. :D Locavore sort of thing, back to basics - great grandmother's food, the slow-food movement. That being said, if the opportunity presents itself to go out and dine somewhere extraordinary, I'm in! The extreme example was driving to Chicago to meet some friends from California at TRU (www.trurestaurant.com). I can't identify my chocolate by country of origin, but I make an effort to locate companies that promote fair trading policies - that sort of thing. And I am finding myself more and more repulsed by factory-farmed meat, which really surprises me.

Becky, we eat all meals at the table. I cannot imagine doing otherwise! It's the little nibbles which I have to eradicate plus the desperate urges to cram something into my mouth in order to protest against some domestic task which I am starting to do but want to stop or in a vain attempt to give myself energy when I need Sleep.

Back from blackberrying. I'm straining them overnight to make jelly. The last lot I made jam with and successfully suspended the berries throughout. :) (Do you N Am speakers differentiate between jam and jelly at all?)

This is one of the best blackberry years for ages. Just because I'm making these jams I don't have to eat them.

This is one of those things that weirdly enough, I think I may know a little about. When I was an undergrad, the mother of one of my best friends was a regional jam-maker of some reknown who sold her wares at farmers' markets and gift shops and fairgrounds & etc. She was professional enough about it that the federal agency involved in this sort of thing (maybe the FDA?) actually inspected her kitchen periodically to ensure it met regulatory standards.

From weekend visits, and helping them pick & clean fruit, my possibly imperfect understanding of these terms is that they indicate degrees of refinement of the fruit or other substance.

Candied: Sugary but dried, no liquid-like substance whatsoever
Preserves: The generic term, or nearly whole fruit pulverized & sugared
Conserves: Like the above, but often indicating a mixture, with maybe nuts or other things included
Jam: Whole fruit involved with some kind of jellied matrix
Jelly: Entirely boiled down to clear substance

I was always saving jars for them, or buying antique jars for them (which gift shops loved).

Some of her mothers' best sellers were milkweed jelly and other things that I've never seen since.

My Mom used to make jams and jellies (usually jam more often). I like saef's definition. I've just distinguished between jam and jelly as jelly has no fruit chunks in it like jam does. I've even made jam (apricot) when I lived in Salt Lake and had an apricot tree. The one thing I know about making jams and jellies is you have to be pretty precise on the amount of pectin otherwise you'll get something too syrupy or too thick.

My SIL harvests huckleberries and makes huckleberry jam. I'm still unclear on what a huckleberry is, but it grows wild up in Idaho.

Saef gave the best definition I wish I had some raspberry jam right now.. My Grandmother made the best conserves it had orange or lemon peel in it. I tried her recipe and had a good substitute for Super Glue.