It's definitely keeping me busy getting used to eating more than I was on top of my workout schedule and trying not to weigh myself too often. In addition to the regular issues, I know Shark Week is oncoming as well. Ugh.
Jayzee I know what you mean about having to survive in conditions you don't like. I've had back to back sleep overs with pets since September and have been throwing a lot of extra caffeine into my body to keep going. On top of that we got the dog while I was still doing the sleep overs - not on plan but that's what happened. The caffeine brings about a lot of other unhealthy habits and it all snowballs. I have never been on such an extended run of sits either so this was quite nerve-wracking.
So now that I'm back home until at least the new year I'm scaling the caffeine down. I've tried to do this gradually in the past but this time I just decided I would have one coffee in the morning and that would be it.
Amazing how much I was relying on the caffeine to get me through the day. I feel like a zombie by the last dog walk and I've been quite forgetful and scattered. But I AM sticking with it and I think I'll be over the worst by the weekend. Tomorrow and Thursday will be very challenging as I've got a dinner walk both nights on top of everything else.
I see an 8 p.m. bedtime in my future both those days.
Hey guys, no progress on weight loss here. :P I was down to 158 briefly but am now at 160 again. I'm having a really hard time getting motivated to eat better and also having a hard time getting DH to cook the kinds of things that I think would help. I can't be too picky about it because he's doing me a favor by cooking, but I have to keep asking for him to put more vegetables and less oil in. I would cook myself except work has been very busy and we typically eat dinner the minute I walk in the door so we can all sit down as a family (yes, the kids eat at the table with us now!). Really I should take some time after they're in bed to cook for the next day, but I'm so exhausted by then I don't have any energy.
I have been getting exercise at least a couple times a week though so that's something. Work craziness messed up my schedule because I had to skip lunch a few days last week.
Jessica, can you maybe add a 1st course for yourself? Maybe a salad, brothy soup, veggie strips or even an apple, Asian pear, or whatever? That's something I do so I can eat (less of the) higher-caloric density entrees.
Dagmar, breaking the coffee habit is hard. I've done it a few times but always go back. Now I drink a few cups of hi-test in the AM but decaf in the PM. I love a hot cup of coffee even without the caffeine.
UA, I love that you make room in the schedule for Shark Week, lol.
JZJ, hang in there! Sounds awful, but you've go a great attitude! Allison, your job sounds fantastic!
Andrea, I don't know about you, but I can easily mask a month of real weight loss with random fluctuation. I don't know if carb cycling will work for you, but it's still too soon to tell.
I was doing well with a low carb meal on Monday, but then DD asked DH to make her a small batch of cookies, which he did. While he was at it, she forgot about them and hit up her Halloween candy stash. When the cookies were ready, she didn't want them so I had 2 and DH ate he rest.
I do think the food aspect of my life will be easier next year (unless DD takes a gap year!).
Jessica: "...he's doing me a favor by cooking..." Unless DH works the same number of hours you do and has some non-work tasks that are the equal of yours, he's definitely not "doing you a favor," he's just sharing the work, so stop feeling guilty. And if he IS doing you a favor, then why not let him go all out, and actually cook meals that will aid your goals? Can't hurt to ask (and send him recipes from Cooking Light, or Green Light Bites, or whatever).
I'm beyond stressed this week. Had middle DS's Bar Mitzvah over the weekend (a dozen out-of-town guests came, as well as 80 locals) and my senior grad student's dissertation defense is Thursday, and I'm still reading it because he only gave it to me 10 days ago and I've been so busy with last minute Bar Mitzvah plans. Sigh.
Jessica and Andrea. The in life comes and goes. It sounds like you're both in the middle of a bout of it but it will pass and calmer times will again arrive.
And yes, Jessica, your husband is not "doing you a favour" by cooking dinner. He is taking care of your daughters all day and that is a full time job. But you are working full time at a demanding job and trying to regain your healthy weight and be a mom and etc. etc. If he's cooking a meal anyway why not make it a healthier one? That would benefit all of you.
Jessica,
I understand your dilemma. My hubby likes to cook so when he's home, he does. He says he is cooking healthy but I see him adding lots of oil and salt, both of which I practically omit when I cook. I love his cooking too so it's hard for me to keep to appropriate portions. Now that I'm carb cycling, I want to continue when he comes back so I'm hoping I can "educate" him about what that means to me-- I'm hoping I can focus on smaller portions of protein and more veggies-- which might be your goal as well.
Andrea-- I'm surprised you didn't see a loss week one with carb cycling but I hear that isn't uncommon. If you were in the throes of planning a bar mitzvah though, I can only imagine it wasn't a "normal" week. Are you going to try week two and see how it goes? I hope the bar mitzvah went well. I remember my girls' bat mitzvah's and how much planning went in and the relief when they were over!
I'm glad to be home to get back to routine today. Great time with dd but I am a creature of habit so I'm glad to be home. Hoping to go back to bikram today after 10 days off to heal my back. Of course I weighed myself today against better judgement and it was up, but not too bad. So, I'm hoping if I buckle down and drink lots of fluids today, I will flush out the gain.
Andrea, glad you made it through the Bar Mitzvah. Hope it went well and everyone had a great time!
Jessica, if your hubby can tailor his cooking to your needs more, that's great. In my own life, I've found it easiest to eat less of the entree by eating something else first. DH does most of the cooking in my house by my preference (I do most of the cleanup). Even though what he cooks is healthy by almost anyone's standard, it's still more calorically dense than I want to fill up on (and I eat a fair bit at dinner since it's my only meal). So I always eat a first course of something I like but has low caloric density. Once I take the edge off my hunger (and I'm not interested in eating more of my first course) I move on to the dinner DH has prepared. I usually pull the same stunt when I'm eating out at a restaurant. In a pinch, if I don't have warning, I'll try to find a soup or salad on the menu, but if I have warning, I usually take some fruit to eat in the car before I arrive.
I am feeling really sluggish today for some reason. Yesterday was a perfectly normal eating day (for me) and since I've been doing this WOE over a year, I'm sure that's not the reason. I have only walked on the treadmill for a couple of very short stints and normally I'm happy to do it but today it felt like work. More likely related to the change of season I guess.
The scale was at 139.4 today, which puts it right where it's been (unusually stable readings). Today is Wed so I'm going for a low-carb day. Shouldn't be any obstacles to that.
Just a quick add-on to note that Wednesday once again worked out well for me to go low. It's a screwy day in that I need to be shuttling DD around during my eating window anyway, so Wednesdays were always outliers for me. The scale is a little lower today (138.0), but that's artificially low since I basically just chugged a couple of protein drinks yesterday. I guess this is more like 5:2 than carb cycling, or really so far it's more like 6:1 for me since I haven't yet found another reliable day of the week to go low.
Oddly, today I am not feeling sluggish, but I have to spend most of the day at work.
Andrea, congrats on your DS's bar mitzvah! If he is your middle, does that mean you have one more bar mitzvah to go?
Yoyo, adding a first course theoretically sounds like a good idea, but my current eating plan is basically the "one-dish" approach: I get one bowl or plate of dinner, put however much I want on it, but I can't take seconds. I feel like if I added another course I would be violating my one-dish rule and the one-dish rule seems to be working pretty well for me.
My husband is a stay-at-home dad to our twins and I'm entirely convinced it's a harder job than mine. Finding the time to cook during their crazy schedule is very difficult, and he basically gives up his one "break" (their naptime) to prep dinner, so I do consider it a favor. Part of it is that he has to cook things that take minimal time because of the kids, so the time it takes to prep veggies is difficult to fit in. I'm trying to get him to use more frozen veggies that don't require any prep.
Also there is the side issue of our kids' eating habits. They go through phases with veggies but usually they're more inclined to eat them if they have oil on them. Because we feed them whatever we are eating, DH a lot of the time thinks of cooking as cooking for them, rather than cooking for us. He said to me the other day, "Why waste all that time prepping and cooking vegetables if they're not going to eat them?" and I said, "Well, I will eat them!"
I should send him more recipes I guess but when the recipes are too complicated he struggles with them. They have to either be 30 mins of prep + slow cooker or oven, or else be start-to-finish 30 mins, and somehow recipes that take me 20 minutes to cook end up taking him an hour because he's not good at multitasking (even without the side task of making sure DDs aren't hurting themselves or each other).
In any case somehow my weight is back down to 158 so I guess something is going okay. Maybe I can lose another 2lbs or so before the holiday indulgence begins...
Jessica~may I suggest that on the weekends you help DH with some prep work? And also put together a very reasonable menu for the week that concentrates foods that can easily be thrown into the crock pot?
Can I also suggest a super easy, yummy dinner? Cook an acorn squash (it can be done in the microwave after being halved and seeded). In a sauce pan, cook rice or a rice medley (I like Trader Joe's Basamati Rice Medley) with chicken broth and just before the rice is done, throw in some leftover chicken. Then serve the chicken and rice mixture in the halved squash. You can scoop out some of the squash for the girls or fix two squash and then you can take leftovers to work for lunch.
Hey Jessica, I would just ask--if your roles were reversed, and you were stay-at-home and he went out to work, would you consider your cooking dinner "doing him a favor"?
Some women internalize assumptions about their roles without even thinking about it. (Probably some men do, too.)
Jay, this is a good point, but DH and I have always been very equitable about that sort of thing and I'm sure if I was the one staying home he would consider it a favor if I had dinner ready when he got home. I would probably consider it a responsibility in general, but then I tend to make everything my responsibility even when it isn't.
Last night I had a dream about not being able to get to my meeting at work this morning because someone was giving away free donuts and I couldn't get around them. Then this morning I got to my meeting and the guy running the meeting had brought in free donuts for everyone. I shouldn't have had any but I ate two, and then I skipped my workout because I had to run an errand on my lunch break instead. Oops.
It's been months since I posted. I just needed a break and all the dissatisfaction and diet talk on 3FC was making me a little sad.
My weight is stable, been in the mid to high one-teens consistently since May now. I've been having some issues with mood stability and a recent ankle sprain, but I'm recovering from both. My most recent undertaking is swimming at the YMCA pool - I can only do backstroke and not very well because I am horribly out of practice synchronizing breathing for other strokes.
Hope everyone is healthy and happy! I'll be lurking.
Hi Krampus! Good to hear you are doing well overall. I hope your ankle and moods continue to improve. I could never do backstroke well but could do the other strokes. Great exercise!
Also wondering where other maintainers are? Lurking? Megan, are you out there?
but 
free
so I had 2 and DH ate he rest.
. The 
in life comes and goes. It sounds like you're both in the middle of a bout of it but it will pass and calmer 
times will again arrive.
