Carol Sue Way to go & thanks for the inspiration! Interesting observation about eating early. I tried to postpone breakfast after I read your post but I was just too hungry. I ate an hour earlier than usual. Usually I'm fine if I keep carbs to a minimum until later meals. Then again, this may be another 230p dinner day!

Mars, if I really feel hungry in the morning and coffee doesn't help, I will eat. I'm not going to let myself feel hunger and then end up binging. When I worked, I always ate breakfast before I left the house because I knew the only thing available at work was going to be junk food from the snack machine. Of course, sometimes I ate the junk food anyway.

I'm starting a new trend for myself today. Normally, I get up and am in my nightgown for the first few hours (I'm a very early riser.) Then when I do get dressed I put on ratty clothes since I'm just in the house. I have a lot of nice summer outfits, tops and capris. I've decided that I am going to shower and get dressed in the AM, not necessarily at 5 AM, but earlier than usual, and I'm going to put on a nice outfit. It will boost my spirit and make me feel better about myself, which might give me more incentive to eat right. I tried this once before and it backfired because each time I put on a nice top I spilled something on it and got a stain, but I will be more careful this time. My elderly neighbor across the street always looks like she's going out somewhere, so nicely dressed and made up. Anyway, none of these clothes are going to fit me next year. They are going to be way too big, so I might as well get my wear out of them now!! How's that for a positive attitude!!

Mars, great job!!! Your menu was fantastic, and I agree with Carol Sue that the 4th meal was no big deal since you ate because you were hungry and you ate good foods!

Carol Sue, Yay on fighting that late night snacking!!! I know that wasn't easy but you did it!!!

EDITED TO ADD: Carol Sue, I love the new routine you have planned! I really should do something like that too. Like you, I have a friend who is always so put together, no matter what she's doing. I'm always in a t-shirt and jeans with my hair pulled into a ponytail, lol! Great idea! Let us know how it goes!

Sooo, I have to have a wisdom tooth out tomorrow. I haven't had a tooth pulled since I was a little girl! Does anyone know how long it takes to recover from a pulled tooth? Will I be able to eat my usual foods or do I have to go soft for a few days? Until last night, I had completely forgotten about it, lol!

I am back down a lb today! Hopefully, I'll keep going down!

Week 5: High 206.5, Low 204.5
5/31--(202.5) 206 Cheat Day
6/1--(203) 206.5
6/2--(202.5) 206
6/3--(202) 205.5
6/4--(201) 204.5
6/5--204.5
6/6--205.5 Cheat Day
Week 6:
6/7--206
6/8--206.5
6/9--205.5
6/10--
6/11--
6/12--
6/13--

Today's Meals:
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
3 sausage links
Mio water

Lunch:
Large salad with lots of veggies, egg, shredded cheese, turkey, pecans, with ranch dressing
Mio water

Snack:

Dinner: @ Wendy's
2 double cheeseburger patties
A small chili
Water

Today's Exercise:
1.2-mile walk (Whew! Barely beat the dusk closing at the walk park tonight, but I made it! )

Hi Jacqui D Just, thank-you!!!

I had 3 wisdom teeth out age 40. It wasn't so bad. My doc told me to prepare ahead of time: have a couple of bags of frozen peas for ice pack to take care of swelling, if antibiotics or pain meds are prescribed, fill them beforehand so everything is ready, or at least have someone available to do it so that you don't have to.

I had stitiches so had a liquid diet. But if you are just getting one pulled, maybe you will be able to use the other side of your mouth to eat regular food.

My teeth were neither impacted not having any issues, so it was pretty straightforward. That said, I needed a few days of good rest. My body knew something had happened.

I always tell my dentist/oral surgeon folks that I need lots of numbing medicine.

Hope your guy/gal has a really comfy chair!

Today:

B: Scrambled eggs with spinach, coffee
S: green pepper slices with cheese stick
L: Ham rollups, nuts
D: Ham, green beans, salad
S: yogurt with hickory nuts

Sounds like everyone is getting a plan together, that is good. I know for me in the long run I want to teach myself to make other choices than empty carbs. I don't miss all the bread, potatoes, fast food, candy. I know I can eat them if I want to, but why. I wake up in the morning and I am not dying of hunger, I can wait _ where as before I use to get up grab a cup of coffee and a few cookies at 5 am, then I just add other stuff til breakfast. Bad carbs make you hungry. I have been doing real good.

My cheat day will consist of one item I dream about. In the end I want to know I can eat what I want, just be able to control it. Stress has always been my down fall.

You guys are doing so well, I feel like I am just muddling along.

Hope everyone has a great evening.

Mars, thank you for the info! Oh my, I hadn't counted on stitches. I hope I don't have to have them. My tooth, like yours, is not impacted. They haven't said anything about a prescription. And I'm afraid I'm not well prepared for help. My DH will be out of town and I'll be driving myself there and back. The dental office is in the next town over so it's about a 30-minute drive. I guess I just assumed it wouldn't be a big deal, so hopefully it won't be! Oh well, lol! I have taken Aleve tonight and I'll take it again tomorrow about an hour before the procedure to help with swelling. That's about all I can do! I'm glad you didn't have any complications with yours!

Chickadeee, you are doing amazingly!!! "In the end I want to know I can eat what I want, just be able to control it." Exactly! That's why I love this diet with its cheat day. Even if I don't intend to cheat, I like knowing for one day a week, every single week, that no food is banned and no amount limits are set.

Jacqui I hope I didn't frighten you--- you will do fine! : My guy was just giving me some tips to make things a little easier ~ I was nervous beforehand (& was pleasantly surprised). Aleve is is a wonder drug--back when I had mine out, ~20 yrs ago, I don't think they had thought to use it.

Mars, oh no, you didn't frighten me. You just gave me a "heads up" and I appreciate that!

I'm really glad to hear that Jacqui!

Chickadee, you said it, re how nice it feels to be off the fast carbs! I feel like I'm muddling along, too. I think muddling is wayyy better than than bouncing between restriction and bingeing (which has been my MO lately). I feel pretty solid right now, but it might be just that I saturated myself with fast carbs last week, lol!

Carol Sue I like your idea of enjoying the clothe that will soon be too big! I think it's a good way to start the day. And if you stain something, well, it's on it's way out anyway. I'm also an early riser, even earlier when dieting.

Here's today, almost same as yesterday except that I got into a restricting mode and ended up too hungry when I got home. Will I ever learn???? :
B Whey shake/strong coffee
Omelet with mushrooms, onions, store-bought tapenade (diced olive, vinegar, olive oil)

L great big lettuce salad with shredded carrot, beet, onion, bell pepper, kidney beans, ground turkey, evoo, WF 1000 island dressing, ancho chile powder--good stuff!

S soy nuts (thank-you Carol Sue & Jacqui)! & a little whey shake in coffee

D grilled chicken, avocado slices on shredded cabbage/carrots/scallions/evoo

S got home and ate some broccoli & another avocado. Fortunately these are small ones. Then again maybe that isn't really a big deal on this plan--how nice that would be!

Scale is down a bit from 169 to 167.2.

Good night all!

Mars, it's best not to go too low on calories so you're doing the smart thing by having a "smart" snack when you're feeling hungry! And avocado is allowed. This slow carb reference website, http://www.eslowcarbdiet.com/, which tells what foods are allowed on the actual book diet, says up to one cup of avocado. Congrats on the scale going down!

So after having started up Aleve again last night, I am up a lb again. I'm going to switch over to ibuprofen today, but any anti-inflammatory med can cause water retention, so it will be interesting to see what happens to my numbers in the next few days!

Week 5: High 206.5, Low 204.5
5/31--(202.5) 206 Cheat Day
6/1--(203) 206.5
6/2--(202.5) 206
6/3--(202) 205.5
6/4--(201) 204.5
6/5--204.5
6/6--205.5 Cheat Day
Week 6:
6/7--206
6/8--206.5
6/9--205.5
6/10--206.5
6/11--
6/12--
6/13--

Today's Meals:
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
2 slices of bacon
Mio water

Lunch:
3 Fish filet strips (the kind with the breading and normally I wouldn't attempt to peel it off, but it came off in whole sections, not crumbles, so I took it off and just ate the fillets inside)
Great northern white beans
Water (I probably should lay off the flavoring for a couple of days. )

Snack:

Dinner:
Grilled skinless chicken fillet
Green beans
Mio water (Well, that didn't last long, lol! I just can't do plain water, so I'll just have to be extra careful!)

Today's Exercise:
None (doctor's orders, hubby-reinforced)

Oh, girls, I'm the one who's muddling! I haven't had 1 completely no carb day yet. I start off each day with good intentions but some carby food always jumps in to get me off track. Today will be the day. I know I can do this, I'm just having separation anxiety.

Yesterday was all fast food! Yikes! I rarely eat fast food!

B - McDonald's sausage and egg McMuffin
L 2 Popeye chicken legs and a biscuit
D 1/2 Gyro with the pita bread
S 1/2 C lentils

I didn't eat a lot, but what I did eat was carbs. I vowed that I would continue to come here and be honest, so there it is. My meals are planned for today and I intend to do much better. Again, I didn't eat after dinner. That is a big plus for me. I'm on my way to breaking that habit. I was a little hungry when I went to bed but I told myself I had eaten enough and just went to sleep. I was also hungry when I got up, but my coffee did the trick again.

Mars, I don't think it matters how many times you eat since what you are eating is so many vegetables. Even the avacado...it's high fat, but it's healthy fat, and very good for you. Nobody ever got fat from eating too much broccoli. LOL

Chickadee, I love putting greens in my scrambled eggs. Here's a trick I use. I use a lot of frozen veggies since DH doesn't eat enough veggies for me to buy a lot of fresh ones. When I get down to the bottom of the bag of vegetables, there's all those little pieces there. I have a little freezer bag I keep them in and keep dumping them in there, all together. Then when I'm making scrambled eggs I just use those little pieces. I end up with pieces of broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. I also buy bags of chopped spinach, kale and collard greens and sometimes mix them together in my eggs, and I like mushrooms, too, and sometimes add some sauteed onion and a bit of lentils. I end up with more veggies than eggs.

For my lentils, I buy cans of Progresso Lentil Soup. I sometimes eat it as a cup of soup, but often I drain it in a strainer and rinse the lentils. This way, I still get the taste of the seasoning in it, and little bits of the celery and onion. I separate it into 1/2 cup servings and put it in freezer bags. Then each morning I just take out 1 bag and let it defrost. I can add it to other food or just heat it up in the microwave. I also do this with black beans. When I eat baked beans, I rinse the sauce off of it. It's too sugary for my diabetes. I still get the flavor of the sauce that was baked into the beans, but not nearly as much of the sugar.

Jacqui, like you, it's been years since I had a tooth pulled. DH had his last 2 teeth pulled a couple years ago and they have come so far with it! They gave him something to relax him before giving him novacaine, then they gave him headphones to wear so he wouldn't hear the drill. He was deathly afraid but afterwards said it was a breeze.

I will be back tonight to report how I did. Now I am going to get cleaned up and put on another nice outfit!

Jacqui Aleve always makes me retain fluid. Sending you good wishes for a good post extraction day! I hope you feel great but still get a pass for some R n R!

Carol Sue,
Congrats on another day of no night time eating! Thank-you for being accountable on this thread. I tend to stop posting when I have a slip; that cuts off the support system when it's most helpful. Your post makes it easier for me to do this when it happens. Also, your carb meals were not over-the-top amounts. That would have been the likely scenario for me.

My meals are big on the eyes but not that big on satiety, I think. It's a throwback to my extreme weight loss diet, Ideal Protein, where you were allowed 4 cups/day veggies. Any cheats I did were with protein, and i still feel this sense of trespass for eating plain old steamed broccoli. I'm approaching 2 yrs since the end of that diet. It was very effective for weight loss but until now, I have been flailing to find a good WOE for life. Meanwhile, I sort of cling to that protocol even though it doesn't work for me & leads to binge/restrict mode now. Slow Carb feels like a get-out-of-jail card.

Thanks for the avocado input too! Another aftermath from my diet, yet I could easily scarf 2 or 3 big avos, so the reminder that they're okay but not in unlimited amounts really helped!

Today is same plan with the challenge of a day off and a visit to my mother, something that involves lot of habits and triggers for off plan eating. I'm eager to see how I do, knowing that I actually do get to eat whatever I want in a couple of days, and there is an avocado waiting for me tonight when I get home, lol.

Chickadee. Do you mind if I ask how you picked your screen name? I'm a bird lover and there is a fledgling Chickadee visiting my feeder now who is so acrobatic.

Whoops almost forgot to add scale is the same, 167.2.

Mars, just looked at your stats. You have done VERY WELL. You are an inspiration to me. My ticker is wrong. I was at 203 a couple days ago. I didn't get weighed because I don't feel as if I've lost. I have a tendancy shy away from daily weighing because the fluctuations bother me. A weekly weigh in is more likely to show a true gain or loss.

I have done well so far today.

B eggs, with veggies 2 sausage links

L Lettuce and romaine salad with tuna salad mixed in

D Roast beef with veggies broc, cauli, carrots, brussels sprouts

S 2 imitation crab legs

I will come back later and fill in the rest. I am cooking a beef roast for dinner. I will make mashed potatoes for DH but don't plan on eating any. One time I dished out his portion and put the pot in the sink and filled it with water to keep myself from eating any. I hate to waste food but if I have to resort to that to keep from eating it, then so be it. I'm determined to do this.