Hi all! I'm back from 8 days in nice warm Houston, TX to very COLD weather here. Brrrr. It was zero yesterday when I got up, and all of 5 this morning.! Way too early for this. Had a great time though, and while eating wasn't stellar, it was mostly only dinner, and I did do lots of walking. I'm waiting til I'm back at the gym tomorrow to weigh, as I'm always bloated a couple days after flying, even though I try to drink a lot of water. (BTW - you can't even take an empty bottle through security! Grrrrr. And of course the airport vendors are gouging passengers for water. I shopped around at the few places available and ended up with a 1/2 liter for $2.29 I'd pay maybe $1 here at home - if I bought bottled water, which I seldom do)

paperclippy, I'm glad to see you are on the mend. I also had a 2 lb. gain recently and am working to take it off. My DH says, "hun, 2 lbs. is nothing". To me it's a big deal especially with the holidays coming. Congratulations on your big 1 YR ANNIVERSARY of Maintenance. WTG.

Waterrat, It was 80 degrees here today. I had the doors and windows open.

It's supposed to be lovely here (again) today too. 15 C ... it's been like this all week. Yummy!

You know, it is hard to keep an eye on what you eat when you get emails twice a day with info like "leftover doughnuts/fruit/cheesecake brownies in the main break room - help yourself". It is so hard for me to resist dessert in general, especially free dessert! At least in this case the main breakroom is far enough from my cubicle that I can avoid seeing it.

My workplace is full of free food and it's driving me crazy. Bagels twice a week always, there's usually leftover pizza from meetings, leftover sandwiches, cookies, cakes, brownies, people do bake sales to raise money for charities, people bring in donuts and candy as bribes to get people to help them with software testing . . .

Next week we will have two people in from the Miami office for meetings for three days. I am positive we will be catering lunch for them and therefore for the rest of us in the meetings also. How to survive?? I haven't eaten any of the free food for a week (last week there was a "chili lunch") and I'm proud of it, but I want those cheesecake brownies!!!

I weighed this morning and have lost 1 of those 2 lbs. that I had gained. So my ticker is now correct again. Yeah. I'm glad that I kicked it in high gear and treated this gain with concern immediately. Of course, it would have been easier to have not gained, but we live and learn and life goes on. I may have stumbled but I got back up. My goal is to lose the other lb. by next Thursday and to exercise every single day until it's off. I can do this, I'm sure.

I was doing so good. I weighed in at 137 a week and a half ago, but didn't change my ticker because I didn't think it would stick. Then I got down to 136.5 and 137 the next day, so I thought, "ok, I'll change my ticker." Once that was done, I'm up to 139 (for 4 days now!). Grrrrr. My eating has been very good, so I'm not sure what's going on. I might be coming down with a slight cold (or allergies--it's hard to tell at this point).

paperclippy--I know what you're going through, although I don't have to deal with it any longer. I worked in a big hospital business office and someone always brought in food, or I had meetings with food. It's hard to stay away. I finally quit and now I work for DH. We have a fridge but no one shares food. It is great! Sure there are tempting things in the fridge, but they aren't mine so I can't have them!

Our weather has been a bit warm--mid 90's, but it should be cooler (low 70's) this weekend.

Have a great day everyone!

Ah, yes. I work in a library, and our "back room" has a small lunch area, and the table there is covered with Halloween candy, cookies and yesterday an apple pie! I have to walk by it to get to the fridge (where my lunch is), the coffee pot, and the microwave. Grrrr. The stuff knows my name! I'll be glad when the stuff is gone, gone, gone.

Hi Guys:

Seems like we are a busy group this month.

Lily glad you are doing better with the foot. Glad your husband appreciates all you are.
Paperclippy: Whens the wedding? Don't worry that two pounds will come off.

I am doing good on this end. Enjoying a spring day in NY. Weight is on the low end so I am happy. It's a little strange to not be struggling but I am enjoying it for now.
Be well

I finally got to a bookstore and bought the "Thin For Life" book. I'm on Chapter 3 and am enjoying it. If anyone else knows of any good, inspiring books please let me know. I think I'm going to start a book collection if there is anything out there helpful for me to read.

Lily, The Overfed Head by Rob Stevens is really interesting.....and different.

Gina, the wedding is next October. If I can maintain my weight and get more toned up like I used to be for it I will be happy! I was going to do that anyway so looking good for the wedding is just an added bonus.

I have been good the past few days but I am still up those two pounds. Today I'll weigh in at the gym again, but my scale still says 129/130. I know it hasn't been long enough to lose any weight since I am not really cutting calories much (I'm at about 1600/day instead of my usual 1850-2000) but hopefully there will be a change in the next week or two.

We went and had the cake tasting last night . . . (So much for 1600 calories, but at least I had the good sense to just have salad for dinner afterward). It was SO GOOD. We are going to have the bottom layer be yellow butter cake (with real butter, it's great, not like a lot of generic wedding cakes) with lemon chiffon and raspberry filling, and the top layer be chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and apricot filling, all with buttercream frosting (again, real butter)! Trying to decide on a design for it now . . . I'm planning on eating plenty of cake on my wedding day, but I've got almost a year to get my act cleaned up before that.

Lily, congrats on kicking that pound!

That cake sounds divine - thank heavens people have gotten away from the dreadful generic white cakes with white icing and roses that were de rigueur when I got married (back in the Dark Ages ) I hope you enjoy every last morsel on your special day.

Paperclippy, I think I just gained two pounds myself reading about that cake! But it does sound delicious.

That cake sounds so wonderful. Yummy.

I've pulled myself together. Eating on program and exercising daily. I'm reading the Thin For Life book, I'm on the chapter of lapse and relapse. I'm learning a lot. Last weekend, I had a lapse with that darn Birthday cake, but not a relapse. That is good to know. I'm handling it well and dealing with taking the extra 1 lb. off now. Last night I told my DH that I didn't feel like exercising and he said "but, you know you HAVE to". He was right. I did and it felt better once I went ahead and did it. Normally I wouldn't want him telling me what to do, but last night I needed that Kick in the Butt.

It's great that you have that extra voice to tell you that you HAVE to do it! I think that part of my downfall several years ago was this exact thing. I didn't want to exercise and my DH didn't make me do it, either. I rationalized in my mind that it was okay not to exercise (I had been very good about exercising at least 4 days per week). That one day without exercising turned into a week which turned into a month. My NordicTrak got dusty and I never got back on. This time around, I'm not going to allow myself to rationalize that I can keep the weight off without exercise! I still haven't started to exercise, but I'm counting the days until I can!