saef I hear you - I am doing my second day of 8 hours out in the snow (falling today, blowing yesterday) and start a sleep-over with a dog tomorrow night at 6 p.m.. I usually am totally spent by the end of February. So spring is not in my thoughts yet - surviving winter is!

How about "Maintainers staying strong through winter"?

Dagmar

Andrea, sorry you're facing the knife again. I wish you a full and speedy recovery on your wounded shoulder. Totally agree with you on the 3-times factor on losing a pound vs gaining one.

saef, I usually start to crack in mid-February. I've come to the conclusion that I need to gear up to move south, just enough to still have 4 seasons and to get at least one good freeze (to kill bugs), but for winter to be about six weeks shorter. I don't mind a little cold and gray, however a whole lot of it does make me somewhat crazy(er).

allison, good to hear you had a retreat on the scale! The green-eyed monster is sitting on my shoulder re your upcoming cruise.

michele, high five on your exercise!

krampus, you had a terrific 2012 with slipping on a healthy lifestyle. It'll work those 2-3 pounds back off in no time. Well ... "some" time.

dagmar, bargoo - agree, we've moved beyond the holidays. I'm all for something that gets my mind off the gloomy winter and moves the focus ahead to spring.

shannon, it doesn't look like I was able to hold the line too well either. It's a lifelong learning process - the great thing is that we don't have to go through the whole mess about figuring out what works! I'll be adding a ticker too, as soon as I commit to my metrics (Sunday night deadline).

Scale's still up. Could be bloat, could be Aleve-related, could be lack of sleep ... it's been many moons since cramps kept me awake. Grrr. Regardless, I'm fully back on my wagon. Maybe it will take 20 weeks to get the 4 pounds back off, but I still gotta get started. More grrrrr. :|

Regarding the winter gloomies: when I lived in Salt Lake we would experience something called an inversion. The Salt Lake valley is almost completely surrounded by mountains. The only "openings" are the canyons and of course the Great Salt Lake. In January and February, the pollution becomes trapped in the valley creating a pea-soup inversion that the sun cannot penetrate. You can escape by going up to the mountain resorts where you'll be greeted by blue skies and bright sun, but one can only go up there on occasion and the good mood that is created up there is always defeated upon return to the valley of smog. I used to think they ought to build giant fans to blow the crap out of the valley! Imagine having to use headlights at noon just to be able to have other cars see yours in the muck! I much prefer living here (even if we rarely get enough of a freeze to kill the bugs!). What else is strange about the inversion is that it also traps the cold air. You can actually go up to the mountains and it'll be spring-like temperatures but still freezing in the valley.

My DH was offered a job in SLC recently and this was one of the reasons he turned it down. While I grew up in Seattle and lived in western Oregon for years so I'm used to grey skies, inversions are a different beast. My eating behaviors go wonky when I'm stuck in an inversion with no way out, and I've heard that SLC's are among the worst.

Inversions sound perfectly awful. Trapped in dark, cold, polluted air? You won't find me there, no matter what the circumstances. I can imagine no greater misery! Dante can have his Inferno - at least it'd be warm there!

The year is not off to the stellar beginning that I'd hoped. I am mired in TOM - literally the worst one since I was a teenager. I won't go into what's involved, since everyone's been there. Suffice to say that the scale not moving is the least of my issues. Guess all I can do is wait it out. Blah!

My scale continues to amaze me. I'm about 2 pounds above what I was before the holidays--way better than the 7 it was showing just two days back. Obviously some serious water retention there! TOM for me as well, but it's all good (thankfully). However I got the call from my doctor that it's time to schedule my yearly exam. Hate that.

Yes, if I had to be stuck breathing in cold, polluted air in the near-dark, I'd rather do it in Manhattan or Brooklyn than Salt Lake City.

Becky, I almost envy you the clarity of having your period, since mine has disappeared, but is making its absence felt through various forms of hormonal mayhem. I think I've been having hot flashes. I also think that I have vestigial fluid retention of some sort, but now it's so much harder to chart because I don't have other evidence to back up just how long it lasts.

Andrea, I'm always so glad when you make an appearance on the forum, but then sorry to read of your struggles, because when anyone's away for a while, I tend to picture them thriving & not in any need of accountability or a sounding-board or crowd-sourcing. But don't we always imagine that other people have it all figured out, and we're the only ones who can't seem to manage what everyone else seems to effortlessly accomplish?

Also, I hate to sound like an eight-year-old boy here, but I think I'd have a better idea of what my weight really is post-holidays if my morning bathroom habits were a bit, well, more regular & clocklike, and if **that** always got taken care of in a satisfactory way before my weigh-in. I guess there is no delicate way to put that, is there? Anyway, I am definitely lower than my high weight, and very possibly, considerably lower ... but I can't quite tell from this morning's weigh-in.

saef, come heck or high water I weigh first thing in the morning after bathroom break , whether "that" has happened or not I find by being consistent I get a pretty accurate picture of what is happening weight wise.

Also, "that" doesn't always weigh as much as you'd hope it would.

Sorry about the terrible TOM, Becky...mine is getting lighter and lighter as time passes. I have always been fortunate to not have PMDD or bad PMS symptoms, but my skin always goes crazy and I have a day where I just want to hug everyone like a koala.

Thank you for the sympathy! Hoping this is just an isolated incident, as I've had nothing I would regard as a major issue for more than 30 years. If it's the "storm before the calm" ... believe me, after these last four days, I am totally willing to take my chances on the unknown. Even "that" is part of the act, along with every other misery you've ever heard of, except psychotic behavior (I think, but do the truly crazy know?). I am gaining sympathy for the "female troubles" crowd with every passing minute. I daydream that this is just a form of going out with a bang, like a dying car engine that suddenly red-lines before seizing completely.

Like Saef, I don't have regular periods anymore after an ablation a couple of years ago, thankfully. However I do cycle periodically and I'm feeling especially bloated right now so I know something is up hormone wise. Luckily I rarely have the accompanying days of paranoia that used to come with more regular cycles. DD25 has them too. We're pretty sure that everyone is pointing and laughing about us...

Holidays are over time to move on, See new thread
Maintainers staying lean in 2013